Murder by the Slice

by Livia J. Washburn

  They sat back and smiled as Becca returned to the table carrying a bowl of nachos and a soft drink. Phyllis hoped the little girl wasn’t paying too much attention to her parents, or else she would see that the smiles on their faces were patently phony. People ought to be able to put aside their differences for the sake of their children, at least for a little while, Phyllis thought, but sometimes they were unable or unwilling to do so.

  When Becca finished her food, she came over to gaze in amazement at the fancy decorated cakes, then moved on to the table with the snacks. “Can I try them?” she asked Phyllis.

  “If you have two tickets, you can sample and judge the snacks. If you want a cookbook, it’s four tickets.”

  Becca dug in the pocket of her jeans and came up with a crumpled wad of tickets. She tore off two and handed them across the table.

  “You can have one sample of each, and you should pay attention to the numbers on them, because down there at the end of the table you can vote for which one you like the best.” Phyllis pointed to the jar, which was now about a third full of the little pieces of paper.

  “Okay.” Becca picked up one of the samples.

  “Have you been enjoying the carnival?” Phyllis asked.

  “Oh, we just got here. My dad was running late, as usual, and my mom’s mad at him about it, as usual.” The little girl sounded bored by her parents’ squabbling. “My mom told him he was going to be late for his own funeral. He said he’d be right on time for hers. He said he might even get there early, so he could enjoy it longer.”

  Phyllis caught her breath. Even though Becca didn’t seem particularly upset and had reported her parents’ hurtful comments in matter-of-fact fashion, Phyllis knew the little girl had to be bothered by hearing such things. No child would enjoy her parents’ clawing at each other like that.

  “What do you think of the snacks, dear?” Phyllis asked in an attempt to change the subject.

  “They’re all really yummy,” Becca said around a mouthful of carrot cake. “Are they really supposed to be good for you?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “They sure don’t taste like it. They’re too good for that.”

  Phyllis didn’t argue with her, knowing the commonly held belief among children—and most adults—that if something tasted good, it couldn’t possibly be good for you.

  With a self-possession beyond her years, a quality that children from dysfunctional families often seemed to possess, Becca sampled the rest of the entries and finally picked up a pencil and square of paper to record her vote. She folded the paper and dropped it into the jar, then turned and waved at Phyllis before heading back to the table where her parents were still sitting and talking with tautly angry expressions on their faces. They forced smiles again as Becca rejoined them. Joel stood up and took the little girl’s hand. She practically tugged him out of the cafeteria, clearly anxious to see what else the carnival had to offer.

  Phyllis kept an eye on Shannon, hoping the woman wouldn’t get up and come over here to indulge in more bitter sniping about her exhusband. She didn’t; Shannon left the cafeteria instead, turning the opposite way in the hall from the direction Joel and Becca had gone.

  A while later, Russ Tyler wandered by. He nodded to Phyllis and Carolyn, saying, “Hello, ladies.” Marie wasn’t with him, and neither were Amber and Aaron, the Tyler children. He walked on through the cafeteria and left by the same exit that the Dunstons had a short time earlier. Phyllis couldn’t help but notice that Russ turned in the same direction Shannon had gone.

  At the school carnival ? Phyllis thought. Surely they hadn’t set up an illicit rendezvous here!

  A part of her wanted to hurry after Russ and confront him with her suspicions, maybe even catch him and Shannon together. Phyllis knew she couldn’t do that, though. She had to stay here in the cafeteria and help Carolyn tend to the tables, and anyway, she reminded herself for what had to be the dozenth time, it wasn’t any of her business what Shannon and Russ did or didn’t do. She didn’t want to catch them in the act.

  Carolyn came up beside her and said, “You look like something’s bothering you again.”

  “No, I’m just … ready for this carnival to be over. I guess I’m a little tired. I’m not as young as I once was.”

  “None of us are,” Carolyn said.

  Phyllis was able to force her mind back onto the business at hand, at least for a while. Then Joel Dunston came into the cafeteria alone, crossed the big room to the tables where Phyllis and Carolyn stood, and asked, “Have either of you ladies seen my wife? Shannon Dunston? She’s the president of the PTO.”

  Even though Phyllis knew who Joel was, she realized that he had no idea who she was. They had never been introduced. Phyllis noticed that he referred to Shannon as his wife, not his ex-wife. Maybe despite the anger that existed between them, he was having trouble adjusting to the divorce. Maybe he still had feelings for her. If that was the case, then the last thing he needed was to find her in the arms of Russ Tyler.

  “Yes, we know Shannon,” Carolyn said. “I haven’t seen her since earlier in the afternoon, though. What about you, Phyllis?”

  Phyllis shook her head and said, “Sorry.” She wasn’t going to tell Joel which direction Shannon had gone. Anyway, that had been a while earlier. Shannon could be anywhere in the school by now.

  Several children came running up to the table. “Slow down, slow down,” Carolyn told them, years of being a teacher coming out in the stern tone of her voice. “What do you children want?”

  “A piece of cake!” one of them cried as he pointed at Phyllis’s jack-o’-lantern cake.

  “We can’t cut that one,” Carolyn explained. “It’s for the auction.”

  “You mean it’s just for show?” a little girl asked. “It’s not for eating?”

  “Whoever buys it at the auction can eat it,” Phyllis explained.

  “How about that one?” the little boy who had wanted a piece of the jack-o’-lantern cake asked. He was pointing at the sandcastle cake. Carolyn told him that one was offlimits for the time being, too.

  “If you want one of the things on this table, you can ask your mother or father to bid on it,” she said. “But if you have two tickets, you can sample all the snacks on the other table.”

  The little boy wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Somebody told me they’re good for you. I don’t want any of that stuff.”

  Several of the other kids weren’t so picky, and dug out tickets to sample the snacks. Phyllis and Carolyn had to keep an eye on them to make sure none of them got more than one piece of anything, and by the time the kids moved on, Joel Dunston was gone. The area around the tables had been busy enough so that Phyllis hadn’t noticed when he left.

  She wondered if this time he had gone the same direction as Shannon and Russ. She hoped that if those two had gotten together, they’d had the sense to do it behind a locked door.

  Phyllis was distracted by a little girl, probably a kindergartner, who ran up to the tables, tugging her father along with her. Sporting pigtails and a T-shirt with Elmo from Sesame Street on it, she was utterly adorable. She pointed to the jack-o’-lantern cake and said, “Punkin!”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” the man told her. He flashed a grin at Phyllis. In his twenties, he wore a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt and had close-cropped blond hair. “Are those cakes for sale?”

  “No, we’re going to be auctioning them off in a little while,” Phyllis explained.

  “I want the punkin cake, Daddy!” the little girl said.

  He smiled down at her and said, “We’ll see,” in a tone of voice that Phyllis knew meant he had no intention of bidding on any of the cakes. “Let’s get some of these snacks instead,” he went on as he handed over four tickets and then started picking out samples for them.

  Frances Hickson, the principal of Loving Elementary, showed up a short time later and said, “I guess it’s about time for me to count those votes, isn’t it, ladies?”


  Phyllis glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that it was four. The carnival had been going on for three hours. They had been busy enough that it didn’t seem that long.

  Carolyn raised her voice and called out to the people in the cafeteria, “Last call for the snack contest! Anyone who wants to sample the snacks and vote on them, now’s the time!”

  A few people hurried up to the table and handed over tickets for both the snacks and the cookbooks. When they were done and had cast their votes, Carolyn put the lid on the jar and handed it to Principal Hickson. The school administrator, a nice-looking, fortyish woman with short dark hair, smiled and said, “The auction starts at four thirty, right? I’ll have the results back to you by then. I’ll just take the jar into the music room to count the votes.”

  “Thank you,” Carolyn said. As the principal walked away with the jar, heading for the music room behind the stage, Carolyn turned to Phyllis and went on, “I guess we can continue selling samples and cookbooks; people just can’t vote on the snacks anymore.”

  Phyllis nodded. “Yes, we want to get rid of as much of this stuff as we can.”

  For the next thirty minutes, they continued collecting tickets from anyone who still wanted to sample the snacks, including some kids who were coming back for seconds or even thirds on them. Then Principal Hickson returned with the jar of ballots under one arm and a piece of paper in the other. “We have a winner,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re going to be in charge of the auction, right?” Carolyn said. “You can announce the contest results, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure,” the principal agreed. She set the paper with the results on the table and placed the jar on top of it, then went back into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a portable public address system. She set it on the end of the table, turned it on, and picked up the handheld microphone.

  “If I could have your attention, please,” she said, her voice booming out from the speakers. The portable PA system was tied in with the school-wide system, so Principal Hickson’s voice could be heard all over the campus. She went on, “We’re about to have the cake auction in the cafeteria, and before that gets under way I’ll be announcing the results of the snack competition. So anyone who’s interested in these things, y’all come on in and we’ll have some fun auctioning off these goodies!”

  Sam and Eve were among the people coming into the cafeteria following the principal’s announcement. Sam had come through earlier in the afternoon, said hello to Phyllis and Carolyn, and sampled all the snacks and voted for his favorite. Phyllis hadn’t seen Eve since she got there, though. She thought that someone Eve’s age shouldn’t look so good in a pair of tight jeans, but Eve undoubtedly did. Phyllis wondered if Sam had noticed, then decided that of course he had. He was a man, after all.

  The cafeteria began to fill up. Some people weren’t interested in what was going on inside and so would stay outside on the playground, but after a long afternoon a lot of the parents were ready to sit down for a while. The noise level grew. Several of the PTO board members drifted in. Phyllis saw Marie and Russ and their two children. Joel Dunston and Becca walked into the cafeteria a few minutes later. Phyllis didn’t see Shannon anywhere in the room, though.

  “Welcome, everyone,” Principal Hickson said into the microphone. “I hope y’all have had a good time here at Oliver Loving Elementary School this afternoon!”

  A wave of applause came from the crowded tables.

  “I know a lot of you have sampled the snacks up here on this table today and voted for your favorite,” the principal went on. “What some of you may not know is that all these snacks are nutritious. That’s right, they’re good for you!”

  Mock groans came from some of the kids, followed by laughter.

  “We’ve counted the votes, and we’re ready to announce which of these snacks you folks liked the best.”

  “What does it win?” someone called from the audience.

  “Well, now …” Principal Hickson looked around at Carolyn and Phyllis, who shook their heads and shrugged. “The prize is knowing that they pleased a lot of folks,” the principal said as she turned back to the crowd. “And maybe we’ll see if we can hunt up a blue ribbon or something, how about that?”

  More applause.

  “Anyway, here we go.” Hickson reached over and took the paper from under the jar. “The winner of the snack competition is … Phyllis Newsom!”

  Phyllis caught her breath in surprise. She had hoped to win … she had thought that her peanutbutter-andbanana cookies might deserve to win … but she hadn’t believed it would actually happen. She glanced over at Carolyn, who looked pained for an instant but then put a smile on her face as she said, “Congratulations.” Unlike the smiles worn by Shannon and Joel Dunston earlier in the afternoon, Carolyn’s expression was genuine. She was being more than gracious about being defeated; Phyllis had to give her that. She seemed to be honestly glad that Phyllis had won.

  “Thank you,” Phyllis said. She looked out at the

  applauding audience and saw the big grin on Sam’s face. That made the effort worthwhile, too.

  Principal Hickson turned and smiled at her and said, “We’ll look for that blue ribbon later, okay?”

  “Okay,” Phyllis said.

  “Now it’s time to get on with the auction.” Since the microphone was a cordless one, Principal Hickson was able to move over behind the other table as she continued, “My goodness, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier assortment of cakes. I know a lot of you will want to bid on these. We’ll start with this giant Hostess cupcake. Do I have a bid for this beautiful chocolate delight?”

  Before anyone could call out a bid, a shocked silence fell over the cafeteria. It lasted for several seconds, and during that time, the sound of someone screaming came down the hall and into the big room, loud and clear.

  Chapter 10

  Pandemonium erupted.

  A lot of the parents had their kids with them and knew they were safe, but some didn’t. As they heard that shrill indication of bad trouble, those adults reacted instinctively and lunged to their feet. They had to check on their children and make sure they were all right. Every parent in the room who couldn’t be sure otherwise had the terrifying feeling that something bad might have happened to their child.

  It was a stampede through the doors, the thunder of feet and the startled shouts drowning out the continued screams. Principal Hickson called, “Wait! Everyone stay calm!” but despite the amplification of the PA system, everybody ignored her. She dropped the microphone and joined the rush out of the cafeteria.

  Phyllis and Carolyn traded shocked glances, unsure what they should do. Sam and Eve hurried up to the tables. “You have any idea what all the commotion’s about?” Sam asked.

  Phyllis shook her head.

  “I’ll go find out,” Sam said. “You ladies stay here.”

  “I’m going with you,” Phyllis declared, and Carolyn and Eve nodded in agreement. They had all been teachers too long for their instincts to allow them to stand back whenever there was trouble in a school.

  The four of them left the cafeteria and followed the sound of the uproar down the left-hand wing, toward the conference room where Phyllis and Carolyn had met with the members of the PTO board. The crowd was converging on the far end of the corridor. Phyllis and the others hurried in that direction, too. Phyllis wasn’t sure what was down there; she hadn’t been that far along this hall during her previous visits to the school.

  People began turning back when they reached the end of the hall. Some of them looked sick. Others just seemed horrified and scared. Parents picked up their kids and hurried to get them away from whatever it was. But other people were still trying to get past, and that created a logjam. It took several minutes for Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn, and Eve to work their way along the side of the corridor, next to the wall, before they finally reached the end of the hall. Sam’s broad shoulders led the way.

  A
short cross hall ran from the front to the back of the wing. A couple of classrooms, empty now, were across it, at the very end of the building. At the back of this short hall was a single door that led outside. At the front, the hall ended in a blank brick wall. There was a closed metal door to the right. None of this was any cause for alarm.

  What had caused the screaming—and what had prompted Principal Hickson to say raggedly into her cell phone, “We need an ambulance and the police right now! “—was the body lying on the gray-carpeted floor of the short hallway, around the corner so that it wasn’t visible from the main hall. Phyllis leaned against the wall. She was stunned by the sight of Shannon Dunston sprawled on her side, eyes wide and lifeless. The pale blue blouse she wore had a dark red stain on the front of it, and Phyllis knew it had to be blood.

  “Good Lord,” Sam muttered. Phyllis wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the commotion if he hadn’t been right beside her. One of his big hands gripped her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Phyllis managed a shaky nod. “Yes, I’m all right.” Al though she was afraid that she already knew the answer, she asked, “Is … is she dead?”

  “Looks like it to me,” Sam replied, his rugged face grim.

  “How terrible!” Eve said. “Who is she? She looks familiar to me, but I can’t place her.”

  Carolyn said, “That’s Shannon Dunston, the president of the PTO. I don’t know that you ever met her.”

  “I’m sure I did, but I don’t recall where.”

  Phyllis didn’t see that it mattered now whether Eve had ever met Shannon or not. No one would ever meet Shannon again. For all of her faults, there had been a moment or two when Phyllis had caught a glimpse of a troubled, hurting human being inside that shell of bitterness and impatience. Phyllis couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Shannon now that she was dead.