Murder by the Slice

by Livia J. Washburn

  Chapter 13

  With sudden interest, Mike straightened from his casual pose and took a quick step toward Eve. “You’re sure about that?” he asked her.

  Eve nodded emphatically. “I was afraid for a minute that I might have to find someone to separate them if they started fighting. Of course, it didn’t work out that way. They just argued for a while and then left.”

  “Which way did they go?” Mike asked.

  “On into the school. But I don’t have any idea where they went after they were inside.” Eve looked at Phyllis. “You say that boy was her son?”

  Phyllis nodded. “It must have been him. I can’t see Shannon associating with anyone else who looks like that.”

  “And you think that he … that they kept on arguing when they came inside … and then he …” Eve looked horrified. “That’s almost too horrible to even think about!”

  “Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything just yet,” Mike pointed out. “If this kid—Kirk, you said his name is, Mom?”

  Phyllis nodded.

  Mike went on, “If this kid was responsible for what happened, he had to get his hands on that knife somehow. None of you saw him in here in the cafeteria during the afternoon?”

  Phyllis looked at Carolyn, and they both shook their heads. “We were really busy a lot of the time, though,” Carolyn said. “I like to think that I’m pretty observant, but I suppose it’s possible that he could have come through here without me noticing him.”

  “That’s true for me as well,” Phyllis admitted. “I think I would have seen him if he was here, but I can’t be sure.”

  “For that matter, we haven’t positively established that the knife you were using is the murder weapon,” Mike said. “I guess that’s the next step, other than interviewing everybody to find out if anyone saw anything that might help us.”

  Sam said, “You’re liable not to get much out of questionin’ folks. Big crowds don’t make for good witnesses, from what I’ve seen in the movies and on TV.”

  Mike sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s one of the things that they get right. Eyewitness accounts are usually pretty unreliable. You never can tell, though. We just have to take the investigation one step at a time.” He closed his notebook. “I’ll let the sheriff know about this son of Mrs. Dunston’s. There’s the first husband to look into as well. Maybe he’s been nursing a grudge against her ever since their divorce, and he could have been here this afternoon, too.”

  Sam said, “There’s no shortage of suspects, I’ll grant you that.”

  “Does this mean we can leave now, since you’ve questioned us?” Phyllis asked.

  Mike nodded. “I don’t see why not. It’s not like I don’t know where to find you if any more questions come up.”

  Carolyn gestured toward the tables and said, “But you still want us to leave everything here like it is?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’ll suggest to the sheriff that he send somebody down here to keep an eye on it until the crime scene unit can get to it. He’s liable to give the job to me.” Mike didn’t sound too happy about the prospect of being stuck guarding potential evidence, rather than being an active part of the investigation.

  They left the cafeteria, Mike walking out with his mother and the other retired teachers so he could let the deputies guarding the exits know that it was all right for them to leave. When he had gotten them through the doors, he turned, waved, and went back into the school.

  Before they reached their cars, one of the people still in the parking lot came hurrying over. He was a balding, sandy-haired, mild-looking man about forty years old, wearing jeans and a khaki work shirt.

  “Sam,” he greeted the former basketball coach, “do you know what’s going on in there? I’ve heard all sorts of crazy talk about somebody being killed.”

  “I’m sorry to say it isn’t crazy talk,” Sam responded. “A woman was murdered a while ago.”

  “Murdered! Good Lord. Do you know who she was?”

  “Name was Shannon Dunston.”

  The man’s eyes widened even further in shock. “Mrs. Dunston? The PTO president?”

  Sam nodded. “One and the same.”

  The man shook his head. “That’s terrible, just terrible. Do the deputies know yet who did it?”

  “Nope. I reckon you knew Mrs. Dunston pretty well, since she was around the school all the time, from what I’ve heard about her.”

  “Of course I knew her. Maybe not all that well, but she was always asking the custodial staff to do things.”

  Sam looked at Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve. “You ladies don’t know Gary, I imagine,” he said. “He’s one of the custodians here at the school—the one I mentioned who used to work up at Poolville.”

  The man nodded to the three of them and supplied his name. “I’m Gary Oakley. Pleased to meet you, ladies, although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

  “So do we, Mr. Oakley,” Phyllis said. “I’m Phyllis Newsom, and this is Carolyn Wilbarger and Eve Turner.”

  “Y’all are retired teachers, like Sam?”

  “That’s right.”

  Gary Oakley summoned up a smile. “I saw you in the

  cafeteria selling cakes and such. I thought about coming over to see what you had, but I didn’t get around to it. Too late now, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, all the leftover goodies were impounded by the law as evidence,” Sam said.

  Gary looked surprised again. “Evidence in the murder?”

  “The investigators never know what’s going to be important,” Phyllis said.

  “No, I guess not. Still, I don’t see what a cake could have to do with a murder.” The custodian sighed. “When I heard that somebody had died in the school, I sure figured it must have been an accident or a heart attack or something like that. Never even crossed my mind that it might’ve been murder. Where was she found?”

  “All the way down at the far end of the main hall,” Sam said, “by the book room.”

  Gary nodded. “In that little alcove where the cross-hall dead-ends? That’s a pretty out-of-the-way spot, all right. And the deputies don’t have any idea who did it?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Terrible, just terrible,” Gary said again. “Do you know when they’re gonna let people leave?”

  “The sheriff said everybody had to be questioned before they could go. The ladies and I have already talked to one of the deputies, so we’re leaving now.”

  “You’re some of the lucky ones, then.” Gary looked around the crowded parking lot. “Who knows when they’ll get around to the rest of us? Say, you don’t think I could maybe catch a ride out with you, do you? Since you’re free to go, they might think I was, too.”

  Before Sam could reply, Phyllis said, “None of us could do that, Mr. Oakley. My son is a deputy, and I’m sure the sheriff would be upset if he knew that possible witnesses were trying to leave without being interviewed first.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for anybody,” Gary said quickly. “I just need to, uh, get home to feed my dogs. They don’t like it when their supper’s late.” He shrugged. “But I don’t guess they’ll starve to death before I get there.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Sam said. “See you later, Gary.”

  “Yeah, see you around, Coach.”

  They went on to their cars as Gary Oakley walked off toward the school. Phyllis frowned slightly as she watched him go. He had seemed awfully anxious to leave before the deputies got around to talking to him, and she wasn’t sure she believed his story about wanting to get home and feed his dogs. That sounded like something he had come up with on the spur of the moment.

  Which made her wonder about the real reason why Gary Oakley was nervous about talking to the deputies.

  As Mike had suspected, Sheriff Haney thought it would be a good idea to have somebody watching over the remnants of the auction and the snack contest, but to Mike’s relief the sheriff detailed one of the other deputi
es to do that. Haney said, “Come along with me. I want to talk to the principal.”

  They found Frances Hickson in the school office, talking on the phone. A deputy was with her. “I assure you your son is safe, Mrs. Kellaway,” she was saying. “In fact, there are deputies all over the school. This is probably one of the safest places in Parker County right now… . No, ma’am, I promise you, I’m not trying to be funny… . I don’t know, but the sheriff is right here. I’ll ask him.” She covered the receiver’s mouthpiece. “Sheriff, some parents brought their children to the carnival and dropped them off, intending to pick them up later. When can they get their kids?”

  Haney thought about it for a second and then said, “Parents can pick up their kids anytime. We’ll set up a place where we can ask the youngsters a question or two as they leave.”

  The principal nodded and relayed the information to the distraught parent on the phone, then hung up. She sighed and said, “That phone’s been ringing constantly for half an hour now. It didn’t take very long at all for word to get around town about the murder, and people are worried about their kids.”

  “Bad news travels fast,” Haney said. “And a lot of folks got away from here before we arrived. Unfortunately, chances are the killer was one of them.”

  “You think so?”

  “If you’d stuck a knife in a woman’s chest, would you want to hang around?” Haney asked.

  Mike thought that if the knife he had recovered in the cafeteria really was the murder weapon, the killer had hung around long enough—and had been coolheaded enough—to return it to where he had gotten it. Mike decided it was entirely possible that the killer was still somewhere on the school grounds, trying to keep a low profile. But of course it was just as likely, and probably more so, that the murderer had fled immediately.

  The phone rang again, and again Principal Hickson had to go through the same routine, reassuring a worried parent and passing along the information that children left at the carnival could be picked up. Haney sent the deputy who had been guarding the school office to issue his orders and set up a station where children could be released to their parents. That left Haney and Mike alone in the office with the principal.

  “Why would people leave their kids alone at a carnival, even a school carnival?” Haney commented when the principal was off the phone again.

  “It’s a well-supervised activity,” Frances said. “And I like to think we have a safe campus—” Her expression changed abruptly as she realized what she had just said. “Oh, dear. Nobody’s going to think it’s safe anymore, are they?”

  “Murder is always an aberration, ma’am,” Mike said.

  “It’s not like Loving Elementary is a hotbed of crime or anything like that.”

  “No, but this isn’t the first time we’ve been out here on an emergency call,” Haney said. “There was that burglary a week or so ago. Whoever got in here made off with quite a bit of stuff.”

  Frances frowned. “But that couldn’t have anything to do with what happened to Mrs. Dunston.”

  Before either of the lawmen could respond to that, the phone rang again. Haney motioned to one of the deputies just outside the office in the lobby and called him in. “Answer the phone,” the sheriff instructed, “and if it’s people wanting to pick up their kids, tell them to come on as soon as they can.” To Principal Hickson he said, “Can we talk in your office?”

  She stood. “Of course. Come on back.”

  She led the way into her private office, which had a window that looked out at the parking lot in front of the school. A couple of chairs were positioned in front of the desk. Haney and Mike sat down there while Principal Hickson sank wearily into the chair behind the desk.

  “The day of the carnival is always a stressful one,” she said, “but it’s never been like this before, thank God.”

  Haney said, “I’ll ask you the same question everybody else is being asked, Mrs. Hickson, so don’t think I’m singling you out. Do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill Shannon Dunston?”

  “Of course not. To be honest, she wasn’t well liked by the staff or the faculty, or probably by the other parents, despite the fact that she worked hard to help the school. But just because someone gets on your nerves is no reason to kill them.”

  “Not usually,” the sheriff said. “What was it about her that got her on everybody’s bad side?”

  “Well, it was more a matter of her attitude than anything else, I suppose. She could be very sharp with people. They disappointed her easily, and she wasn’t shy about letting them know. And when she wanted something, she would harp on you about it until you gave in, just to get her off your back.”

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience.”

  “We had our share of run-ins. When Shannon got an idea in her head—” Frances stopped short and leaned forward in her chair. “Wait a minute. Are you asking me if I killed her?” The principal’s face flushed with anger.

  “Not at all,” Haney assured her. “But if she was irritating enough to get under the skin of somebody like you, who’s used to dealing with unhappy people all the time, I can imagine she might have pushed somebody else right over the edge.” He paused for a second to let Frances’s resentment fade, then went on, “You were in the cafeteria when the body was discovered, right?”

  “Yes, we were about to get the cake auction under way when everybody heard the screams. Does that count as an alibi?” Before the sheriff could answer, she went on, “I don’t guess it does, does it? You need to know where I was before that.”

  Haney shrugged. “Just as a matter of routine.”

  Frances frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “I was outside part of the time, and I was in the gym part of the time. Some activities were set up in there, you know. I’m sure a lot of people saw me, but I couldn’t tell you who. About four o’clock I was in here with Marie Tyler.”

  “Here in your office, you mean?”

  “Well, in the outer office, to be exact. Marie had collected some more money from the ticket booth and the concession stand, and she wanted to lock it up in Katherine’s desk.”

  “Katherine?”

  “Katherine Felton, the school secretary. There’s a big drawer in her desk. Marie put the PTO cash box in it and locked it up, so it would be safe. You can’t be too careful when there are a lot of people milling around.” Frances laughed. It had a hollow sound. “I guess that’s been proven this afternoon, hasn’t it?”

  “Is the money still there?” Mike asked curiously.

  “It should be.”

  “How much are we talking about?” Haney asked.

  “Goodness, I don’t know. Around ten thousand dollars, maybe more.”

  The sheriff rubbed his chin for a second and then said, “How about if we take a look, just to be sure.”

  “All right.” Frances stood up and took a ring of keys from the pocket of her jeans. She and the two lawmen went back into the outer office, where a deputy was still answering the phone and assuring worried parents that their children were all right.

  The bottom drawer on the righthand side of the desk was larger than the others. Frances leaned over to unlock it and pull it open. Then she stared down into the drawer and frowned as she said, “That’s odd. Where … ?”

  Haney and Mike moved quickly to her side. “What is it?” the sheriff asked.

  Mike had a feeling he already knew the answer.

  Frances Hickson lifted worried eyes to meet their intent gazes. “It’s gone,” she said, gesturing toward the drawer that held only some manila files and a box of CD-Rs. “The PTO cash box is gone.”

  Chapter 14

  Phyllis, Carolyn, and Sam all got back to the house within a minute of each other. Eve had ridden in Sam’s pickup. Normally the thought that Eve was alone with Sam like that might have bothered Phyllis a little, whether she wanted it to or not, but today Phyllis’s mind was too full of other things to worry about something like E
ve’s tendency to flirt. Anyway, Sam was a grown man. He could fend her off, or choose not to, depending on what he wanted to do.

  Phyllis drove into the double garage first, followed a moment later by Carolyn, and Sam pulled his pickup to a stop at the curb in front of the house. Not much was said as they all went inside. They were still too shocked by what had happened at the school.

  Although maybe they shouldn’t have been shocked, Phyllis thought. Sudden, unexpected death was an all-toocommon thing in life. The events not only of today but also those in recent months had proven that. Phyllis had never really believed that people should live each day as if it were their last … but it didn’t hurt anything to keep the possibility in mind.

  She didn’t feel like preparing a big meal for supper, so she made sandwiches instead, and everyone took their plates and glasses of iced tea out onto the porch to eat as the light of day faded. Carolyn and Eve took the swing, while Phyllis and Sam sat in two of the three metal chairs that had been on the porch for decades. Sam had repainted them during the summer, and they looked practically as good as new.

  “We might as well talk about it,” Carolyn said after they had eaten in relative silence for a few minutes. “We’re all thinking about it, anyway. Who do you think killed Shannon?”

  “Don’t reckon I’d have any idea,” Sam said. “I didn’t know the lady.”

  “Neither did I,” Eve said, “but from what little I saw of her today, I sort of feel sorry for her. She didn’t look happy when she was arguing with her son.”

  Phyllis said, “She wasn’t happy. No one who’s that angry all the time could be.” She hesitated, pondering whether she ought to say anything about seeing Shannon and Russ Tyler in Fort Worth. Finally she decided that she shouldn’t. It was bad enough that she hadn’t told Mike about what she had seen. She didn’t want to put her friends in a position where they might have to withhold evidence, too.

  She needed to talk to Russ, she thought, and find out exactly what was going on between him and Shannon. If it was really more innocent than it appeared, then there would be no reason the authorities had to know about it.