The Cereal Murders

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Audrey did not wait for a response. True to form, she stomped out. Heather slithered out after her. So much for my post-catering cleaning help.

  Miss Kaplan tried to restore order. “Why don’t we all just … have some refreshments, and if you have questions for Mr. Rathgore …” Her voice trailed off amid the noise of people scooping up their coats and scrunching shopping bags. A couple of parents lined up to buy Mr. Rathgore’s book: The True Test.

  “Don’t worry.” Julian appeared at my side, holding a tray of biscotti. “I’ll give you a hand. You know, Heather’s mom is always stressed. Stressed major.”

  Schulz helped himself to two biscotti. “As you were saying, Miss G., about my having cookies—”

  But before I could try any thoughts out on him, there was a distant explosion of crashing glass.

  Macguire, who’d been leaning against a bookcase, was so startled he almost fell down. Julian’s tray dropped with a bang. Headmaster Perkins looked appalled.

  “Don’t move, anyone!” cried Tom Schulz. He loped out the nearby exit to the adjoining garage. Bewildered parents turned to one another; an anxious buzz filled the air. The unfortunate Mr. Rathgore turned to the trade buyer. He had forgotten he was wearing a microphone.

  “What the hell is going on?” his voice boomed out.

  Miss Kaplan steepled her hands and pressed them to her lips. First a parental argument, then a glass-breaking disruption. Unlikely Mr. Rathgore would agree to another signing anytime soon.

  Schulz returned. “It’s your van,” he announced laconically.

  “Whose?” the ill-fated Mr. Rathgore screeched into his microphone.

  Julian cried, “Somebody’s broken the windshield! Just like …” But he didn’t have to say just like which windshield.

  Schulz quickly crossed the room to me, ignoring the confusion. “Goldy, I’m taking you to my car. I’ll notify surveillance. I want you out of here and with me,” he finished abruptly.

  “I can’t … I have to clean up.”

  “You have to go.” Julian echoed Schulz. “It’s what I keep telling you. You’re not safe around these people. Go, go now. I’ll clean up.”

  Schulz had taken me by the arm to lead me out. I stood firm.

  “And how will you get home?” I demanded of Julian, refusing to budge.

  “I’ll get a ride or something. Now, go on, go.”

  I felt dazed. I took one long look at the assembled group of students, parents, school and bookstore staff. All stood immobile, as if suspended in a snapshot, watching the caterer make her unexpected exit under police guard. I wondered how many decided I was under arrest.

  21

  Tom Schulz’s wheels shrieked as we rounded the parking lot’s hairpin curves. Within moments he was gunning the car up First Avenue. “Where’s Arch?” he demanded.

  “Spending the night with a friend. I still don’t understand why I should leave because of a broken windshield. I feel ridiculous.”

  “Come on, Goldy. You know you can’t stay,” was all he said.

  When we arrived in Aspen Meadow forty-five minutes later, stillness enveloped my neighborhood. The only sounds were a dog barking in the distance and the murmurs between Schulz and the surveillance policeman.

  Schulz shook his head as he walked back to me. “Nothing suspicious.” He escorted me up the steps. At the door I hesitated.

  “Had the surveillance fellow received any radio messages about who trashed my car?”

  “Nope. Look, I’ve had another call, unrelated. But I’ll come in and look around if you want.”

  “No need. The bookstore closed at nine. Julian’ll be home by ten.”

  “I’ll call you then.”

  I snapped on lights in each room, then checked the clock: 9:30. Every creak, every moan of breeze, every stray sound, made me jump. Finally, I made a mug of steaming hot chocolate, slipped on my down coat, and settled into a snowy lawn chair out front. Keeping the surveillance car in sight seemed like the best idea.

  The hot chocolate was deliciously comforting. I leaned back to look at the expanse of stars glittering overhead. Because there was no moon, Arch was probably outside with his friend, wielding his high-powered binoculars and enthusiastically pointing out Sirius and Cassiopeia. I could find the Big Dipper and Orion, but that was about it.

  At ten o’clock I went inside, checked my answering machine—no messages—and made more hot cocoa. Chocolate always tastes best with more chocolate, and I lamented that the windshield disruption had necessitated leaving the Sweetheart Sandwiches down at the bookstore. Actually, it was getting so that any Elk Park Prep catered event was likely to be disrupted.

  Back on my lawn chair, I stared again at the sky. And then, it was as if a hole opened up in the sparkling firmament. Through it I could see Rhoda Marensky in the Dawsons’ kitchen, exclaiming: It’s as if someone’s trying to disrupt our lives. I remembered Hank Dawson’s different spin on that sentiment: You should have done the same food you did last week. It would have been luckier. Rhoda and Hank seemed to believe that if you ate the right things, got enough sleep, followed all the same routines, you’d do well.

  But if someone disrupted your life, you wouldn’t do well.

  Someone had deliberately smashed Keith Andrews’ windshield the day of the Princeton rep’s visit. Not long after, that same person had probably killed him.

  Someone had broken a window in our house, hung a snake in Arch’s locker, and perhaps planted a deadly spider in a drawer. Our steps had been boobytrapped, our chimney stopped up, and one of our car windshields broken. The result had been police surveillance, worry, conflict, lack of sleep, quizzes failed, homework and college applications left undone.

  The person who had suffered most had been a highly emotional person, someone who cared deeply about those around him, someone who was terribly vulnerable to criticism and cruelty.

  Could it be that neither Arch nor I was at the heart of this campaign of harassment?

  Excuse the fuck me. And then another time: This stuff at the school is getting to me.

  I pictured Julian, who knew so many things that he was unwilling to discuss—the steroids, bitter conflicts between his classmates, perhaps even blackmail. He was also ranked number two in the Elk Park Prep senior class. Keith Andrews, the top student, was now dead.

  I sat up straight, splashing cocoa down the front of my coat. I didn’t have time to wipe it off or even curse it because I was running toward the house. The windshield incident was probably meant to lure me away. Dammit, I had never been in danger at the bookstore.

  I fumbled with the front doorknob. My mind raced. Whoever had smashed my van knew who would be affected. Who stood in the way of a higher class rank? Who was vulnerable to a campaign of harassment of his employer and her son, whom he held so dear? Who would volunteer to clean up in my absence?

  Julian had been the true target all along.

  I called Julian’s friend, Neil Mansfield. Had Julian asked him for a ride? No, Julian said someone else volunteered to drive him back to Aspen Meadow. Who? Neil didn’t know. But, Neil added, he himself had been home for an hour, so Julian should be home by now. Great. Did Neil have any idea who else might know who offered this rider No clue.

  I tried to reach Schulz. No answer at his home. The Sheriff’s Department dispatcher said he couldn’t raise the homicide investigator on his cell phone. I glanced at the clock: 10:30.

  I had no ideas, no plan, nothing but panic. I grabbed the keys to the Rover. If I called the police, I would not know what to tell them or where to send them. I willed the mental picture of Keith Andrews’ bloody head out of my mind.

  The bookstore. That was the last place I had seen Julian; that was where I would start. Maybe I could call Miss Kaplan, or some of the staff, maybe someone had seen him leave … but how would I get phone numbers for these people? Reluctantly, I dialed Audrey Coopersmith, but got only a sleepy Heather.

  “Mom’s not here. She went out with Dad.”


  “What?”

  “She said they were trying to work things out.”

  “Look, Heather, I have to talk to her. I … left something in the store … and I need to know how to reach somebody there now.”

  “Why? The bookstore’s closed.”

  “You didn’t see Julian, did you? At the end of the evening?”

  “Ms. Bear, you’re confusing me. Did you leave a thing or a person in the bookstore?”

  Oh, God, the grade book. I had left something in the bookstore. If Julian was still alive, if somebody wanted the evidence of that grade book enough … maybe I could do a swap. But I didn’t know who I was dealing with, what that person would want or when.

  “Heather, look, I have a big problem. Julian’s life may be in danger … and I do have something. I have Miss Ferrell’s grade book.”

  A sharp intake of breath from Heather. “You? But we’ve been looking for it; I can’t do the class rank without it.”

  “Listen up. I need you to call every senior’s family. Be sure you talk to the senior and the parents—”

  “But it’s late—”

  “Please! Tell every single person I have Miss Ferrell’s grade book and that I’ll swap it for Julian, at Elk Park Prep in”—I hastily consulted my watch—“two hours. No questions asked.”

  “Does that include my mother? Because I don’t know where she is. And you still don’t have a way of getting into the store.”

  “Find her. I’ll figure out the store situation. Your mother and Carl must have a favorite restaurant or something. Find them. Please, Heather, find everybody.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

  “Trust me.” I hung up before she could continue to analyze my mental status.

  I ran out to the Rover. I shifted into first gear and thought, Audrey out with Carl? Unbelievable. But that was the least of my concerns.

  The Rover engine roared as I sped down Interstate 70 to Denver. At the First Avenue light I turned left on Milwaukee and pulled up to the parking garage entrance. The first thing I had to figure out was whether Julian had taken my van anywhere.

  Glitch: the lot was closed. Worse, the horizontal bar was down.

  What was a barricade to the rhino guard of a desert vehicle? I backed up, gunned the engine forward, and crashed through the horizontal bar.

  The growl of the car engine echoed off the concrete walls and through the cavernous space of the deserted garage. Up, up, I went to the third-floor level. And there was my van, parked ominously, alone, next to the entrance. Glass sparkled at its tires.

  My heartbeat banged in my ears. How was I going to get back into the store? Could Audrey, in stomping out of the bookstore in a rage, have forgotten her purse in my van? I desperately hoped she had left her security entrance card behind. Unless she had manufactured her tantrum …

  Best not to speculate until I had the grade book in my hands. I hopped out of the Rover and slid open the van door. The sound reverberated eerily.

  “Julian?” I whispered into the van’s cold depths. Silence. And then I looked in shock at the mess of papers, boxes, and cups that the overhead light illuminated. The vehicle had been trashed.

  I was so angry, I almost slammed the door. But then I saw Audrey Coopersmith’s overturned purse on the floor. I searched desperately for the magnetic-striped security card. It was not there. Now what?

  An explosion cracked the stillness. A gunshot. I fell forward.

  The sound had come from inside the store.

  I ran up to the back entrance security post. The light was green: Whoever had ransacked my van had probably used Audrey’s card to open the electronic lock. I wrenched open the first glass door and then the second. I cursed wildly to overcome fear as I stepped into the dark depths of the bookstore.

  The air was black, tarlike. The silence was absolute. I stepped carefully out onto the soft carpet. The smell of the bookstore was rich: paper, carpet, bindings, books, chairs, wood, dust. The odor of humans still lingered. I was near the kitchenette but could see nothing. The desk was close by; Audrey had shown it to me….

  The flashlights. One under each desk. I walked through the darkness, not knowing whether I was going in a straight or crooked path, but heading in my mind’s eye toward where that desk must be. My foot thumped the side of a chair. It squeaked forward on tiny, unseen wheels. Damn. I groped underneath the desk until I found the cold metal clips holding the flashlight. My fingers closed around it. When I turned it on, I heard another shot. Louder, this time. Closer.

  “Julian!” I shouted into the darkness.

  The phone. Call Schulz. I extricated myself from underneath the desk, stood, and directed the light to the phone. I dialed 911, begged them to come to the Tattered Cover right away, and hung up. The silence pressed down on me.

  “Julian!” I shrieked again.

  My flashlight beam washed across the carpet to the steps.

  And then I saw something out of place that made my heart freeze. Near the steps there was a large, dark splotch on the carpet. I dashed toward it, then stopped and swayed backward. Blood in a bookstore. But wait.

  What had I just said to myself?

  Something out of place.

  My mind reeled.

  What had the woman in Lakewood said? Something it was too late for, something that was out of place … What had Arch said? You can’t see Andromeda in the summer … and, of course, I couldn’t buy a Good Humor bar from the ice cream man in the winter, now, could I? And I wouldn’t see a spider in an immaculate kitchen, would I? Tom Schulz had always told me: If you see anything that’s out of place …

  And now I knew. The crimes, the perpetrator, even the methods … I knew. I sank against a bookshelf, sickened.

  Move, I ordered myself.

  Down the wide, carpeted stairs I went, flashing the light ahead of me, until I reached the second floor. The scents were different on this level—more people had been here, more sweat hung in the air. There had been no sound since the two shots.

  “Julian?”

  “Goldy!” came a bloodcurdling call from somewhere below me. “Goldy! Help!” Julian’s voice.

  “Where are you?” I yelled, but heard only shuffling, someone running, thudding footsteps. I nearly tripped running down the last flight of stairs.

  Here, on the first floor, there was more light. It poured through the first-floor windows from the street lamps on First Avenue and Milwaukee Street.

  “Agh!” came Julian’s muffled voice again. And then there was a scuffling sound from … where? From over by Business books.

  I ran through the shadows to where I thought he was, near the exit to Milwaukee Street. I swept the flashlight across the rug … nothing. When I was almost to the first-floor cash registers, something slammed against me. I fell forward with a great crash, sending the flashlight skittering across the carpet. I came to my knees and leapt for it just as the body hit me again. I grabbed the flashlight and whirled around. The light shone on the furious, leathery face of Hank Dawson.

  “You son of a bitch!” I screamed, and swung wildly with my flashlight. “Where’s Julian?”

  He leapt for me, but I sidestepped him. With a curse, he drew back, then lunged for me again. Frantically, I grabbed for a wire display of oversize paperbacks and tipped it over in front of him. Hank tripped and fell hard. Desperately, I reached for books, any books, on nearby shelves and flung them on top of him.

  To my amazement, his sprawled body remained motionless. I scuttled around the corner to Business books.

  “Julian,” I called into the shelves, “it’s me! You have to come out quickly.” Which one of these godforsaken shelves was the one that opened outward?! couldn’t remember. But slowly, absurdly, as if I were in a horror movie, I saw a shelf begin to move. Books wobbled, then toppled out to the floor. A face peeked out of the vacant shelf.

  “Is Mr. Dawson … dead?”

  It was Julian. “Down but not out,” I said when I had ca
ught my breath. “Oh, God, Julian, is that blood on your face? I’m so glad you’re alive. The police are on their way, but we’ve got to get out.”

  “I can’t move,” he whimpered. “He shot me …”

  Hank Dawson groaned and moved under the pile of books.

  “Go!” Julian whispered desperately. “Get out!”

  “Scoot back in there,” I ordered. He groaned, then inched back into the tiny space. I shoved the wall of books back in place just as Hank Dawson came around the corner of shelves.

  “Hi, Goldy,” he said absurdly. I might have been there, in a darkened bookstore, to cater a Bronco brunch.

  “Hank—”

  “I want what I came for,” he told me with enormous, terrifying calm. “I want the kid.”

  “Hank—”

  “Should I just start shooting into these shelves? I know he’s in here somewhere.”

  “Wait!” I yelled. “There’s something else you’re going to need. Something you wanted before.”

  He shone his flashlight into my face. The light blinded me. “What?”

  “Miss Ferrell’s grade book. You were looking for it in her room, weren’t you? And … in my van? I have it here in the store.” I added fiercely, “You’ll never be able to prove Greer’s high class rank without it.” I had to get him away from Julian. Julian was the key.

  Hank was breathing hard. “The book,” he said. “Where is it?”

  “Here in the store. I hid it, I was going to … to give it to the police,” I sputtered. I was afraid. I was also passionately, blindly angry.

  Hank glanced at the unmoving bookshelves. Satisfied that Julian was immobilized, he growled, “All right, let’s go get it.” He shifted to one side of the shelves; I pushed past him. He stank of sweat.

  My feet shuffled across the carpet. Hank clomped close behind. Where was my damn flashlight? I wanted to look at him. I wanted to look into the eyes of a man who had murdered a teenager, a teacher, and a woman in Lakewood all to get his daughter into a top school.

  “Don’t stall!” He swung his flashlight up and caught me under the chin. Pain flashed up through my skull. I staggered, and Hank shoved me into the cash register counter.