The neighbor let out a little puff of protest, then put her hands on her hips and shifted her gaze to me.
“Recently moved into the neighborhood, by any chance?” I asked, my cheeks warming from my embarrassment of guilt by association.
“Yes. And allowing Stephanie Saunders to manipulate me is a mistake I won’t make twice.”
Wishing that were as easy as it sounded, I made my way out the door.
In her own typical style, which, thank goodness, was inimitable, Stephanie raced off in her BMW, leaving me to inhale her engine exhaust as I got into my Toyota. I was soon at the Ed Center.
My father was already in the small auditorium by the time I arrived. He was standing near the front of the room, looking a bit disconcerted. Perhaps that was because my mother wasn’t with him, and she’d been such a fixture on his arm of late. He was wearing his jacket and fishing hat. I went up to him, battling feelings of deja vu.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Making dinner. You know how she is about sticking to her daily schedule and everything.”
I scanned the room. The other board members were just arriving, dropping off their coats and so forth at their seats on the dais. “Do you know what this is about?”
“Some big breakthrough in the budget situation,” Dad answered quietly.
Stephanie was chatting with a nicely dressed man in the front row, This would likely be her accountant, who, like Stephanie, was dressed for “good things to happen.” If he’d managed, somehow, to save the day for the schools, we’d never hear the end of it from Stephanie, but that was a price I would be more than willing to pay.
Stuart banged his inherited gavel and requested over the microphone that everyone please take their seats. Stephanie marched across the dais with the confidence of someone who expected to be coroneted. I took a seat near the center aisle, a couple of rows back. Agnes, however, was still setting things up, placing some printed report or memo in front of each board member. I couldn’t help but notice that everyone declined Agnes’s offer of water. I noticed, too, that Carol Barr still hadn’t arrived. I glanced around behind me, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Agnes seemed unduly tense. She came up to me and said, “Let’s meet in my office fifteen minutes after the meeting is over. All right?”
My initial reaction was to ask her why, but she was already heading to her seat, so I just said, “Okay. Fine.”
“The meeting is now in session,” Stuart announced, the moment Agnes had reclaimed her seat.
“Wait a moment, Stuart,” Stephanie said. “Where’s the cameraman? Shouldn’t we wait for him?”
“He couldn’t come and, apparently, neither could Carol Barr, though I left a message on her machine. We’ll just have to proceed without them.”
Stephanie’s expression fell, but she nodded.
Stuart Ackleman pounded the gavel. “Superintendent Collins has an important announcement to make.”
Within a couple of seconds, the room was dead silent and the superintendent spoke into the mike. “With the help of a skilled accountant, whose services were generously provided by our newest board member, Stephanie Saunders, we discovered that extra monies do exist within the budget. This allows us to continue the current budget for next year, without cutting programs.”
Mr. Johnson from the local paper, my least-loved journalist, leapt to his feet. “How did you—”
Stuart pounded the gavel a couple of more times. “If we allow Mr. Collins to continue, he’ll tell you.”
Superintendent Collins proceeded to explain at great length about retirement fund estimations and various escrows that could be moved and manipulated, but I lost my train of thought, feeling as though I was sitting through a geography lesson, which probably explains why more than just my “train of thought” gets lost so often. Next Stephanie spoke about how what she did “was nothing,” which didn’t stop her from making a speech about how noble and glorious she was.
Meanwhile, I watched the other board members for their reactions. They all seemed to be obliged to indulge Stephanie in her self-congratulations.
When Stuart adjourned the meeting, ebullience seemed to pass across those on the dais. My father sported a wide smile and shook each of his peers’ hands, as well as Superintendent Collins’s and Agnes’s. Michelle and Gillian hugged each other. Even Kent and Stuart shook hands. Stephanie then managed to make herself the center of attention, although she looked immensely disappointed when she realized that all of the reporters were following her accountant out of the room, rather than seeking quotes from her.
The small audience filed out, and I went up to the dais and gave my father a hug and congratulated him. He was clearly delighted and soon returned his attention to his fellow board members. “I’m taking all of you out to dinner tonight,” he announced. He looked thoughtful, then added, “Pity that Carol still isn’t here.”
It was also a pity that Mom was currently home, dutifully making their supper, but I had no doubt that he’d remember this in time to insist that she join them.
“I’m going home to be with my children, Charlie,” Stephanie said. “But thank you for the offer.” While the others left in one group for the first time since they’d been elected, she gathered her purse and coat.
I touched her shoulder. “On behalf of both myself and my children, thank you, Stephanie. You’ve just saved this community untold grief.”
Instead of the annoying comeback I was bracing myself to hear, she met my eyes, smiled genuinely, and said, “You’re very welcome, Molly.”
I watched her leave, her head held high, her long blond hair perfectly in place, and thought what a wonder she was. Surely she was one of the most singularly annoying humans on the planet. and yet she did have her moments and her methods to attain success.
I realized then that I was the last person in the room and glanced at my watch. I had no idea what time the meeting had ended and how much time had passed.
The building felt almost eerily quiet as I headed down the hall toward Agnes’s office. The security guard’s little office was someplace around here, so even if Agnes had given up on me and left, I surely wasn’t the last person in the building.
Agnes came out of her doorway, shutting the door behind her just as I was about to enter.
“Oh, Ms. Masters. I just have to go to the little girl’s room. I’ll be right back. Go on inside. It’s not locked.”
There was a slight smoky scent when I opened the door, which I dismissed as someone having lit up a cigarette. Someone nearby in “the little girl’s room,” perhaps. The odor gave me an idea for a possible cartoon. A couple of women are staring in horror as a third woman, whose hair is in flames, asks with a smile, “Is it my imagination, or is my hair really on fire?” Unfortunately, while I could picture the drawing, I couldn’t picture how to possibly market the idea.
I took a seat in front of Agnes’s desk and waited, feeling vaguely antsy, but not knowing why. After a couple of minutes, she entered the room. She took in a couple of audible sniffs. “That’s odd. Do you smell that?”
“Yes, but I assumed it was coming from one of the bathrooms. Someone smoking a cigarette.”
“That’s possible, I suppose.” She sniffed again. “It seems to be coming from the superintendent secretary’s office, though, and no one should be in there at this hour.” She started to cross the room toward that second door and said over her shoulder, “So what did you want to meet with me about, Ms. Masters?”
“I have no idea. You’re the one who said you wanted to meet with me.”
She froze and said, “I did no such thing. There was a note on my desk, saying that you wanted…”
She let her voice fade, as we both caught sight of a puff of smoke snaking toward us through the crack under the door.
I put my palm on the door’s surface. The wood was warm. My heart started pounding. “Oh, God. There must be a fire on the other side.”
“I should have seen this comi
ng,” Agnes cried. We both turned, intending to leave immediately through the door to the hallway. Carol Barr stepped inside before we could cross the room. She immediately snapped some kind of metallic-domed contraption over the doorknob.
She wiped beads of sweat off her forehead, her white hair unusually grimy. She gestured at the doorknob. “Do you like this? It’s my own invention. Got the idea from those child-proof locks they put on doorknobs. You can break it in two eventually, of course, and get out. But it takes hours. And there’s already one of these on the exit to the adjacent room. Which, as you’ve probably guessed, is burning rather rapidly.”
“Carol!” Agnes shrieked. “What have you done?”
She stared dully at Agnes. “Oh. I guess you’re still a step or two behind. I started a fire in the next room, which will spread to this room momentarily.”
Agnes brushed past Carol and tried to turn the knob. “This is senseless,” Agnes said. “The fire-alarm system will kick off any moment, and we’ll get drenched.”
“No. I disconnected the system. Quite some time ago, in fact. Just after the last visit from the fire marshal.” She turned her attention to me and said. “I have an engineering degree. Back from before that was the vogue thing for women to do.” As she spoke, she swiped again at her damp forehead. then pulled her shirtsleeves up. I found myself staring at her hideous scars.
“Carol, we were just…talking about you,” Agnes said nervously. Her words had all the calm of a mouse squeaking at the cat who has hold of his tail. “And the other board members. And how delighted we were that the board has managed to…to….”
“Pull a workable budget out of the fire, so to speak?” Carol said with a sad smile.
“Yes.”
More smoke was coming under the back door, and Carol started to head toward it. I knew that she intended to open it, fueling the fire. I stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
“What are you doing, Carol? This is silly. The security guard will smell that smoke and be here to help us before you—”
“He’s incapacitated, I’m afraid.”
“You killed him?” I asked.
“I tried hard to seek help. I really did. I even thought I was cured. Oh, but the allure of fire. You can’t begin to know how compelling it is.”
“Sylvia found out?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at Agnes. “Along with Agnes. Sylvia and I had had an argument the day before her final meeting. She’d caught me in the act. Just a little wastebasket fire, but I had no choice, after that. I slipped the poison into her water glass in the back room, and afterwards in the confusion, I dropped a vial into your father’s jacket. That would have been the end to all of this, if it hadn’t been for your interference, Agnes. I warned you that I’d reveal your petty thefts, but you just couldn’t keep quiet, could you?”
Agnes was whimpering and shaking her head. Anger surged through me. Though we were two against one, Agnes wasn’t going to be of any help in her current emotional state. “Michelle Lacy,” Carol spat out, curling her lip. “I’ve always hated her. Her smug superiority. Looking at my scars as if they were ugly. Then that Stephanie. They were cut from the same cloth, those two. But I just wanted to scare some sense into them. That damned private investigator, who you found out was Sylvia’s ex’s brother-in-law, once you saw him face-to-face with Sylvia and recognized him from the funeral.”
Agnes sputtered, “How did you—”
“I bugged your phone, Agnes. And I found out that you gave him all of the mental-health reports from my childhood. That was supposed to be our secret.”
“You told me you were cured,” Agnes whined. “It wasn’t till Sylvia told me about the wastebasket fire that I knew you weren’t. So I told her how you’d started the fire at the school.”
“Yes, and it was just a matter of time till you told Molly.”
I’ve been checking the log on the fax machine at the Ed Center and knew that you sent her a fax.” She glared at me. “You just wouldn’t let it go, would you, Molly? Nobody ever suspects the kindly old lady, you know. Stuart underestimated me, too, like so many others. I’ve had Stuart wrapped around my finger, even used him to spy on the other board members for me, so that I could keep my secret. Came in handy when Gillian told him to go join you at the spa and soak his head. And guess who Stuart told? It took some effort to track down which spa and what time, but you see, Molly, you’re not the only one with investigative skills.”
Agnes quietly made her way to her desk and picked up the phone. She was sobbing. Her face was a picture of terror. She let the handset drop. “The phone’s dead.” She grabbed her head with both hands and stared wild-eyed at Carol. “Are you crazy?” Agnes exclaimed, a redundant question if ever there was one. “You’ve blocked your own escape as well!”
“I want to die. I deserve it. But so do the two of you. If you’d just let this go, no one else would have had to die. It’s your fault every bit as much as it is mine.”
“Let us go, Carol,” Agnes said, still sobbing. “I didn’t tell anyone except Sylvia. And when you killed her… I kept quiet, just like you told me to.”
“Just like I forced you to, you mean, you little thief!”
“I told you, I was just in a jam! I gave the money back!” She looked at me and at the door. “Molly’s got two young children.”
“Too late now.” Again she gestured at the door to the hallway. “My invention there doesn’t come with a key.” She tried to step around me, but I blocked her path again. “Let me open the door. Let the fire in. This will all be over sooner that way.”
“No!” I grabbed Carol. In the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Agnes’s coat on a rack in the corner. “Agnes, push your coat against the door. We’ve got to block off the smoke.”
Agnes grabbed her coat and came toward us, just as Carol pried her wrist free and then tried to lunge past me. I grabbed at her again and wound up falling, knocking us both to the floor. Agnes quickly got her coat into place. Then she helped me overpower Carol, fighting Carol so savagely that I yelled, “Agnes, just hold her down.”
This was a windowless, interior room. The door to the adjoining room where Carol had started the fire was so hot to the touch that we would probably have to make our way through a wall of flames to reach its windows.
I scrambled to my feet and scanned the wall to the hallway, now our only means of escape. It appeared to be made out of Sheetrock. I kicked through the inside piece with little effort, intentionally not putting much force behind my thrust until I knew where the studs were.
“No, Molly! What are you doing?” Carol shrieked from behind me. In spite of myself, I looked back to see her getting to her feet.
“Agnes! Don’t let her go!”
It was too late. Seeing that I’d made the beginnings of an exit for us, she ran toward it and me.
Carol, instead of trying to stop us, kicked Agnes’s coat away from the door to the burning room, grabbed the now red-hot doorknob, and threw the door open.
I automatically shielded my face and didn’t look, my own screams blending with Carol’s and an unbearable heat blasting through the air.
Kicking and clawing desperately, Agnes had enlarged the hole I’d started. She managed to jam herself through the gap between the studs in the wall. Immediately after her, I jammed through, as well. Coughing, barely able to see with my stinging eyes, I made it into the hallway, which was deserted, unaffected by the mortal combat taking place in one of its rooms.
Agnes, whimpering and sobbing in fright, ran toward the building’s main exit.
“Agnes! We have to find the security guard!”
She kept going, bolting out the door as if she hadn’t heard.
A somewhat muffled male voice called from a nearby room, “Help! I can’t get out of here!”
The man began banging on the door, which I threw open. It was the security guard. He grabbed me by both shoulders. “How’d you…” He examined the doorknob, which was unencu
mbered on the side facing the hallway. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. That elderly lady on the school board marched in here a while ago, yanked my phone clear out of the wall, stole my radio, and slapped this damn thing on the doorknob. I couldn’t get out!”
“We need to find a phone for 911 and get out of here!” I cried, my insides reeling.
The guard said, “Come on,” and pulled me along. “I got a second radio in my car. I’ll call for help from outside.”
Within moments, I was standing in the parking lot of the Ed Center, watching smoke ascend from the back of the building, all the while taking deep breaths of sweet, cold air.
Hours later, Betty Cocker sat on my lap in the loveseat with Jim beside me and Karen and Nathan on the adjacent couch. Despite my change of clothes after a lengthy shower, the smoke seemed permanently emblazoned into my sense of smell.
Our local regular programming was soon interrupted to broadcast a report about the fire and its cause at the Ed Center. The story confirmed for the first time what I feared: Carol Barr had died. I sat with tears streaming down my face, but felt too numb, somehow, to sob. I’d always liked Carol. She’d seemed so caring and capable. How could she appear to be so sane and competent, and yet secretly be so murderous and crazily obsessed by the horror of a raging fire?
I dried my eyes and sighed. When I looked up, Karen was watching me. She smiled and said, “Good job, Mom,” and gave me a hug.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I answered, my throat still considerably sore from breathing in the fumes.
“I never get to be on television!” Nathan grumbled.
“Let’s hope none of us do, ever again,” I said.
An hour or so ago, my mom had been over to see if I was all right and to tell me that Dad would be over later.
The doorbell rang. I promptly announced to Jim and the kids, “Let me get this,” pushed BC off my lap, and got up to answer.
Indeed, my father was standing on the porch, a stunning bouquet of long-stemmed white roses in his arms. Caught off guard at the sight of the flowers, I stammered, “Hi, Dad. Come on in,” and pushed the screen door aside for him.
Death on a School Board (Book 5 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 23