He had left the prom early the night before. He noticed that Billy spent most of the evening seated at one of the tables farthest from the dance floor. He probably was already dreading his meeting with Mitchell on Monday and the consequences that would follow. Clare Mooney, on the other hand, had kicked off her shoes and danced the night away, seemingly without a care in the world. Did she really believe that her threats would be successful? Bishop had considered advising Billy to give her a copy of the stolen exam, and then watch her reaction when she sat for a totally different exam and realized that she had been duped. Ultimately, Bishop had decided to inform the faculty council of the unethical behavior of both young people. After an investigation and due process, those five teachers would decide whether probation or removal from the National Honor Society was warranted.
***
With his leisurely breakfast finished, Bishop headed off to the grocery store. He didn’t need a list since he knew he was out of just about everything. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars later, he was back at home putting everything away. That done, he changed into work clothes, grabbed his straw hat, and went out to mow some of the lawn. Since the area he mowed was the equivalent of several football fields, he usually mowed for an hour at a time. In between, he might do some laundry, grade some papers, or catch up on his reading. Although some found mowing so onerous that they gladly paid someone to do it for them, Bishop considered the repetition relaxing. Other than in the shower, he did some of his best thinking while riding the tractor.
He was just settling into the routine when he noticed an older-model truck pull into his driveway. Thinking that someone might be in need of directions, he switched off the blades and rode the mower across the field and toward the house. A man had gotten out of the truck and waved. As he got closer, he realized that it was Jack Slater. In the eight or ten years that they had worked together, he couldn’t recall that Jack had ever been to his house. They were acquaintances, but not close friends. Why was Jack here now? Had something happened to his wife? To one of their colleagues? When he reached the driveway, he turned off the mower’s engine and greeted Jack. He had hoped to catch up with Jack on Monday anyway. This was actually more convenient.
He was wearing the same sort of clothes that he wore to work most days. As the only maintenance man at the moment, perhaps he had already spent some time at school this morning. “Sorry to take you away from your mowing.”
“Don’t be. The grass isn’t going anywhere,” he said with a laugh. “Come on in the house.” He led the way through the garage and into the kitchen. “Sit down,” he said as he gestured to a chair at the table. “Can I get you some coffee or iced tea or maybe a soda?”
“I guess I’ll have a Coke.”
“No Coke. Pepsi.” He smiled as he said it, hoping that Jack would catch the SNL reference. He didn’t.
“Sure. Whatever.” Jack’s eyes wandered as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings. Something was clearly bothering him.
Bishop filled two glasses with ice, grabbed two cans of soda, and placed them on the table. Congratulating himself for getting the shopping done early, he also put some chocolate chip cookies on a plate. Jack popped the top of the can and filled his glass. He took a long swallow and just sat there looking at the glass. It was obvious that Bishop would have to start the conversation. “What brings you out to my neck of the woods?”
“I … I just … had to talk to you,” he managed to say without looking at Bishop.
That was the second time in a little more than twelve hours that someone had said something similar to him.
He gave him a reassuring smile. “Okay. What’s up?”
Looking down at the plate of untouched cookies, he managed to say, “I … did it. I did it.” His eyes filled with tears, and he covered his face with his calloused hands.
He did it? Did what? Was the man sitting across from him at his kitchen table a murderer? Had he just confessed to killing Ed Cooper? Bishop sought to maintain his composure as Jack struggled to regain his.
“Why don’t you take your time and tell me what happened?”
He looked at Bishop. “It’s just like you said.”
So it was Jack after all. His first instinct had been correct. The other suspects … and there were many … were innocent. Amy Davis. Ryan Baxter. Debbie Bates. Tim Kelleher. Hannah Ward. Elwin Crimins’ man with the numbers if he even existed. All innocent.
“I took the money from those girls.”
What? He did what? It took Bishop a moment to process what he had just heard. Without prompting, Jack explained.
“One of the girls had complained that her gym locker door didn’t shut right, so I went in there early one morning to take a look. There was a twenty just sitting there. I don’t know what came over me.” He paused for a moment as if he were still trying to understand his own behavior. “After that, I started opening other lockers and took any cash that I found. Most of these kids have more money than they know what to do with, and they are so careless with it.”
Bishop wouldn’t allow him to rationalize his wrongdoing. “It doesn’t matter whether they have money or not.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“And leaving money in a locked locker doesn’t sound careless to me.”
“I know. I know,” he replied as he rubbed his hand across the stubble on his face. “What am I going to do? I can’t afford to lose my job.” Tears came to his eyes again as he expressed his worst fear. “I don’t want Mabel to find out. It would kill her.”
Bishop recalled seeing Mabel in the grocery store earlier in the week. He understood why Jack didn’t want to burden his wife with his misdeeds as she battled a life-threatening illness. “Well, for starters, you need to make restitution.”
“With what?” he asked in a tone of hopelessness. “I gambled it all away. I don’t even know how much I took or who I took it from.”
“When Luigi delivered the pizza and wings, he mentioned that you had been spending a lot on tickets and scratch-offs. Is that why you skipped the party? Were you afraid of what he would say if you bumped into him?”
He managed a little smile. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“And the locker room thefts stopped when you stopped gambling.”
“Right again. When Ed got killed, I figured that if I didn’t take any more money, everyone would assume that Ed had been thief.” There must have been a momentary sense of relief as he unburdened his guilty conscience, but his fears soon returned. “Do you think I’ll lose my job?”
“I don’t know.” Jack was a bit of a busybody and temperamental at times, but he was basically a good person, a good husband, and a good worker. He had made a terrible mistake, not unlike everyone else at some point or other. Would Sister Ann and Sister Pat give him a second chance? Even though compassion was a charism of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary, retaliation and revenge were more their style. One factor working in his favor was that he was the only maintenance person on the staff at the moment. Would they abruptly dismiss him without having a suitable replacement? “Perhaps we can resolve this without informing the good sisters.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack, clearly intrigued by the possibility of keeping his job.
“I know that Ron Jennings has a list of all of the girls who reported thefts in the past few weeks and how much each of them lost.” Bishop was formulating a plan as he spoke. “If you made full restitution, there would be no need for anyone to press charges.”
“But I don’t even know how much I took and sure as hell don’t have the money to pay it back,” he said dejectedly.
“I know that it’s at least five hundred dollars. I’ll loan you the money.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Do you have a better idea?” When Jack failed to respond, Bishop continued. “I’ll loan you the money on three conditions: one, you tell Ron everything you just told me; two, you agree in writing to repay the loan at the rate of twenty-five do
llars a week; and three, you agree to be evaluated, and treated if necessary, for a possible gambling addiction as well as to seek professional help in dealing with your wife’s illness.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He reached across the table to shake Bishop’s hand. “Thank you, my friend.”
Jack stood up to leave. He thanked Bishop again and promised to get in touch with Ron Jennings as soon as possible. As he watched Jack get in his truck, Bishop hoped that he had done the right thing. As he had learned over the years, knowing the “right thing” wasn’t always perfectly clear. He had done what he thought was best considering all of the circumstances.
Jack started the engine and leaned out of the window. “I bet you thought I killed Ed Cooper,” he said with a grin. He seemed a different man than the one who had arrived earlier.
Bishop didn’t want to admit how right he was. “Well, anyone who had contact with him would have to be considered a suspect, I guess.”
“I don’t mind telling you I’m glad he’s gone.”
“Why is that?”
“He hadn’t been working more than a day or two, and I caught him hitting on one of the girls. Can you believe that? I ripped into him good. Told him if I ever caught him with one of the girls, he’d be out on his ass.”
“Mind telling me who the girl was?”
“Samantha Graham,” he replied as he put the truck in gear, waved a goodbye, and headed down the hill.
***
Bishop grabbed his straw hat, hopped back on the mower, and resumed his mindless journey back and forth on the dandelion-filled yard.
Samantha Graham. He knew who she was. Just about everyone in the school knew her. The kids called her “Crackers.” Apparently, she had the potential to be an honor roll student, but she preferred socializing to studying. Although she was only a junior, she could pass for twenty-something. Given her stunning good looks, it wasn’t surprising that she had gotten the attention of Ed Cooper. He wondered whether that relationship had gone beyond the talking stage.
It seemed clear that Jack was no longer a suspect in Ed’s murder. His recent behavior could be explained by his feelings of guilt surrounding the thefts in the locker room. If Jack was in the clear, his account of Ed’s interest in Samantha warranted adding a few more suspects. Might Samantha have been secretly seeing Ed? Might she be responsible for his death? What about a jealous boyfriend? He made a mental note to get the name of her current boyfriend from Terry. What about her father? If he found out that his seventeen-year-old daughter was involved with an older man, might he have taken matters into his own hands?
After about an hour of mowing, he went back into the house for a break. He picked up one of the chocolate chips cookies on the kitchen table, poured a glass of milk, and checked his phone for messages. Not surprisingly, there was one from Ron. He hit the call button, and Ron picked up right away.
“I called you as soon as Jack left my house. It’s been some week, hasn’t it? First, Frank gets suspended for throwing some punches, and now Jack admits to stealing that money.”
“Don’t forget Ed’s killer. That person could be one of the staff, one of the students, or someone not connected with the school at all.”
“Let’s hope it’s the latter.” Bishop heard the sound of a refrigerator door closing. Ron was probably looking for a mid-morning snack. “I know the girls will be happy to get their money back, and I’m happy that the case is closed.”
“Assuming that Jack follows through on all of the conditions,” Bishop added.
“Yeah, right. I think he will, don’t you?”
“I certainly hope so. I just didn’t want to see Sister Ann or Sister Pat destroy that man for one mistake.”
“Agreed. I think that your conditions were more than fair, and Jack told me several times how much he appreciates what you are doing for him.”
“Jack’s situation just underscores the fact that we never really know what someone is capable of doing in any given situation.” Bishop again thought of the killer in their midst.
“Switching gears, can I ask you what was Billy Sprowl’s problem last night?”
“Oh, that,” he said as if he had momentarily forgotten. “I’m sure that you’d hear about it on Monday anyway. Billy admitted taking Charlie Mitchell’s folder containing the final exam.”
“No kidding! What are you a priest or something? Seems everyone wants to confess his sins to you,” he said teasing his good friend.
Bishop dismissed the comment with a forced laugh. “Everyone except the murderer, that is.”
“Charlie’s going to explode when he finds out.”
“I hope not. Billy is not the only one involved in this.”
“Really? What do you mean?” he asked as he munched on something.
“Clare Mooney knew that Billy had the exam, and she was pressuring him to give her a copy. I am going to give both names to the faculty council. I am hoping that Charlie will let the council decide on their punishment.”
“They could get bounced from the National Honor Society?”
“That’s right. I’m disappointed in both of them. They will have to learn that poor choices have consequences.”
They talked for a few more minutes, mostly about Mary Ellen. From his limited contact with her at the bank, Bishop agreed that she seemed to be a very lovely person. What he kept to himself was the knowledge that people were not always what they appeared to be.
He was about to return to his mowing when it occurred to him that he needed to transfer funds from one account to another in order to give Jack the money that he had promised him. As he sat down at his laptop to make that online transaction, he wondered how rapid advances in technology might put people like Mary Ellen out of work. He logged in, but before he could conduct any business, the bank’s security system forced him to change his password. Although he knew that it was a good practice to change passwords frequently, he still found the process somewhat annoying. He had so many passwords to remember that he had begun to write them down in a small memo pad that he kept locked in the top drawer of his desk.
He followed the directions on the screen for creating a new password. He had read somewhere that the most common password was 123456. Another favorite was the word “password” itself. The bank’s system would not allow for such easy-to-guess passwords by requiring that the password be between 8 and 20 characters in length. Customers also had to use at least one letter, one number, and one capital letter. As he contemplated creating his new password, it suddenly hit him. “Avignon 1868” was a password!
Chapter Twenty-One
He jumped up and started pacing the house. A password! Of course! Given the relevance of that place and date to the Sisters of the Holy Rosary, he suspected that Ed Cooper had somehow managed to obtain access to the confidential files of Holy Trinity High School. According to Debbie, Ed had discovered that someone was stealing from the school. He might very well have made that discovery using the password that he kept in his wallet. From his prison report and from Debbie’s comments, he knew that Ed was a stock market whiz. Perhaps the theft had something to do with stocks, assuming that the school even owned any stocks. He had told Debbie that he was going to take care of the problem on his own. That might have been his fatal error in judgment.
How could he test his theory? He sat back down at the computer and logged out of the banking site. He would take care of that little item of business later. As a teacher, Bishop had access to places on the Trinity website that were denied to the public. He could, for example, access attendance records and grade reports. He could also add, change, or delete items in those files. If his assumption was correct, he now had the password to gain access to all of the school’s records. But who was the user associated with that password? He knew that the system would lock him out after three failed attempts. He also knew that faculty usernames consisted of the first initial of the first name followed by the last name. His user name was “mbishop.”
He pulled up the school’s login page. His fingers became moist as he typed in “acowie” and the password.
“Username or password incorrect” appeared in red on the screen. Had he remembered to start the password with a capital letter? Perhaps his theory was wrong and “Avignon 1868” wasn’t the password at all. Had he typed a space between the city and the date without thinking? Usually, there were no spaces in a password. He knew that he had only two more chances to get this right. After three failed attempts, the system locked the user out until the network administrator could be contacted to reset the password. In Trinity’s case, one of the network administrators was Sister Pat. She had nagged the principal to be given that role even though she was always annoyed when anyone needed her assistance. Most of the actual work was done by Jim Stevens in technology. Bishop knew that he couldn’t ask anyone for help now.
He had to try again. This time he decided to try the name of the assistant principal as the user. He stared at the blank space on the screen as if doing that might cause the correct letters to appear. He slowly typed in “pmeehan” for the username. Then, he very carefully typed in “Avignon1868” making sure that he started with a capital letter and that he didn’t leave a space between the “n” and the “1.”
“Username or password incorrect” appeared again in red on the screen. What now? He got up from his desk to consider the possibilities. He had only one more chance to do this correctly. He felt strongly that the password was correct. The problem was the username. Certainly, one or both of them had to have complete access to the website. Why didn’t either name work? He was considering getting on the riding mower to clear his mind when he remembered something. He rushed back to his desk and pulled up a directory of faculty email addresses. That was it! How could he have forgotten? All of the sisters at the school used “sr” before their first initial. His memory lapse had almost cost him a chance to continue his investigation.
Schooled in Deception: A Michael Bishop Mystery Page 18