One problem still remained. Which sister’s name should he use? Which one was more likely to have unknowingly compromised her password? The answer was as obvious as the thick moustache on his face – Sister Pat. He exhaled deeply as he began to type “srpmeehan” in the space for username and “Avignon1868” in the space for password. He prepared himself for a reappearance of the error message. Instead, a menu of all of the school’s databases appeared on the screen. His low estimation of Sister Pat’s abilities had once again been proven correct.
Everything that one could possibly want to know about Holy Trinity was now mere clicks away. He selected the “Governance” tab and located a “Board of Trustees” folder. Within that folder were various subfolders including one marked “Minutes.” Upon opening that folder, he found links to monthly minutes of the board dating back to 2009. Over the years, Bishop had requested that the minutes of board meetings be made available to the faculty and staff. They are major stakeholders in the school, and it seemed to him a reasonable request. His requests had been summarily dismissed.
He paused before he opened the file containing the minutes of the last meeting. Was it proper for him to read those minutes? He hadn’t done anything illegal in obtaining access. It had been a fortuitous hunch that led to these documents. The school’s refusal to share information with the faculty except on an “as needed” basis had all the hallmarks of a totalitarian dictatorship. The school was in some sort of a financial crisis. As a result, teachers were about to be let go. Furthermore, it was probable that someone was stealing from the school, and Ed Cooper’s murder was possibly linked to his discovery of that wrongdoing. To Bishop, it seemed not only proper, but also necessary, that he break through the administration’s shroud of secrecy.
The minutes consisted of a series of reports from various subcommittees, most of which were rather boring. Admissions indicated that enrollment for the next academic year was stable and in line with expectations. Reports regarding academics, student affairs, curriculum, buildings and grounds, and marketing didn’t yield any surprises. He expected the finance report to be more interesting, and it was. The chair proudly announced that the current fiscal year ending on June 30th was projected to conclude with a surplus of about $25,000. Surplus? Why were they eliminating staff positions if there was a surplus? What about the $1.2 million deficit? Sister Ann and Dan Morehouse had definitely used that figure as the amount of the gap that required such draconian measures as reductions in personnel, a wage freeze, and even the end of free lunches for the staff.
Bishop didn’t stop for lunch even though he actually had some food in the house. His reading fed a desire for answers that was more urgent. The principal’s report provided the key. Among the many items in her report, Sister Ann mentioned that the school’s endowment fund balance was approximately $85,000 compared to $1.3 million at the same time last year. There it was! There was the $1.2 million gap. Instead of explaining what had caused such a large decline, Sister simply moved on to offer suggestions for closing that gap including staff cuts and an increase in tuition. Motions were made and passed without any questions or discussion, at least according to the minutes. No questions? No discussion? How could that be true?
***
He closed the folder containing the minutes of past meetings and began searching the site for access to the endowment fund. He navigated to the appropriate folder quite easily. Whoever had created this site was at least well organized. The problem was that only a few select individuals were given the rights to read its content.
The vibrating of his cell phone startled him. He picked up the phone, saw that the caller was Debbie, and decided to let her leave a message. Why would she be calling him on a Saturday? Perhaps she just wanted to thank him for helping her keep her job. His shoulders and neck ached from spending so much time hunched over his laptop, but he quickly got back to the task at hand.
As he opened various folders and files, he confronted columns of numbers whose significance eluded him. He was an English teacher, not an accountant. He opened a portfolio folder and found that the school had positions in a number of stocks. He was reminded of the title of a Robert Heinlein science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. What little he knew about the stock market could fit on one side of an index card. Grace had dabbled in stocks. In fact, she had been quite successful at it. As a realtor, she sometimes received bonus money for achieving a certain dollar amount of sales. She paid attention to trends, and when she found a stock that she liked, she used her bonus to buy in early. By the time other investors piled in and pushed the stock price up, she usually liquidated her position, making a tidy profit. Her strategy didn’t always work, but it did more often than not. Win or lose, she always had been a bit of a gambler. In fact, she was at the casinos in Las Vegas when she died.
It hadn’t occurred to him that the school would be invested in the stock market. That would appear to be too risky a place for Holy Trinity to invest its funds. He realized that the school hadn’t actually purchased the stocks that they held. Rather, they had been donated by various benefactors, some living and some deceased. He remembered that his wife often complained about the capital gains taxes that she had to pay on the profits of her stock transactions. One way of avoiding such taxes was by donating the stocks to a non-profit. This benefitted not only the recipient, but also the donors who could lower their taxes by taking the value of the gift as a charitable deduction.
The question remained: How did the school lose $1.2 million at a time when the market was rising? Then it occurred to him that Ed Cooper had probably looked at these same files. He had written the password on a piece of paper he kept in his wallet, and he had made a hobby of studying the stock market. What discovery had he made while looking at these pages? Whatever it was most likely had led to his death. Bishop could only hope that a similar fate did not await him.
Two hours later, he was just about ready to give up. The words from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Ulysses,” came to mind - “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” That was when he noticed something unusual. He compared the current list of holdings to a list from the previous year. Something wasn’t right. The number of shares of certain stocks had declined in a strange pattern. The school currently held 154 shares of Google compared to the 1,154 shares listed in an earlier report. Exactly one thousand shares had been sold. Bishop quickly checked yesterday’s closing price for that stock. $612. A thousand shares of Google were worth more than $600,000. Trinity’s position in some other stocks had been liquidated in similar fashion. Doing some quick math in his head, he realized that these stock sales would have yielded approximately $1.2 million. Once the stocks had been sold, the cash equivalent should have been credited to the account. The problem was that the stocks were gone as well as the cash. Someone had stolen that money, sending the school into a financial crisis. Why hadn’t anyone on the board realized what had happened? Who could have done this? Whoever it was had probably killed Ed Cooper.
***
After printing out copies of all pages that he thought might be relevant, he logged out of the school’s website. He got up from his desk and went out to get the mail from the box at the end of the driveway. The smell of freshly cut grass reminded him of the task that he had left unfinished.
Back inside, he made himself a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. He added some chips and some baby carrots to his paper plate, grabbed a cold soda from the fridge, and went into the sunroom to have a late lunch. He ate quickly, cleaned up, and went out to finish mowing. He had a lot to think about.
The sun was now much stronger as he continued his methodical movement across the field. He had accessed sections of the school’s records without authorization. Had he committed a crime? He assumed that if Sister Ann became aware of his activity, she would not hesitate to dismiss him. If the list of names that Terry had seen on her desk was any indication, she planned on letting him go anyway. His action would only make it easier
just as Frank Wilson’s physical assault on Dan Morehouse assured that his days at the school were at an end.
On the other hand, he hadn’t accessed the files in order to change, damage or delete them. His intention had been simply to follow a hunch that the murder of Ed Cooper was in some way connected to his possession of that password. Ed had, after all, told Debbie that he knew someone was stealing from the school and that he was going to take care of it. He also told her that he would be coming into some big money. If accessing those files led to solving the mystery of Ed’s death, Bishop’s ethically questionable incursion into the school’s data would have been both necessary and worthwhile.
It seemed highly unlikely that his examination of the files would be detected. He hadn’t hacked into the system; he had used a password that Sister Pat had clearly not sufficiently protected. For the moment, he decided not to discuss his use of that password with anyone, including Lieutenant Hodge. It was possible that he had discovered nothing more than a clerical error in the listing of the school’s portfolio of stocks. It was also possible that he had uncovered the motive for Ed’s murder.
The mower’s engine suddenly sputtered and quit. It had run out of gas. As he made his way to the garage to get more fuel, he wondered whether the pursuit of Ed’s killer had similarly run out of gas. Many of the original suspects seemed to have been cleared. Amy Davis with whom Ed had been living turned out to be his half sister, not a spurned lover. Ryan Baxter, Amy’s boyfriend, hadn’t been working at UPS at the time of Ed’s death, but he apparently had been with another woman at that time. Debbie Bates had helped Ed get the custodian’s job, and took his death especially hard as they were planning to get back together. Jack Slater, who didn’t hide his dislike for Ed, had just admitted to a crime, but it was stealing money from the girls’ lockers, not murder. Of course, there was also the man in the car or truck with the numbers that Elwin Crimins claims to have seen near the school grounds on the morning of the murder. How reliable was that information?
A couple of new angles had emerged. Ed had caught seniors Tim Kelleher and Hannah Ward in the storage area beneath the stage and forced them to pay for his silence. Fear of Ed’s hold over them might have been enough of a motive for either one or both of them to commit murder. In addition, Samantha Graham’s name had come up. Ed had taken an interest in this attractive but flighty girl. Had she done something that she regretted and wanted to cover up? Had her boyfriend or her father found out and sought revenge against Ed?
The mowing finished, he realized that he wasn’t any closer to understanding why Ed had been killed or who had done it. After a quick shower, he decided to touch base with the lieutenant. Jack no longer appeared to be a suspect; Samantha Graham or someone close to her, might be. He told him that he had spent much of the afternoon mowing the lawn which was true. What he failed to tell him was that he had also spent hours on his computer. It wasn’t a lie; it just wasn’t the whole truth.
After that short call, Bishop settled on the sofa and started watching the Mets. Bartolo Colon, one of the oldest players in the majors, had eight strikeouts in only four innings. As Bishop watched the hapless batters swing and miss, he wondered whether another old man could use his guile to catch a killer. He soon fell asleep, having completely forgotten that Debbie had called and that he meant to call her back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As is often the case, the weekend slipped by all too quickly, and Bishop found himself sitting at his desk waiting for his homeroom students to arrive. As usual, Sister Pat had been holding up the wall near the main entrance. What was unusual was the obviously good mood that she was in. She practically beamed at him as he greeted her and walked by. “Enjoy your day!” she smirked. Something was definitely in the works; he just didn’t know what.
He had considered confronting Sister Ann regarding the school’s diminished stock portfolio. However, the only way that he could do that was to admit that he had accessed the confidential database, and he wasn’t about to do that at this point. Who else might know what was going on? He assumed that the board members would know, but he didn’t have a close relationship with any of them. In fact, he didn’t even know the names of all of the members of the board until he had looked at the minutes of their last meeting which listed those who were in attendance and those who were absent or excused. Dan Morehouse was the most visible member of the board in the school, although after being attacked by Frank Wilson, he might think twice about dropping by the faculty lunchroom. Dan might be able to explain the school’s financial difficulties off the record.
Students began trickling into homeroom. He greeted each one as they surveyed the scene, deciding whether they really wanted to sit down and get some work done or just drop their books on their desk and head back out into the halls where the action was. The few students who had taken their places were speculating as to why Billy Sprowl was in Mr. Mitchell’s homeroom with the door closed. Bishop knew exactly why. The first step in the process of forgiveness was admitting the mistake. Bishop hoped that Charlie’s response would be measured. He had already sent an email to Diane Ramos, moderator of the National Honor Society, with the particulars of the actions of both Billy and Clare Mooney. He had requested that Diane convene the faculty council to review the matter at their earliest convenience. Would that be sufficient to placate Charlie?
Bishop was mildly surprised that Charlie did not make an appearance in his room before the homeroom period ended. He didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not. Was he simply waiting for a more opportune time to unleash his fury against Billy?
During the year, Bishop kept a folder of every paper written by each of his students. From short reading quizzes, to spelling and vocabulary quizzes, to tests, essays, major papers and other projects – all were collected in the folder. It was, in a sense, a written record of their achievements in his class. With finals only a week away, he gave the students time to review their portfolios. Their task was to revisit each paper and decide what papers to save as representative of their progress during the year. He had a dual purpose in mind. In looking through their papers, he wanted his students to remind themselves of all that they had accomplished as a class. He also wanted them to make observations about their individual strengths and weaknesses.
“At the end of this week, you will leave this class for the last time,” he said. Several of them smiled at the thought of a summer without schoolwork. “What I’m interested in are the skills and insights that you take with you when you leave.” The smiles faded as they understood the significance of what he said. What followed was a furious shuffling of papers as each student took seriously the task of evaluating an impressive stack of papers.
When the class period ended, each folder had been reorganized with the papers that they felt best represented their work grouped together at the top of the stack. As they left, many were sharing their reactions to what they had just done. On the last class day, he would ask them to record their reflections on paper, not for a grade, but for a sense of completeness to the ten months that they had spent together.
***
After class, he went down to the main office to talk with Terry. The windows were wide open, but there was no breeze. She looked a bit frazzled as she tried to get some relief from the heavy, muggy air with the small fan on her desk.
“How’s it going today?”
“Don’t ask,” she replied, as she made sure that the fan was at its highest setting.
“Why don’t you turn on the air conditioner?”
She glanced around to see if anyone was in listening distance. “I’ll tell you why. It was quite hot last Friday afternoon, and I closed the office doors and turned the AC on for the first time this season. Within fifteen minutes, Sister Pat came in, left the door open, walked right up to the window, shut the unit down, and headed back to her office without saying a single word.
“Didn’t you ask her why she did that?”
“I sure did, and
I got my head handed to me. Honestly, that woman …” Although Terry didn’t finish that sentence, Bishop had a fairly good idea of what she was thinking. Even though he had a lot to accomplish during this free period, he couldn’t resist asking Terry for further details.
“How did she explain herself?”
“According to her,” Terry said mockingly, “it’s unprofessional to close the doors to the main office, and it’s a waste of electricity to run the air conditioner with the doors open.”
“Well, why did they install a unit in that window in the first place if you aren’t allowed to use it?”
“Good question, Mike. She also informed me that she was going to have Jack remove it as soon as he had a chance.”
“Unbelievable!” He shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “And she’s sitting in her air-conditioned office with the door close doing whatever it is that she does.”
“You got it!” said Terry, feeling no cooler but pleased that she could vent to her friend.
“Listen, Terry, I’ve got a quick question for you.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Samantha Graham.”
“Graham Crackers?” she responded with a laugh. “What about her?”
“Boyfriend?”
“Several. Why do you ask?”
“I heard that Ed Cooper had expressed some interest in her, and I wondered if there was anything more to it.”
Terry raised her eyebrows as if to suggest that she had something to share. The phone rang which seemed to annoy Terry, but she answered in her typically perky voice. After listening for a moment, she efficiently dispensed with the caller by punching in an extension and announcing, “There’s a Mr. Martin for you on Line 3.”
Schooled in Deception: A Michael Bishop Mystery Page 19