“No, but I’m sure you can do it.”
*
Friday morning Lisa rushed back and forth between the café and the printer in Flagstaff, checking a proof copy of the yard signs and bumper stickers and then picking up the actual order in the afternoon. Driving into Moss Creek with a trunk full of signs she’d designed herself, Lisa felt a surge of pride. Her mother had asked, and Lisa had delivered.
Her phone rang as she arrived in the town square. Lisa pulled over to park and looked at the screen. Carly was calling. Lisa picked up.
“Hi, Carly,” she said, a smile on her face at hearing from her best friend.
“Hi. I hate to do this, but I need to ask you a favor. Are you free?” Carly said.
“Sure,” Lisa said. “I’m actually in my car right now.”
“But not using your cell while driving, right?” Carly said, the stern teacher-voice coming through.
“Nope, parked,” Lisa said.
“Ok, good. I need to do midterm grades for my class.”
“During your maternity leave?” Lisa asked, incredulous.
“Yeah. Being a teacher is no light responsibility. The principal wants the grades done by the official classroom teacher unless it’s physically impossible.”
“Wow, who knew?”
“Anyway, I need some info from the classroom, and it’s almost the end of the school day, and Liam just fell asleep. If I wait for him to wake up, the school might already be locked for the weekend. But if I wake him up, he might never go to sleep again in my lifetime. Ever.”
Lisa laughed.
“Not joking,” Carly said, sounding tired.
“Sorry, I know it’s hard. But whatever you need me to do, I’m here for you.”
Carly let out a big sigh that turned into a yawn. “Thank you.”
“Should I go right to the school, or come by your house first?” Lisa said.
“Come by the house so I can give you my key ring. Oh, and make sure you have your ID on you. Security has gotten tighter at school.”
“I’ll be right there.”
A few minutes later, Lisa was pulling up in front of Carly’s house. When she reached the door, Carly opened it with a finger to her lips in a shushing motion. Lisa nodded. Carly stepped outside and eased the door most of the way closed.
“Here’s my school keys,” she said, handing over a big heavy keyring. “The one with the blue border is the key to the classroom door. If Taylor is still there, you probably won’t need that one. The red border is the teachers’ restroom, in case of emergency. The yellow border is the teachers’ lounge. Um, no real reason you’d need to go there. The little one with this dab of purple nail polish is the key to my desk. The little one with the dab of red nail polish is for the filing cabinet. And this one with the sparkly pink polish is for the supply closet. Don’t think you’ll need that one either.”
Lisa nodded along as Carly explained the mass of keys.
“And here’s a list of everything I need. You’ll probably have to make more than one trip.”
“Really? It won’t all fit in the car?” Lisa said.
Carly giggled. “No, I mean more than one trip from the classroom to the parking lot. The student journals are a whole trip by themselves.”
Lisa drove to Moss Creek Elementary School, a part of her secretly hoping that Taylor would be gone for the day already. The woman had been intolerably rude at the funeral, and Lisa didn’t have warm fuzzies at the idea of spending more time in her presence.
Another part of her hoped Taylor would be there, so Lisa could question her about the rumored infidelity and possibly confirm a motive for murder. She could hear Toby’s voice in her mind telling her not to get involved, to just let the professionals do their job. But there was something so satisfying about learning the truth and catching a killer. And could she help it if she seemed to have a knack for it?
The school’s faculty parking lot held three vehicles. Lisa pulled into a space close to the door, grabbed Carly’s keyring, and got out of the car.
Inside, student art on the walls of the hallway brought Lisa back to her own childhood. She remembered the feeling of pride that swelled in her breast at seeing her own best efforts at art or science adorning the wall for everyone to see. It had been a special treat any time her father in particular came to the school.
Now everything looked impossibly small, the drinking fountains positively Lilliputian. Lisa found her way to room 20. A bright set of paper letters on the door spelled out ‘Mrs. Johnson’s 3rd Grade Class’. Lisa found the blue key and unlocked the door.
The crate of student journals was sitting next to the teacher’s desk. Lisa grabbed it first and carried it out to the car. Locking it in the trunk with the yard signs, she came back in and started looking for the other things on Carly’s list.
She unlocked the desk and opened a drawer. A purse sat in the drawer. Lisa looked around. When she had walked in to find an empty classroom, she’d assumed Taylor had already gone home. But if her purse was still there, it meant Taylor was still in the building somewhere.
A small beep sounded from inside the purse. Lisa drew in a breath. Was that Taylor’s cell phone? Maybe she could find out more information about Taylor and Dan.
Lisa went to the door and poked her head out into the hall, looking up and down. Empty. She closed the door and locked it, going back to the desk.
Lisa opened the purse and fished out the cell phone. She pressed the home key, hoping it wasn’t password protected. The phone turned on, showing a screen full of icons. More interesting, there was a photo serving as the phone’s wallpaper. It was a photo of Taylor kissing a handsome man. But that handsome man was definitely not Dan Weston.
Lisa thought she heard footsteps outside and dropped the phone back in the purse. After a couple of seconds the footsteps moved on down the hall. She took the phone out again and opened a messaging app. The latest message was from someone named Matt. Lisa opened the message to a series of very explicit pictures exchanged between Taylor and Matt.
“I guess Matt’s the other guy,” she murmured to herself.
She flicked the screen to scroll past the dirty pictures and see if there was any actual text in the text message chain.
Bingo. The previous Friday, a series of messages starting at 3pm.
“Just leaving school. See you soon XOXO,” said a message from Taylor.
“Can’t wait, baby. XXXO,” said a message from Matt.
“Looks like no traffic between here and Phoenix! Just two hours until I’m in your arms XOXO,” said a message from Taylor.
“I’ve got a bottle of wine chilling for you, baby, XXXO,” said a message from Matt.
“Stopped for gas, see you soon,” said a message from Taylor an hour later.
Then there was a break in the messaging time stamps, with the next one not sent until Sunday night.
“Miss you already, text me when you get home, XXXO,” said a message from Matt on Sunday evening.
Lisa frowned. Had Taylor spent the weekend in Phoenix? If she had, she couldn’t have killed Dan in Moss Creek on Saturday.
Lisa closed the messaging app and opened a fitness tracker. She scrolled back through to the previous weekend’s stats.
Taylor was in Phoenix.
Disappointment welled up in Lisa for a moment. It was an ugly feeling, knowing that she had hoped a woman was a killer just because she’d been rude.
She opened the messaging app again and scrolled to an exchange between Taylor and Dan.
One of the last messages Taylor had sent to him was a lie about where she was going for the weekend. Lisa scrolled back.
A text from Taylor caught her eye. “I thought you said it was a one-time thing. You’re in over your head. This poker thing is bad news—”
A noise outside alerted Lisa just in time. She dropped the phone in the purse and closed the drawer, opening a different drawer to search for the gradebook.
The classroom door open
ed.
“What are you doing in here?” Taylor said, crossing her arms and staring at Lisa in alarm.
“Carly asked me to pick up her gradebook and some student journals and things,” Lisa said. She stood up and waved the paper in her hand like a matador teasing a bull. “She gave me a list. Maybe you can help me find everything?”
Taylor sighed. “Fine. Let me see it.”
Chapter 20
Lisa handed over the list. Taylor read it over, nodding slowly.
“Ok, the student journals are over there by the—” Taylor stopped and looked around wildly.
“I already got those,” Lisa said.
“Oh. Ok, next on the list…” Taylor dug through the desk drawer.
“Thanks so much for helping me find things,” Lisa said. “I mean, I could probably find it all eventually, but this really speeds things up.”
“Uh huh.” Taylor pulled out a stack of paper and started rifling through it.
“We didn’t really get a chance to talk much the other day. Of course, you had people lining up to speak to you. That must have been stressful.”
“Yeah, a real drag.”
“It was nice that so many people showed up. Dan must have had a lot of friends.”
“Uh huh.” Taylor continued separating the paper into multiple piles on the desk.
“And the city council was there. And the Valentines,” Lisa said. “That Fern Valentine is really something else, huh?”
Taylor snorted. “You’re telling me. That harpy had it in for me since day one. Thought she was better than everyone. Always finding a way to bring up the trailer park.”
“Some people are unbelievable,” Lisa agreed. “So, um, how are you holding up?”
Taylor stopped digging through the papers and looked Lisa right in the eye. “To be honest, I’ll be a lot better when people quit asking me that.”
“Sorry!”
Taylor let out a long sigh. “It’s not your fault. It’s just really bad timing.”
“How so?” Lisa put on her best listening face.
“Have you ever been engaged?”
“Not exactly. But I did live with a guy for, like, a decade,” Lisa said.
“Ok. So when you get engaged, everybody acts all happy all the time, and your whole identity is now bride-to-be.”
“Ok, go on,” Lisa said.
“I had second thoughts. Cold feet. I was getting up the nerve to give back the ring. But then he died, and it’s like everything was frozen in place, a snapshot of what I was supposed to be feeling as a bride,” Taylor said.
“That sounds,” Lisa thought for a second, reaching for the right word, “suffocating.”
“Yes! Exactly.”
“Well, sorry for making it worse,” Lisa said. “As far as I’m concerned, you shouldn’t have to put on an act.”
“Thanks.” Taylor put a final piece of paper on the pile she’d collected and handed the whole thing to Lisa. “There you go. Everything Carly needs.”
“Great. Thanks again for your help,” Lisa said.
Taylor laughed. “I’m just glad I don’t have to do the grading myself.”
Lisa nodded. “Yeah. Oh, hey, I’m getting some people together this weekend, if you’d like to come by. Do you like playing cards?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got plans for the weekend,” Taylor said.
“Maybe another time. You do like cards, though. Spades, hearts, poker?”
Taylor narrowed her eyes. “That’s not really my thing,” she said.
“Ok, um, take care,” Lisa said. She hustled out of the classroom with her stack of paperwork for Carly.
*
Carly was curled in the armchair feeding Liam when Lisa arrived with the materials from the classroom.
“Where do you want all this?” Lisa said.
“Stack it on the dining room table,” Carly said. “Did you have trouble finding anything?”
“No, Taylor was there. She helped me with the list.”
“Good, good.” Carly flinched. “Ow! Liam, no biting Mommy.”
Lisa perched on the sofa. “How well do you know Taylor?” she said.
Carly shrugged one shoulder. “I got to know her a little as I was prepping to go on maternity leave. Why?”
“Did you know she was getting ready to break it off with her fiancé?”
“No,” Carly said, surprised. “How do you know that?”
“She told me. We got talking.”
“Oh, that poor girl,” Carly said. “Can you imagine how it must have felt to be at the funeral getting all those condolences when the relationship was almost over? No wonder she was so…”
“Rude?” Lisa supplied.
Carly laughed. “You noticed it, too? I think the only person in that place she was actually glad to see was little Liam here.”
“Well, he is adorable. Who wouldn’t be glad to see those chubby little cheeks?”
“Mo,” Carly said with another laugh. “Those chubby little cheeks nearly had him stroking out.”
“That’s hardly Liam’s fault. I might have let on to Mo that I was expecting him to propose,” Lisa said, blushing at the memory.
“What? When? I am so out of the loop!” Carly said.
“He took me on this romantic picnic at sunset, and brought sparkling cider and champagne flutes, and I got the idea that he was about to, you know…”
“Pop the question?”
“Precisely. And then he didn’t, and I got kind of bent out of shape.”
Carly nodded, a thoughtful look on her face. “That seems reasonable.”
“He wanted to know what was wrong. It was hard, but I told him.”
“What did he say?” Carly said.
“At the time? Thank you.”
“Men.” Carly shook her head.
“But you want to know what he told me on the way to the funeral? He told me he’d been thinking about it,” Lisa said.
“That seems like a positive step,” Carly said.
“I guess. Sometimes it seems like if we want anything romantic to happen at all, we have to script it out for them.”
“Or find a way to see the things they actually do as romantic. Like changing a diaper so I don’t have to. Now there’s true romance,” Carly said.
“Stop. You’re scaring me,” Lisa said with a laugh.
“True wisdom is scary,” Carly said.
“Right,” Lisa said. “Can I confess something?”
“Of course. You’re my best friend. What did you do?”
“I might have looked through Taylor’s phone while she was out of the room.”
“How did you get into her phone?” Carly said.
“It was in her purse, in the desk.”
“But what about the passcode?” Carly insisted.
“Didn’t have one. I just pushed the home button,” Lisa said.
Carly groaned.
“What’s the matter?” Lisa said.
“Rookies. Do you know what can happen to a teacher with an unlocked phone in the classroom?” Carly said.
“Ooh. Yeah, that could be bad.”
“No kidding it could be bad. That could be fired-bad. Lawsuit-bad.” Carly groaned again. “And now I have to find a way to bring it up to her without ratting you out.”
“Thanks.”
Carly waved that away.
“But do you want to know what I saw on there?” Lisa said.
“If it’s naked pictures, then no.”
“Ok, I won’t tell you about the naked pictures,” Lisa said. “But you know what else I found?”
“What else?”
“She couldn’t have killed Dan Weston.”
“Why would you even say that?” Carly said, her voice rising in anger. “She’s in the classroom with my kids every day and you thought she was a murderer?”
Liam woke up at his mother’s tone and let out a whimper.
“Shhh, shush, baby, shush,” Carly whispered, rocking him.
/> “Sorry, it’s just that people are usually killed by someone they know. And the spouse or fiancée is the usual starting place. Plus, she was acting so weird at the funeral,” Lisa explained. “Guilty and evasive.”
“And we know why.”
“We do now,” Lisa said.
Carly sighed, still rocking the baby.
“What? You’ve got to cover the bases in an investigation,” Lisa said.
“No, the police have to cover the bases in an investigation. You don’t have to do anything,” Carly said.
“Not you, too,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes.
“Why do you get so wrapped up in these things?” Carly said.
“I don’t know. They come into my life uninvited, and then I just can’t let go until I know the truth.” Lisa sighed.
“You’re a little bit crazy, but I love you anyway,” Carly said. A giant yawn cracked her face in half.
“I should go,” Lisa said, getting up.
On the drive home, Lisa realized she hadn’t mentioned the other interesting thing on Taylor’s phone, the cryptic reference to a poker game. Could that be the same game that had ensnared the mayor? Did it mean he was the one who had slipped Mo the note sending him to the illegal poker game the night everyone was arrested? She needed to find out more about that game.
Lisa pulled up at the Folly and remembered she had a trunk full of yard signs and bumper stickers to unload. She paused. Did her mother really intend for her to store them at the café?
Lisa put the car back in gear and drove to her mother’s real estate office. She parked out front and popped the trunk.
“Hey, Tess. Is my mom here?” Lisa said, sticking her head in the front door of Baldwin-Chance Mountain Realty.
The receptionist looked up with her usual facial expression mixing boredom, sleepiness, and confusion.
“No? She has a showing?” Tess said.
“Then can you help me with these?”
“I’m supposed to cover the phone?” Tess said.
Lisa cupped a hand over her ear and waited a few seconds, listening to the silence filled only by the hum of electronics.
“I think it’ll be ok,” Lisa said.
“Alright, I guess,” Tess said. She drifted across the room and followed Lisa to the car.
Lisa gave her a bundle of yard signs.
Killer Campaign (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 3) Page 11