by J. D. Griffo
Shaking her head dismissively, Joyce said, “That settles it, Jinx, you have to write this article to show the world that journalism is more than a trashy read. It can also be news.”
Jinx opened up her laptop and punched a few keys on the keyboard to bring her article up on the screen. She held her head on both sides with her hands for a moment and then ran her fingers through her long hair, gathering and tying it into a ponytail with the rubber band that had been doubling as a bracelet. She placed her hands on the table, took a deep breath, and then gulped down her eggnog vodka. Placing the glass down on the table with a thud, she looked at her grandmother and her aunts, and nodded. It was time to get serious. And to show her family that despite her youth and relative inexperience in her field, she truly wanted to be a serious journalist.
“Forgive me, Nola,” Jinx whispered, and then began to read from the laptop screen.
Less than three weeks after police uncovered the body of Jonas Harper in Tranquility Park a suspect has been arrested in the murder of the forty-seven-year-old lifelong resident. But the arrest of twenty-seven-year-old Nola Kirkpatrick, a celebrated teacher at St. Winifred’s Academy, raises more questions about the shocking murder than answers. Could the English and drama teacher, voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row, really be responsible for the murder of a man known to everyone in town? And if so, what could have driven a young woman with no previous criminal record to kill? In this tale of the high school teacher and the town custodian it seems there is much more to learn. As Nola’s roommate and best friend, I won’t stop investigating until I uncover the answers.
“That’s very good, lovey!” Alberta exclaimed.
“And a very smart tactic to include yourself in the article,” Helen said. “It’s what priests do with their homilies when they want to create a connection with their parishioners.”
“Thanks, Aunt Helen,” Jinx replied. “I know that a reporter is supposed to remain objective and unbiased, but most everyone already knows I’m Nola’s roommate, anyone can do a search online and find out, so I thought I should use it before some anonymous online hater called me out for it. I just hope Wyck likes it.”
“If your editor is as smart as you say he is,” Helen said, “I’m sure he’ll expect nothing less from you.”
Raising a glass filled with vodka, Alberta enthused, “That’s my college girl.”
“She’s not the only one,” Joyce remarked.
“What do you mean, Aunt Joyce?”
Joyce held up a piece of paper from a pile on the table. “Have you read through all these papers?”
“Most of them,” Jinx replied. “I kind of went through Nola’s desk and the little filing cabinet she keeps in her room. It’s mainly work stuff, old tests and papers. I didn’t want to be a snoop, but I thought I could use it to build a profile of a caring teacher getting her students to realize their full potential.”
“Looks like Nola’s still trying to realize her full potential,” Joyce advised.
Dropping her fork on her plate, Helen folded her arms in front of her and glared at Joyce. “Will you just spill it and tell us what you found?”
“According to this, Nola’s still taking college classes,” Joyce announced waving the paper in front of the ladies.
“That’s not unusual,” Jinx said, shaking her head. “Teachers often have to take graduate classes to maintain their license or if they want to get a raise.”
“True, but Nola’s taking undergraduate courses,” Joyce corrected. “In English.”
“But isn’t she already an English teacher?” Alberta asked. “Why would a teacher take a class in a subject she’s already teaching?”
“Because she doesn’t have her teaching certificate that’s why,” Helen declared. “I told you she was a fraud.”
Alberta removed the few remaining plates from the table and Joyce immediately spread out the papers to rummage through the pile farther. She flipped through a stack of essays with lots of red markings on them and tossed them aside. She then picked up a thick bunch of pages that were stapled together, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a classroom planning lesson. When she picked up the third stack, she stopped.
“Here we go.”
“What is it?” Jinx asked.
“Proof that Helen’s right and, unfortunately, Nola’s a fraud.”
“Score another one for the crotchety ex-nun,” Helen declared, raising her vodka glass.
Jinx grabbed the papers out of Joyce’s hand and her expression grew grimmer each time she turned a page. “Dio mio!”
“That’s an even better pronunciation, Jinx,” Alberta exclaimed. “Keep it up and you’ll sound like a native in no time.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jinx said. “According to this, Nola took an English composition class over the summer.”
“What’s that say?” Joyce asked, pointing at some scribbling on the top right-hand corner of the paper.
“Only three credits to go,” Jinx answered. “I don’t know that much about the teaching world, but I do know that you need to be a college graduate and have a teaching certificate to be able to teach in a high school.”
“Not always,” Helen heeded. “Out of necessity, parochial schools can be less strict in their teacher requirements, which is rather ironic given the rest of the church’s beliefs. They don’t pay as much nor do they offer a union pension so if they want to attract teachers they have to compromise.”
“You are right Helen, but St. Winifred’s Academy holds its teachers up to a higher standard,” Joyce announced waving her phone around. “According to the school’s website, all applicants for teaching positions must hold a degree from a four-year college, and they even say that a graduate degree is preferred.”
“So how is Nola teaching if she doesn’t have the qualifications to be a teacher?” Alberta asked.
“Do you know how easy it is to forge a diploma?” Helen snapped. “When I was working at the shelter, there was this guy . . . we all called him the Paper Boy because he made a living creating fake documents. He could whip up everything from driver’s licenses to birth certificates to social security cards, and you would never know they weren’t originals. Right before he was hauled off to jail, he gave me a passport just in case I needed to flee the country and adopt a new identity. If I ever disappear, do a search for Guadalupe Alvarez from Peru and you’ll find me.”
“Shut up, Lupe,” Alberta scolded.
“Don’t dismiss it so quickly, Berta, you never know when you’ll need me to hook you up.”
“No wonder Father Sal calls you the black sheep of the Catholic Church,” Alberta remarked.
“I consider that a compliment,” Helen said, once again raising her vodka glass.
“Can we focus, please?” Jinx asked. “Do you think Jonas could have found out about this and . . . I don’t even want to say it out loud. Aunt Helen, would you mind?”
Draining her glass, Helen swallowed hard and replied, “Nola killed him over it.” She scrunched up her face and shook her head. “I don’t really like the girl, but that’s a bit of a stretch even for me.”
“He could’ve found out and blackmailed her to keep quiet,” Joyce suggested. “Maybe that plus the previous stalking incident got to be too much, and Nola decided she needed to get rid of Jonas once and for all.”
Jinx abruptly stood and started pacing the small kitchen. The room wasn’t quite large enough to contain her energy so she started to walk quickly around the table.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “There is absolutely no way that Nola is a murderer. Even if for some crazy reason they were in the tree house together, she might have—might have—gotten angry enough to push him out the door, but he was poisoned so his murder was premeditated, and there’s no way Nola could’ve done that.”
“I wonder if anyone else knows about Nola’s indiscretion?” Alberta asked. “I mean if she’s keeping a lie that she isn’t Kichiro’s girlfriend and only h
is beard so his real girlfriend doesn’t get caught cheating on her husband, then it’s very plausible that she hasn’t told anyone about her fudged résumé, and the school may not even be aware Nola isn’t truly qualified to teach.”
“Only one way to find out,” Joyce said. “Tomorrow morning we ask the principal.”
Waving her finger back and forth in the air, Helen said, “Count me out. I like that one less than I like Nola. Anyway, I took on another shift at the animal shelter so I’m volunteering in the morning.”
“I can’t go either,” Jinx stated. “I have to go all the way to Princeton to interview a woman who lived next door to Nola growing up.”
“Nola grew up in Princeton?” Alberta asked.
“No, she grew up in South Jersey, near Asbury Park, but this woman, who used to be her neighbor, now lives in Princeton,” Jinx explained. “She’s the only person I could find from Nola’s past, it’s like everyone else disappeared.”
“Or the Paper Boy helped them reinvent themselves,” Helen declared.
“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Alberta said. “Joyce, why don’t you pick me up tomorrow morning at 6:45, and we’ll drive over to the high school.”
“That’s a bit early,” Jinx advised. “School doesn’t start until eight o’clock.”
“Perfect, I want to get to the principal before she gets too busy with the students and the craziness of the day,” Alberta explained. “This way, we’ll catch her with her hair down so to speak.”
* * *
That wasn’t the only thing that was down when they went to see Sharon the next morning.
Alberta and Joyce pulled into the high school parking lot a few minutes before seven o’clock. Luckily, they made all green lights and Joyce drove her Mercedes a bit faster than usual. The only other car in the lot was a four-door silver Subaru that looked to be a few years old. There was a small dent over the passenger side rear tire and some of the paint over the back bumper had been scraped off. Since the Subaru was parked in the spot reserved for St. Winifred’s principal, they couldn’t take any real credit for figuring out that it belonged to Sharon, but Joyce was impressed with Alberta for knowing that Sharon would be at school early and alone. If only they could get into the school before the rest of the staff and students arrived.
“It’s locked,” Alberta said, pulling on the front door.
Joyce was about to ring the bell to the right of the door when Alberta reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her. “Let’s see if there’s an entrance in the back.”
“Good thinking.”
Leading the way, Joyce walked around the brick building and just as she was about to turn the corner she stepped back causing Alberta to bump into her.
“What are you doing?” Alberta asked, her voice instinctively lowering to a whisper.
“I saw a man go in the back door,” Joyce replied.
“Col cavolo! I was hoping to catch Sharon alone, not with a colleague.”
“This wasn’t a colleague,” Joyce said. “It was a cop.”
Throwing her hands up in the air and shaking her head, Alberta declared, “That’s worse. All we need is Vinny to get in the way of our investigation and lecture us again about how we should keep our noses out of police business.”
“Should we leave?” Joyce asked.
Alberta thought about it for a moment and while she was thinking she looked around the parking lot. “Wait a second, where’s his car?”
Joyce joined in the search and even peered around the corner, but couldn’t find another vehicle let alone a police car on the premises. “That’s odd,” Joyce said. “He could’ve walked I suppose, but the police station is across town.”
“Well, we’re here,” Alberta declared. “If we can’t talk to Sharon alone, we can find out why Vinny thinks it’s so important to talk to her this early in the morning and on what they call the down low.”
Joyce would have cracked up laughing at Alberta’s remark if she didn’t see what she saw through the small window next to the back door. The women looked in shock as they saw Sharon standing in the boiler room between two large water heaters with her arms around a policeman. Vinny looked shorter from this angle, but Alberta figured he was squatting down a bit to make it easier for Sharon to kiss him. It was only when the man lifted Sharon up, her legs wrapping around him and he turned to the side to walk over to the wall that she realized the cop wasn’t Vinny, but Kichiro.
“Sharon’s the married woman Kichiro is having the affair with!” Joyce whispered excitedly.
“Dove l’allievo è disposto, apparirà l’insegnante,” Alberta said, her voice hushed.
“The pupil isn’t the only one who’s willing, Berta,” Joyce said. “The teacher looks like she’s enjoying herself, too.”
When Sharon’s skirt dropped to the floor of the boiler room, Alberta tugged on Joyce’s hand indicating that they had seen enough and should go. They scurried all the way to the car, giggling like two girls who just caught their parents making out.
They closed the Mercedes’s doors quietly on the off chance that the lovers could hear the echo of the doors closing. Although Alberta and Joyce doubted Sharon and Kichiro would be able to hear anything other than their own sighs and passionate grunts and groans for at least the next fifteen minutes, give or take.
“So we may not know if Sharon knows that Nola is qualified to be a teacher,” Alberta began, “but we do know that Sharon and Kichiro are having an affair.”
“And I guess it only makes sense that Nola knows Sharon is the other woman,” Joyce added. “I mean why else would she pose as Kichiro’s girlfriend? She doesn’t have any loyalty to him that we know of so she’s probably participating in this sham because of her loyalty to her boss.”
“Or because her boss is blackmailing her into doing it,” Alberta suggested.
“Holy smokes, Berta, you’re right!” Joyce shouted. “Sharon probably knows that Nola is shy of some college credits so she arranged for a little quid pro quo.”
Although she spoke fluent Italian, Alberta was rusty on her Latin. “A little what?”
“Quid pro quo,” Joyce repeated. “You wash my back and I’ll wash yours. Sharon demanded Nola’s participation in return for her silence, it’s classic blackmail.”
“Do you know what else will be classic?” Alberta asked.
“What?”
“My sister’s face when she finds out what she missed,” Alberta laughed. “She’s gonna be pissed she didn’t get the chance to see phony Sharon’s true colors in all their X-rated glory. And I can’t wait to be the one to tell her.”
CHAPTER 14
Spazzatoio nuovo spazza ben la casa.
For the tenth time within the past five minutes Alberta looked out her kitchen window. Raindrops lazily plopped onto the surface of Memory Lake, making the sprawling body of water seem to come alive. Feeling ignored, Lola leaped from the kitchen table to the counter and purred loudly in an attempt to capture Alberta’s attention and distract her. Even her cat knew that Alberta was exhibiting telltale symptoms of nervous tension.
“Mi dispiace, Lola,” Alberta said, scooping up the cat in her arms and giving her a few apologetic kisses on the streak of white fur above her left eye. “Mama’s had a big shock this morning, and she still hasn’t recovered.”
Sitting at the kitchen table playing a game of solitaire, Joyce kept her focus on her cards, but without lifting her head added, “Honey, if you thought that was shocking you should’ve seen some of the things I witnessed on Wall Street in the eighties.”
“If I had I would’ve run from the place screaming and gotten right back on the boat to the mother country,” Alberta replied while rocking Lola gently from side to side and stealing yet another glance out the kitchen window, “Like Uncle Nunzio.”
Joyce threw down a five of hearts on top of a six of clubs. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one.”
“My grandfather’s younger brother so technically my
great uncle,” Alberta clarified. “He came to Hoboken to live with his brother, but the crowds and the smells made him so nervous he hopped on a ship back to Sicily the very next day.”
“The rat race isn’t for everyone,” Joyce reflected.
“No it isn’t,” Alberta agreed. “I don’t know how you survived in that industry and handled being a witness to all those crazy shenanigans.”
Refilling her jelly glass with some lemon-flavored vodka, Joyce replied, “I really only had two choices, be a man or be successful. Since I’ve always been quite fond of my boobs, I chose the latter.”
“You always had budella . . . guts, and look at me, I’m climbing the walls after what we saw!” Alberta cried, peeking out the kitchen window once more. “I guess I’m just dying to tell Jinx and Helen what we discovered, and both of them are taking their sweet time getting here.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Joyce said as she turned over the ten of diamonds and subsequently won her fourth game in a row. “It isn’t every day you witness a cop and a high school principal doing the vertical tango on Catholic school property.”
“I knew there was something wrong with Kichiro ever since we found Jonas’s dead body,” Alberta announced as she began to pace the kitchen floor. “I don’t know if it’s coincidence or . . .”
Joyce stopped in mid-shuffle and looked at Alberta. “Or what?”
“If he’s more involved in this murder than we originally thought.”
“Berta, what exactly are you trying to say?”
“Non mi dispiace,” she replied shaking her head in agitation. “I don’t know, but . . . the only thing I do know is that I don’t trust him.”
Lola purred either in agreement or to get Alberta to change the subject to something less morbid, and, instinctively, Alberta’s rocking turned to a bounce. The sudden movement immediately reminded her of the first time she caught her daughter, Lisa Marie, in a lie.
Lisa Marie was four and her brother, Rocco, was almost a year old. Alberta was alone with the kids and was fighting the stomach flu, but losing the battle. As she ran to the bathroom she told her daughter to sit on the bed next to her brother, who was sleeping on his back and surrounded on all sides by a barricade of pillows so if he rolled over he’d be protected by cushions. From her position sitting on the toilet bowl, Alberta couldn’t see her children but only heard the low murmuring of the TV, a sound that was soon accompanied by a repetitive squeak.