Mother's Day, Muffins, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  It was also nice to leave all the questions and problems surrounding Klea’s death behind, and I wasn’t even thinking about any of those things when Margo said, “I can’t believe everything that’s going on at the elementary school. So scary. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad my kids are at the middle school.” She refolded brochures and shuffled them into a stack. “Of course, there’s always been rumors about sketchy stuff going on at the elementary school, so I shouldn’t be so surprised, I guess.”

  I handed her the list of cabinetry and organizing items I’d made while we were talking so she could order them. “Sketchy stuff? Like what?”

  Margo waved a hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know anything for sure. Just rumors.”

  “Margo, my kids are there every day. I’m in and out of the school all the time, and I’ve never heard anything.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t. You’re not the type to have any problems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Margo wrinkled her nose. “You know . . . you’re happily married—at least you seem to be. You’re not the type to get yourself into a sticky situation and be . . . vulnerable.”

  I stared at her a moment. “I’m not sure I’m following you,” I said, but I was afraid I did know what she was hinting at.

  Margo sighed. “I’ve really put my foot in it now. Oh, well. It’s all rumors, anyway.” She scrubbed her hand through her curls. “It’s probably totally wrong, but I heard that one of the moms who had been fooling around got a note from the office in their kid’s take-home folder, demanding she pay a certain amount of money or her husband would be contacted.”

  I fell back against the chair. “A blackmail note?”

  “Yes, but, as I said, it’s all rumor.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Paid it, I guess.” Margo shrugged. “Since she didn’t end up getting a divorce.”

  “So you know who it was?”

  “No, not really. I mean, not one hundred percent. I think I know, but I’m not sure. It was one of those things that you hear third-or-fourth person, so I have no idea if there’s even a bit of truth in it.”

  “Wow.” I blinked, stunned that something like that was going on in the school—if it was true. But then I thought of Gabrielle’s call this morning and her juicy gossip about something shady going on at the school. And Gabrielle had asked if the note I received demanded money. . . . Maybe there was some truth to what Margo had overheard.

  “Wait,” I said as I sat forward. “You said it came from the office.”

  “Did I?” Margo looked flustered. “I hadn’t realized . . .” She gazed off into space, then said, “But I think that’s right.”

  “How would someone know it came from the office?” As Detective Waraday and I had worked out, almost anyone could slip a note into the papers that went into the take-home folders.

  “I don’t know.” Margo shrugged and looked like she wished she’d never brought up the subject. “I suppose someone said it was one of those folded and taped notes. Isn’t that how all the notes from the office look? I know whenever I got one of those, it was from the main office.”

  “That’s true, but it could be someone imitating that. It’s not hard to fold a piece of copy paper in thirds and put tape on it. It could have been from anyone in the school—a teacher, the staff, or even another parent.”

  She closed a folder with a thump. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

  “No, it could be very important. Will you tell the sheriff’s department about it? I can give you the name of the detective—”

  “Oh, no. I could never do that.” She looked like I’d asked her to rob a bank. “In the first place, Dave would not like it,” she said, referring to her husband. “And, in the second, it’s just a rumor. I’m not even sure who mentioned it. It came up after a yoga class. I overheard a couple of the moms talking as I was cleaning up the room. It was a tight little group, and I don’t even remember all the names of the people who were there. It was last year, too, so it’s probably nothing to do with anything this year.” She pushed her chair back. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  The subject was closed, and I could tell she wasn’t going to give an inch, so I declined the coffee and gathered up my organizing materials. I gave her an invoice and left, wishing that we hadn’t ended on such a strained note.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, I was the first person to pull into the school parking lot, and my conversation with Margo was still on my mind. I’d debated calling Detective Waraday yesterday, but in the end, I just couldn’t see telling him about the rumors and then expecting him to take them seriously when I couldn’t give him a single name or solid fact, especially since Margo refused to talk to him.

  I was still second-guessing my decision as I parked near the main doors to the school. I must have arrived even before Vaughn, who was supposed to be here a few minutes early to open the doors for me. I was here to meet Joy Peel, the owner of the catering company providing the breakfast buffet for today’s Teacher Appreciation.

  While we had some parents who wanted to bring homemade food, there was another set of parents who were just as happy to write a check and let someone else bring the food. We’d sent home a letter with the students a month ago and asked for either sign-ups to bring food or a donation to purchase catering. The donations had provided enough money to cover Thursday’s breakfast and Friday’s barbecue lunch. The only glitch was that the catering company had two events this morning. If we wanted our food, someone had to be at the school at seven to make sure Joy was able to get inside and set up. Abby had offered to help me by bringing the kids with her at eight, and I’d taken her up on the offer, figuring it would be easier to coordinate the food if both kids weren’t underfoot.

  The catering van lumbered into the parking lot, followed by Vaughn, who pulled into the drop-off line and unlocked the main doors for us before he went to park his car. I grabbed my phone, hopped out of the van, and went to prop open the school’s door. Then I flipped on the lights in the lobby and the teachers’ lounge. Joy was a military spouse who I knew through the squadron’s spouse club. She came through the doors, carrying a container of muffins. “I figured I better get right to it, since I’ve got to run.”

  “That’s fine. Through here,” I said, directing her to the teachers’ lounge. We ferried the rest of the food inside, arranged it, and then set out coffee and juice. I could hear Vaughn’s keys jangling as he moved through the school, unlocking doors.

  Joy put the last tray in place and removed the cover.

  “Looks great,” I said.

  “Excellent. Thanks for the business,” Joy said before departing. “I’ll close that main door on my way out. Anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  I tweaked the card with Joy’s company name so that it was more visible, then noticed a book with a flowery cover on one of the tables. It was a datebook. When I flicked the cover open, I saw the name Hillary Cross, one of the fifth-grade teachers, on the first page. She must have forgotten it here yesterday, I thought. I had some time. I’d run it down to her room and drop it off.

  As I paced through the empty halls, I could hear Vaughn bumping around in the janitor’s office, but other than that, it was quiet. The calm before the storm, I thought. In about twenty minutes, the halls would be flooded with scurrying kids and teachers.

  Mrs. Cross’s room was one room beyond Ms. McCormick’s, and I couldn’t help but glance in as I approached the door. I’d almost expected to see crime scene tape sealing off the room, but the door was open and the swath of room that I could see as I passed looked completely normal. Detective Waraday must not have found anything significant enough to warrant sealing the room. I dropped the datebook on Mrs. Cross’s desk, then returned to the hallway, again looking into Ms. McCormick’s room as I approached.

  A flicker of movement within the room caught my eye, and I veered towa
rd the door. I had thought for a second I’d seen Ms. McCormick, but that couldn’t be right. It was probably just another teacher with a slender figure and blond hair—the substitute teacher for the day, most likely.

  But as I paused by the door, I saw it wasn’t someone else. It was Ms. McCormick. She was bent over the desk at the back of the room. She glanced up and saw me an instant after I spotted her. I suppose if I had been smart I would have ducked out of the door as quickly as I could, but I was so shocked to see her that my feet stayed planted to the floor. For a second, I wondered if everything had been cleared up. Perhaps the newspaper article and the two different names were some sort of mix-up that had been explained, and she was back at work today.

  But after one look at her haggard face, I dismissed that thought. She looked like one of the kids when they come home from a slumber party where they didn’t sleep at all. Ms. McCormick’s makeup looked like she had stayed up all night, with her eyeliner smudged and her mascara flaking off, making the dark circles under her eyes look even worse. Her dress was wrinkled and creased, and I realized it was the same dress she had been wearing yesterday. Her golden hair was in a lopsided ponytail, and her lipstick had been chewed off. She looked like a weird, distorted modern-art version of a cartoon princess.

  She stood there a moment, her eyes wide. “What are you doing to do? Call the police on me again?”

  “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t call the police,” I said.

  “But it’s your fault. You wanted to know about my other job. No one else ever asked about that. You set everything in motion. You and your questions.” She slammed a drawer closed, rifled through the papers on the top of the desk, then stood back and scanned the rest of the room.

  “Where are they?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “My notes for the game.” She came around the desk, fingering the zipper on the cross-body bag that was slung over her shoulder. “I know you were in here yesterday. If you want to know anything that’s going on in a school, just follow some of the kids on social media. They have no filters and post about absolutely everything.”

  I did not have a good feeling about her hostile tone. Was anyone else in the school besides Vaughn? And where was Vaughn? I listened, but didn’t hear the jingle of his key ring. “But if you knew that the kids were so unguarded, I’m surprised that you would let them play the computer game. It was supposed to be a secret, right?” I asked.

  She gave a sharp nod. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have let them see the game, but I was stupid. I needed their help to get through beta. I figured the risk was worth it. I need those notes. That game is all I have.”

  I was about to make some excuse and slip out of the room, but her words surprised me. “What do you mean, it’s all you have?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Even I understand that I’ll never get another job at a school again after all this comes out. My teaching career is over, but the game—the kids like it. It has potential. I can upload it and sell it myself. No one will care that I happened to be too stupid to realize a friend had put her drugs in my car. One mistake. I made one mistake.”

  She rotated her shoulders, relaxing them slightly. “But that’s over. No more trying to hide my past. I’m a game designer now, and I need those notes. They’re critical for the app version.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where they are. They’re not on your desk?”

  “No, they’re not on my desk,” she said, raising her voice. “They’re not anywhere in this room.” She pulled a gun from her bag. “Now, what did you do with them?”

  I put my hands up, palms facing her, and backed away. “Ms. McCormick—”

  She laughed, but it wasn’t a normal laugh. The sound had a slightly hysterical edge to it. “You don’t have to look so terrified. It’s not a gun. Not a real one, anyway.” She twisted her hand for a second so that I could see the gun from the side. “It’s a Taser,” she said.

  It was boxier than a real gun and seemed to be made of plastic, I realized and calmed down a bit.

  She shifted it back so that it was aimed it at me. “Handy to have. I got it when I was in college for those long walks across the campus after my night class. Who would have thought that the first time I would use it would be in my classroom?”

  I was pretty sure that even mace violated the school’s no-weapons policy, so a Taser would definitely be against the rules, but I wasn’t about to mention that at this moment. Instead, I moved an inch toward the door.

  “It won’t do you any good to run. The range on these things is quite impressive,” she said. “Now come inside the room. Yes, that’s good,” she said, indicating that I should stop between two of the rows of desks.

  I kept my eyes on her face, which was now a bit flushed, as I listened for the sound of the first teachers arriving. Surely it wouldn’t be long before there would be several teachers in the hallway and surrounding classrooms.

  I swallowed, going back to the issue that seemed to have set her off. “If your papers aren’t here, then Detective Waraday probably took them.”

  She lowered the Taser an inch. “Why would he do that? Why would he even care? He’s investigating Klea’s death. My game has nothing to do with Klea.”

  “Well, then you’ll get the papers back, no problem. You’re sure Klea didn’t know about the game? Or . . . anything else?” Were those footsteps echoing down the hall?

  “My past, you mean,” Ms. McCormick said. “Oh, no, it wasn’t Klea who knew.”

  She put a slight emphasis on the name Klea. “But someone else knew,” I said slowly, working it out as I remembered Ms. McCormick’s comment when Klea was discovered in the woods and the way Ms. McCormick had stiffened when Peg and Gabrielle came into the teachers’ lounge and then departed as quickly as she could. “Peg. Peg knows?” I asked, dropping my hands to my side at the thought. The footsteps faded, probably a teacher going into another room closer to the main hall, but I only half noticed.

  Ms. McCormick’s shoulders sagged. “I think so. It’s someone in the office, that’s all I know for sure. Peg always has a sort of superior smirk on her face when she sees me, so I think it’s her. But that’s hardly evidence.”

  My thoughts were churning. If Peg knew about Ms. McCormick’s past, why hadn’t she said anything? But then I thought of the rumors Margo had mentioned—the rumors that focused on someone in the office. “You were being blackmailed,” I guessed.

  Ms. McCormick closed her eyes for a second, then snapped them open and tossed her head. “I suppose since it’s all out now, it doesn’t matter anyway. I might as well take her down with me. Yes, I was being blackmailed, and I do think it was Peg.”

  “Not Klea?” I asked just to be sure.

  “No, of course it wasn’t Klea. It couldn’t have been her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the note that said I had to pay up came from the office. It thoughtfully included an envelope that I was to fill with my cash and then return to the office in one of those inter-office envelopes—you know, the kind with the lines on the side and the string tie to hold down the flap. Who sorts the inter-office mail? Peg. It has to be her.”

  It did sound logical. Peg handled the paper that came into the office, as well as distributing the papers that went out. She was always over at the pigeonholes, shifting paper into the slots for teachers to pick up.

  “I knew I shouldn’t pay, but what else could I do? The envelopes came like clockwork every other Monday,” she said with a bitter laugh. “And I filled them with cash and returned them.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since the week after I arrived.” Her arms were now sagging, and she shifted over so that she could prop one hip on a student desk, suddenly looking drained.

  Some of the tension had eased out of me when Ms. McCormick lowered the Taser, but she still held it in her hand, even if it wasn’t aimed at me right now. I decided that I wouldn’t make any su
dden moves. I didn’t want to startle her now that she seemed to be calming down.

  “You thought I hurt Klea?” She dropped the Taser to her lap. “I would never do that. Besides, when would I have had time? I was with my class all that morning.”

  It was a good point, except that the critical time wasn’t during the Muffins with Mom; it was earlier, when teachers were moving around the hallways before the students and parents arrived in the classrooms. It wouldn’t be hard for a teacher to slip out and strangle someone unnoticed at that time of the morning, especially if the murderer caught Klea going either into or out of the closet and attacked her there, then left her body in the closet until it could be moved. With a jolt, I realized that that line of reasoning meant that Mrs. Harris could still be a suspect, too. She could have arrived earlier, then returned to the parking lot to remove the food from her car. I hadn’t seen her arrive at the school, only met her standing in the parking lot.

  “It had to have been Peg who did it,” Ms. McCormick said, interrupting my thoughts. “I mean, everyone knew Klea liked to snoop in drawers and files and stuff. She must have found out what Peg was doing, and Peg killed her.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Detective Waraday that instead of running away yesterday?”

  “Because how could I tell him what was going on without telling him about the blackmail? And I have no proof, only my suspicions.”

  “You don’t have any of the envelopes or the original note? Did you get a note every time?” I asked, my thoughts swerving all over the place.