1 Catered to Death

by Marlo Hollinger

  I noted with interest how Claudine seemed to have taken over the leadership role of the school. She was even sitting in the same spot Frank had occupied on the fateful day he was shot. “No, this has nothing to do with the fact that I’m still waiting to get paid,” I said, “although I’m hoping to receive a check from the school soon.”

  “You and everyone else in this room,” Simpson muttered.

  “I wanted to somehow make up to all of you what happened at Junebug’s party. That’s why I brought cake and punch in today. I’ve also brought my…a relative of mine. Tyler is a journalist and he’s doing a story on Frank Ubermann’s death for a major newspaper.”

  “What major newspaper?” the blonde student teacher asked. Emily. Her name was Emily. Funny how I was never able to remember that.

  “The Minneapolis Star-Tribune,” Tyler replied. “I’m an intern and I’m trying to get a full-time job lined up. Doing an in-depth story on a murder like this one would really help me out.”

  “I think that’s rather disgusting, using us to further your own career,” Claudine told him, turning her pert nose up as if Tyler had brought a bad smell into the room.

  Tyler shrugged. “Hey, no one wants to do it but everyone wants to know what’s going on, don’t they?”

  “Oh, give the kid a break,” Simpson said sounding a little weary. “I say we each have a piece of cake and let Clark Kent here ask a couple of questions. Who could it hurt?”

  “It could hurt all of us, Simpson! Why should we answer anyone’s questions about Frank’s death?”

  “I’d also like to know about Monica Webber’s murder,” Tyler interjected. “They both occurred on school grounds.”

  “We know that,” Ruth told him. “We were all here.”

  “Exactly my point,” Tyler said. “How often do two murders happen in the same place within a week? One of you has to know more than you’re telling the police.”

  “If we do, why would we tell you what we know?” Maxi asked.

  “Because together we might be able to crack this case.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Jack Mulholland said. “I’ve got a piece in the kiln that I need to get back to. Go ahead, Tyler, ask away. Don’t expect the truth from any of us, but feel free to ask.”

  “Great!” Tyler said enthusiastically. “I got a lot of background stuff from Mo—from DeeDee, so I really just have one very basic question for each of you: did any of you murder Frank Ubermann and Monica Webber?”

  The room fell into instant bedlam as everyone began talking at once. “Is he insane?” Claudine asked Jack. “Who the hell does that kid think he is?” Emily demanded. “What kind of question is that?” Ruth spluttered to Stuart.

  “A pretty obvious one, I’d say,” Tyler said proudly.

  “A pretty stupid one, I’d say,” Simpson replied.

  Tyler shrugged again. “Who wants to go first?”

  Jack leaned back in his chair and stood up, a smug smile spreading across his wide face. “Well, you can count me out of your game, little boy. Emily and I are each other’s alibi for the time when Frank was offed and Claudine can vouch for us, can’t you, old girl?”

  Claudine gave Jack a laser look through narrowed eyes that could have cut a piece of marble in half. “Yes, I can. I walked in on the two of them having the most disgusting monkey sex on Emily’s desk—a desk that I might add doesn’t belong to her but belongs to Eden Academy—right after the luncheon last Friday. I was so nauseated by the sight of Jack’s naked and extremely hairy backside that I spent the next half an hour in the bathroom dry heaving.”

  “See?” Jack said triumphantly. “Emily and I are in the clear.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it!” Simpson said. “I was in Ruth’s office ordering supplies.”

  “He was,” Ruth said. “He wanted an exact shade of aqua copy paper that I couldn’t find for the life of me although I know we ordered a case of it last year. We were both in my supply closet when we heard Claudine come running up the steps and then we heard Monica screaming that Frank had been killed.”

  Everyone’s eyes swung to focus on Claudine. She sat up erectly. “Don’t look at me,” she ordered. She began to cry. “I told you I was in the bathroom but you have to know that I could never have hurt that man. I loved him! He was going to leave that wife of his and marry me! I never would have killed him.”

  “That’s a lie!” Sylvia Ubermann almost leaped out of her seat and across the table. “Frank was never going to marry you!” She picked up a piece of cake and flung it at Claudine. “You’re nothing but a dried up old tramp—my husband was just playing with you! He’d never marry you!”

  The cake hit Claudine on her forehead and crumbled down her blouse. “Why, you horrible old bag!” Claudine picked up another piece of cake and hurled it at Sylvia. “Frank was this close to walking out on you—you were holding him back! He despised being married to you! You couldn’t give him children or good sex or anything but money!”

  “Liar!” Sylvia screamed. “Frank loved me!” She picked up another piece of cake and threw it at Claudine. Missing by a good three feet, it hit Ruth squarely in the middle of her forehead.

  “Mom, this isn’t working,” Tyler whispered.

  I surveyed the Eden Academy staff sorrowfully. It certainly wasn’t working. Simpson picked up a piece of cake and tossed it at Junebug who was quietly nibbling on her own slice. Without missing a beat, Junebug reached over and threw the remainder of the cake in Simpson’s face. “Why you dinosaur!” Simpson screamed. “Do you have any idea of how much it’s going to cost to get this shirt dry cleaned?”

  “Next time, buy something cheaper,” Junebug advised. “You never know what’s going to hit you around this place.”

  I gestured for Tyler to follow me and we tiptoed out of the room. “I’m glad I brought paper plates and cups,” I remarked.

  “What are you going to do now?” Tyler asked.

  I sighed. “No clue but I don’t think now that I’ll ever get paid for my very first catering job.”

  Tyler patted my arm clumsily. “Don’t worry, Mom. There will be other jobs.”

  “What happened?” Steve asked from the foyer where he’d been waiting.

  “Not much. No one confessed and the teachers started one hell of a food fight,” Tyler reported. “There’s cake everywhere. What a bunch of weirdos.”

  I felt like I might burst into tears. “It didn’t turn out at all like I hoped,” I told Steve sadly.

  “Come on. Let’s go home and regroup,” Steve suggested. “DeeDee, maybe you need to just forget about getting paid and be happy that no one’s accusing you of murder.”

  “And that you didn’t get whacked with a piece of cake,” Tyler agreed.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, “but I’d still like to know who killed Frank Ubermann.”

  We reached the car when I suddenly remembered that I’d left my purse hanging on a hook in Ruth’s office. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I left my purse inside.”

  “Want me to get it?” Steve offered.

  “No, I’ll do it. I know just where it is.” Hurrying back through the front door, I could hear the teachers still screaming at each other down the hall. Ruth’s office was empty. She was probably still down at the free for all happening in the staff lounge, hopefully getting a little revenge for the way the rest of the staff treated her most of the time.

  After getting my purse, I went back into the hallway when something caught my eye. Pausing, I squinted at an open classroom door where the rotund figure of Maxi was immediately recognizable. I hesitated. It was probably nothing but my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to leave without checking out what Maxi was up to. It would just take a second or two. Tiptoeing down the hallway, my sneakers didn’t make a sound on the tile floor.

  When I reached the classroom, I positioned myself so I could observe Maxi without being seen. Maxi was standing in front of a row of potted geraniums and seemed to be digging in
the soil. When she was finished, Maxi brushed off her hands and stepped back. I saw her slip something into her pocket. How odd. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to say good-bye to Maxi, would it? Stepping into the room, I said, “Hi, Maxi.”

  Maxi whirled. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  Maxi took a step toward me. “I don’t know that I’ve ever said hello to you. Are you spying on me?”

  “Of course not. I just saw you in the teachers’ lounge, remember? I brought the cake.”

  “Oh, right. You’re the lousy caterer. Remind me not to use you for my son’s wedding.”

  Another graduate from the Eden Academy Charm School. “Yes, well, I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  I eyed Maxi’s pocket where she had one beefy hand tucked inside and seemed to be playing with something.

  “So everyone else is down the hall?” Maxi took a step toward me that was somehow menacing. “No one can hear anything because they’re all still shouting at each other?” Maxi chuckled. “What a bunch of lamebrains.”

  Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. I slowly began to back out of the door. “Yes, I’m going home. My husband and son are outside waiting for me.” I was going to add that they were out in the family car polishing their guns but I didn’t have time.

  Maxi had almost reached me. I could see that her face had turned a deep shade of red and that her eyes were filled with rage. “I know all about you, Miss Catering Creep. I’ve seen you around here sticking your nose in other people’s business. You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

  “Not really,” I assured her. At that particular moment, I didn’t feel smart at all.

  “Oh, yes, you do. I heard about the cupcakes you took to that snotty Claudine and that little gnat Junebug. Who do you think you’re kidding?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. Oh, boy. It looked like I’d said hi to Maxi at exactly the wrong moment. “I was just giving away free samples. I’m trying to build up my business.”

  “So why didn’t I get one? Or Stuart? Or Ruth?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that question. “I guess I didn’t think about you guys.”

  Maxi laughed, a short, unattractive bark. “Join the club. No one around here ever thinks about us and I for one am getting damn sick of it.”

  “I’m sure it’s just an oversight,” I began but Maxi cut me off.

  “No, Miss Snoopy Nose, it is not an ‘oversight.’ It’s a slap in the face, over and over and over. Christmas party? Oops, we forgot you, Maxi. We never thought that maybe you’d want to join us for a cup of cheer and perhaps a small token of appreciation for every single thing you do around here like driving in sleet and ice and 40 degrees below weather to haul our brats to school! Bonuses? Sorry, Maxi, but you don’t get a bonus. You aren’t important enough to get a raise. You are nothing but a big fat zero!”

  “I can see that you have some job satisfaction issues,” I managed to stammer out.

  Maxi laughed. “That’s a good one! I hate this place and I hated that old bastard who used to run it.”

  I suddenly knew who had killed Frank Ubermann and probably Monica Webber too. “How’d you feel about Monica?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding me? I hated her even more than I hated Frank! She was always checking my receipts to make sure I didn’t buy a freaking seventy-nine cent candy bar along with gas for the bus. Always checking my mileage to make sure I didn’t veer off course and stop to give my cousin Rita a ride to work. Always on my back and always throwing me under the bus. It was about time that someone threw her under the bus.”

  “Did you?” I asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  “You bet I did!”

  “But how? I thought you were running your route when Monica was killed.”

  “That’s what everyone thought. What they didn’t think was that I might be smart enough to park Bus Number Two a block away and come back, call Monica down to the bus and then release the parking brake while she was crawling under it trying to figure out what was wrong. You know what her problem was?”

  “No…”

  “She thought she knew everything about everything. She actually thought she could fix the bus and save the school a hundred bucks. All she cared about was money, money, money! She made me sick!”

  That was pretty obvious. “Well, I’ve got to run. Nice seeing you, Maxi.”

  “What? You saw me pull something out of that geranium pot, didn’t you?” Maxi was perhaps two inches from my face and I could smell French fries and coffee on her breath with an underlying note of Jack Daniels.

  “Well, yes, but I don’t know what it was.”

  “I’ll tell you what it was.” Maxi reached into her pocket and then pulled out a very unappetizing piece of candy. “Homemade candy loaded with castor beans. The same kind of candy I gave to that moron Frank Ubermann. I knew he wouldn’t turn it down—that man was unbelievable! He could stand there eating my candy while telling me what a terrible job I was doing! Every damn week he’d show up, telling me how the bus looked bad and I drive like a drunk and how he’s going to fix it so I never work again. Every single week—I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  I felt my heart flutter. I was right. “You…you killed Frank Ubermann?”

  “You want to make something of it?”

  “No, not at all,” I assured her. “But he was shot with an arrow. No one said anything about poison.”

  “Yeah, I know. I shot him when the poison didn’t seem to be working fast enough. It was so easy,” Maxi bragged. “He was down in the basement getting out all the stuff he borrows for one of his camping trips. I saw him standing there, smug as hell while he rolled up a sleeping bag. Then I heard the rest of the teachers upstairs having a party that I wasn’t invited to and it hit me. Why should I wait for the poison to work? Why not finish Frank off once and for all? So I picked up a bow and arrow and took care of business. Easy as pie.”

  “But why would you kill Monica?”

  “Duh. Because she was on to me. She found the castor beans on the bus and wanted to know why I had them. Seems Monica was something of a horticulturist in addition to being a little whore. I had to take care of her too and you know what? It really is easier to kill somebody the second time.”

  “Fascinating,” I said as I edged toward the door. All I wanted to do was get out of that classroom and to the car where Steve and Tyler were waiting for me.

  “I’m guessing it will be even easier the third time,” Maxi noted. “Now you’re going to eat this candy and then I’m going to take you out for a ride in the school bus and I’m going to leave you in the middle of nowhere and you’ll never find your way back before that poison kicks in and you die! That’s what happens to snoopy noses. They pay the price sooner or later.”

  “Really, Maxi, I just wanted to tell you that there’s more cake down in the staff lounge.”

  Maxi snorted. “Sure. I never get invited to anything around here and you bring some crappy cake in and I’m supposed to be grateful? I’m not buying it, missy. Now take this candy and start chewing!”

  “DeeDee, what’s taking so long?” Steve appeared in the doorway and I felt myself flying through the air and into my husband’s arms. They’d never felt better.

  “She did it!” I said hysterically, pointing at Maxi and hiding behind Steve. “She told me that she poisoned Frank Ubermann and then shot him with an arrow and she killed Monica too. Now she’s trying to get me to eat the rest of the candy!”

  Throwing the candy at us, Maxi tried to run for the classroom door but was stopped by Tyler who loomed behind Steve. “Not so fast,” Tyler said, one arm holding Maxi back.

  “He deserved it!” Maxi screamed. “They both deserved it! They wanted to fire me because I always use the school’s credit card to gas up my own car! How did he expect me to get to work on time if I didn’t have any gas?”

  “She has a point,” I whispered in S
teve’s ear.

  “She also has a nice, long stretch in the women’s jail ahead of her.”

  Tyler had already dialed 911 on his cell phone. “Nice work, Mom. Maybe I will write this all up and send it to the Star-Tribune. Being a journalist might even be more fun than being a bartender.”

  “A what?” Steve asked.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I’m so glad that’s over,” I said, a check from Eden Academy in front of me. Claudine, the witch, had deducted the cost for cleaning up the teachers’ lounge after the food fight featuring my cake but I didn’t care. I had been paid and Frank Ubermann’s and Monica Webber’s murderer had been found.

  “You and me both. Now you can move on to your next catering job with a clean slate,” Steve told me.

  “Ummm, about catering. I don’t know that it’s really what I want to do anymore,” I told him.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too nerve wracking figuring out menus and having to deal with people giving parties. You know, I hadn’t thought about it before but hosts tend to be pretty jumpy. Who needs that? I like cooking for the family.”

  Steve stared at me. “So what do you want to do now? I know you have something else in mind. I can tell by the crazed glint in your eyes.”

  “I’m thinking of maybe getting a job on the local paper. You know how Tyler pretended to be a reporter? It made me think. I’d like to do something like that.”

  “Honey, journalism is a dying field. I told Tyler that too. You both want to go into a dying field?”

  “I’m not talking the New York Times, Steve. I’m talking our rinky-dink weekly paper. I’m sure I could do something there. I’m going to go down and talk to the editor tomorrow. And Tyler’s young enough that he can figure out the whole digital journalism thing. He’ll do fine.”

  Steve looked at me fondly. “You do whatever makes you happy, DeeDee.”

  “Really?”