Whether it was self-defense or cold-blooded murder, Phyllis didn’t know, but the simplest explanation was that Chase Hamilton had killed Ray Brooks.
Chapter 20
A couple of uniformed sheriff’s deputies appeared at the top of the stairs. Phyllis had hoped one of the deputies to respond to the call might be Mike, but she knew that was unlikely. In fact, she didn’t recognize either of them. One was a young man, the other a young woman. The male deputy motioned for Tom Shula to stay back while the woman started down the stairs toward Phyllis, Sam, and Ronnie. Her right hand was on the butt of her holstered service weapon.
“You folks just stay right where you are, where I can see you,” she said. “Where’s the body?”
Sam pointed. “Right over there. Ronnie, scoot over so the deputy can get by.”
The deputy moved past Phyllis and Ronnie and stepped down into the hallway beside Sam. She didn’t get any closer to Ray Brooks than that, but keen eyes took in the entire scene for a long moment. Then she called up to her partner, “Jerry, we’re going to need the crime scene unit and a homicide team.”
“Got it,” the other deputy said. He spoke into the radio microphone clipped to his shoulder, putting in the call.
The woman looked at Phyllis, Sam, and Ronnie and asked, “Did any of you touch the body?”
“No, none of us got any closer than we are now,” Phyllis replied. “I saw him first. My friend’s granddaughter was with me, but she stayed at the top of the stairs.”
“I still haven’t seen him,” Ronnie put in.
The deputy said, “That’s all right, you don’t need to.”
“That’s what everybody keeps saying.”
The deputy ignored that and asked, “Do any of you know who the victim is?”
“We all do,” Phyllis said. “His name is Ray Brooks. He was a security guard here at the school.” She drew in a breath. “When I first saw him, he was still alive. He was lying on the floor and tried to get up, but he didn’t make it and fell, then rolled over like he is now.” She had to swallow before she added, “I assume that was when he . . . died.”
And she had seen the last of the man’s life run out, she thought. She hadn’t liked Ray Brooks, but witnessing his death had left her shaken.
“I’m going to need names for all of you,” the deputy said.
“I’m Sam Fletcher,” Sam said. “This is my granddaughter Ronnie. Veronica Ericson.”
“And I’m Phyllis Newsom. Sam and I are substitute teachers here, and Ronnie is a student.”
“You all have IDs?” the deputy asked. Then, before they could answer, she went on, “Wait. Newsom. Any relation to Mike Newsom?”
“He’s my son,” Phyllis said.
“Then you’re that woman who—” The deputy stopped. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. Clearly, she had heard of Phyllis and her involvement with previous cases. “You’re sure you didn’t disturb the body?”
“I know better, Deputy,” Phyllis replied with a trace of crispness in her voice.
“Okay. All of you can go back upstairs and wait with my partner for the homicide investigators to get here.”
“You agree that it looks like murder, then?”
“I don’t know anything,” the woman said. “It’s not my job to even have an opinion.”
Phyllis and Ronnie went up the stairs first, followed by Sam. They gathered at the top with Tom Shula, the four of them moving to the side a few feet away from the stairwell.
“My God, this is awful,” Shula said. “What in the world happened? What was Ray Brooks doing back here, anyway? No one was supposed to be in this part of the school during the dance.” He frowned at Phyllis and Ronnie. “How did the two of you happen to find him?”
“It’s a long story,” Phyllis said. “I’m not sure we should be going into it until we’ve had a chance to talk to the detectives.”
“I just . . .” Shula shook his head. “I’m just having a hard time understanding all this. I mean, the school year has gotten off to a pretty good start, and since this is a new school you want everything to go well, right off the bat, so the proper tone is set . . .” His gaze intensified. “Does this have anything to do with the fight Brooks got into with that Hamilton kid?”
“No!” Ronnie said before Phyllis could stop her. “It couldn’t have anything to do with that.”
Phyllis could tell that her quick, emphatic response just made Shula more suspicious. She said, “I think we should just wait for the investigators to get here.”
Shula continued frowning at Ronnie, but he didn’t say anything else. An uneasy silence hung over the corridor near the stairwell. The male deputy stood at the top of the stairs and watched the four civilians, which didn’t do anything to decrease the tension.
The sheriff’s department responded quickly and efficiently. Crime scene technicians descended on the scene, followed minutes later by a pair of homicide detectives, both male. Phyllis didn’t know either of them.
She wondered if the dance was still going on. The kids had to have seen the officers entering the school. By now speculation would be rampant.
Except on the part of the killer. Considering how quickly everything had happened, Phyllis believed there was a good chance whoever had murdered Ray Brooks was still in the school.
Not surprisingly, the detectives split up the four of them to question them. Phyllis found herself with one of the investigators in a nearby classroom. The man was big and blond and red-faced and looked more like he ought to be at the wheel of a tractor in a field rather than investigating a murder.
“I’m Sergeant Appleton,” he introduced himself. “You’re Mrs. Newsom?”
“That’s right.”
“Mike Newsom’s mom? The one who’s solved all those murders before?”
“Mike is my son,” Phyllis said. “I’ve been lucky enough to figure out a few things in the past.”
Appleton grunted. “You planning on figuring out this one?”
“Not at all,” she said.
But then, she had never actually planned on getting involved in those other cases, either.
“You’re the one who found the body?”
“That’s right.”
“How did you happen to do that?”
“I’m one of the volunteers chaperoning the Friday the Thirteenth dance out in the cafeteria. I saw one of the students heading back into this area and I knew no one was supposed to be back here, so I came to check on that. Also, I was looking for Mr. McCracken, the custodian who’s here tonight, because the punch bowl got knocked over and broken, and we needed someone to clean up the mess.”
“Did you find the custodian?”
“No, and I still don’t know where he is.”
And that was vaguely troubling, Phyllis thought. She hoped nothing bad had happened to George McCracken. He had always been friendly to her while she was working here at Courtland High.
“This student you mentioned,” Appleton went on. “Are you talking about the girl with the blue hair?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Her name is Veronica Ericson. She’s the granddaughter of my friend Sam Fletcher, who’s also a long-term substitute teacher here at the school.”
Appleton’s pale eyebrows rose. “Sam Fletcher,” he repeated. “Your sidekick who’s helped you solve those other crimes.”
“Sam is my friend,” Phyllis said firmly. “Not my ‘sidekick’.”
“Okay. So the girl is his granddaughter. And you followed her because you didn’t want her getting in trouble for leaving the dance and wandering off into an area that’s off-limits to the kids.”
Phyllis nodded. “Yes.”
“So what made you look down there in that hall where the body is? Was that where Miss Ericson was?”
“No, she was in the hall right outside here. I had found her and was talking to her when we noticed the lights going on and off down in the Dungeon.” At Appleton’s s
tartled look, Phyllis added, “That’s what the students call that little hall. Anyway, at night the lights are on a motion detection system so they come on when anyone walks into a hall and go off when there’s no movement. The way the lights down there were acting was so odd that I thought I ought to have a look.” Phyllis paused. “It seems to me that what must have been causing it was Mr. Brooks crawling and trying to get up, then collapsing and lying still enough that the sensors thought he was gone.”
“That makes sense,” Appleton agreed. “So, Ray Brooks, the victim. Do you know anyone who had a reason to want him dead?”
That was the question Phyllis hadn’t wanted to answer. Ronnie didn’t want to believe that Chase was guilty. To be honest, Phyllis didn’t want to believe that, either, no matter that Ronnie had accused her and Sam of that very thing. But she couldn’t avoid telling the truth.
“There’s a student here, a young man named Chase Hamilton. He and Mr. Brooks have had some trouble recently. I know he was in the building tonight, at the dance.”
Appleton pounced on that, just as Phyllis knew he would. “What sort of trouble?” the detective asked.
With practiced efficiency—she had been interrogated before—Phyllis told the investigator what had happened during the past week, culminating in the scuffle between Chase and Brooks the day before. Appleton listened intently and made notes, and every time he scribbled something in his notebook, Phyllis felt like that was another brick in the wall of guilt that was being built around Chase Hamilton.
“Anybody else?” Appleton asked when Phyllis was finished. “What about this math teacher? Miss Trahearne? You said she and the victim used to date. Is she here tonight?”
“She was volunteering at the dance, too. I don’t know where she is right now. Probably still in the cafeteria.”
“Maybe there was a lover’s quarrel between her and Brooks. He wanted her back and got rough . . .”
Phyllis shook her head. “Amber broke up with him a while back, and she didn’t want anything more to do with him. She wouldn’t have gone down there with him. He would have had to force her, and I think I would have heard her screams.”
“What about other people who work here at the school? Was Brooks well-liked?”
Again, Phyllis had to be honest. “I don’t think he got along well with anyone. He always seemed to be angry, and for the most part everyone tried to stay out of his way. If he had any real friends among the teachers or staff, I didn’t know about it.”
“Just because a guy doesn’t have any friends doesn’t mean he has a lot of enemies,” Appleton said.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“But it increases the odds.” Appleton looked at his notebook, then up at Phyllis again. “What could you tell about the wound?”
“Nothing, really. I saw a lot of blood, that’s all. Sam said it must have been a stab wound of some kind.”
“No guess as to the murder weapon?”
Phyllis shook her head. “None at all.”
“Anything else you can add?”
“Not that I can think of,” Phyllis said.
Appleton took a business card from his pocket and handed it to her. “If you do think of anything, I’d appreciate a call.”
“Of course.” Phyllis stood up from the student desk where she’d been sitting. “I’m free to go?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She started to turn away, then paused and said, “Victor Appleton.”
The detective looked up, seemingly a little surprised. “You saw my name on the card?”
“No, I remembered you. I’m sorry I didn’t remember earlier. It’s just that there were so many students over the years. How long has it been?”
“Since I was in eighth grade?” Appleton laughed. “Longer than I want to count up.”
“Refresh my memory. Were you a good student?”
“I got C’s. B’s if I was lucky. But I wasn’t a troublemaker. I hadn’t got my full growth yet, so I was a pretty scrawny kid. Just kept my head down most of the time.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed the class.”
“The way I recall it, I did. But that was a long time ago.”
Phyllis smiled. “It’s good to see you again. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”
Appleton closed his notebook and nodded. “That’s what people usually say when they’re talking to me.”
Chapter 21
When Phyllis came out of the classroom where Appleton had questioned her, she saw Sam a few yards away, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He straightened from the deceptively casual pose as Phyllis came toward him.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Of course. Being interrogated isn’t anything I haven’t gone through before.”
“Yeah, me, too. A few years ago, who’d have thought we’d be so familiar with murder investigations?”
“Certainly not me,” Phyllis said.
“Well, some people don’t find their true callin’ until later on in life.”
His tone was light, but Phyllis could see the worry in his eyes. She asked, “Where’s Ronnie?”
“That other detective is talkin’ to her. He called her in when he finished with me.”
Phyllis nodded. They had been kept separate until they could be questioned. That was standard procedure. Of course, if they’d wanted to lie and work out a shared story, they had had time to do that before the authorities arrived.
The two deputies who had answered the original call were still there, standing near the top of the stairwell keeping an eye on things while technicians came and went from the crime scene. Tom Shula was in the corridor, too, pacing back and forth, obviously disturbed by having a murder take place in his school. A moment later, Appleton stepped out of the classroom and said, “Mr. Shula, if I could ask you a few questions . . .?”
“Certainly,” Shula said. “The sooner we get this catastrophe cleared up, the better.” He went into the classroom with the investigator.
Phyllis watched them go, then asked Sam, “What was Tom doing when I called you and yelled for help?”
“What was he doin’?” Sam said with a slight frown. “I don’t know. When you said to bring him along, I looked around until I found him. Didn’t take long. He was doin’ something with the sound system. I guess they’d had a problem with it. Don’t know what he’d been doin’ before that.” Sam’s keen gaze played over Phyllis’s face. “You don’t think Tom could’ve had somethin’ to do with what happened to Brooks?”
“Right now I don’t know enough to have an opinion on anything,” Phyllis said. “But with that crowd in the cafeteria, and all the music and the lights, it would have been hard to say where someone was all the time.” She thought again about the hurried footsteps she had heard. Even though this part of the school was something of a maze, someone who knew it well could cover the distance between here and the cafeteria in a fairly short period of time.
But other than the friction between Brooks and Shula she had witnessed the day before in the principal’s office, she didn’t know of any reason why Shula might want the security guard dead.
Besides, she had known Tom Shula for years, and the idea that he could be a murderer just seemed so far-fetched as to be ridiculous.
A little commotion made Phyllis and Sam both turn toward the front of the school. Chase Hamilton was walking along the hall toward them, flanked by two uniformed deputies, one of whom held Chase’s right arm. He looked upset, which came as no surprise. He wasn’t cuffed, but he was definitely in custody, at least for now.
At that moment, Ronnie came out of one of the other classrooms, followed by the second homicide investigator. She stopped short at the sight of Chase, then exclaimed, “Oh, my God! They’ve arrested you!” She turned to the detective who had questioned her and went on, “This is so wrong! Chase would never hurt anyone. He didn’t do anything to Mr. Brooks, I’m sure of it!”
The deputy who had hold of Chas
e’s arm brought him to an abrupt stop before he could get too close to Ronnie. She took a step toward him, but Sam moved to intercept her. He didn’t touch her, just got in her way.
“We don’t need to be interferin’ with the investigation, honey,” he told her. “Let’s give these folks a chance to do their jobs.”
“But they’re going to blame him for what happened!” she protested. “You know they are.”
Chase said, “It’s all right, Ronnie. I didn’t do anything. You don’t have to worry.”
Appleton stepped out of the other classroom with Tom Shula and told the deputies, “Bring him in here.” He looked at Ronnie and added, “Nobody’s been arrested yet, Miss Ericson. We’re just asking questions and trying to figure out what happened here.”
“I don’t believe you. Chase didn’t do this—”
Sam put an arm around Ronnie’s shoulders and steered her away. Phyllis went with them but looked back over her shoulder to see the deputies escorting Chase into the classroom. Appleton and his partner followed them in, and the door closed.
One of the deputies farther along the hall stepped into the path of Sam, Phyllis, and Ronnie, causing them to halt momentarily. The man said, “You folks can go back to the cafeteria, but don’t leave the school until you’ve been told it’s all right.”
“Is everyone being detained?” Phyllis asked.
“Everyone who was here as soon as the scene was secured after the homicide call came in.”
Phyllis nodded and thought about the time involved to make that happen. Everything had taken place pretty quickly once she and Ronnie found Ray Brooks’s body, but the possibility that the killer had slipped out of the school before the authorities arrived couldn’t be ruled out.
The deputy moved aside and they walked on to the cafeteria. The music had stopped—Phyllis could tell that before they ever got there—and a subdued atmosphere hung over the big room as they stepped into it. Students and teachers were huddled in small groups, and a hum of low-voiced conversations filled the air. Deputies were posted at all the exits to make sure no one left.
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