Baker's Deadly Dozen

by Livia J. Washburn

  Chase frowned and said, “Now you’ve really got me curious. Sit down and tell me. Can I get you something to drink?”

  Phyllis and Sam passed on the drink but sat down on the same sofa where they had sat before. Sam didn’t have to clean it off today, so evidently Chase had been tidying up some since they were here last. Phyllis told Chase what they had discovered about Oak Trails and how Keeley Gifford had overheard them mention Brooks’s name.

  “So Brooks was actually a nice guy?” Chase said when Phyllis was finished. He shook his head. “I find that hard to believe. He always acted like a complete . . . jerk . . . at school.”

  “Yeah, I’d be tempted to use a stronger name than that, too,” Sam said.

  “From what Ms. Gifford said, he kept his life at school totally separate from his efforts to help people with drug problems.” Phyllis spread her hands. “Of course, we have only her word for any of this, but for what it’s worth, she seemed very genuine to me. My instincts say that she was telling the truth.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Sam said. “The lady meant what she was sayin’.”

  “Which kind of ruined a theory I’d been toying with,” Phyllis said with a faint smile. “When we found out that Oak Trails was a drug rehab facility, I thought maybe Brooks had been buying drugs from Duncan and Riley and something went wrong.”

  “Doesn’t sound likely,” Chase agreed. “Anyway, those two might hurt somebody if they were cornered, but they don’t strike me as killers. I could be wrong, of course. Do you have any other ideas?”

  Phyllis shook her head. “Not at the moment. I hate to say it, but you seem to have more means, motive, and opportunity than anyone else.”

  “And being a cop won’t get me off the hook for murder if the DA decides he’s got a reasonable case. I’m new around here. Is the guy likely to do something like that?”

  “He’s been known to grandstand in the past,” Sam said. “It usually hasn’t worked out for him, but the voters don’t seem to remember that. They keep electin’ him anyway.”

  Chase laughed. “Well, then, what’s the over-under? How many days will it be before I’m in jail again, for real this time?”

  “I don’t want that to happen,” Phyllis said. “For one thing, I believe you’re innocent, and for another, Ronnie would be very upset. She already thinks I should have solved this case before now.”

  “I know you’re giving it your best effort. How is Ronnie?”

  “Mopin’ a lot,” Sam said. “So . . . no different than a lot of other teenage girls.”

  “When all of this is over,” Phyllis said, “you need to tell her the truth about who you really are, Chase.”

  “You’re probably right. Do you think it’ll make a difference?”

  “When she finds out you’re that much older than her? It might.”

  “I give you my word I’ll do that, then, as soon as it’s safe for everybody concerned.”

  “Thank you.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. The investigation was stalled, and they all knew it. But none of them were going to give up, either.

  Chase checked to make sure Riley and Duncan hadn’t come back before Phyllis and Sam left the apartment. As she stepped out, Phyllis paused long enough to bend over and pick up one of the pieces of blue stone she had noticed earlier. Holding it on the palm of her hand, she showed it to Chase and said, “Do you know what that is?”

  He frowned at it and shook his head. “I have no idea. A blue rock, that’s all I can tell.”

  “You know what it looks like to me?” Sam said. The other two looked at him. “You know those rock kits that kids get when they’re studyin’ geology, the ones that have samples of a bunch of different kinds of rocks? That’s what it reminds me of.”

  Phyllis held up the stone and squinted at it. “You could be right,” she said. “I think Jason Duncan brushed this off his jacket as he was coming in. Do you know if he takes geology?”

  “He does,” Chase said. “You think it’s important?”

  “I don’t see how it could be,” Phyllis said.

  Chapter 29

  However, the broken blue stone continued to nag at her thoughts, and the next morning after she arrived at school, before classes started, she walked over to the hall where most of the science classes were located. She wasn’t sure who taught geology, but she asked one of the teachers she knew and was directed to the classroom occupied by Noah Burdette, a short, stocky man in his forties with rust-colored hair and beard.

  “Help you?” he asked as he looked up from his desk when Phyllis came in. No students were in the room; the bell releasing them to go to class had not rung yet.

  “Hello,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Phyllis Newsom. I’m the long-term sub for Molly Dobson.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember seeing you at convocation when the superintendent introduced all the new teachers. What can I do for you?”

  It had been a long, long time since anybody had referred to her as a new teacher, Phyllis thought, but she supposed that to Burdette, that’s what she was. She said, “I’m told that you teach the geology class, and I have a question about it.”

  Burdette sat back and laced his fingers together over his stomach. “Shoot.”

  “Do you use those rock collection kits that students used to buy, with samples of the different kinds of rocks?”

  “I have a lot of samples I use here in class, but I don’t require the kids to buy those kits, no.”

  “But they might?”

  “Sure, I suppose so,” Burdette replied with a shrug. “There are plenty of places you can order them. If somebody was really interested in the subject, they might get one.” He laughed. “I’ve got one kid who probably has two or three of them. Walter really likes rocks.”

  “Walter Baxter?” Phyllis said. It was entirely possible that more than one student named Walter attended Courtland, but the Walter she knew seemed like the sort that Burdette was describing.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Do you know him?”

  “I do, although he’s not in any of my classes. I thought he was a freshman.”

  “Yeah, but he’s got lots of advanced science credits, so he was able to take an upper level class like geology. Smart kid. Really smart.”

  “Yes, that’s the impression I had of him. What about Jason Duncan?”

  Burdette frowned and lost his casual attitude as he sat up straighter. “He’s smart enough . . . when he wants to be. He’s not interested in working at it, though. Why all the questions, Mrs. Newsom? I’m not in the habit of gossiping about students.”

  “I’m not either, and I appreciate you being honest with me.” Phyllis took a breath. “The son of a friend of mine has been hanging around with Jason Duncan, and she’d heard some things that made her worried he might be a bad influence on the boy.”

  Burdette frowned. “It’s not my place to say anything about that. But . . .” He grimaced. “Your friend is probably right to be worried. Duncan and his crew aren’t the best bunch for her son to be running with. Just to be clear, though . . . this ‘friend’ of yours, it’s not really you, is it?”

  Phyllis smiled. “My son graduated from high school a long time ago, Mr. Burdette.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought.” The bell rang, causing both of them to look up. Burdette went on, “You didn’t hear anything from me, right?”

  “Not a thing,” Phyllis agreed. Quickly, before any students could reach the room, she gave in to a whim and asked, “Walter Baxter isn’t friends with Duncan, is he?”

  Burdette frowned again and said, “It’s funny you should mention that. No, I wouldn’t say they’re friends, but they’ve worked together on a couple of group projects and seemed to get along all right. Of course, that’s probably because Walter did all the work and let Duncan take some of the credit.”

  Phyllis nodded. That was usually the way it was with group projects.

  Still, it was
interesting that Walter at least was acquainted with Jason Duncan . . . and Walter had been there the night of the dance, too.

  Now, that was an insane thought to have, Phyllis told herself. Walter Baxter wasn’t the sort to hurt a fly . . . unless maybe he was trying to dissect it for a biology class.

  But she had run into some very unlikely murderers in the past, and while she tried to be reasonable about where she directed her suspicions, she had learned not to be too quick to rule out anything.

  Still . . . Walter?

  Phyllis filed that away in the back of her mind.

  She thanked Noah Burdette again and left the classroom, heading back to her own hall. By the time she reached her class, several students had come in already, and the day really began to get underway.

  That afternoon, after school, she walked over to Sam’s room and found that he still had students at some of his desks. Five girls and three boys sat there with calculators in front of them, apparently working problems from sheets of paper sitting next to the calculators. Their fingers flew so fast that Phyllis couldn’t have hoped to follow what they were doing, even if she knew all the formulas and tricks they were using.

  Sam stood up from his desk and came over to her, smiling. He held a small timer in his hand. With a nod, he indicated that they should go out into the hall.

  Phyllis did, but before she stepped out of the room, she noticed that Walter Baxter was one of the boys working with the calculators.

  “Math team practice,” Sam said quietly once they were in the hall with the door pulled up but not completely closed behind them. “That bunch is the calculator team.”

  “I figured that out,” Phyllis said. “You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  “I can use a calculator to add, subtract, multiply, and divide,” Sam said, “but I’ve got to think about what I’m doin’ and take my time with it. That stuff they’re doin’?” He shook his head. “Way beyond me. But Amber’s workin’ with some other kids on the team right now and she needed a place for these to take their practice tests.” He held up the timer. “I can run one o’ these things just fine and tell ’em when to start and stop.”

  “I noticed that Walter is one of them.”

  “Yeah, Amber says he’s pretty good. Might be good enough to go to state, even though he’s just a freshman.”

  “He’s in geology class with Jason Duncan. They’ve even worked together on some group projects.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Now hold on. You’re thinkin’ that little nerd might be mixed up with the bunch sellin’ drugs? Or did you think . . . Oh, no. Walter killin’ somebody, let alone a bruiser like Brooks? That’s just too far out there, Phyllis.”

  “I agree,” she said. “But he was here that night, he seems to know everyone involved, he’s extremely smart . . . and let’s face it, who would ever suspect him of being a drug kingpin? If you could call it that on this level. But you remember what Chase said about believing that Duncan was getting his orders from someone else.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just crazy. I mean, no offense, but . . . Walter?”

  Phyllis said, “You’d better keep it down or he’s going to hear you. I know how far-fetched it sounds, Sam. And it’s pure speculation. There’s not a shred of proof so far linking him to any wrongdoing. I just thought I’d mention it so you can sort of keep an eye on him.”

  “Yeah, I reckon I can do that. But I figure he’s got his hands full with bein’ smart and havin’ that crush on Ronnie.”

  “I hope that turns out to be true. Speaking of Ronnie, is she going home with you?”

  “Yeah. She wanted to do some work in the library first, which worked out well because I told Amber the calculator team could practice in my room. She’ll come over here when she’s done.”

  “If Walter is still here, he’ll like that. Ronnie may not, though.”

  “She can put up with it,” Sam said. He looked at the timer. “They’re about to run out of time to do those crunchers. I’d best get back in there.”

  “Crunchers?” Phyllis repeated.

  “The problems that just have numbers in ’em. The actual tests have what we used to call story problems, too. But the crunchers are the ones they try to do so fast. At least, that’s what Amber tells me.”

  Phyllis just shook her head and then started toward the front of the school.

  Tom Shula was in the main office talking to the secretary. He smiled at Phyllis as she came in.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute, Tom?” she asked.

  “Sure, come on back.” He led the way along the short hall to his office and waved Phyllis into the chair in front of the desk. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you decided what to do about Chase Hamilton?”

  Shula’s shoulders rose and fell. “What is there to do? I suppose I could still suspend him for that scuffle with Ray Brooks, but with Brooks being dead and all . . . To tell you the truth, I’ve sort of been waiting for the police to solve the problem for me. If they arrest the Hamilton kid for Brooks’s murder, then I don’t have to do anything about it, do I?”

  “That’s true enough,” Phyllis agreed, not adding that she believed Chase was innocent and didn’t want to see him arrested. She waited a moment to see if Shula would say anything about Chase being an undercover police officer, but the principal didn’t bring it up. For all he knew, Phyllis was completely unaware of that, and she supposed he thought he was doing the right thing by keeping that knowledge to himself.

  She went on, “Last Friday, when I called Sam and told him to find you and come back to the Dungeon, what were you doing?”

  Shula frowned. “Wait a minute. Are you interrogating me, Phyllis?”

  “Oh, no, not at all,” she said quickly. “Sam mentioned he found you doing something with the sound system, and I just wondered what that was about.”

  “Still sounds a little like an interrogation,” Shula said, “but I was trying to balance the speakers better. One channel gets out of whack pretty easily, so somebody has to monitor it. One of the kids was supposed to be doing that.”

  “Walter Baxter,” Phyllis said.

  “Yeah, that’s right. He volunteered, and he’s been working with the sound system for the drama department, so I thought it would be all right. From what Miss Franklin tells me, the kid’s great at sound, special effects, stuff like that.”

  Walter seemed to be good at a lot of different things, Phyllis thought.

  “But he’d gone off somewhere and disappeared,” Shula went on. “The bass was too loud, so I was turning it down when Sam found me.” He smiled. “I used to be in a band, you know, so I know about things like that. The Atomic Frogs.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Atomic Frogs. That was what we were called. The band I was in at college. We even played a few gigs, you know. We weren’t bad. But that was a long time ago.”

  “A lot of things were,” Phyllis agreed. “Did you ever find out where Walter was when he was supposed to be taking care of the sound system?”

  “I didn’t try to,” Shula said. “Didn’t figure it was important. I’m sure he’d gone to the bathroom, or he was off trying to get some girl to dance with him. You know, the important things to a fourteen-year-old boy.”

  “Fourteen,” Phyllis mused. It sounded so young. It was young. And yet a part of her mind was trying to cast him as a criminal mastermind.

  Sam was right: the idea was insane. Phyllis put it out of her head and stood up.

  “Thanks, Tom.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I was just trying to get everything about the night of the dance straight in my mind.”

  “Because you’re trying to figure out who killed Ray Brooks.” Shula nodded. “I know what you’re up to. I’ve read about all those other cases you solved. But it seems to me you ought to just let the cops handle this one, Phyllis. We’ve known each other a long time, and I sure wouldn’t want to see you get yourself hurt or in
trouble.” His voice became a bit more stern as he added, “Besides, it doesn’t look good to have one of my teachers running around playing detective.”

  She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t “playing” anything. Unwilling or not, whenever she got dragged into one of these messy situations, she took it completely seriously.

  But instead she said, “Don’t worry, Tom. I’m not going to get in trouble. And I won’t do anything to harm the school’s reputation, either.”

  “You know I don’t care about that nearly as much as I do about you.”

  “Of course. I’m just a nosy old woman. I need to be careful about that.”

  “Nobody thinks that,” he said as he got to his feet. “Just be careful, that’s all.”

  She smiled and nodded and left the principal’s office. As she walked back toward her classroom, she thought about what Shula had told her.

  According to him, Walter Baxter was unaccounted for at the time of Ray Brooks’s murder. But, Phyllis reminded herself, she had only Shula’s word for that. And when you got right down to it, she didn’t know where Shula himself had been during that short but crucial period of time. Sam had had to look around for him. It was possible Shula had just reached the area where the sound system was located when Sam found him.

  Phyllis smiled faintly to herself. She might as well just go ahead and suspect the entire school, she thought. That was what she seemed to be doing. It would help if there was some actual evidence . . .

  Something danced past the edge of her mind, but when she turned her thoughts toward it, whatever it was had disappeared.

  Chapter 30

  A week had passed since the murder of Ray Brooks at the Friday the Thirteenth dance, and Phyllis was no closer to solving that murder than she had been at the moment she had seen Brooks’s bloody form slump to the floor of the Dungeon, never to move again.