Phyllis nodded slowly and said, “Yes, they do.” She stood for a moment, staring out into the hallway, but she wasn’t really seeing the people going by.
Then a booming voice distracted her as one of the visiting coaches, a man with a large stomach under a sweatshirt with his school’s mascot on it, asked, “Are all the casseroles gone? I was looking forward to that!”
“I’m sorry, dear,” Eve said. “Perhaps you’d care for a donut?”
“Well, yeah, if that’s all that’s left,” the visitor said ungraciously.
Then another voice came over the loudspeaker. This one belonged to Sam. He said, “Students, if you’re taking the number sense test, please report to the testing rooms now. The number sense test will begin in five minutes.”
“Goodness, he sounds different, doesn’t he?” Eve said.
Phyllis said, “He’s reading from a script. I didn’t know he was supposed to announce the contests, too.”
“That Amber talked him into it, I’ll bet,” Carolyn said.
“Well, somebody has to do the announcing, I suppose.”
Sam read the instructions for the test over the PA system, emphasizing that the students taking the number sense test weren’t supposed to turn their tests over and start until he said, “Begin.” When he finally intoned the command solemnly, Phyllis could almost see all the kids eagerly flipping over their tests and plunging into them.
With the competition officially underway, there was another small boom in the hospitality room as coaches who’d been giving their team some last-minute instructions or pep talks came in to get something to eat. The contest was out of the adults’ hands now, and everything depended on the students and how well they did.
Sam wandered in, carrying a timer like the one he’d been using in his room during math team practice. “I’m free,” he said, “but not for long. The number sense test only lasts ten minutes. Thought I’d grab a couple more cookies and head back to the office.” He picked up two of the sugar cookies and asked, “How’d I sound? Do I have a face made for radio, or what?”
“You sounded fine,” Phyllis assured him. She stepped away from the table and inclined her head to indicate that she wanted him to follow her. They drifted over to the other side of the room, where she asked him quietly, “Sam, you remember looking at Ray Brooks’s body that night?”
He frowned. “I don’t reckon I’m likely to forget it any time soon.”
“You said he had something around his mouth, something that might have been cookie crumbs.”
“Yeah, I recall that. Nobody ever seemed to think anything about it, though. You had a bunch of cookies on the snack table. He could’ve got some any time.”
“But he didn’t,” Phyllis said. “He never came over to the table. I’m certain of that. And if those were cookie crumbs, he must have eaten them pretty soon before he was killed, or else they would have gotten brushed off by then.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sam said, still frowning. He glanced at the timer in his hand and went on, “Shoot. I’ve gotta get back. But once I get the next contest started, I’ll come back over here and we can talk about it some more. You’re on the trail of somethin’, aren’t you?”
Instead of answering, Phyllis gave him a little push toward the door. “Go on and stop the contest on time. Amber won’t like it if things get off schedule.”
“No, I guess not.” He frowned at her, but he went on out of the hospitality room.
“What was that confab about?” Carolyn asked when Phyllis came back to the table. “You and Sam looked awfully serious.”
“Just trying to get a few things straight in my head,” Phyllis said.
A moment later, Sam’s voice came over the speakers again, throughout the school. “Stop. Put your pencils down. Do not make any more marks on your answer sheet. Turn in your answer sheets now. You may leave the testing rooms. The calculator contest will begin in ten minutes.”
“He sounds like a robot, doesn’t he?” Eve said. “Or one of those talking elevators that announces what floor you’re on.”
“I hate reading from a script,” Carolyn said.
The noise level in the mall rose again as students released from the testing rooms poured into it. Some of them would go back almost right away for the calculator contest, but Sam had told Phyllis that not all the kids took all the tests. It was a slightly different group each time.
When Sam gave the instructions for the next contest, she heard him say that it would last for thirty minutes. That might give her time to do what she wanted to do. She waited until it was underway, then let the little rush play out before she told Carolyn and Eve, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“All right, we’ll hold down the fort,” Carolyn said.
Phyllis left the hospitality room, skirted the mall, and looked toward the office, thinking that she might see Sam coming her way. There was no sign of him, though, so she supposed he was busy with something else. Even with some of the students taking the calculator test, the mall was still crowded and loud because all the kids who weren’t taking it had gathered here. Phyllis walked toward the cafeteria and along the hall beside it as well, heading into the rear part of the school where it was quieter.
She took out her cell phone and then reached into her purse for the business card she had been carrying around for more than a week, ever since Victor Appleton had given it to her. She didn’t really expect to get him when she called and assumed she would have to leave a message, but he answered almost right away.
“Detective Appleton?” she said. “This is Phyllis Newsom.”
“Mrs. Newsom?” He sounded surprised to hear her. “What can I do for you? Did you think of something else about the Brooks case?”
“I thought of a lot of things. I know you arrested Chase Hamilton, and I know he didn’t kill Ray Brooks.”
“And how do you know that?” Appleton asked.
Phyllis turned a corner. Her steps echoed in the empty halls back here. She could still hear a little noise from the front of the school, but it had faded away for the most part.
“Before I answer that, can I ask you a question, Detective?”
“I suppose so,” Appleton said warily. “But I can’t promise that I’ll answer it.”
“I just need you to confirm that cookie crumbs were found around Ray Brooks’s mouth on the night of his murder.”
“How the—” Appleton paused. “I can’t go into the evidence pertaining to the case, you should know that.”
“That’s all right,” Phyllis said. “I was pretty sure anyway. Just like I’m sure you don’t see any way that some cookie crumbs could possibly have anything to do with the murder. But they do, and you should come out to the high school right now, Detective.”
“What are you talk—”
Phyllis lowered the cell phone and slipped it back into her pocket. She had reached the isolated corner where the stairs leading down to the Dungeon were, and as she stopped, she heard the distinctive footsteps behind her. They came to a stop. She turned and saw Amber standing there.
“What are you doing back here, Phyllis?” the young teacher asked with a puzzled frown on her face. “You’re supposed to be working in the hospitality room.”
“I know, but this seemed more important.”
Amber shook her head in apparent confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I was just talking to Victor Appleton. He used to be a student of mine, you know, a long time ago. Now he’s an investigator for the sheriff’s department.”
“I know who he is,” Amber snapped. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I asked him to come out here so I can explain to him how I know that you murdered Ray Brooks.”
Chapter 32
Amber stared at her for a long time without speaking, then finally said, “Oookay, I think you’ve read too many stories about what a great detective you are, Phyllis, because that’s just about the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
I admit I wasn’t very fond of the guy. That’s why I dumped him a while back.”
“You didn’t dump him,” Phyllis said. “It was the other way around.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“From someone who had reason to know.” Phyllis didn’t mention Keeley Gifford’s name.
“Somebody who’d been listening to Ray’s bull, I’ll bet. Of course he claimed that he dumped me. He was trying to salvage his wounded pride, that’s all.”
“Maybe. But what about the cookie crumbs?”
Amber came closer. “Now I’m starting to think you really have lost your mind. What cookie crumbs?”
“The ones around Ray Brooks’s mouth. He’d been eating cookies just before he was killed. Did you use them to distract him? I know you took the last two sugar cookies from the snack table just a few minutes earlier. You told me that yourself.”
“So he was eating cookies,” Amber said. “He could have gotten those himself.”
Phyllis shook her head. “He didn’t. He didn’t come over to the table all evening during the dance.”
“Then somebody else gave them to him.”
“That’s possible,” Phyllis said, nodding. “Just like it’s possible he could have been lying about who dumped who. But that doesn’t explain the broken heel on your shoe.”
“The what?” Amber’s frown deepened. She glanced down at her feet. “My shoe? You mean the one I was wearing at the dance? I told you how that happened.”
“You did,” Phyllis said, “but did anyone actually see that happen? The heel could have just as easily snapped off while you were struggling with Brooks. Maybe he shoved you after you stabbed him, or tried to grab you by the throat. You see, Amber, I heard you running away down that other hall. I thought whoever it was was stumbling along because they were upset at what had just happened. But running with a broken heel would have thrown off your gait, too.”
“There’s no way you can prove something like that.”
Phyllis nodded. “Probably not. But there’s still the matter of your jacket.”
“My jacket?” Amber repeated.
“And the missing blue stone.” Phyllis pointed. “The one that’s supposed to go right there.” She reached in her other pocket, felt around, and pulled out the piece she had found in front of Chase’s door, which she had been carrying around ever since, instinctively knowing somehow that it might be important. “Witnesses saw me pick this up. There might even be some pieces of it left there, if the police want to go and look. I saw it fall off of Jason Duncan’s coat. How did it get from your jacket onto Duncan’s coat? I suspect it was while the two of you were . . . romantically involved. That is how you’ve been keeping Duncan in line and getting him to do everything you want, isn’t it? By sleeping with him?”
“You crazy, perverted old bitch. I’m not going to listen to any more of this.”
Amber started to turn away, but Phyllis stopped her by saying, “All of that fits together, but it doesn’t explain why. If you wanted to kill Ray Brooks because he broke up with you, why would you wait until the night of the dance to do it? Anyway, I can’t imagine you feeling strongly enough about that to murder him.”
“I don’t know why not,” Amber said. “You’ve imagined plenty of other crazy stuff!”
“But, if we take into account that you’re involved somehow with Jason Duncan . . . and we know that Duncan is one of the people selling drugs here at Courtland . . . then it’s not much of a stretch to think that maybe the person at the top of the pyramid . . . the person giving Duncan his orders . . . is you, Amber. And if Ray Brooks found out about that, he would dump you, no doubt about that. Brooks hated drugs and drug dealers. But he still had feelings for you, so he dragged his feet about turning you in. Until he couldn’t stand it anymore and gave you an ultimatum: get out of it, or he would tell the authorities about you. You told him you would . . . you asked him to meet you back here to talk about it . . . you even gave him a couple of cookies as a peace offering . . . and then you killed him.”
Amber stared at Phyllis for a long moment again, and Phyllis saw the truth in the young woman’s eyes. She knew she was right about Amber.
But then Amber said, “There’s absolutely no proof of any of that. You don’t really think the cops will believe you, do you? My God, they’ll chalk it all up to dementia!”
“Do you believe that Jason Duncan and Alan Riley will keep their mouths shut once the district attorney starts offering them deals? And you know he will. Sending a beautiful young teacher to prison for sleeping with students, masterminding a drug ring, and murdering a man right here in the school? What headlines that will make!”
“It’ll never get that far,” Amber said, but she didn’t sound so convinced now.
“No?” Phyllis reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone. “Let’s ask Detective Appleton. He’s been listening the whole time.”
Amber’s face twisted. She let out a low, articulate cry of rage and stalked forward. Phyllis knew what had to be flashing through her mind. Amber was young and in great shape. She could snap Phyllis’s neck and throw her down the stairs into the Dungeon. It would look like Phyllis had broken her neck in a terrible accident . . .
“Stop,” Sam’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers.
Amber froze.
Then Sam said, “Do no more calculations.”
Amber’s eyes widened in insane rage.
Before she could start toward Phyllis again, two figures leaped on her from behind, knocking her to the floor. Ronnie wrapped her arms around Amber’s neck and locked her legs around the teacher’s waist. Walter had hold of Amber’s legs, pinning her down. Ronnie looked up and yelled, “Run, Phyllis! We’ll hold her!”
“No!” Phyllis cried. “I can’t let the two of you get hurt!”
“Nobody’s getting hurt!” a man’s voice said. Heavy footsteps slapped the floor. Victor Appleton, followed by his partner and two uniformed deputies, came around the corner and took over. Ronnie and Walter scrambled up, and the deputies grabbed hold of Amber’s arms and hauled her to her feet. They didn’t let go.
Appleton said to Phyllis, “Are you all right?”
She swallowed and nodded. “I’m fine.”
“No offense, Mrs. Newsom, but you’re crazy, you know? How could you be sure I’d actually come out here?”
“I remembered you, Victor,” Phyllis said. “You were a very conscientious student. You may not have made top grades, but you always did your work.”
“Yeah, that’s me, dumb but determined.” He looked over at Amber, who was glaring at Phyllis. “She’s right, you know. Everything I heard was circumstantial evidence.”
“But she didn’t deny it,” Walter said. “And we saw her try to kill Mrs. Newsom.”
“We did!” Ronnie said. “If we hadn’t stopped her, she would have!”
Appleton frowned at them and said, “Who are you two kids? No, wait, we’ll hash it all out later. Right now I’m taking Ms. Trahearne in for questioning.” He jerked his head at the men with him, and they all started back toward the front of the school, escorting a defiant Amber with them.
Phyllis looked at Ronnie and Walter and said, “Walter, you’re supposed to be taking the calculator test. You missed it.”
“I know. I had to go to the bathroom.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone and held a hand up beside his mouth. “I have a nervous bladder.” In a more normal tone, he went on, “But this is just the first meet, and anyway, I always score higher than anybody else on the practice tests. I’ll have plenty of other chances. But since I’d already had to forfeit this one, I thought I might as well help Ronnie run papers.”
“I didn’t ask him for help,” Ronnie said. “Then we saw you come back here, and Miss Trahearne looked like she was following you, and that seemed odd, so Walter said we should see what was going on . . .” She shrugged. “He’s pretty smart for a freshman.”
Walter positively beamed.
“Students, report to the testing rooms for the mathematics contest,” Sam said over the PA system.
Walter looked up at the speaker in the ceiling. “I guess this means Coach Fletcher is the math team coach now.”
◄♦►
“No way,” Sam said a couple of hours later when Phyllis told him what Walter had said. “Not just no, but heck no. I don’t know anywhere near enough to do that. I can help, like today, but they’ll have to find somebody else to coach the team.”
They were sitting in the hospitality room. The meet was over, and Tom Shula, summoned from home, was running the awards ceremony in the gym. The table that had been piled with food earlier was almost empty now, as if a pack of locusts had descended upon it.
Sam frowned at Phyllis and went on, “I’m not too happy about you goin’ off and solvin’ that murder while I was stuck in the office like that.”
“And we were stuck here,” Eve said. “None of us got to gasp and say, ‘You’ve solved the murder, haven’t you, Phyllis?’”
“It’s more a matter of bein’ worried that Amber could’ve hurt you,” Sam drawled.
“Well, that wasn’t really my intent,” Phyllis said. “I was still putting everything together in my mind, and I wanted to talk to Detective Appleton, and it just seemed like that would be a quiet place to do both of those things. I guess when Amber saw me heading toward the scene of the crime, she got worried.”
“A guilty conscience will do that to you,” Carolyn said. She turned to Sam. “Are you upset that your little girlfriend turned out to be a killer?”
Sam raised a hand and said, “Now hold on. Nobody ever said Amber was my little girlfriend.”
“I believe I just did.”
“It’s true that I was fond of her,” Sam said, a bleak look crossing his face for a moment. “I was really lost when I started tryin’ to teach math, and she helped me a lot. She didn’t have anything to gain by it, either. She was just bein’ nice.”
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