Sure enough, aside from the three who abruptly left their lounging posts at the window and resumed their seats upon my arrival, most of the students were leaning over their books, pencils in hand.
Would wonders never cease?
I was much calmer by the time my afternoon free period rolled around as I slipped down to the cafeteria and the pay telephone on the wall. Gil answered on the first ring.
I spoke without preamble. “You’re the newsman in the family. What do you know about the Rousseau brothers?”
“It’s bad, honey. Really bad.”
“So I keep being told, but what kind of bad? Did they climb the Macdonough Monument this time? Put detergent in the college fountain again? What kind of stupid prank rated those poor boys being dragged out of school in handcuffs?”
I was warming to my subject, becoming more outraged by the word.
“Calm down. I was—”
“Are you aware of how infuriating it is to be told to calm down?”
Gil spoke slowly. “No, but I’ll file it away for future reference.” I could hear the amusement in his voice. His good nature, as usual, began to drain away my irritation.
“I’m sorry. You have no idea the spectacle that took place today.” I glanced at my watch. “What’s more, I’ll be late to my seventh period class if I don’t hang up right now. Quick—tell me something, anything—”
Gil broke into my harangue. “It’s murder.”
“What?”
“Remember that body found on the lake?”
“Yes, of course.” The coverage of that event by Gil’s newspaper had been a bit too sensational for my taste.
“It’s about that. I’ll tell you all about it at home tonight. Now go on, get to your class. I love you!”
I was really, really late to my next class, because I threw up in the ladies restroom. Upset though I was about the Rousseau brothers, I had no idea it would affect me like this. Fortunately, I recognized the warning signs just in time. It was a brief bout, easily handled, and it was surprising how much better I felt when it was over. Furthermore, I made it to freshman English just before total chaos broke out.
“You hear about the Routheaus, Mrs. Dickenthen? They whacked a guy fithing out on the lake,” one of my students said in greeting. The clarity of his sibilant s’s was hampered somewhat by a set of braces in the school colors.
The high school grapevine seemed far more efficient than any of Gil’s journalistic sources. I tried to divert attention to matters academic.
“Get your syntax straight, Frank. Who was fishing, the victim or the perpetrator?”
“The guy. Dead guy,” Frank amended. “They thot ’im, then drownded him, then thtuck hith head through a hole in the eythe.”
I almost corrected him—drowned, not drownded—but the subject was simply beyond the bounds of civil discussion.
“He froze right into the ice,” another student put in, eyes glittering. “At least, his head did.”
“That’s enough. There’s work to do.” I was talking as much to myself as to the students. “Let’s open our books to page one hundred fifty-three.”
Even Edgar Allen Poe was preferable to this real-life horror.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vern had spent a lot of time with the Rousseau brothers lately and I wanted to talk to him about the situation, so immediately after school, I stopped by LaBombard Taxi. It shared a small strip mall with a pizza restaurant and an auto parts store, about twenty minutes’ walking distance from the high school.
Vern’s battered red Honda was sitting in the side parking lot. I checked my watch. If memory served, he had another half-hour to work.
It had been a cold and windy walk. I perched hesitantly on a bench in front of the large storefront window and shivered. I hadn’t bundled up enough this morning. My cheeks stung. A brisk breeze, courtesy of the nearby Saranac River, went right through my coat. I was not enjoying myself.
There was a knock on the big window from the inside. Mrs. Fleur LaBombard grinned at me through it. She opened the office door. “Come in,” she said, gesturing, “no use freezin’ to death.”
“Thanks so much, Mrs. LaBombard.”
“Call me Fleur.” The inside was blessedly warm, almost stifling. “You’re here for the boy, I bet.” She indicated a plastic-covered settee. “Sit,” she ordered, “help yourself to coffee. He’ll be finish’ pretty soon.”
I declined the offer of refreshment, but expressed my gratitude for the shelter and asked after her husband, Marcel.
“He don’t feel too good these days,” Fleur said.
“Oh, dear. Has he caught the flu?” There was a certain irony in my question, since Mr. LaBombard favored spraying his taxi with antiseptic spray after each fare.
She shrugged. “Nope, just don’t feel good. Kind of blue, can’t make himself to get out of the bed, except go to the john. I tell him, get back to work, keep busy, that’ll snap you out of it, but he don’t listen.”
It sounded serious. “Has he seen a doctor?”
“For what? He’s got no temperature, no sore throat, nothing.”
“Well, tell him I hope he feels better soon.”
“He better. Right now, we only got one driver, besides Vern there. If business picks up any, we’ll be in a pickle.”
She resumed her seat at her desk and shook a long, filtered cigarette from its pack. “You mind?” she asked, pointing the cigarette at a two-foot-high plastic tower with a well-filled ashtray at the bottom. “I got this thing, works real good. Bought it over to Chuck Nathan’s.” The florist carried a wide variety of gift items and gadgets on the side. “It’s kind of cool. Sucks up the smoke, sort of.” She held her cigarette poised, waiting for my response.
I nodded my permission. I’d never developed the smoking habit, but before she quit last year, Lily Burns had never been without a cigarette in her well-manicured hand. If I hadn’t developed a tolerance by now, I never would.
Smiling graciously at me, Fleur bent her head over a lighter shaped like the Champlain monument. I watched with interest. She bent the diminutive Samuel de Champlain back from his pedestal, flicked the base with her thumb and a flame shot up. Soon the tip of the cigarette glowed almost as brightly as her fluorescent hair. She inhaled with apparent enjoyment.
I tried to settle into the stiff sofa. It made a rubbery creaking noise every time I moved. Reluctantly, I turned my attention to the smells in the room: a mix of long-forgotten cigarettes, over-brewed coffee, and Lysol.
Lysol was by way of being a theme with the LaBombards. Taxi #1, driven by Fleur’s husband, always smelled of it. The car Vern drove, #2, reminded one only slightly less of a chem lab.
I swallowed uncomfortably. Just thinking of this subject was setting my stomach on edge.
I moved my gaze around the room. One side of the room was occupied by two vending machines, one for soft drinks and one for snacks, on either side of a large trash container. Behind Fleur’s desk were four metal lockers, standing side by side, prominently hand-lettered: “Fleur,” “Marcel,” “Vern” and “Sub.” The last, I assumed, was short for substitute. Two of the lockers had dome-topped metal lunchboxes perched on top.
A coffeemaker on a folding commercial table faced the vending machines, and above it on the wall were several framed and faded school pictures of the LaBombard children, now mostly grown. There were six in all, if I remembered rightly, most of them good students and most of them married by now. I had taught all but one of them myself.
I took a deep breath of the smoky, chemical-laden air and decided to watch Fleur work. Her job, I came to realize, involved long periods of boredom, which she passed by reading well-worn magazines, punctuated by telephone calls and static-filled discussions with the two-man taxi fleet over the walkie-talkie system. The messages came in brief spurts and, among the cryptic professional terms, were pretty easy to decipher.
She finished a conversation abruptly and turned in her chair. “You know about
the Rousseau boys?”
I nodded.
“Heard about it on the police scanner.” She waved in the direction of a radio-like gadget and shook her head sadly. “I always thought they was good kids. My Yvonne babysat for them after the mother died.”
I remembered Yvonne, the youngest LaBombard child; a sweet, rather pretty girl, but a bit too impressionable. I saw a lot of that among my female students.
“Yeah, those Rousseau boys were cute little ones, all right.”
“What’s Yvonne doing now?” I asked idly.
Fleur frowned, tapped her cigarette in the ashtray, and took another drag. She squinted and shook her head. Smoke curled from her mouth as she spoke.
“Don’t hear from her much. She’s waitressing, living up in Champlain, almost to the border. Her picture’s over there.” She pointed to a photo posted on the bulletin board behind me.
I turned and saw a windblown but smiling Yvonne, huddled next to a barrel-chested, curly-haired young man with huge dark eyes and thundercloud eyebrows. He looked very serious and earnest.
“Engaged to this foreign guy, Matt something; has an accent—English. At least, I think it’s English. He’s a case, that one. Don’t like her coming to see us.” She rolled her eyes and her sigh ended in a sharp cough. “She’s livin’ with him, which just isn’t—well, you know. And he’s not even Catholic. I’m not prejudiced at all, y’understand, but the mister and me just wish . . . ” She trailed off.
She leaned forward confidentially. “Not too long ago, that boy and him had a fight like you wouldn’t believe, right here in this office.” She tapped her desk. “I was afraid somebody’d get hurt—Marcel’s not getting any younger—but it was just yelling. You ask me, it’s why he’s feeling so poorly. But he won’t listen; isn’t that the way with men? They just don’t listen!” She shook her head sadly.
Static from the radio interrupted her and she swiveled in her chair.
“Number Two here.” I recognized Vern’s voice. “Dropped off the fare at the hospital. My shift ends in two minutes. I’m headed for the Gamma house. Out.”
Fleur tapped her cigarette in the ashtray and replaced it in her mouth, where it bobbed with each spoken syllable. “Negative, Number Two. Your aunt’s here, needing a lift. Come on in.”
“Amelia? There? Okay.” He sounded surprised, but not altogether pleased.
“Him and that girl,” Fleur said to me, jerking her head in the direction of the radio. “Takes up all his spare time these days.” She took another long drag and laid the cigarette in the ashtray before answering the telephone, “LaBombard Taxi.”
Girl? This was interesting. It would explain the new haircut and the renewed interest in clothes.
In the six months I’d known him, Vern had sporadically dated a variety of girls, but nobody in particular. I was new to the in loco parentis business. Should I ask him about this, or leave it alone? Would he need a woman’s advice or would I be interfering? I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
It certainly seemed hot. A wave of nausea had begun at the pit of my stomach and was gurgling upward. I drew shakily to my feet and headed for the door, waving vaguely at the busy Fleur. “Getting a breath of fresh . . . fresh . . . ” I pulled opened the door and drew deeply of the ice-cold oxygen.
It had started to snow. Tiny dancing flakes, few and far between.
I closed the door behind me and sat heavily on the outdoor bench. The air was the kind that frosted the insides of your nostrils, but it felt like bracing medicine at this moment. I bent forward, because it seemed the thing to do.
Whew, that was a near thing, I thought.
The noxious exhaust of a car floated my way and I had another bad moment; then there was the slam of a car door followed by quick, heavy footsteps.
“Amelia? You okay?” It was Vern; I could tell by the giant sneakers that came into my line of vision.
“Just a little woozy. Something I ate, probably.” I sat up, looked into his dear, concerned face and felt better.
The office door opened. “Gee whiz, Miss Prentice, I’m sorry. I was busy on the phone just now. You feel faint? You want a coke or something? I’ll get you one from the machine. Mrs. Dickensen, I mean.”
Summoning up every ounce of my spare strength, I requested she call me Amelia and assured them both that all I needed was to get home.
“You go see the doctor, okay?” Fleur requested as I hastily gathered my black leather satchel from the plastic-coated sofa, holding my breath the whole time. “It’s flu season. He’ll give you a shot or something.”
I nodded.
“She’s right,” Vern added his two cents once we were in the car. “You need to get that checked out. It could be serious.”
“I feel better already.” I tilted my head back, closed my eyes and decided to change the subject. “Who’s the new girl?”
There was a moment of silence, then, “What?”
I kept my eyes shut. “Fleur mentioned you were seeing a lot of one particular girl.”
Vern shifted gears. “Well, I guess you could say Melody Branch and I are kind of dating.”
I opened my eyes. “Melody? What a pretty name. Where did you meet her?”
“In one of my classes at school.”
“Is she nice?”
“Amelia, that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. Of course she’s nice.”
“And pretty?”
“No, she’s hideous. Look, don’t get any ideas. She’s just a girl, okay? No big deal.” Vern navigated a tricky left turn. “I heard about J.T. and Dustin getting busted. Did you see it happen? What’s going on?”
“I saw them being arrested, if that’s what you mean. Vern, Gil says they’re accused of murder.”
“Golly!” Vern’s eyes widened. “Oh, gee!” He ran his hand over his severely shorn head. He did look more mature this way. “I mean, gee whiz, they’re no angels, everybody knows that, but murder? How did they say it happened?”
“I don’t have details. Gil said he’d tell us when we get h—”
The short whoop of a police siren and flashing lights interrupted my sentence.
Vern glanced over his shoulder. “What the—”
A squad car was directly behind us.
“Vern, how fast were you going?”
“Slower ’n Christmas,” he mumbled, pulling over to the curb. “I always do when Mrs. Magoo’s in the car.” It was a slightly derogatory pet name he’d given me, a comment on my studied, myopic driving style.
Vern slumped in his seat and pulled his wallet from a hip pocket. By the time he was ready with his ID, the officer had arrived at Vern’s window.
“Vern Thomas?”
Vern went dead pale and held up his license. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t need to see that. We just want to ask you a few questions. Would you mind following me to the station house?”
Vern pointed at me. “Well, I was taking her home, but it’s all the way out on the lake shore—”
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s important. Maybe the lady can take the car and drive herself home.”
“I—I, uh, I can’t a drive stick shift, officer,” I piped up shakily.
“Look—can I take her to Chez Prentice over on Jury Street, then meet you? Won’t take a second.”
The officer nodded. “That should be fine, sir. Just don’t take too long, please.” He turned and ambled back to his car.
I could tell Vern was unnerved by the way he drove. The gearshift made an appalling grinding noise as we pulled back into traffic. He swore under his breath.
I didn’t know what to say. We traveled the few blocks to Chez Prentice in an uncomfortable silence.
“Sorry about this,” Vern said as he braked at the curb. “I’ll come back and get you after—um, the, whatever, or maybe you can call Gil—”
“I’ll be fine. Are you all right? What do you think it’s all about?”
“Hey, I don’t know. Maybe my taxi lic
ense is expired or something.” He took a deep breath and turned a half-grin on me. “I’m kidding, okay? Hey, Amelia, don’t look so worried. You’ll be the person I contact with my one phone call.”
“Vern, don’t—”
He looked at me. “Come on, cut it out. I’ll be fine. Les gendarmes are our friends.” He reached across the stick shift and gave me a clumsy, one-armed hug. “Now cheer up and get out of here.”
I opened the car door, scowling fiercely to prevent a burgeoning flow of anxious tears, and stood on the curb watching until the little car turned the corner in the direction of the police station. One tear, then another, escaped and trickled down my cheek.
I retrieved a tissue from my pocket and hastily wiped them away. When had I become such a crybaby? More to the point, should I call a lawyer or someone? The only one I knew at all well was, ironically, our distinguished district attorney, Elm DeWitt.
What could I do?
The realization came suddenly.
Gil.
I would call Gil and tell him all about it. He’d know what to do.
Oh, it was good to be married and have somebody else to worry with you! I turned and trudged up the walk toward the familiar front porch.
CHAPTER NINE
Gil wasn’t at the newspaper office when I called. “He’s running down this lake murder story. Try him on his cell phone,” suggested Wendy, the secretary/receptionist.
I did, and a deep electronic voice suggested I leave a message, which meant he either had turned the thing off or the line was busy.
“You okay?” Marie LeBow asked as she entered the B&B office, bearing a small tray with two steaming mugs.
“I’m sorry. I’m in your chair.”
She waved a hand. “Sit back down. I’ll ask you to move when I need to do some work.” She set down the tray. “I brought you some coffee, real cream like you like it.”
She set the cup before me on the desk pad. The strong fragrance filled my nostrils. It was strange, and slightly offensive, dishwater-like.
Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) Page 6