“The guidance counselors are in charge of schedules. But you can look them up on any of the office computers.”
“Thank you, Miss Pamela.” I grabbed my visitor badge and scooted around the counter. At Amber Tipton’s desk, I waved to the parent. “Hey there. You look like you need a break. Why don’t I take over for a minute?”
At her enthusiastic nod, the mother’s sleek ponytail bounced against her velour hoodie. She bent to snatch her Coach bag, giving me a glimpse of a butt-full of rhinestones spelling “Juicy.”
“Thank you, I didn’t expect to have to do this kind of work,” said the mother.
“Of course you didn’t,” I replied. “You don’t pay twenty thousand a year to do office work.”
“I know.” She laid a hand on her extra firm breasts. “I’m supposed to go to the spa this morning. I’m not even dressed.”
“You go get yourself a Diet Coke and I’ll sit here until the temp comes in.”
Her extra-white teeth gleamed. “Thank you, sweetie.”
“No problem.” I dropped into her chair and switched on Amber’s monitor. The guest password had been sticky-noted to the front of the computer. I logged in, then stared at the screen before randomly clicking on an icon. A spreadsheet of names and numbers appeared, blinked at me, then disappeared.
“Computers hate me as much as I hate them,” I muttered. Clicking again, a different screen showed a blank form. Panicking, I hit the escape button.
“Cherry!” squealed an all too familiar voice. “I’m here to help!”
I felt the blood drain from my head and a nerve began to hammer near my eye. Turning in my chair, I spied Tara bouncing before the visitor sign-in log. Two seconds later, she skipped to Amber’s desk. Today she had kept the pink Keds, but swapped the dress for navy skinny capris and a pink and navy print blouse.
Tara got an A for prep school attire. I glanced at my skull top and jeans. D+. Although I hoped the skull beads were good for some kind of extra credit.
“I’m volunteering to sub for Miss Amber,” she shrieked. I waited for her herkie jump, but it never came. “We get to spend the day together!”
“Great.” I winced. “Do you know how to work Miss Amber’s computer?”
“Let me try!”
“Tara, you’ve got to stop shouting. This is a school.”
Her cheeks flared to match the color of her brilliant pink shirt. “I’m so sorry. I’m just excited.”
“I know you are,” I said, feeling abashed. “Just show me how to look up a student’s schedule. Please.”
She leaned over my shoulder, smelling of sunshine and orange blossoms. How could Luke break this bundle of joy’s heart just to get back at some old high school rival? I felt like pulling Tara in my lap and stroking her hair, but even Tara would find that unnerving.
Good Lord, Tara was turning me into Lennie from Of Mice and Men.
“Which student schedule do you need?” she chirped.
“Preston King. I need to talk to that boy.”
Tara clicked and clicked again. A moment later, a paper chugged from the printer. “Anything else?”
“Does this computer have last year’s schedules? I want to look at Ellis Madsen’s classes.”
“Oh,” breathed Tara. “Let’s see. I think she had some classes with Laurence. Maybe her transcripts?”
Tara was such a trusting soul. I would have questioned myself, but then like a barnyard cat, I leaned toward suspicion in most matters.
A moment later, another sheet shot from the printer.
“Can I help you with another schedule?” Her smile caused the pixels to spontaneously vibrate on the computer screen.
“Is there anything you can’t do, Tara?”
She tapped her chin, thinking. Her smile plummeted. “I can’t get Lukey to love me.”
My heart nosedived, and I grasped Tara’s hands. “Luke Harper is a piece of dirt. You don’t deserve him. So is Anthony Pettit. I heard about him. You need to find a better man.”
“How can you say that? Luke’s your friend. He’s wonderful. Kind and caring. Patient. Loyal. Handsome.”
“No, you are describing a well bred golden retriever. Or my roommate, Todd McIntosh.”
Her smile brightened. “Todd is very sweet. I enjoyed talking to him last night.”
“Good. Luke is bad news. Forget about him.” My lecture done, I moved on to a less personal topic. One that didn’t involve memories of me snogging Luke in the school parking lot. “Now, show me how to access Miss Amber’s email.”
“Cherry, isn’t that wrong?”
Dang this girl’s ethics. She doesn’t question me wanting a dead girl’s transcripts, but does question a peek at someone’s private correspondence? “What if a parent has emailed Miss Amber about something important?”
“You’re right.” Her cheeks brightened again. “What was I thinking?”
“I don’t know.” Hopefully she wasn’t thinking about any financial reports from the principal that I could forward to Max.
She clicked on the email box. “It’s not password protected.”
“That’s not too smart on Miss Amber’s part. But good for us.” My eyes sped over the lines of text. “While I look over her email for important messages, why don’t you get busy filing Miss Amber’s folders?”
Tara toddled off with an armload of folders, while I scanned Amber’s email, filled with forwarded recipes and jokes of the day. I paged through a half-dozen online ads and found a string of PeerNotes updates. I left those to search the previous day’s emails. No messages from Cleveland. Clicking on her sent mail, I found several Amber had sent to Cleveland. Including one marked “Urgent.” I clicked.
“Mr. Cleveland,” Amber had written, “I’m trying to catch up on Maranda’s work and have found several items that she question marked for you. Should I send them on to Brenda?”
She hadn’t attached anything to the email. In Amber’s dictionary, urgent must mean vague. I clicked back to the inbox and began to scan her PeerNotes messages. An earlier email listed an announcement of new photos loaded onto the site. I clicked and a new screen popped up. I recognized the PeerNotes header and eagerly paged past the photos of Tinsley tossing student audition sheets in the garbage. The day’s cafeteria meals (Chicken biscuits. This school had everything.). Lacrosse team news. Solo auditions for the choral Christmas concert. Finally, “Peerless Memorial Garden: Drug Bust or Ghost Bust?”
I clicked.
“Four drama students abandoned their backpacks and a baggie of porcini after witnessing the apparition of E.M. who now haunts this school in revenge for the students who bullied her. Police came to investigate and didn’t find evidence of drugs or ghosts. Nice going drama geeks, you losers.”
I rolled my eyes and clicked on the comment box. “Shitake not porcini,” I typed. “And people who sell drugs, fake or not, are bigger losers than the ones who take them.”
Three seconds later, the computer pinged and twenty responses to my message appeared. Most with creative uses of the word shitake. Realizing I had used Miss Amber’s login, I tried to delete the message and instead reposted it.
I stuck my tongue out at the computer and moved on.
“Is Ellis Madsen haunting the teachers with ghost texts?” read the next post. I clicked and scanned. Most of the comments belittled the poster, who responded with greater creativity than those liking the word shitake.
However, one student comment made my mind hum. “Then shouldn’t she be haunting last year’s senior drama students instead of Mr. Tinsley? He made her Evita. They made her die.”
The response to that comment knocked my eyebrows into my hairline.
“Did Tinsley notice what the seniors were doing to her? If not, why? If so, why didn’t he stop them?” Dr. Vail didn’t disguise
her comment.
Her war with Tinsley was available for all the students to see. Not very professional of Dr. Vail. But maybe her conflict with Tinsley went beyond departmental jealousies. Maybe she knew Ellis and felt Tinsley had done her an injustice.
I snagged the two schedules from the printer cache and glanced at Preston King’s. He had four academic courses and three art classes. I scanned Ellis’s schedule from the previous year. Five academics, two-dimensional design, and basic drawing with Dr. Vail. No drama. How did she get the part of Evita?
I needed to talk to Dr. Vail. But how could I get her to talk to me when she thought I sided with Tinsley?
A fresh wave of chattering accompanied by violent shushing made me slip from Miss Amber’s seat and steal back to the counter. Ms. Cooke, followed by her gang of office chicks, strode into the reception area.
Cooke had her finger on the pulse of the school. Useful, except she didn’t seem to like me. Probably picked up on the anti-authority vibe I had cultivated during my school days. I followed her toward the back offices and stopped in her doorway.
Ms. Cooke had a handful of letters and tossed them on the desk before looking at me.
“Did Miss Amber quit?” I asked, using the first segue that came to mind.
“Amber’s not here today,” she answered by way of non-answer. “Can I help you? I’m very busy.”
“Some teachers feel they are being cyberstalked. Tinsley is one of them. That’s a crime. Have you made them aware that they can report it to the police?”
“The police learned about the messages during their investigation into Miss Pringle’s death,” she said. “But I’d rather not have any more negative publicity for Peerless. Especially if it’s just a prank. If we ignore the texts, they’ll eventually stop. The parents get agitated with too much controversy.”
“Are you getting texts, too?”
“That is not your concern.” Cooke’s brow furrowed. “I heard you found the students in the garden last night. You shouldn’t be roaming the grounds.”
“I wasn’t roaming. We saw a kid running from that direction,” I said. “Were your texts like the ones Miss Pringle received?”
“No.” Ms. Cooke firmed her lips. “Miss Pringle’s loss is devastating, and this week is a terrible burden for Peerless. We’ll get through it by staying on our respective tasks. I suggest you respect our loss and do the same by focusing on set design and not on harmful gossip.”
She walked forward, forcing me to back out of her office, and shut the door. I stared at the closed door, wondering what kind of text Cooke had received. Must have been a humdinger.
Pringle. Tinsley. Vail. Fisher. Cooke. If only these adults would set aside their pride and admit they were being bullied.
And where the hell was Principal Cleveland?
Twenty-One
Troubled by the news that Ellis’s father was back in town and Cleveland missing, I slipped into the school foyer, snuck out my cell phone, and called Detective Herrera.
He didn’t sound pleased to meet my request, but promised to check on Cleveland. His interest piqued when I mentioned Dan Madsen’s return to the area.
“I’ll be at the funeral on Monday,” said Herrera. “If Madsen shows, I’ll talk to him. Unfortunately, I got to know him because of Ellis’s death.”
“Do you think Dan Madsen’s the kind of guy who’d badger the teachers with these texts?”
Herrera didn’t speak for a long ten seconds. “People do all kinds of stupid, crazy stuff you’d never think possible of them. But if Madsen wanted to point fingers, I wouldn’t think he’d blame the teachers. He should be pointing them at Ellis’s friends and the kids who did it. Madsen and his wife should have been checking Ellis’s texts and social media messages. They could have seen what was happening and gotten her help.”
“What if I could convince one of these teachers to report the cyberstalking?”
“Until it’s reported, there’s not much we can do on this end.”
“Thanks, Detective Herrera.”
He paused again. “Hey, we got the tox screen back on Maranda Pringle. A cocktail of alcohol, atomoxetine, and benzodiazepine. One benzo was Xanax. We found an empty Xanax bottle. No label. Probably bought it off someone. The other benzo was lorazepam. Probably Ativan, used for insomnia. Easy enough to get.”
“Wait, I thought she was taking Zyban. Why wouldn’t she try to OD on that?”
“She only had a few pills left of Zyban in the bottle. Maybe she thought it wasn’t enough. There was a trace of it in her system, though. That and birth control pills.”
“What’s the other drug you mentioned?”
“Strattera.”
“The ADHD medicine? Did she have ADHD?”
Another long pause. Long enough for me to circle the Peerless foyer two times. “She did not have a prescription for Strattera.”
Cops. “So where did she get it?”
“We’re looking into it.”
“And you still believe Pringle committed suicide? You don’t find that suspicious?”
“Suicide is a suspicious death, but yes, I think it’s suicide. The Strattera combined with alcohol would make her sleepy. Add in the Xanax and Ativan and she would have fallen asleep and not woken up.”
“And the coroner?”
“Now wonders where she got the Strattera.”
I smiled. “Thanks for the info. I know it pained you to give it to me.”
“If you can convince a teacher to report the cyberstalking, I’d be happy to investigate it.”
“I’m on it,” I said and hung up. A teacher passing through the lobby frowned at me. I shoved my phone into my satchel. The kids needed to teach me their skills on sneaking devices.
A bell rang and the halls flooded with students. Caught in the tidal wave of bodies, I swam toward the arts hall, then paddled toward the fine arts wing.
In the small entryway between classrooms, I found myself crushed between exiting and entering students and allowed them to pull me into the nearest classroom. A young woman looked up from Dr. Vail’s corner desk, while the new class of students took their place at the easels.
I squeezed past the easels to the desk and smiled at the young teacher. “Hey, I’m Cherry Tucker. Is Dr. Vail around?”
“Sorry, she’s out today. I’m another art teacher, just filling in. Can I help you?”
“Will Dr. Vail be back tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure. Today was unplanned, but she had some concerns over the arts budget and wanted some time to go over the numbers before getting out of town this weekend. She’s showing student work in a festival in Berea, Kentucky.”
A good excuse for Vail to check out Tinsley’s accounting like she had threatened. “While I’ve got you here, have you been getting odd texts?”
“Like books? They made pop-ups in three-D design a few weeks ago.”
“Never mind.” I leaned closer. “Did Dr. Vail mention feeling cyberstalked? Some other teachers are having that problem.”
She leaned away, then flicked a glance at my visitor badge. “Who are you again?”
“Cherry Tucker. Fellow artist and new set designer. I need to speak to one of your senior students anyway.” I glanced at Preston’s schedule. “He has sculpture right now.”
Sticking her hands on her hips, the sub leveled me with a dark gaze. “You can’t talk to our students. I’m going to call the office if you don’t leave.”
Crap. I didn’t want Cooke involved. “Can you tell Preston I’m looking for him?”
“No. Out.” She pointed at the door.
I turned around.
Fifteen students watched us from their easels. Trudging toward the door, I stopped by a student who had made a sketch of my encounter with the teacher.
“F-off,” said the kid, snatching back his pencil. “You’re not my teacher.”
“Good luck in college with that attitude.” I wormed my way toward the door and into the art vestibule. I peeked in the other doors until I spied students gathered around a working lathe. Sculpture class.
These Peerless teachers were brave. A lathe seemed like an expensive lawsuit waiting to happen.
I hauled open the door and stepped inside the classroom. Three students glanced up, peering at me through thick goggles. The fourth slipped a chisel off the block of wood rotating on the lathe. He shut off the machine, pulled off his goggles, and glanced up.
Not a student. A young, male teacher in a flannel shirt and Carhartt utility pants. He had clipped his teacher badge to his shoulder, near his round cheeks and bright, green eyes.
“Did we forget to put the attendance folder out again?” asked Mr. Cute.
I glanced at the door and didn’t see a folder. “Yes.”
Tossing his goggles at one of the kids, Mr. Cute strode to his desk. He searched through the mess, then looked back at me. “I don’t see it. Are you sure? Anyway, Preston King is the only one out today.”
Dangit. I was two for three already. Scott Fisher was last on my list. “Thanks. Do you know why he’s absent?”
Mr. Cute shook his head. “Nope. Sorry.”
I left them to their sharp instruments, headed back to the main hall, and turned west toward the theater doors. With class in session, I would need to hunt down Fisher after hours. Which gave me time to speak to Tinsley.
In the drama department, Tinsley conducted class on stage again. He organized the students into small groups. “Experience an ice cream cone,” he ordered them and waved me over.
I walked past the groups of melting ice cream cones and pretended it seemed normal.
“Let’s examine your sketches, shall we?” said Tinsley in his over loud, I’m-the-theater voice.
DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE Page 17