by K. M. Waller
I needed to get to the witnesses while everything was still fresh in their minds.
I pulled open the door and met a scene of complete chaos, unlike the outside of the building where things had been quiet in comparison.
Two teenagers sat huddled together in their chairs, each sobbing at different levels of intensity. A woman with wiry brown hair and a look of annoyance asked them several times to quiet down.
Another woman with fiery red hair spoke in hushed tones with the state patrol officer. I’d found Rebecca Zagat pretty easily. The S.P. officer held several witness statements in his hands. Another man I suspected to be the state detective argued with yet another man dressed in the same uniform as Officer Mike. Most likely Chief Everett.
No one seemed to notice me, so I leaned against the wall and waited. Across from me was a row of staff pictures. Sarah Turner took the first spot. She gazed off into the distance, her blue eyes focused on wherever the photographer had told her to look. Her brown hair fell around her shoulders, the bangs feathered. She’d been very pretty.
The argument continued amongst the officers.
“Between the sheriff’s department and us, we can manage without the state’s assistance,” the police chief barked.
“That’s not up to you, Chief.” The state detective matched his tone. “Our state people need to get in and have the scene processed before…” He stopped and glanced at the girls as if he wasn’t sure how to word his frustration. “There’s any mishandling of evidence.”
Chief Everett puffed his chest. “The only mishandling is you stopping me from doing my job.”
As his voice reached a higher octave, one girl matched it with her sobs.
Rebecca snapped her fingers to gain the men’s attention. “Can we take this inside the office, please? You’re upsetting the girls.”
I moved away from the wall and caught Rebecca’s attention.
“Can I help you?” She eyed me with a heavy dose of mistrust.
I pushed the employment letter into her hand. “I’m Netty Walsh. The new P.E. teacher, I think.”
She read the letter, glanced up at me, and read it again. “Ms. Turner never said anything about going through an employment agency for new personnel.”
“And you’re surprised because?” the woman with wiry hair chimed in.
“Is she around?” Getting everyone to repeat what I already knew meant finding someone who’d eventually slip up. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on.”
With my question came a welcomed hush in the lobby. The girls stopped sobbing and sniffled while they waited for Rebecca to confirm what everyone already knew to be true.
“Why don’t you come with me into my office for a minute?” She turned to the chief and state detective. “The staff break room should be free for you to finish your discussion.”
The men grumbled a response but followed her instructions. I’d begun assessing and preparing a branch for Rebecca as soon as I’d seen her with the state police. She didn’t cower from responsibility and her outward appearance seemed a lot calmer than the situation dictated. Cool. Calm. Collected.
After we stepped inside a small office that connected to a much larger one, she gestured for me to sit in a chair crammed in the corner. She shut the door and worked herself behind the desk. Stacks of paperwork sat in piles in front of her. The words overworked and underappreciated came to mind too.
“I’ll get right to the point, Ms. Walsh. We can’t accommodate your hiring at this time. In fact, we’ve never had a P.E. teacher. I don’t understand why Ms. Turner would want to hire one now.”
I’d planned to get fired at the end of the seven days, not before. I scrambled to salvage my fake job. I leaned forward and rested my entwined hands on her desk. “I’ve come all the way from Tampa on the Greyhound bus and some man dropped me off at the end of the road. I can’t leave. I have nowhere to go.”
She placed a hand on top of mine. Her emotions came through with clarity. Confusion. Sadness. Worry. Lots of worry.
Still, a murderer could feel all those things too. It didn’t get her off my suspect list.
“I’m really sorry. We’re privately and state-funded but I don’t know where the money was supposed to come from to pay you, and by the time I figure that out, we could be shut down.” She patted my hand twice before she removed it.
“Shut down?”
“How many parents do you think will allow their daughters to stay at the site of a murder?” Her voice wavered on murder.
I hadn’t thought about that. Dang it. Too many distractions.
They could remove my witnesses and potential suspects within a matter of hours once news of Sarah’s death hit mainstream media. I needed to get to the girls as soon as possible.
The phone on the desk trilled and Rebecca reached to answer it.
“I have child trauma training,” I blurted out, stretching my cover and the lie too far. “I can help you with the girls until their parents get here.”
She pulled her hand back and dropped it in her lap. The phone continued to trill a couple more times and stopped. “Really?”
“And you don’t have to pay me the first week. I’ll work on a trial basis until you get it squared with the board.”
Her sharp brown eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?”
The phone filled the office with its loud shrill once again and Rebecca picked up the receiver and slammed it back into the cradle.
“Honestly?” I leaned forward a little and spread my arms wide. “Like I said, I have nothing to go back to. All my hopes are tied into this job.”
The door burst open and the teacher with the wiry hair leaned in. “We got a toilet down and no maintenance.”
“I don’t mind plunging toilets either.” I did, but I’d do whatever it took to get a yes out of her.
Rebecca flopped her head back and closed her eyes. “Michelle, take Netty to room 3B, then introduce her to the girls.”
Michelle gave me the once over, her gaze reminding me of a dead fish. “Um, the toilet?”
I stood and slung my Adidas bag over my shoulder. “Point the way and I’ll handle it.”
“Slow down on the butt kissing, lame-o,” Michelle muttered loud enough for me to hear and moved to the side so I could pass through the door.
“You’re not worried about job security?” I asked once we were back in the main hallway.
“Not now that Rebecca’s in charge. She practically ran this place, anyway.”
“You didn’t like Sarah?”
“Nobody liked Sarah.”
I sucked my teeth. How to get Michelle to elaborate? She needed a dose of hair salon Missy’s gift of inappropriate gab. Maybe the in with Michelle was to get her to talk about herself first. “What do you teach?”
“Math, Science and Life Skills. Rebecca teaches Language Arts and History. We have another part-time teacher who comes in twice a week to teach Art and Health. But none of it matters. These girls are GED bound. Anything else?” Her tone suggested my two questions had worn her out.
“Yeah, lots of things else actually.” Her flippant attitude grated my nerves. I created her branch, and the leaf said apathetic as heck. I made a point of brushing up against her in our walk down the corridor to prove my theory. Yep, practically emotionless. Massively bored. Weird considering her boss’s body lay on a slab at the county morgue. However, I couldn’t imagine someone who felt so little would be enraged enough to stab or maul someone to death. I focused on her vibes for another few seconds. Nope. She wasn’t a paranormal either.
She stopped suddenly. “Look, I’ve got, like, a million things to do. You’ll be roommates with Laura here.” She tapped the door labeled 3B. “The gross toilet is there.” She pointed down to the bathroom. “And the community room is at the end of the hall. You can’t miss it. It smells like unwashed teen.”
Michelle lumbered down the hallway and out of sight.
“Great.” I tapped on the door a fe
w times and tried the knob. It opened, so I stepped inside. I’d forgotten to ask what Laura did here.
The thick curtains were drawn, casting the room in deep shadows from the only light source, a nightlight in the corner. I reached for the switch plate on the wall.
“Leave it off,” a sniffling voice called out.
My eyes adjusted enough in the dark to see a lump curled in the middle of the bed against the far wall. Sadness radiated from every fiber of her being. The dull thud in the back of my head started again. I’d gone from one extreme emotion to another in a matter of seconds.
“Are you Laura?”
The mystery sniffler sat up and switched on a lamp beside the bed. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Who are you?”
The puffiness around the woman’s eyes couldn’t hide the vibrant green orbs. She’d pulled her bleached-blonde hair with at least an inch of brown regrowth into a French braid and the tail fell over her shoulder.
I sat on the unmade twin bed adjacent hers. “I’m Netty. I’m the new P.E. teacher. And toilet wrangler, apparently. Michelle didn’t mention what you do.”
“I’m the on-site social worker.”
Yikes. Someone needed to tell her in order to counsel these kids she needed to get her own emotions under control.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Were you and Ms. Turner close?”
A sob wracked her body, and she put her face in the crook of her elbow.
I waited. Lily Rose had me pegged dead to rights with the description of my cold and methodical approach to case solving even if it had hurt my feelings a little. While I felt for Laura’s grief on a deeper level, at some point I’d learned the best way to help people through their grief was to solve the crime. I had to press her now and feel guilty about it later.
I glanced around and saw a box of tissues sitting on a desk. The ten-by-ten room didn’t allow for much other furniture than the two beds, the desk, and a bedside table with the lamp. Beside the box of tissues sat a picture of Laura and the rest of the faculty I’d met so far. They were at a bar and appeared to be in various degrees of drunkenness. Sarah had one arm each around Laura and Rebecca. Michelle stood behind them and almost had a smile on her otherwise stony face. It didn’t look like a hate-fest in the picture.
I picked up the framed photo and the tissues and returned to sit beside Laura on her bed. When the bed dipped with my weight, she pulled her face out of her arm. I handed her a wad of tissues.
“How can I help?” I asked.
“Nobody can now.” She blew her nose into the tissues.
A loud ding erupted from an intercom in the hallway. Rebecca’s voice came through, loud and focused. “All faculty and students are to report to the common room immediately. And I mean immediately, girls. Don’t make us hunt you down.”
I’d wait to create a branch for Laura. With grief that raw, I imagined she’d have a lot to say about Sarah in a day or two.
She tucked her hands together. “Come on. I’ll show you the way.”
I grabbed my backpack in case I’d need anything later. We exited and followed a group of about four teens into a larger area with several couches and throw pillows. I scanned the group of teens. No Mom. Not yet. I took up residence against the back wall. My anxiety grew with each girl that walked into the room. I counted about twenty girls so far.
Then she stood at the door. More beautiful than that ragged picture I had of her. My heart skipped and stuttered and I found it hard to breathe.
The mother who’d died while giving birth to me stood less than fifteen feet away.
Chapter Six
My mother strolled in wearing a half shirt that showed off her pierced belly button. Her acid-washed jeans had quite a few holes around the knees. A cigarette stuck out behind her ear. Two girls in almost identical clothing stood beside her. They each wore a necklace with a shiny pentagram charm, a Wiccan symbol.
She snapped her fingers at a girl already sitting on the couch. “Move.”
The girl rushed out of the way and stood behind another girl I recognized to be the smoker from the store bathroom where I’d landed.
I could tell by the way Jennifer popped her gum and scanned the room daring anyone to look sideways at her that she was in fact the queen mean girl. A defense mechanism to keep other people arm’s distance away? I could only hope.
Rebecca came into the room with the sheriff and the state detective close on her heels. They continued to argue about jurisdiction in hushed tones.
She cleared her throat several times, and the men took the hint and quieted. “Ladies, we are deeply saddened by the loss of Ms. Sarah. While arrangements are being made for the funeral services by her family, the police are asking for your cooperation in giving statements about anything you’ve witnessed the past few days that can be considered out of the ordinary.”
When a few of the girls grumbled, she held up a hand. “I will call you in one by one and we’ll call your parents. They can decide if you can refuse to give a statement. Because of the possible threat imposed upon our school, it is imperative you do not leave the inside of the school without an adult chaperone. Classes will resume tomorrow, but for today, please stay in your rooms or the common area.”
The restrictions made the girls grumble amongst themselves further, and I caught a few comments. One girl said, “My dad better come get me today. There’s a psycho out there in the woods. I heard there was blood everywhere.”
I weaved through some of the other girls and overhead another say, “The cops are going to blame one of us. You know they’re looking for a reason to get us away from their stupid town.”
Rebecca glanced at me and whistled for the girls to quiet once more. “Before I forget,” she pointed at me. “This is Ms. Netty. She’ll be the new physical fitness and health teacher.”
Several of the girls turned their heads in my direction to check me out. Over half of them gave me less than a few seconds of their attention. Fine by me. I’d be able to move around them easier if they didn’t see me as a person of interest.
“So, we can like, go now?” My mom’s voice rose above the rest of the teens. Jennifer. I needed to get used to calling her Jennifer, so I didn’t slip up in conversation.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you can go to your room and change out of those shirts and put on your uniform. Showing your belly is against our school’s attire policy.” Rebecca tilted her head, a gleam in her eye that plainly said she and Jennifer crossed words daily. “But you already know that, don’t you, Jennifer?”
I moved closer to Jennifer, committing all of her to memory. We had the same hands. Ears too—except for that generic brand of cigarette hanging from behind her left one.
“Wait,” Laura called out on a sniffle from the back of the room. “Any girls needing grief counseling please see me this afternoon. I’ll be in my office.”
A few of the girls chuckled, and I saw a few pairs of eyes roll. I imagined they didn’t have a high amount of respect for Laura’s counseling skills. The red nose and Chihuahua shakes of her body wouldn’t give anyone too much confidence.
My fingers itched, and I clenched and unclenched my fists a few times. I wanted so badly to follow my mom out the door. I wanted to ask about the pentagram and why she wore it. Did she have powers like mine? From where did our coven originate? For years and years, I’d told myself that I didn’t care that no one from my mom or dad’s family had wanted me.
Until now.
Rebecca sidled up beside me and tugged on the sleeve of my dress. “I know this is a weird first day, but I need you on grounds patrol. Some of these girls sneak out on almost a daily basis.”
“Grounds patrol works for me.” It’d give me a chance to check out the crime scene area and the witch-like ritual area that’d been set up near the body.
Laura joined us as the rest of the girls filed out of the room. Her gaze bounced between us. “What if the murderer is still out there? Shouldn’t we all stay inside?”
“The state detective said he will have a few officers checking the grounds for evidence. And we have Officer Mike at the entrance. As long as everyone stays within the close vicinity, we should be fine. I have every confidence this person will be caught and brought to justice. Then we can continue on without further disruption.”
That’s what I’m here for. I comforted Laura with a small pat on the arm and my reassurance came with sincerity. Having history on my side, I knew for a fact no one else met the same fate as Sarah. The murderer either moved on or achieved their goal with the one death. “I’ll be fine. The safety of the girls should be priority number one. Why don’t you show me around the outside of the building where the girls are most likely to sneak out?”
Rebecca moved away to speak with the officers again. Laura and I walked into the hallway. “I don’t mean to start trouble but why are you the only person who’s shaken up by Sarah’s death? Michelle is a poster child for apathy and Rebecca comes across as rather cold.”
Laura glanced up and down the hall as if to check for anyone who could overhear her answer. “I feel guilty even saying this but everyone hated Sarah. The girls and the staff. No one is unhappy that she’s gone.”
“But you.”
She sniffled again, and I prepared myself for another round of waterworks. “It’s awful. I hated her most of all.” She’d choked out the words, and then she opened one of the outside doors and pointed to a metal shed. “If the girls are going to go anywhere, it’s the smoke shack. I’ll catch you later.”
I needed to do a deep dive into Laura’s emotions at some point to see how her guilt played out. But first, I needed to scout the lay of the land.
The shack she’d pointed out appeared to be a rust-covered over-sized garden shed. The door sat open, and I could see a riding lawn mower parked in the middle. Had anyone mentioned a groundskeeper? The close-cut grass had seen a mow recently.
I maneuvered around the riding lawnmower and ran my hands against the beams above my head searching for any place to put a weapon. I didn’t know how thorough the cops would have been or if they’d given thought to search the shed yet. But if we were dealing with a human and not a were or vampire, I needed to make sure the girls and teachers were ruled out as the killer.