by K. M. Waller
She glanced at me, the worry of the day adding lines around the edge of her eyes. “I heard Jennifer and her girls locked you in the shed.”
I leaned against the doorjamb. “Not my greatest moment.”
“They’ve done something to all of us. Consider it a rite of passage.” She glanced down at the pile of paperwork on the desk. “Did you need something? I know Michelle isn’t the greatest at getting a new person settled in. Sarah used her to weed out the staff that wouldn’t be able to hack it.”
“You’re saying her hardened personality is an act?” As an empath, I already knew it wasn’t, but I wanted to hear Rebecca’s take on the blackmailer.
“Oh no. That’s the real her. It’s just that she and Sarah had an understanding and were in agreement about how to run things here.”
I sidled into the room but still didn’t sit. “Did you disagree with how Sarah ran things?”
“Working at a school like this is my calling. My life’s work and a way of giving back for the dumb things I did when I was a teenager myself. I think everyone deserves a second chance. I think Sarah liked the notoriety that came along with being a reform school headmistress. If that’s even what it should be called. I for one think there should always be an attitude of girls first in this school.”
“That’s admirable.”
She shuffled some papers on the desk and her brow furrowed. “I really need to get back to all of this.”
“I understand. I need a list of the girls who are still here and their room assignments. It’ll make it easier for me to make sure they are where they’re supposed to be at the time they’re supposed to be there.”
She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a manila folder. “Here’s the layout of the building and the room assignments. Even though we’ve lost half of our girls this morning, I don’t plan to make any adjustments to the rooms just yet. I want the girls to hold on to a little bit of stability for the next couple of weeks.”
I nodded and took the sheet of paper from her. My main suspect didn’t know it but with each conversation I had with her, I found her more likable and less of the threat I’d assumed from the file.
Dang it. But just because she cared for the school didn’t mean she wasn’t the murderer. It could be the reason why she’d chosen to kill Sarah. When I broke into Sarah’s office later that night, I’d search through the files to see if there was more evidence leading to the fact that the school had been run improperly. Mistreated girls. Misused funds. Something might be there that would push Rebecca back to the top of my suspect list.
I held the paper up to the corridor light and read the names written in small script. Jennifer’s room was down the hallway to the left. It was time my teenaged mother and I had a little one-on-one chat.
I knocked on her door, and when she answered, I could tell from her blotched face she’d been crying.
“What?” she asked, the teenage attitude shining through in her voice.
“You locked me in the shed earlier. Did you think I’d forget about that so quickly?”
“What are you going to do? It’s not like you can punish us. You can only sit down and talk us into boredom. Ms. Laura has to hand out the punishments.”
“Okay.” Good to know Sarah hadn’t used corporal punishment on the girls. Just meanness. I pushed inside the room. “Let’s do the talking into boredom then.”
“We’re supposed to do it according to the school’s mediation rules.”
“I can tell that hasn’t worked so well for you in the past or you wouldn’t have locked me in and run off into town with your friends. I’m going to try some straight talk.”
Did daughters often give their mothers straight talk? Anxiety gripped me. Her sadness about something floated in the air around us. If I touched her right at this second, she’d infuse me with it and I’d blubber right along with her.
“What happened in town?” I sat down on the edge of the bed opposite hers. “I saw you with a boy.”
She shrugged.
“I’ve heard a few rumors about this boy you’re seeing. He’s the son of some rich townies.”
“His mom hates me. She thinks I’m trash.”
“Because you’re here at the reform school?”
“Because she’s a witch.”
I swallowed hard at her use of the word.
“I’d call her the other name, but cussing at the school comes with extra chores.”
“Locking me in and going into town doesn’t come along with extra chores?”
“Cussing is Ms. Laura’s one rule. Ms. Sarah had weird rules. But she didn’t care if we sneaked around as long as we didn’t get caught by the police and we looked good in front of her board of directors.”
“She told you that?”
“She told everyone that. Almost at every single group meeting. Appearances are everything, she said.”
“Do you love this boy?” I don’t know why I asked the question.
“I love him so much. We will be together forever.”
I couldn’t control myself. I reached over and put my hand on top of hers. I could feel all the emotions running through her hormonal teenage body. She meant every word. She loved him. In that moment I knew that if she’d lived, she’d have loved me too. I stopped myself from hugging her. And at that moment I got angry. Why? Why after all these years would the Agency send me here? They had to have known about this murder for years. I’d worked for them for six. They could’ve sent me back here at any time. I couldn’t piece it together and the anger radiating off me sent vibes into the air.
One of Jennifer’s crew bounded into the room. I snatched my hand from hers and stood.
“What’s going on?” Frick asked.
Frack wasn’t too far behind. The atmosphere shifted and Jennifer transformed back into mean girl.
“She begged me not to be mean to her anymore. Isn’t it pathetic?”
The other two girls laughed and lifted their noses at me.
If that’s what she needed to survive at this school, I wouldn’t lecture her on her attitude. However, while I was here, I wouldn’t let her bully any of the younger girls anymore either. I’d get to that after I found the person who’d killed Sarah.
I pushed past the two friends and the loud speaker grabbed my attention. The girls and staff were being called for dinner in the dining room. In the hall, I found the chore list for the night before and the rest of the week. Someone—Michelle I assumed—had crossed out her own name for bathroom cleaning duty and replaced it with mine. The chore needed to be completed by nine p.m. Perfect, that’d give me a reason to be out and about in the halls after the girls had lights out at ten. I’d be late with my chores duties but Michelle could live with it.
She wouldn’t get to me no matter how hard she tried.
I followed a group of girls to the dining room. The large, open room resembled the common area in size. Long rectangle tables with benches filled the space. The far corner held a table with the food. The same girls who’d had kitchen duty stood behind the table and served the girls who filed by with their plates held out. My stomach rumbled at the sweet smell of sauce and baked bread. I hadn’t eaten all day. Not unusual while I worked a case, but I had to keep my strength up. I got in line behind Tonya and lifted a Styrofoam plate.
I glanced around the room and assessed the environment. Most of the girls ate quietly. I counted about fifteen in all. Laura sat at a table by herself and picked at her food. Michelle took her food and walked out. Apparently, she didn’t feel the need to dine with everyone. I didn’t see Rebecca either.
My plate full of spaghetti, I sat with Laura. I still needed to find out what was going on inside her head. Instincts told me she knew much more about what happened to Sarah than she let on. With the shock wearing off, it became time to drill her for more details.
“Can I sit with you?” I asked but didn’t wait for an answer before sitting down close beside her. “Sorry about the cat allergy. I’ve had her rem
oved from our room and I’m washing your sheets.”
“That’s okay.” She didn’t look up.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Since it opened a year or so ago.”
“Some girls had concerns about how Sarah treated them. Did any of them mention that to you?”
She cut her gaze at me, possibly surprised the girls had confided in me so quickly.
“I’d filed complaints about her twice with the board but they never responded. I couldn’t believe they’d leave someone like her in charge for so long. I didn’t think it’d ever end.”
“But now it has.” I maneuvered close to her arm and allowed our skin to touch lightly. I couldn’t use my empath powers like a lie detector test, but I could tell if her sadness was an act.
“It shouldn’t have ended that way.” She sniffled and turned her attention back to her food.
Her sincere sadness gripped me like a vice around the chest. Still, having regret as to how someone died didn’t mean they weren’t the one to do it. She scooted over just a tad to break our contact. Laura prided herself on being overly considerate.
I had the feeling that if she’d killed Sarah, she would have made adjustments at the crime scene. Covered the body with something or closed her eyes. Most certainly not leave it long enough for an animal to take a bite. I put this on my mental list of things to ask Officer Mike next time I got him alone. How had the killer arranged the body?
Chapter Nine
After dinner, I headed back to my shared room to organize for the evening’s sneak around activities. I dressed as if I were cleaning bathrooms but got under the covers and placed the cassette player’s bulky headphones over my ears to dissuade any lengthy conversations with my roommate.
Laura came in soon after and didn’t even remove her clothing before crawling under the covers. By nine thirty, her open-mouth snores and restless flopping rocked her bed frame.
I eased out of bed a few minutes after ten and stopped by the cleaning closet first. I needed props to sell my reasons for being out after lights out. I took a dingy, stringy-headed mop and placed it inside a metal rolling bucket. It reminded me of my early college days in the dorms where shared cleaning was the norm.
The Walshes didn’t care that I thought college would be a waste. They paid the bill and Momma Carla would’ve sat with me in each class if I hadn’t promised to attend. The business admin classes had done some good when opening up the gym but I’d have preferred to take classes on spellcasting and scrying. Good thing I’d had Lily Rose to help teach me the ways of the witches. The Agency took care of the rest.
I filled the bucket with water and pushed it down the hall. The room map tucked in my back pocket, I knew that Sarah hadn’t shared a room with any of the other adults. Rebecca had said she wouldn’t change room assignments, and I assumed that meant the former headmistress’s room too.
I didn’t have a key, but I had experience getting past locked doors with hair pins. After my mullet disaster, I’d bought a pack of hairpins at the dollar store to try to smooth back as much of the fluff as possible. In front of Sarah’s bedroom door, I listened intently for any movement from wayward teens headed to the bathrooms. After a few more seconds, I squatted and began my pick the lock technique. To my surprise, the door pushed open.
The evidence of police searches was obvious in the small bedroom. Even though the local chief might not have found it important to search her room, the state detective would have photographed and rifled through her drawers.
I started with a routine circular search they had taught me at the Agency. It spiraled like a seashell getting smaller and moving toward the middle with each round. Unlike the police, I looked for specific things that linked to the paranormal. Another doll with human hair or other witch artifacts might give me better clues as to what kind of paranormal entity I might be dealing with. Although my gut told me over and over that this appeared to be a simple human on human murder, the bite marks on top of the stabbing bothered me. Someone here at the school was hiding something.
The room didn’t hold much furniture, and I started to my left with a stationery desk. She had several letters from what appeared to be a sister in Michigan. I tucked them into my back pocket for a later read. The lack of pictures surprised me. Not a single one of her family or friends. Maybe she kept them in her office. Next, I lifted the mattress and checked beneath for anything she’d been hiding. I ran my hands along the edges of the frame. No hidden love notes.
The closet held a modest amount of clothing. A few dresses but mostly khaki pants and collared shirts with the school’s name embroidered above the left-hand pocket.
I hesitated in front of the three-drawer dresser. Nothing worse than going through another person’s panty drawer to make you question your career choices. I opened the first drawer and with the back of my hand pushed the silky and lacy panties to the side. No secret love notes but the underwear told a story of its own. Either she really liked to feel pretty underneath, or she wore these items for someone. Nothing else in the room hinted Sarah had a secret boyfriend. It was almost too clean. I thought back to the police statements and evidence collected. If there’d been something to note, the state detective would have noted it.
I pushed everything back to appear as if it’d never been disturbed. At least not disturbed by me.
I cracked open the door and glanced up and down the hallway. All clear. If the school was at full capacity, I’m sure that wouldn’t have been the case. My next stop, the main administrative office.
Irritation built in my gut that I wasn’t as on point as usual with my other cases. The family connection to this case definitely pulled my focus in a few different directions.
I stopped outside the office door and pressed my ear close to listen. I could tell from the dark crack under the door that Rebecca had vacated both her and Sarah’s office, but I wanted to make absolutely sure. And since someone could easily see the light from the hallway, I’d have to work in whatever moonlight shone through the windows behind Sarah’s desk.
With the mop and bucket leaning against the opposite side of the wall, I used a bobby pin to push the locking mechanism aside. The piece of paper I’d shoved in the hole helped make my entry quick and easy. I left the door cracked behind me to give additional light to work with.
I started with the desk. Laura had mentioned that Sarah ran things a certain way, and it made me wonder if that meant she pocketed money meant for the girls. If so, without a personal computer, she’d have a second set of accounting books.
The computer age made things just as easy as they did difficult to suss out clues. On the one hand, everyone kept everything personal about themselves on computers in the present, but with password protection, they became harder to break into. In the 80s, they kept everything in notebooks and workbooks, yet the notes rarely made sense to anyone other than the note taker. Even if I found evidence of money-related crimes from Sarah, I could only use it as leverage when talking with the other staff members.
First, I opened the middle drawer that pulled out waist high. Three yellow perforated notepads sat neatly in a stack. Black pens to their left. I lifted the pads and flipped through them. Empty. I ran my fingers along the top page of each one and only the third one had bumpiness that resulted from the top page being used. Lily Rose would laugh at my dated detective skills, but I tore out the page and stuck it with the letters in my pocket. I’d rub a pencil over it later and see if any of the recent notes held anything of interest.
In the side drawers were file folder holders with labels. I sifted through the files of important phone numbers, room assignments, and liability forms. My toes bumped against a box shoved under the desk. The facsimile machine Don had been so proud of. The fact that it wasn’t hooked to anything spoke volumes. He could have used the sales call as an excuse to visit Sarah with no intention of her ever purchasing it.
I turned the swivel chair to the silver filing cabinet in the corner
. I pulled on the first drawer but it appeared someone had locked it. I glanced back around at the office. Where would they keep the key? It had to be nearby for easy access. If not in the middle desk drawer, then somewhere on top maybe. A coffee cup on the desk that said Detroit Lions had a few pens sticking out of the top. I tilted it and looked inside. Bingo. Two little keys hooked together by a flimsy key ring sat at the bottom of the cup.
I fished it out and turned back to the cabinet. A movement outside the window caught my eye, and I ducked down. I eased my head around the edge and in the darkness saw two boys coming out of the tree line.
Ugh. Teens. So unpredictable. And careless. Someone murdered a woman in the woods and they didn’t think twice about trying to sneak in to see their girlfriends.
I chewed on my bottom lip. I needed to get through the files in the file cabinet. I also needed to stop those boys from getting inside the rooms and causing a ruckus. If they got caught, my sneaking around at night would become ten times harder. Rebecca and the rest of the staff would be on high alert.
Just a peek into the cabinets to see what they kept under lock and key first. I twisted the key in the lock and pulled open the first drawer. File holders and files lined the drawer. The file labels had the names of the girls. I flipped through the names and stopped at the one with my mom’s. Did I dare?
Yep, I did. I pulled out the file and stuck it under my shirt and into the waistband of my pants. I flipped through a few other names and reached the back of the stacks. One file folder had the name scratched out and runaway written in neat cursive beside it. I scrolled my finger against all the names in the files and found only that one to be labeled that way.
The statistics on reform school runaways would be higher than one, wouldn’t it? The way the name had been scratched over repeatedly instead of simply marked through with one line made me grab it and stick it with my mom’s file.