by Kylie Logan
“It’s my mother,” Greg said. “In Florida. We just got the call a couple of hours ago. She’s had a stroke.”
Jazz put a hand on his arm. “You want to sit and catch your breath? Coffee?”
Greg shook his head. “Thanks, no. Toni’s out in the car and we’re headed to the airport and…” When he looked over at Luther, the tips of Greg’s ears turned red. “If there was anyone else I could ask, Jazz, you know I would. But the kids are both living out of town now and Toni’s sister has terrible allergies and can’t have Luther around and…”
“And you want me to watch him for a couple of days.”
Since he didn’t have to come right out and ask, Greg let go a breath of relief. “Could you?”
Jazz glanced over to where the dog had already made himself at home and pretended to have to think about it. “I don’t know. It looks like he’s going to be an awful lot of trouble. What do you think, Luther?”
The dog wagged his tail.
“Settled!” Jazz smiled. “If there’s anything else I can do…”
“I’ll call.” Greg zipped back out to the porch and grabbed the Whole Foods tote bag he’d left there when he came inside. “Here’s his food and his toys and his favorite blanket and his vet’s phone number, but hopefully, you won’t need that.” He handed the bag to Jazz. “I owe you big time. I know it won’t be easy for you having a dog around again, and with what happened the other night, I don’t want you to look at Luther and think about … well, you know.”
“No worries. Believe me, I’m not spending my time thinking about what happened Saturday,” Jazz told him, even though the abandoned building and Florie Allen were pretty much the only things she had thought about these last few days. “It will be nice to have somebody around to talk to.”
“And I’ll call.” Greg stepped to the door. “As soon as we’re settled, I’ll call and let you know what’s happening and when we’ll be back.”
“Go!” At the same time she shooed him outside, she waved to Toni waiting in the car. “Me and Luther, we’re old friends. We’ll be fine.”
She waited until they drove away before she turned to her houseguest. “Breakfast?” she asked. “While you eat, I’ll make coffee, then we’ll go for a walk.”
As it turned out, she walked Luther twice before she went to the school that day. Sure the dog knew her, but dogs are smart and he sensed that something was up; his owners had dropped him off and driven away. Jazz knew that getting rid of some of his nervous energy was better than leaving him in the house all morning to pace and worry. Since she lived within walking distance of St. Catherine’s, she checked on him at lunchtime and promised a longer walk and a little training disguised as play when she got home from work that afternoon.
Until then she had plenty to do. The school year was winding down, but that didn’t mean St. Catherine’s schedule was any less jam-packed. That day Jazz called the caterer to make final plans for the National Honor Society dinner. She checked and rechecked the summer camp schedule because she needed to send it to the printer and it had to be perfect. St. Catherine’s welcomed girls from all over northeast Ohio for summer sessions in everything from drama to chemistry, computer programming to oil painting. A typo in the brochure would reflect badly on the school.
When her eyes ached and her back cramped and she needed a break from proofreading, Jazz touched base with Matt Duffey, who would be conducting a workshop for the cross-country girls in a week or so, and because Eileen was away at a must-attend meeting, she called each and every member of the board of directors on her behalf about freeing up money from the school’s emergency fund to pay for Florie’s funeral. She would leave it to Eileen to tell Larry and Renee that everything was taken care of, just as she’d leave it to Eileen to set a date for a memorial for Florie at St. Catherine’s.
All that, along with the early-morning surprise Greg had brought her in the form of Luther, had made it a full and rich day, and it was still a couple hours before the last bell.
There was a coffee maker in her office on a table near the windows that looked out over Lincoln Park, the eight-acre green space in the center of the neighborhood, and she went over and flicked on the machine.
Nothing happened.
She turned the machine off, turned it on again, and, when nothing happened again, she went in search of coffee.
At that hour of the day, she was pretty sure the closest place to find it was the school cafeteria.
Like all of St. Catherine’s facilities, the cafeteria where its six hundred students congregated each day was a mixture of utilitarian and dignified. Thanks to a generous donor, the room that had once been the refectory of the Orthodox seminary had kept its rich oak-paneled walls and oak tables, but the service area gleamed with stainless, the lighting was bright and state of the art, and there was a sound system that allowed the girls to program their favorite songs and listen to them while they ate. At this time of the day, with the last lunch period over, the room was empty and clean and set up for the next morning’s rush. Sister Eileen was a firm believer in not allowing the girls to have coffee before classes started, but there was always juice and bagels and yogurt available in the morning.
Listening to her own footfalls echo through the massive room, Jazz moved toward the open doorway at the end of the cafeteria, but before she could step into the kitchen, she was met by the roadblock that was Loretta Hardinger.
Loretta was as much a fixture at St. Catherine’s as Sister Eileen was. She’d been hired by Eileen before the school officially opened, and it was Loretta who oversaw the transformation of the cafeteria from dark and grim to sleek and modern. Loretta ordered the food and devised the weekly menus. She hired cafeteria staff, she oversaw the students who worked there because each and every girl at St. Catherine’s had to take a one-week turn at the serving counter and another doing cleanup, and she made sure that shipping invoices lined up with orders and that St. Catherine’s was getting the best prices from its suppliers.
Loretta was nearing sixty, taller than just about any woman Jazz had ever met, and as solid as a brick wall.
It was a fact known from one end of St. Catherine’s to the other that Loretta took no nonsense from anyone. But beneath her gruff exterior, it was whispered, there was a heart of gold.
The trick was getting to it—fast—before Loretta lost what little patience she had.
“Looking for something?”
Jazz was the administrative assistant to the principal and, as such, second in command, and still, every time she talked to Loretta, she felt like a freshman.
She looked up from the white apron Loretta had looped over her neck to Loretta’s beefy arms, her square chin, her snubby nose, her small, dark eyes, her halo of grizzled gray hair.
“Coffee?” Jazz squeaked.
“Don’t tell me, that fancy coffee maker of yours went south again.” When Loretta laughed, Jazz swore the silverware in the drawers vibrated. “Say what you want, but my old percolator never gets cranky and decides not to work like that fancy-schmancy machine of yours. Come on.” She stepped back so Jazz could walk into the kitchen. “I just put on a pot.”
The kitchen was as no-nonsense as the woman who ran it, with an industrial-sized refrigerator, a couple sinks each big enough to float the Queen Mary, and a stove and grill where hundreds of lunches were prepared each day. The center of the room was taken up by a prep counter, and across from that was the large rectangular opening through which Loretta could keep an eye on the line out front—along with each and every girl who went through it. The kitchen was immaculate, the floor spotless. Loretta wouldn’t have allowed for anything else. The chalkboard that listed the menu (in pink letters that particular week) was already propped against the wall and ready for the next day. CHEF SALAD. CHICKEN AND BROWN RICE. VEGETARIAN CHILI. Eileen was as concerned about the girls’ diets as she was about their minds, and Loretta obliged.
“Here you go.” Loretta handed a cup of steaming coffee
to Jazz. “Black, right? No sugar.”
Jazz pulled in a breath of the delicious aroma. “Perfect!”
Loretta glanced toward the stools near the prep counter. “You got time to sit?”
Loretta probably wanted to go over invoices, or ask what Jazz had heard from the supplier who’d been promising them a deal on a bulk purchase of paper napkins. It was work related, so of course Jazz agreed. Besides, if she took her time, she could get another cup of Loretta’s coffee, and yes, though Eileen swore by the expensive (and donated) machine in Jazz’s office, Jazz knew better. Loretta’s coffee was awesome.
“What’s up?” she asked Loretta.
There were no invoices out on the prep table, and Loretta didn’t go into her office at the back of the kitchen to get them. Instead, she sat down and, with one finger, traced an invisible pattern over the counter.
“Been meaning to talk to you,” she said. “Wanted to yesterday, but you know how Mondays are around here. Never got the chance. I heard…” She looked up at the fluorescent fixtures that hung above their heads. “You were the one who found her.”
Jazz had heard much the same from every teacher she’d run into in the last day and a half. By now, she had her response memorized. She set down her coffee. “I did.”
“That must have been…” Loretta wasn’t sure what it must have been, which is why she let her words trail off.
Even after all this time, Jazz wasn’t sure what it must have been, either, so she didn’t even try to finish the sentence.
“Did you know Florie when she went to school here?” she asked Loretta.
“Did her turn here in the kitchen.” Loretta had poured a cup of coffee for herself, too, and she spooned sugar into it, then added a glug of half-and-half. “Oh, yeah. Like all the girls, Florie did her time.”
“A lot of them complain.”
Loretta grunted. “A lot of them need to get their heads out of their my-daddy’s-got-money asses and see what the real world is like.” She didn’t excuse her blunt assessment. Jazz didn’t expect her to. Loretta didn’t waste time on apologies.
“Florie wasn’t one of them?”
Loretta pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Never one bit of moaning or complaining out of that girl. It was like she…” Gathering her thoughts, she looked around the kitchen. “It was almost as if she liked it here.”
“But she never talked about going to culinary school. Or did she?”
“Oh, I don’t think it was the cooking she liked. Though come to think of it, she was such a good worker, I did let her help out at the stove sometimes. That’s not something I do with most of these girls. They’re not responsible enough and they don’t want to get their hands dirty.” Loretta made a face. “Florie wasn’t like that. She did what she was told to do, and my goodness, how she loved to clean up.”
Over the rim of her coffee cup, Jazz smiled at Loretta. “That’s got to be unusual for any teenaged girl!”
“You bet. But Florie…” Again she looked around, and Jazz imagined she was picturing Florie scrubbing the counters. “It was almost as if the thought of long, bare counters and freshly scrubbed pots and pans made the girl’s day. Weird, huh?”
“She was a photographer,” Jazz commented, and then because she didn’t want Loretta to think that meant she thought Florie was inherently weird, she added, “Maybe the light reflecting off the metal appealed to her. Or the look of things when they were clean and orderly. With her eye for detail, who knows what kind of beauty she saw in everyday things.”
Loretta’s shoulders were as big as a semi. They sagged. “And now she’s gone. Just like that.”
Loretta’s coffee cup was empty; Jazz’s was not. She offered to get them both another cup anyway, and left Loretta alone long enough to compose herself.
When she came back, she handed Loretta the coffee. “What else can you tell me about her?”
“Florie?” Loretta pursed her lips. “She was a scholarship girl.”
“That’s not something we’re supposed to talk about,” Jazz reminded her, but had to ask, “How did you know?”
Loretta didn’t sip her coffee, she took it in gulps. When she set down her cup, it was already half empty. “It’s not like I’m telling tales or anything, and I’d never say it to anyone but you.”
“Good thing. You know how Eileen feels about—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve been hearing that song for so many years, I’ve got all the words memorized. I’m only mentioning it because with Florie, well, it was so obvious. You know, she never had any money.”
“For . .?”
“For nothing. Girl didn’t have money for clothes. She didn’t have money for makeup. Her books and her tuition and her uniform, sure, they were all included in her scholarship, but I’ll tell you what, that girl didn’t have two nickels to rub together for anything else.”
The thought was like a punch to the gut. Jazz sat up. “You should have told—”
“You think Florie wanted word to get around about stuff like that?” Loretta shook her head. “Me and Florie, we handled it.”
“Meaning?”
As if she was afraid someone might overhear, Loretta looked around and even though they were alone, she lowered her voice and leaned closer to Jazz. “Once in a while, I’d bring her some clothes. You know, when my girls didn’t want them no more. Not that my girls and Florie had the same taste!” Loretta chuckled. “Oh, I could see it, all right. Sometimes I’d tell Florie to come into the kitchen when there was nobody around, and I’d give her a bag full of clothes and she’d look through it, and…” Her chuckle turned into a full-fledged laugh. “Oh, that girl could look real sour when she didn’t like something!”
“But she took the clothes, anyway?”
Loretta nodded. “She did. And once or twice when she was here outside of school time for a dance or to watch some drama-club performance or whatever, I saw her wearing them, too. I think her parents, they don’t have much.”
Jazz thought back to her conversation with Larry and Renee, how they couldn’t pay for a funeral, how Florie had recently asked them for money.
“You haven’t…” It was Jazz’s turn to trace a nervous pattern across the counter. “Florie didn’t stop by recently to see you, did she?”
“As a matter of fact, she did. How did you guess?” Her hands on her knees, Loretta sat back. “Said she was in the neighborhood working on some project for school.”
It was the first Jazz had heard there was something that brought Florie to Tremont. “Did she say what it was? Where it was?”
“I asked, but Florie, she wasn’t interested in chatting. Showed up out of nowhere and left again just as fast.”
“Just like that?”
Loretta looked down at the floor. “After she asked me for money. And it’s not like I got no heart or anything,” she added quickly. “But what the girl was asking…”
“What was she asking?”
“Ten thousand dollars.” Even now, Loretta could hardly believe it. “I told her she was nuts. I mean, really, if she had asked for a month’s rent, well, it would have been tough, but I would have come up with something. But ten thousand dollars! She might as well have asked for the moon.”
So a few weeks earlier, Florie had asked her parents for money and when that didn’t work, who knows who else she may have hit up. Was Loretta Hardinger her last-ditch effort? Jazz remembered what Florie told Larry and Renee when they, too, were unable to help. “And she said if you wouldn’t help her, she’d get the money some other way.”
“How did you know?”
“Just a guess,” Jazz assured her. “Only, did she say what she needed the money for?”
“I asked. I mean, especially once she said how much she wanted. Can’t nobody blame me for being curious.”
“And Florie said what?”
“Blew me off. Just like that. Imagine, coming around hat in hand, then refusing to answer when I asked what the money was for. Bu
t then, by that time, I think she already knew there was no way I was going to help. How could I? Who’s got that kind of money laying around?”
“So after you said no—”
“She just turned around and walked out. Gave me one of those little over-the-shoulder waves. You know, like the girls do. Like she’d see me another time. Only now she won’t, will she?”
The last of the coffee in her cup was cold, but Jazz finished it anyway. She didn’t want to offend Loretta, and besides, the bitter coffee helped wash down the lump in her throat. She’d already gotten off the stool and pushed it back into place when she thought of something Eileen had told her.
“Did you know?” she asked Loretta. “About Florie and Grace Greenwald?”
“You mean Little Miss Oil and Little Miss Water?” Loretta’s expression was sour. “I knew they didn’t get along.”
“Do you know why?”
Loretta put both her hands to her waist, a Buddha in a white apron. “You think that Greenwald girl is a suspect?”
Suspect.
It was a word Jazz had never considered, a concept that felt foreign. She was just asking questions, wasn’t she? She was just looking to make sense of a senseless act.
And yet, Grace and Florie were enemies. They’d fought. Recently. And Florie was dead and Grace just might be …
“Do you think there’s any chance Grace could have killed her?” she asked, breathless.
Loretta pressed her lips together, and when she blew out a puff of annoyance, her nostrils flared. “How did you get here?” she asked Jazz.
“Here? You mean how did I get the job here?”
Loretta nodded.
It wasn’t a hard question, but it didn’t have an easy answer. “I wanted to be a firefighter.”
“Like your daddy.”
“And both my brothers. My dad was all for it, but my mom…” Back when it all happened, there had been enough hard feelings. Jazz didn’t need to bring them to the surface. She got rid of them with a shake of her shoulders. “Mom said having a husband and two sons in the department was enough for any woman. I was young and … I caved.” It was as simple as that. “I went to community college, found out I enjoyed administration courses, worked in the office at a furniture store, then at a preschool.”