Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (4 page)

It was a relief, though, when the bell rang for my conference period. Every teacher had one sometime during the day. It was our
de facto
break time, though a parent with a gripe or a question could lay claim to those precious fifty minutes by making an appointment at the office.

As I tried to decide if I craved a cup of coffee enough to brave stares and questions in the teacher’s lounge, I remembered the note Hardy had delivered. It took a minute to find it and decode the school secretary’s unique shorthand.

“O’Brien spk w/U conf.pd./Tch Lng.”

Dennis O’Brien hadn’t forgotten me. He wanted to “spk”—speak?—with me. “Conf”—was that an f or a j? Conference period. “Tch Lng”—teacher’s lounge.

As I threaded through the rowdy crush of adolescents, I smiled, remembering a meeting I had once had with Dennis O’Brien’s mother. His failing grade in my class was about to lose him his place on the basketball team. I was in my first year of teaching, and June O’Brien’s scowl was terrifying, but I was determined to stand up for myself in my first parent’s conference.

I needn’t have worried. Once his mother learned that he’d only turned in about half his homework and saw the proof for herself in the grade book, Dennis’s fate was sealed. After that, Dennis was, if not a model student, at least an adequate one.

The subject of my stroll down memory lane stood as I entered the teacher’s lounge and shook my hand, adult to adult. His well-pressed suit, crisp shirt, and tastefully striped tie, all selected by his wife Dorothy, gave him an air of authority.

“I appreciate this, Miss Prentice,” he said and indicated a seat at one of the flimsy plastic tables. When he sat, his knees lifted the table, and I was momentarily reminded of the time Alice in Wonderland outgrew her house.

“Why don’t we get some coffee and take it to my classroom? It’s empty now and it’ll be quieter there,” I added, but I had other reasons. The lounge had been filling up with other faculty who were even more nakedly curious than my students.

“Good idea,” Dennis agreed, and we left just in time to pass Gerard Berghauser. As the door closed behind us, I heard a whisper, “Who’s that she’s with?” Drat the man! He would most assuredly tell them.

“I was just remembering the time you were kicked off the basketball team, Dennis,” I said as we climbed the steps to my room.

“Oh, gee, I’d forgotten that. Boy, was my mom mad after she talked to you. I’d been lying to her, you see, and she couldn’t abide that.”

“I hated to get you in trouble.”

“Hey, it was the best thing that could’ve happened,” he assured me, opening the door of my room. “It was kind of a relief to get found out.”

“And you made it back on the team.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He grinned, and I knew he was thinking about those three tall trophies in the case downstairs. We took two seats in the front row.

He coughed. “Look, Miss Prentice, we need to . . . ”

He reached in his pocket for his notebook and dropped his pen. I was given a close-up view of the top of his large head as he fumbled on the floor. At these close quarters, I noticed for the first time he had some gray hair coming in. More, in fact, than I had.

“Youth’s a stuff ’twill not endure,” as Shakespeare said, or, “Go figure,” to quote Lily Burns. No one had ever seen a gray hair on her head, thanks to the miracle of modern chemistry.

The pen retrieved, Dennis began again, “We need to go over a few things about last night.”

“I’ll be glad to, but please—I mean, people tell me the paper said—”

He sighed. “Okay, okay. Here’s what I can tell you: We have reason to believe—” he spoke slowly and evenly, as though repeating a memorized speech, “that the vic—that Marguerite’s death was not accidental.”

“You mean—suicide?”

“I don’t mean any more than I just said, Miss Prentice. Just know that we’re doing all we can to get this straightened out. Now can we go over a few things?”

I folded my hands in my lap and squared my shoulders. “Of course.”

“Do you remember falling over Marguerite Lebow?”

“Not clearly. I just walked in and fell. It was pretty dark in the copy room. It always is.”

Dennis tilted his head. “What do you mean, always?”

“The library’s an old building. The refrigerator and the copier tax the wires too much to put anything else on them. At least, that’s what Laura told me. Besides, there’s plenty of light from the stacks when the door’s open.”

We went over the people I had seen. “Anybody else you remember?” Dennis asked. “Somebody with Marguerite, maybe?”

“Well, she was talking to Derek Standish when I arrived. I didn’t think anything about it because it’s—it was—Marguerite’s job to help people find things.”

“Anybody else?”

“I’m not sure. I was quite immersed in my work. I found the word
irregardless
in three papers.”

Dennis chuckled. “Still harping on that one, are you?”

“It’s still incorrect, Dennis. Irregardless is a double negative and not even a real word. I always take ten points off for it.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Miss Prentice, still torturing those poor kids.” Then he sternly adjusted his expression. “Okay, back to the subject. Marguerite was—”

“Oh! I do remember somebody. There was a man I didn’t know. Short, dark-haired—oh, my goodness!—he said something to Marguerite, then walked away. Could that mean something?”

Dennis shook his head as he scribbled in his notebook. “Couldn’t say for sure. But any detail helps. Go on.”

“Well, I saw Gil Dickensen talking to Laura Ingersoll at the front desk. He’d brought a stack of newspapers, I remember. And Lily Burns was there too.”

“Okay. I have another question about the copy room. It says library staff only on the door.”

“Yes, but Laura lets me make copies there and pay at the desk when I’m finished. She showed me how to use the machine. I make so many it was less trouble for her this way.”

“So you weren’t there to meet Marguerite?”

I was surprised. “Oh, no. I didn’t even know she was in there.”

“I see.”

He frowned and tapped his chin with the end of the ballpoint. I had seen him do that during tests. It meant he was stumped. He forged ahead anyway.

“So you went in. Where did you see Marguerite?”

“I didn’t see her. I just, well, stepped on her.” I shuddered.

“That’s how you fell. And you hit your head—how?” He indicated my bandage with his pen.

“I think I must have fallen against the copy machine. It’s all I can remember.”

He was nodding as I spoke. Looking at his notes, he said, “It ties in with what we found.” He looked up. “What was it you were going to copy?”

“A picture of the Globe Theatre. For a class on Shakespeare. But I never got to do it, as you know.”

“And that was all you were going to do in there?”

“No, Dennis, I was going to whip up a batch of fudge! We’ve been over all this before!”

“I know, but bear with me. How long have you known Marguerite LeBow?”

Another surprising question. “Well, about as long as anybody in this town. Since she was born, really.”

“And you taught her in school?”

“You know that.” This was getting tiring.

“What kind of student was she?”

I couldn’t see how this had anything to do with the tragedy, but I assumed Dennis knew his business. “A pretty good one. She worked hard. Mostly B’s and C’s.”

“But?” Dennis was good at this. He had heard the hesitation in my voice.

“Well, I guess you might say she was a little flighty. No, that’s not fair. She was reliable and loyal. Just a little too imaginative, perhaps. Fanciful. Maybe even a little eccentric.”

“A troublemaker? A liar?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t say that.”

He leaned forward. “You sure? She wasn’t in the habit of making up stories?”

I shook my head. “Quite the contrary. She was scrupulously honest.”

“How about mental problems?”

“What?” I was honestly shocked.

He waved his pen hand vaguely. “You know, delusions, that sort of thing?”

“Who told you that? You didn’t know Marguerite, did you?”

He locked eyes with me for a split second before jerking his gaze down to his writing. “I’m not at liberty to say right now,” he said quickly, tilting his eyebrows slightly by way of apology.

“Oh.” Interesting. “I understand. But no, I don’t think there was anything wrong with Marguerite. She just tried a little too hard and the other kids didn’t understand her.”

“But you did?”

I thought carefully. “Not necessarily. But I didn’t make fun of her, and I praised her when she did well. I was just doing my job and being decent to the girl, but she thought of me as her special friend. You’d be surprised how many students are starved for attention. Sad, really.”

“It’s very sad, Miss Prentice.” Dennis stood, tucking the pad and pen in his pocket. “Well, I guess that’s all for now. I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”

“Please do. And say hello to Dorothy and Meaghan for me. Is she still in nursery school at St. Anthony’s?”

“Kindergarten now, all day long,” he corrected me, smiling. The class bell sounded and he departed as my fourth period class began straggling in.

“Hey, I know who that was,” said Hardy Patschke, sliding into his seat. “He’s a cop, like my dad.”

“He’s also a former student of mine, Hardy,” I pointed out. Let him think it was some sort of reunion.

“No kidding!” The boy tilted his head and squinted at me. “How old are you, anyway?”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment on that one.”

“Huh?”

“Look it up, or better yet, ask Mr. Sweeny in social studies.”

“Does he know how old you are?”

I smiled at him sweetly. “A question like that calls for another question, I think. Ten, in fact. Everyone take out a sheet of paper and number from one to ten.”

The class groaned.

I’d planned a pop quiz all along, but they had no way of knowing that.

At noon I called Marie LeBow from the pay phone just outside the lunchroom. She answered immediately, sounding much stronger than I’d expected.

“I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you.” Her voice was girlish and a little nasal, an echo of her daughter’s.

“Oh, Marie, I am just so sorry.”

“I know you are,” she said wearily. “Thanks. I don’t feel it yet, you know? Don’t seem real.”

“I know.”

“The neighbors have been real nice. Brought food and everything. My sister’s coming over to stay with me. People at the college give me a week off.” Marie worked in the campus dining hall.

“That was good of them,” I said, choking up a little.

“She didn’t take drugs, Miss Prentice. She hated drugs. She didn’t do what they said in the paper. You believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course I believe you, Marie.” What else could I say?

“You were special to her, you know? ‘Miss Prentice is my favorite teacher,’ she told me.”

“She did?” I was crying in earnest now. “She was special, too. She was a sweet girl. You did a good job with her.”

“Yeah. Listen, I got something for you.”

“What?” I was blowing my nose.

“Marguerite wanted you to have something.”

“Oh, Marie,” I protested, embarrassed. “That’s not necessary. I couldn’t possibly . . . ”

“Nope,” she said stubbornly. “I’m supposed to give it to you. Can I bring it tonight?”

“Wouldn’t you rather I came to your house?”

“Nope,” Marie said again, and paused. “I don’t think so. I’ll come tonight.”

“You come whenever you like. We’ll have a chance to talk.”

“Yeah. We’ll talk. Listen, one more thing: What’s UDJ mean?”

“What is that? A radio station?”

“It’s not important. Just something I was wondering about . . . wait, there’s somebody at the door. I gotta go. See you later.”

I hung up the phone, exasperated. I was just one of Marguerite’s high school teachers. It didn’t seem right for her mother to give me one of her only child’s keepsakes. But Marie had been adamant. Maybe it would comfort her somehow. I well knew how comforting it was to be able to do something, anything, in the face of grief.

I sighed and looked around me. When I made the decision to come to school this morning, I’d expected my bandage to arouse some attention, but surely the shocked stares that met me everywhere were excessive. In the lunchroom, some of the students were downright theatrical in their reaction, turning away in mock disgust. Even the genial cafeteria ladies widened their eyes at me.

It was humiliating. I swept through the line rapidly, grabbing a chef salad and an iced tea and signing my name to the lunch ticket as quickly as possible. Then I stalked briskly to the end of a long table in the back, looking neither to the left nor to the right.

I was shaking pepper on half a hard-boiled egg when Hardy Patschke stepped before me, a large wad of paper napkins in one hand and a sheepish look on his dark olive face.

“Um, Miss Prentice, I thought I’d better tell you—”

“What is it, Hardy? I’m trying to eat lunch here.”

“It’s your head.” He waved a finger at me.

“I know all about my head! I had a little accident, in case you haven’t heard. You already saw it in class. Enough clowning around. Please go back to your seat and finish your lunch.”

The boy cringed, but stubbornly remained where he was. “But your head—”

“Kindly mind your own business, Hardy! My lunch period is almost over and you’re becoming a nuisance!”

Hardy sighed deeply, then abruptly stretched out his hand and touched my eyebrow. The finger he brought back was red.

“Look. You’re bleedin’, Miss Prentice.”

As if to reinforce his assertion, a red drop plopped in the middle of my egg.

I dropped my fork and sprang from my seat. “Oh! Oh, my goodness. Oh! Oh, dear! I’m so sorry, Hardy! I mean, I appreciate your—” I gestured helplessly.

“S’okay,” he said graciously, and handed me most of the bundle in his hand. “Better see the nurse,” he added wiping his finger on another napkin.

“Good idea,” I conceded and began gathering my paraphernalia.

“I’ll put up your tray.”