Éclair and Present Danger (21 page)

There, in the middle of a bulletin board highlighting the first half of the year, was a picture of Ethel and Bart, smiling at the camera from amid a circle of students Winnie estimated to be about eight years old.

“What's this?” she asked, looking back at the woman now seated behind her desk.

The woman rose and ventured down the hallway to stand beside Winnie. “These are pictures of people in the community who came and spent their time with the children this year. Some talked about their time in the military, some talked about growing up in other countries, and some talked
about favorite books. The children learn so much from these types of visits.”

She felt bad not being able to maintain eye contact with the woman, but she couldn't stop looking at the picture of her friends.

Ethel looked so happy sitting there, surrounded by children, with the love of her life by her side . . .

At least you're together again now . . .

“I take it, by your expression, that you knew the Wagners?” The woman shook her head sadly then stepped close enough to the board to run her hand along the picture. “I was shocked that he actually let the children hold his coin, but he did. He said it was a piece of history that belonged as much to them as it did to him.

“Miss Laughner, the fourth grade teacher, kept close watch on the students as they passed it around, though. And I swear you could hear her sigh of relief once it made its way back to Mr. Wagner.”

Winnie felt the lump of sadness rising up her throat as she studied the man smiling back at her from the wall. “Bart loved to tell everyone he met about that coin. Every time he told his story, you'd think it was the first time. His excitement never waned.”

“He certainly had our fourth graders hanging on his every word that day.”

“I'm not surprised.” And she wasn't. Bart had a way of making people hang on his every word regardless of their age.

“Do you know what will become of that coin now? Will it go into a museum?”

She gave herself a moment to drink in the couple's happiness and then turned her attention back on the woman at her side. “Bart has it. And he's probably telling all the angels in Heaven about it as we speak.”

“You're probably right.”

“Well, I better get these cookies to the kids.” Setting her
hands on the side of the stretcher once again, she continued down the hallway to the very last room and the dozen or so faces now pressed against the glass-paneled wooden door, watching her approach. The sound of their squeals escaping through the miniscule gap between the floor and the door helped ease the lingering sadness brought on by the picture of her friends.

“Enjoy the moment, Winnie,” she whispered under her breath. It was a sentiment Ethel had shared with her often—a sentiment Winnie was determined to heed, one way or the other.

F
or the first time in thirty-four years, Winnie knew what it felt like to be a rock star. The fact that the dozen or so adoring eyes cast in her direction were merely waiting for her to hand them a cookie was beside the point.

“Boys and girls, Miss Winnie will be happy to drizzle white or milk chocolate onto your cookie provided you form a nice line and use your best manners.” Mrs. Hopkins, the Big Thinkers Club advisor, held her right hand in the air and waited as twelve children scrambled into a line amid a background of giggles, quiet protests over position, and then, finally, silence. Nodding in approval, the fifty-something who doubled as Silver Lake Elementary School's second grade teacher brought her hand to her chin and scrunched her face in thought. “For my older Thinkers . . . Miss Winnie has brought forty-eight cookies, and we have twelve members. How should we divide that?”

A larger boy (probably a fifth grader) at the end of the line grinned and poked the slightly shorter boy in front of him. “We each get four!”

Mrs. Hopkins nodded, her face still scrunched. “We could, or . . .”

A girl with two brown braids who wasn't quite as tall as the first boy yet seemed to be about the same age shot her hand into the air.

“Yes, Tina?” Mrs. Hopkins prodded.

“We could invite the Big Helpers Club to have some, too.”

Mrs. Hopkins beamed with pride. “I think that would be a marvelous idea—”

“But if we do that, we can't get four,” the larger boy said in protest.

“I believe they have ten in their club today,” Mrs. Hopkins said, scrunching her face once again.

Tina closed her eyes briefly as she worked through the latest math problem in her head. When she was done, she smiled at the teacher. “We could have two each and four left over!”

The larger boy's groan was helped to a rapid death by a stern look from Mrs. Hopkins. When the advisor was confident her nonverbal message had been received and understood, she returned her focus to Tina. “Since you thought of the idea, why don't you go across the hall to Miss Laughner's room and invite the Big Helpers and their guests over for a cookie.”

Then, turning back to Winnie, Mrs. Hopkins nodded toward the first child in line. “Why don't you start handing out the first of the two cookies now so the line won't be too long when the other children join us? If someone is full after one, they can either take their second cookie home at the end of our meeting or set it aside for someone else.”

“Sounds good to me.” Winnie winked at the little red-haired boy hopping from foot to foot in the front of the line and then waved him over to the stretcher. “So, what would you like? Brown drizzle or white drizzle?”

Cookie by cookie, and drizzle choice by drizzle choice, Winnie was slowly but surely paring the line down, when
the door just over her left shoulder opened and a second line of brand-new squealers merged in with a returning Tina and the last of the three Thinkers. “Welcome boys and—”

“Winnie?”

She swung her focus to the left and the two uniform-clad males smiling at her in amusement.

“Greg? Chuck? What are you guys doing here?”

Before either could answer, a tiny little girl about midway down the line pointed at the men. “They let us go inside their ambulance!”

An even smaller little boy peeked his head around his classmate and pointed at the IV pole next to Winnie. “They have that same thing, too!”

Greg approached from the left, studying Winnie's drip bag and stretcher as he did. “Looking good . . .”

She forced her eyes to remain on the little boy rather than on Master Sergeant Hottie and his equally intrigued sidekick, Chuck. “The one Mr. Greg and Mr. Chuck showed you is a
real
one . . . one that helps people who are sick or hurt. Mine is just a pretend one.”

“Yeah, but yours has chocolate in it.” The larger boy from the Thinkers Club crammed the rest of his inaugural cookie into his mouth and then rejoined the line. “My mom says chocolate helps people, too.”

Winnie laughed along with the teachers as she returned to drizzling duties for the rest of the first-round kids. When she was done, she set the decorating tube down, wiped her hands on a white cloth, and focused on the paramedic and his EMT. “Did you just get here?” she asked.

Chuck's finger shot halfway into the air over the plate of remaining cookies and began a silent but obvious count while Greg answered Winnie's question. “We've been here for about an hour. The kids toured the ambulance and then we went back into their room and answered questions about what they saw.”

“But I didn't see the ambulance when I pulled in . . .”

“We're parked in the lower lot.”

“Ahhh.”

Chuck's finger stopped moving. “Think there will be any left for me?”

“C'mon, Chuck, they're for the kids.” Greg met Winnie's eyes and then rolled his own. “Chuck has a one-track mind when it comes to food. If he's not thinking about food, he's eating it. And if he's not eating it, he's thinking about it.”

“Hey. I don't like waste,” Chuck quipped. “None of us should.”

Mrs. Hopkins stepped over to the stretcher and swept her hand toward the cookies. “You are each welcome to try one.” Then, turning to the head of the Big Helpers Club, she said, “Jeannie, there is one for you as well.”

“Miss Laughner, they're really, really good,” came a little voice from the other side of the room.

Miss Laughner smiled at the student and then held a hand out to Winnie. “I'm Jeannie Laughner, fourth grade teacher during school hours and advisor for our school's Big Helpers Club two Wednesday afternoons a month.”

“Miss Laughner . . .” It took a moment, but the name finally registered in her head, momentarily claiming her smile in the process. “I was admiring one of your photographs on the bulletin board in the front hallway as I was coming in.”

The woman's thinning but still dark eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. “Oh? Which one?”

“The one of Bart and Ethel Wagner. I understand Bart came in and showed his special coin to your students.”

Chuck plucked a cookie from the pile and placed it next to Winnie's IV tube. “Can I do a mix of white
and
milk chocolate on the top?”

Without a word, she retrieved the first tube, drizzled white chocolate across the cookie in a pattern of interesting swirls, and then swapped it for the second tube and its more traditional, darker contents.

When she was done, she handed the cookie to Chuck and pointed to the remaining cookies. “Miss Laughner? Mrs Hopkins? Greg?”

“Oh yeah.”

Mrs. Hopkins laughed and pointed at Greg. “What he said.”

Miss Laughner nodded but brought the conversation back to Winnie. “Mr. Wagner was wonderful with my students. His stories about life and his coin had the children on the edge of their seats . . . even the ones who react to very little.”

“No surprise there.” Chuck plucked a cookie crumb off his uniform shirt and popped it in his mouth. “I couldn't have been a whole lot older when I heard his story the first time, either. In fact, on the way home in the car with my dad that day, I seriously considered abandoning my baseball card collection in favor of coins.”

Winnie's answering smile came equipped with a sudden moistening of her eyes. Oh, how she missed Bart and Ethel . . .

“That's why I can't figure out why anyone—especially a mother of one of our students—would rip his picture in half.”

Dropping the icing tube back onto the stretcher, Winnie stared at the fourth grade teacher. “But I saw the picture just now. It was perfectly fine.”

“Because I ran off another copy and tacked it back up.”

“The
why
is simple, Jeannie,” said Mrs. Hopkins. “She did it out of anger. Much like her daughter or any other second grader reacts when someone won't share on the playground.”

Winnie bobbed her head to the right to gain a better view of Mrs. Hopkins, but just as she did, Miss Laugher spoke, reclaiming her focus in short order. “But she's not a child.”

Mrs. Hopkins narrowed the space between them, briefly glanced over her shoulder in search of any potential
eavesdroppers, and then lowered her voice to a raspy whisper. “Wait until you give the pageant princess a less than perfect grade on something. You'll rethink that statement.”

Pageant princess . . .

The women exchanged knowing glances while Greg and Chuck looked from the plate of cookies to Winnie and back again.

Pageant princess . . .

“Boys and girls,” Mrs. Hopkins said, spinning around to face the children, “if you're ready for your second cookie, you may line up when the big hand reaches the five. But you must do so quietly and orderly.”

Pageant—

Winnie yanked her gaze up to Miss Laughner's. “Wait. You're talking about Sissy Donovan, aren't you?”

The fourth grade teacher's face reddened. “I—I'm sorry. We shouldn't be talking like this.”

“No, it's not that. It's just . . .” Winnie's voice trailed off as she mentally revisited the conversation from the beginning. “Wait! Are you telling me that Sissy Donovan is the one who ripped Bart's picture in half?”

A moment's hesitation was followed by a slow nod. “One of my students saw her do it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Winnie could see the students lining up once again, their anticipation for another cookie as tangible as it had been for the first. “Do you remember when this happened?” she asked while readying the tubes and the cookies for round two.

“Last Tuesday.” Mrs. Hopkins stepped to the side and shook her finger at some overeager students at the back of the line. Once they responded accordingly, she turned back to Winnie. “Shortly after our post-lunch recess, Mrs. Donovan brought Ava into school late. I'd assumed they were just stopping by to pick up missed work, but Ava wanted to stay.”

“Why did she come in late?”

“Ava knocked out a tooth the previous day and, as a result, spent all of Tuesday morning at some expensive dentist in Larkmont.”

“Larkmont? Wow, that's a hike.” Greg moved in beside her, his lips stopping just shy of her ear. “Winnie, I think this kid might cry if you don't drizzle his cookie—stat.”

“Huh? What?” She stopped, looked straight ahead, and smiled apologetically at the little boy. “I'm sorry, sweetheart . . . white chocolate coming right up.” Grabbing the tube between her fingers, she made a smiley face with the melted chocolate and handed the cookie to the boy. Then, taking advantage of every shred of ooh-ahh time the design incurred, she glanced up at Greg. “How long of a drive is that?”

“To where? Larkmont?” At her nod, he looked at Chuck, threw out an initial guess of ninety minutes, and then amended it to an hour and forty-five minutes each way.

An hour and forty-five minutes each way . . .

Three and a half hours of driving in total . . .

Back at the school shortly after lunch . . .

And, just like that, Winnie was back to square one in her quest to find Bart's murderer.