2 Death Makes the Cut (32 page)

Fred Argus,

You’ll make a hell of a teacher.

Congratulations from your friends at Tracor.

We’ll miss you.

He had made a hell of a teacher, and I missed him more than I could say.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Mrs. Argus asked me to give it to you,” said Colin. “She said she thought you might like to have something of her husband’s.”

I nodded, my throat tightening a little. She was right. I would treasure it.

Colin went on. “You should be hearing from your lawyer any minute. All charges are dismissed. Self-defense and defense of a child—they could hardly try to prosecute you for those. They’d look like idiots. You’ll probably get a stiffly worded warning about carrying a gun on school property.”

The relief was enormous. With a little whoop of delight, I gave him a blinding smile and jumped up, wanting to dance around. Both men half rose as well. I quickly sat back down.

“Don’t get up,” I said, gesturing for them to sit, then adding, “Just think, now neither one of you will have to bake me a cake with a file in it.”

“I’m guessing that means your job is safe, too,” said Colin, his easy drawl returning as his face relaxed into a wintry smile at my small joke. “A friend of mine at one of the news stations says the school district is getting a flood of e-mails from parents, about ninety percent in your favor.”

I wasn’t as sure about my job as he was. “That might be good or it might not. I doubt the administration is all that pleased with the publicity. The sooner this is swept under the rug, the better.”

“Oh, it will be. Pat Carver is being arraigned Monday on embezzlement charges. With the budget shortfalls in the headlines, her case is going to make everyone forget about you, especially when the amount is made public.”

“How much did she take?” I asked.

“They’re still investigating, but at this point, the running count is over half a million dollars.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me. How in the world?”

“She’s been at it for a long time, and she apparently is exceptionally clever. She kept money moving around constantly, so it wasn’t easy to see when a little fell through the cracks and into her own pocket. Still, the scandal will keep the press and the school board too busy to worry about you. Oh yeah, and she’s the one who trashed your house, although I don’t think they’ll prosecute her for that. She’s cooperating fully, so I imagine that will be one of the things they throw out.”

I was outraged. “What! They should nail her to the wall for that. All my stuff! And for what? What could she possibly have had against me?”

“She was at Coach Fred’s funeral and saw Mrs. Argus give you the envelope,” said Colin. “Coach Fred had approached her about the discrepancies in the tennis team funds. He’d become suspicious for some reason and had obtained copies of receipts and payments that didn’t match what she’d reported. His death was a gift from heaven for her. Then, when she saw the envelope, she figured that you were now the enemy. She had no way of knowing that Coach Fred was giving her the benefit of the doubt and hadn’t actually told you anything, but she did think that if she could get those receipts and replace them with her doctored copies, then she would be able to ‘prove’ to you that Coach Fred had been mistaken.”

“So, trashing my house was going to get me on her side?”

“Not exactly. She heard at the school that you’d been in an accident and were in the hospital, so she had a window of opportunity. She decided to break in to substitute the papers, and she was going to make it look like a burglary to cover her tracks. When she couldn’t find what she was looking for, she took out her frustration. I doubt the destruction was part of the original plan.”

“That cow. I hope she gets a life sentence.” I fumed for a long moment, then thought of something else. “So was she funneling money into the drama department? I still can’t figure out how they were paying for the set and costumes.”

Colin snorted. “No way. In fact, the theater expenditures were causing Pat a lot of anxiety—she definitely didn’t want anyone noticing and looking closely at the books. But she never spent a penny of the money she stole for herself as far as we can tell. It’s another reason she was able to continue for so long. Most embezzlers start living beyond their legitimate means. She saved it all, and it may reduce her prison time since it sounds like she’ll be able to repay it. No, the drama budget came out of Nancy Wales’s retirement fund.”

I hadn’t expected that. “Really? Why would she use her own money?”

“Blackmail. She says Roland Wilding threatened to turn her in for the murder of Coach Fred unless she did what he wanted for the play, and that included the first-class sets as well as letting him play the lead.”

I tried to absorb this. “I don’t understand why she didn’t just call 911 when Fred died.”

“A bunch of reasons. She’d been taking anger-management classes and thought that would count against her, but basically she just panicked. Then Roland seized the opportunity and helped her hide the body in the tennis shed. You were right about the joints—they weren’t Fred’s. Roland planted them. He told Nancy they could make it look like a drug deal gone bad.”

“I knew it!” I said with triumph.

Alan chimed in, interested in spite of the source. “What else did she say? Did he really do it all just to perform in front of that director, what’s his name?”

“Michael Dupre. And yeah, if you can believe it, that’s what this whole thing has been about. Dupre has a reputation for discovering talent in unexpected places and making stars, and Roland Wilding wanted to be a star more than anything in the world. He was very bitter about his failure as an actor in New York and thought he’d never been given a fair break. When he found out Michael Dupre would be filming at the school, he decided he would try to get Dupre’s attention.

“It’s a long way from that to murder, though,” said Alan doubtfully.

“That was never part of his plan, if he even had one at the start. Nancy’s accidentally killing Coach Fred just fell into his lap. It gave him a hold over her, and he jumped on it to get his way about everything to do with the play. Without that, she would never have let him write the script or take the lead role. Also, she would never have paid for the set and costumes, which he thought were critical. He believed that only an over-the-top production would get Dupre into the theater.”

I shook my head at my own stupidity. “I completely misread what was happening. I thought she must have a monumental crush on him and was doing it all to get him into the sack.”

“That’s my little cynic,” said Alan, with an affectionate twinkle.

Colin gave him a sour stare at the possessive, then turned pointedly back to me. “Anyway, things started going south in a hurry. First, you turned up and forced them to cut back on the practice schedule, which from his point of view was catastrophic. The play had to be perfect, and they only had a couple of weeks before the film crew would be leaving. Then, you managed to swoop in and steal the extras roles from him.”

“I didn’t swoop,” I protested.

“From his point of view, you swooped, and according to Nancy, it was eating him alive. The day at the park, he left the rehearsal and drove to the location with some vague idea that your kids wouldn’t be any good, and he would be there to offer the services of trained actors. It was your bad luck that he was turned away at the main entrance and decided to sneak around through the woods. When he saw you talking on your phone with your back to the path, he attacked.”

I shivered, remembering the violence and rage. “He must have been insane.”

Colin shook his head. “Everyone says that when a criminal does something they don’t understand. I disagree. He wanted something, and he did whatever it took to get what he wanted. You were in his way. He decided to remove you. It’s a miracle he didn’t finish the job. That’s not insanity. That’s pure evil.”

Now both men were looking my way, Alan with deep sympathy in his eyes, Colin … well, Colin’s expression was unreadable.

“And Laura? Was she in his way, too?”

“Nancy Wales says she didn’t know anything about that. In the technical sense, she’s probably telling the truth, but I think she knew Roland was to blame the minute she heard about the death. What we do know is that Ms. Esperanza—Laura—spent most of the evening on the phone, calling school board members and other district officials. According to them, she was outraged that a teacher was performing in a student play, although she also accused Nancy of mismanagement of department funds and violation of the rules surrounding extracurricular activities. It took a while, but she finally got them to agree to step in. All the calls were from her cell phone, so we can’t be sure where she was when she made them, but we do know she made her last call at about eight o’clock. Her husband was working the night shift, so there was no one waiting for her, and she probably wasn’t in any hurry to get home to an empty house. My guess is that she stayed at school to make the calls from her classroom, then couldn’t resist the urge to stop by the theater on her way out.”

I buried my face in my hands, feeling sick.

Alan’s phone rang, its cheerful little melody a welcome interruption. Alan reached to silence it, but frowned as he glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s my assistant, who knows not to call me this weekend unless it’s an emergency. I probably should take it,” he said apologetically.

“Yes, absolutely. You can go in my room if you need some privacy,” I said.

He nodded, but instead of going to my room, he crossed through to the kitchen and out the sliding door to the back porch.

We sat in silence for a long moment, Colin’s eyes on Alan, mine on him.

“How do you do it?” I asked him at last. It was something I’d been wondering about a lot lately. “Dealing with death and murder every day. I don’t know how you bear it.”

He rose and moved to the seat Alan had just vacated, leaning forward to take one of my hands in both of his. His touch was warm and unexpectedly comforting.

“It’s not always like this, you know. For one thing I’m not usually emotionally involved with any of the suspects,” he added, the corner of his mouth twitching into a wry grin.

“I was never a suspect,” I protested.

“That’s what you think. Although yes, I admit, I ruled you out pretty quickly.”

He looked into my face, his blue eyes serious and intense. I was too aware of his touch, of the wave in the lock of hair resting on his forehead, of the long line of his jaw and set of his broad shoulders. I knew I should get up or at least lean away, but I couldn’t move.

He went on. “My job helps people, people who find themselves in the worst situation of their lives. They need answers and my job is putting together the pieces of the puzzle for them. What exactly happened to my brother, my wife, my child? Was it an accident or suicide? If it’s a case a murder, then it’s trying to catch the murderer, to achieve some kind of justice. I won’t lie—it can be damn hard at times, but it’s important. And I love it.”

He said the last almost in a tone of surprise, as though he’d never thought of it that way before.

His words and enthusiasm provided a new view of what he did, and my respect and liking for him increased. I wished I could separate that from the inconvenient attraction that also increased with each moment that I spent so near to him. I could actually feel the heat rising off my own skin.

“Jocelyn…”

“Colin…”

We spoke at the same time, then stopped. I tried to withdraw my hand. He tightened his clasp.

“Don’t,” he said, voice still quiet but urgent. “Don’t say anything. I just want a chance with you. We haven’t known each other long, but you can’t say there isn’t something between us. I don’t want to let that go.”

“But,” I started, glancing toward the back door where Alan was now pacing back and forth, immersed in his phone call.

“I don’t care.” Colin cut me off again. “I don’t care about him. I don’t care who you’re dating or who you were married to. I just don’t care. I want you to give me a chance.”

“You don’t even know me,” I whispered.

“I do. I know you’re smart, you’re funny, and you’re kind. I know you’re an amazing teacher, that your kids love you and would do anything for you. You’re loyal to your friends, without reservation. And I know you’re brave, stupidly brave, but God help me, I love that about you.”

Slowly, as though afraid a sudden movement would startle me, he raised a hand to caress my cheek, then gently slid it under the fall of my hair to cup the nape of my neck. The warmth of his touch flowed downward through my whole body in a tide of desire. My lips parted, but no words came out.

He went on hoarsely. “Then there’s this, whatever it is, between us.”

I sat motionless, feeling, not thinking, for far too long. Then with a wrench, I came back to myself and jumped to my feet, almost knocking my chair over in the process. It rocked on its legs before settling back to the floor.

“No!” I said. “That’s not … that doesn’t matter.”

He rose and stepped forward, now only inches from me. I could feel the heat radiating from his body. Or was it from my own?

“It matters to me.”

It mattered to me as well, not only for itself—and it was marvelous—but because of what I was afraid it meant about … well, everything. I wanted Colin Gallagher like I’d never wanted a man, but I’d been dating Alan for six months and I cared about him, too. And whether or not Colin was right about knowing me, I didn’t really know him. Not the everyday stuff, the stuff that mattered in a relationship. Plus, Alan was standing in my backyard, and I was one tattered shred of willpower from throwing myself into Colin’s arms and pulling him to my living room floor. All of which meant there was something deeply wrong with me. Surely I was not that woman, a woman who would sneak around behind a boyfriend’s back, who would turn to a second man less than an hour after the first had proposed. A small annoying voice told me I might be, but I squashed it. I was not that woman, I told myself firmly. Really.