Broken Vows Mystery 03-In Sickness and in Death (11 page)

“Sure.” I sat again with reluctance.

Mrs. Travis rounded her desk and took her seat. She opened a file and flipped through the pages inside. “After I spoke with you last week, I read Danny’s file more carefully. I even placed a call to his old school. Danny is an unusual boy. His school attendance record is perfect. He’s never missed a day, not even for an illness. He’s been late only once or twice. Danny hands in all his homework. It’s not always correct, but it’s always done. His grades tend to be above average. His father attends every teacher conference. His father signs every report card. In those aspects, Danny is a model student.”

She closed the file and leaned back in her chair. “On the other hand, Danny never rides the bus. His father transported him to and from school. His old school does not believe Danny had any friendships outside of school. Some weeks, they suspected the only showers Danny had were the ones he asked to take after his physical education class. On occasion, Danny fell asleep during lectures. His classmates often couldn’t find their lunch money. Sometimes they couldn’t find other things as well. No one could prove it was Danny, but he was the prime suspect. It led to several fights.”

She fiddled with a paperclip lying on her desk. “I know you and your husband have only had Danny in your home for a few days. Your husband indicated Danny’s father might be in jail for some time to come. I think it’s important we all work together to make sure Danny benefits from this move to our school and your home.”

I nodded and waited for her to say more. She didn’t. She just smiled at me.

I wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell me. Wasn’t it a given that we were all working together in Danny’s best interests? Was she letting me know that she knew Danny was a thief? Was she trying to tell me Danny should ride the school bus? That I should help him make friends outside of school? Or was this her carefully worded way of letting me know this school wasn’t going to tolerate any nonsense from Danny?

Mrs. Travis continued to smile at me, clearly allowing me to draw my own conclusions. Instead, I decided to take the opportunity to find out what more she knew about Danny.

“We share your concerns about Danny, Mrs. Travis. In fact, Danny was very upset last night. He said his father won’t talk to him about his mother. Is there any information in the file about her?”

She tapped the file. “According to this, she passed away when he was two. At least, that’s what his father suggested to Danny’s kindergarten teacher during a teacher conference.”

So maybe Danny’s mother really wasn’t dead? “What was her name?”

Mrs. Travis flipped through the file and stopped at Danny’s birth certificate. “Jennifer James. She had Danny at age nineteen. She and Mr. Phillips lived at the same address in Newark. I don’t know if they were married.”

She flipped the file closed and seemed to hesitate before plunging on, “I don’t know if this information will be helpful to you or not, but Danny’s teachers weren’t certain Mr. Phillips knows how to read. They would show him samples of Danny’s completed assignments during the conferences, and he didn’t seem to comprehend the work.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know if it was important or helpful either, but instantly I felt sorry for the man. The inability to read would be a huge deficit in life. “Is there anything else in his file that you think might be helpful?”

“I’m afraid not. Most of it is Danny’s report cards and standardized test results, all of which tend to be above average, as I said. I think Danny’s old school worried more about what they didn’t know about Danny than what they were able to document.”

I thanked Mrs. Travis for her time and walked into the hallway. I had the overwhelming urge to peek into Danny’s classroom, just to make sure he was okay. I started to turn back to ask the secretary for permission then decided just to find my way.

The teachers’ names hung on the wall above their classroom numbers in the hallway. I walked down one hall without finding Mr. Mathews’ name. In the next, his door was second on the right. It was closed.

I sidled closer until I could see inside through the three-inch-wide window beginning a foot above the door handle.

Danny’s desk was in the third row, between two other boys. Danny was reading a book, as was the rest of the class. He looked …
absorbed. I guessed that was the best we could hope for on his first day.

Inside the room, a man moved past the door. I jerked away from the door and speed walked around the corner, hoping no one had spotted me. I didn’t know if a twelve-year-old would appreciate his “mother” looking in on him or not. I was quite sure he wouldn’t appreciate having his teacher whip open the classroom door and catch me in the act.

In the school parking lot, I used my cell phone to call Ray.

“Hey, Darlin’. How’d it go with the principal?”

“Okay. She said Danny’s old teachers suspected him of stealing from his classmates.”

“I heard when I picked up his file.”

“What else did you hear that you neglected to tell me, Ray?”

“I heard he was a good student, and his father was attentive.”

“Did you hear that the school wasn’t sure his father could read?”

“No.”

“Maybe he’s a thief because his prospects are limited.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“What’s the penalty for stealing a Cadillac Escalade?”

“He’s been charged with grand larceny in the fourth degree. That’s a Class E felony. For first offenders, the maximum sentence is four years in a state prison.”

I watched as a woman pulled into the space next to mine and hustled into the school carrying a tray of cupcakes. Would that be me one day? “Is his father a first offender?”

“He’s been in prison for armed robbery, when he was seventeen. He served nine years.”

“So he’s prone to violence.”

“His partner in crime pulled the gun. Even the bank clerk testified that Danny’s father seemed surprised.”

I felt some relief. “Is prison where his neck got sliced?”

“Yes.”

“Stealing cars seems like a step down from armed robbery.”

“Auto theft is a multimillion dollar business, Jolene. It’s the most expensive property crime in the U.S. More than a million cars are stolen every year, dismantled in chop shops and the stolen parts sold. Nationwide, only a little over ten percent of those thefts are cleared by arrest.”

Like he was telling me something I didn’t already know. “But why is Danny’s father stealing cars here in Wachobe? Most of New York’s auto thefts occur in the New York City area.”

“We think he planned to put the Escalade in a semi bound for the city.”

But instead, he got caught sitting behind the driver’s wheel, and now he faced more time in prison. Would Danny want to visit him there, too? If his father let him, Ray would have to take him to visit. The county jail already gave me the creeps. I couldn’t take a state prison. But surely Danny had to have other relatives.

“Principal Travis also told me Danny’s mother died when he was two, or at least, that’s what his father implied to his kindergarten teacher.”

“I can try asking his father again. He’s smart enough to take his right to remain silent seriously.”

Just our luck that criminals are getting smarter. “Doesn’t he have any other relatives?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Mrs. Travis said the birth certificate listed the same Newark address for both of Danny’s parents. Do you think they might have family still living there?”

“Newark?”

I detected more than a hint of interest in Ray’s voice. “Yes, Newark. What about it?”

“The Escalade was reported stolen by a woman who gave a home address in Newark.”

“What was her name?”

“Hold on a minute.”

I heard Ray’s fingers clicking on the keyboard. “Her name’s James. Jessica James.”

Now we were getting lucky. Any chance she was related to Danny’s mother, Jennifer James?

When I mentioned it
to Ray, he hung up on me so fast that I didn’t get to ask him to call me when he found out the answer. No matter, I would get it out of him later.

I drove straight from Danny’s school to Erica’s apartment, hoping to see the Porsche back in the driveway. It wasn’t. I did see tire tracks on the driveway and footprints in the dusting of snow leading to her door.

I leapt out of the car and rushed onto the front porch. No one responded to my hammering on the door. I fished out my key and unlocked it.

Inside, the living room appeared the same, just dusty and unoccupied, as was the kitchen. Her bedroom and bath were another matter.

The mirror over her dresser now lay in pieces. Her dresser drawers hung open and empty. The bathroom vanity mirror had also been smashed. I surmised that the stiletto heel lying in the sink had been used to do the deed.

All of Erica’s toiletries were missing. Only their lavender scent lingered in the air. Her suitcases were gone too. The remaining clothes lay strewn about the bedroom floor, still on the hangers, as if they’d been considered for packing and dismissed. Her discarded shoes were heaped in a pile in front of her closet.

I sank onto the corner of her bed and surveyed the damage.

If I called Ray, he would ask if I saw signs of foul play. In all honesty, I did not. When it came to Erica, breakage was commonplace. Once, she’d even put an umbrella through her television set. With the exception of the mirrors, the room just looked like she’d packed to go somewhere in haste. I crossed my fingers it wasn’t Las Vegas to marry one of the unknown men in the Elvis chapel.

I dropped to the floor, crawling about on my hands and knees, trying to discern if she’d taken summer clothes or winter, beach or ski chalet, fashionable or serviceable. I came to no conclusions.

I did, however, spot her new prescription bottle under the bed. A count of the pills told me she’d stopped taking them two days after we’d had the prescription filled.

“Oh, Erica, how can I help you if you won’t help yourself?”

____

I trudged across the driveway and knocked on the door of my old neighbor and nemesis Mr. Murphy. During the years I’d occupied the apartment next door, he’d made an almost weekly trip to my door to complain about the placement of my trash cans on garbage day. With his attention to detail, I hoped he might have noticed Erica’s departure and perhaps her departure companion.

He wasn’t home.

I got back in my car and drove by The Lincoln House. Erica’s Porsche sat right where she’d left it days ago. It was too early for the restaurant to be open for lunch. I doubted any of the lunch shift employees would be of much help anyway. Erica worked the five to close shift. Maybe I would come back later and question some of her co-workers about Erica’s mystery man. I could only suspect that she’d either run away or moved in with him. Surely psycho serial killers didn’t have their victims pack suitcases.

Asdale Auto Imports was closed, according to the sign in the window. I was pleased to find the parking lot behind the building empty. Cory had stayed home or gone out on the town today as he should. But I needed to find the name of the redhead who wanted to purchase the Caterham. I wanted to find out if she was the same woman I saw at The Cat’s Meow the other day. And I wanted to know if her brother had red hair, too.

But first I had to call the two dealers and discuss their available cars so I would have a reason to contact this woman.

That took me an hour. At the close of the hour, I wasn’t excited about either car. The condition and maintenance records for both sounded satisfactory, but the prices were not. I didn’t feel like flying Cory to either dealership’s location to examine the cars. I really couldn’t imagine how owning one of them was going to turn this woman’s love life around.

Cory had written her name in his tight script on a pink Post-it Note. Leslie Flynn. He’d noted her brother’s phone number underneath her name and the message to find her a Caterham DeDion.

I dialed the number. A man answered.

I identified myself and asked to speak to Leslie.

“This is she.”

Now I heard the slightest hint of femininity in her otherwise gravelly voice. Dear God, did the woman have no attractions at all? “I understand from my mechanic Cory that you’re interested in purchasing a Caterham DeDion. I’ve located two for sale.”