The Principal Cause of Death (19 page)
Read The Principal Cause of Death Online
Authors: Mark Richard Zubro
One by one they talked. Max confessed that one of the kids he'd sent to the Paradise Agency this summer had disappeared in Hong Kong and hadn't been heard from in three months. Jones had found out. Fiona had been making anonymous calls to Jones's wife, saying he was cheating on her. Jones had a tap put on his phone and had caught her. Al Welman confessed to trying to increase his pension. He attempted to have the district bookkeeper report his income higher than it was. The bookkeeper had reported this to Jones. Denise Flowers said that since she knew she was going to be fired she'd started flouting any rule she could. Jones claimed he had documented each instance, and he had told her he would fire her immediately if she committed another insubordinate act.
It took nearly a half hour to get the information out of Donna Dalrymple. Carolyn worked on the fact that Donna's presence was an admission of guilt. Finally Donna admitted that Jones had caught her with another student besides Bluefield.
When Donna finished, Carolyn called all of them back into the office and addressed them. “I'll help each of you as much as I can, but only if I get five resignations in my office first thing in the morning. Clarissa will get another chance, as I said. I'll check the legal aspects of all of this tonight. Most of you will probably be allowed to finish out the year, but that will be all.”
She got only a few squawks of protest at this. Moments later they trudged dispiritedly out the door.
Meg, Carolyn, Scott, and I sat and stared at their empty chairs for a few minutes.
Finally Scott said, “We didn't get any closer to finding the murderer.”
“I can't believe everything they told us,” Carolyn said. “I feel almost obliged to tell the police. But it's going to be
bad enough for them to lose their jobs. Only one of them is a murderer.”
bad enough for them to lose their jobs. Only one of them is a murderer.”
“Maybe they were all in it together,” Scott said.
“Could be,” Meg said. “We can't discount it as a possibility, but the idea doesn't get us much closer to a solution.”
“Which of them had anything to do with Marshall Longfellow?” I asked. “We've still got his murder as part of this.”
“He saw something,” Meg said. “That's the only thing that makes sense. He knew something and had to die. My guess is he saw someone and possibly could identify the killer.”
“Maybe he didn't know he knew,” I said.
We speculated on various possibilities for half an hour but got nowhere.
At one point I asked, “How come none of them noticed the other people's cars here in the parking lot and got suspicious?”
Carolyn said, “None of them were good friends. I doubt they'd know what kind of cars the others drove. We have three different lots. There's always cars in all of them much later than this for some activity or other.”
We called it a night. Scott and I had left the car in the west parking lot. Meg and Carolyn were parked in the north lot. We parted at the front hall of the school. I needed to retrieve my briefcase from my classroom.
Scott and I walked down the corridors. He patted my shoulder and said, “Don't be discouraged. You had the right idea.”
I shrugged. We walked mostly in darkness and shadows. Only the occasional exit sign lit the way. Five feet from my classroom, I said, “Hold it. Something's wrong. Something smells funny.” It was an odd, out-of-place smell. In this wing of the school you get the smell of musty sweat, chalk, old wood, and an almost comfortable dankness.
A blob of greater darkness emerged from the recess of the door next to that of my room.
“Hold it right there,” a harsh voice commanded.
A far light let me see the gleam of a gun; a moment later the side of the face caught the light. I recognized the senior Bluefield.
He jerked the gun at us. “In the room,” he ordered.
I knew we were too far from any of the others in the building for them to hear and come to our rescue. The custodians usually cleaned this end of the building first. We wouldn't be disturbed.
Bluefield wore black jeans and a black sweatshirt. He'd tied his long blond hair in a ponytail.
“Sit in the chairs in the back,” he ordered.
We sat. He kept the lights off. Dappled light streamed into the room through the unfallen leaves of the trees outside my classroom window. The lights and shadows swayed as the wind played among the foliage outdoors.
Bluefield shoved desks aside. Soon we sat at a two-desk island a few feet from the rear of the room. Even if someone passed in the hallway, they couldn't see us in the back. Bluefield paced in front of us. His right hand spasmed around the gun. He clenched and unclenched his left fist, his ragged and uneven breaths attesting to his heightened state of excitement. His eyes were narrowed, his pupils nearly invisible. All these were signs to me that we were in deep trouble. The man was out of control and would easily do murder.
For now he wanted to talk.
“You fuckers. Why the hell did you have to mess in my life? I had it good. A decent living. A house in the suburbs. Why the hell did you two faggots have to fuck it up? You couldn't mind your own business, so I'm going to have to mind yours for you.” He gave us a nasty grin. “I planned this while they had me locked up. I've been watching the school. I never saw you come out today, so I decided to snoop around. I watched you from down the hall while you talked in the office.” He pulled four pairs of handcuffs and placed them on the floor three feet in front of the desk where I sat.
He said, “Mason, you get the handcuffs.” He moved to
the center of the room. “If you make any sudden moves, I will kill your boyfriend.” He leveled the gun at Scott.
the center of the room. “If you make any sudden moves, I will kill your boyfriend.” He leveled the gun at Scott.
I carefully stretched for the handcuffs. When I had them, he instructed Scott to put his hands behind him. I shackled Scott's hands to the chair's bottom rungs, the shelf where the students put their books. Bluefield made me cuff my right arm, then moved closer to finish the job himself. He held the gun rigidly on Scott. He reminded me, “You make the slightest move, faggot, this gun goes off and your boyfriend dies.”
When he finished the job, Bluefield sat in the lotus position in the middle of the floor. Light from outside gleamed off the left side of his face. His half-grin disappeared in darkness. He drew a deep breath and let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“I've been trying to get at you fags for days,” he said.
“You burned the house down,” I said.
“Yes. I wish you'd been in it. This will be better. I'll get to watch you die. I'll enjoy that. Harassing my kid was stupid, but I've planned to do this ever since you got in my way.”
“Your son is going to have a miserable life,” Scott said.
“Half the dumb-shit adults said that to me when I was a kid.” He laughed loud and long. “It was a joke with me and my buddies. I'd only be rotten in a few classes each year. To the others I'd suck up and kiss ass. Used to drive teachers nuts. They'd argue about me, half the staff saying I was a saint. One old faggot who thought a cute thin blond kid would never do anything wrong was my biggest defender. The stupid fool. I hated him as much as the rest of them. Maybe I hated him the most. I could see him sneaking looks at my crotch in class.” He laughed loud and long. “I was the class pusher and voted least likely to succeed. I bet I make more money than half of them.”
Scott said, “Then at least we have the satisfaction of knowing we stopped you, took away your livelihood.”
“I'll be back in business soon enough, and if not, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing you both are dead. So I win.”
He stood up. Deliberately he hunted around the room for any kind of paper. He emptied the drawers of my desk into a pile in the middle of the doorway. On top of this he added the posters from the wall, then books from the shelves. It took him ten minutes because he had to keep his gun trained on us. While he collected material, he derided and sneered at us. But through all this I kept myself still. I didn't want him to notice the fatal flaws in his plan.
Bluefield examined his pile of trash with satisfaction. He added several of the wooden desks to the heap, then pulled a lighter out of his jeans pocket.
Scott said, “You can't believe you'll get away with this.”
I wanted Scott to shut up. I didn't want Bluefield to think too much. One of the things I'd learned as the union building rep was never to underestimate the stupidity of human beings. It was Bluefield's stupidity, along with his out-of-control emotions, that I hoped would save us.
Bluefield said, “Why shouldn't I get away with this? I've got an alibi set up with some buddies. I'm out of this. Even when the fire alarm goes off and somebody gets here to save you, it'll be too late. They won't want to leap through the flamesâif you're still alive when they get here.”
He stepped around his pile halfway out the door. I could still see his face behind the debris. His eyes glowed in the flickering light. “Now, I don't want to see the two of you try to squirm or move while this gets going, otherwise I will simply shoot you. It'll be more fun this way, watching you burn to death. I wish I could do it more slowly.” He swung the gun at us. “I'll blow huge holes in you if you try to move.” He leaned down. Moments later flames leaped upward, from the trash, then quickly licked at the wooden doorframe.
Quickly the heat rose to that of a summer campfire. I felt sweat begin to bead on my skin. The smoke drifted out the doorway.
For a few more moments we listened to the sound of oxygen combining with the elements, then ear-piercing
beeps began sounding all along the corridor. Even in the old section they'd installed smoke alarms.
beeps began sounding all along the corridor. Even in the old section they'd installed smoke alarms.
The dimness helped us because Bluefield could no longer see our actions. I think the speed with which the fire grew surprised him, too. The heat and smoke drove him too far into the hall to effectively menace us with his gun.
Shots rang out. Wood splintered in the wall above our heads. A last desperate gasp by Bluefield as he turned to run, was my guess.
Two things wrong with Bluefield's plan: He couldn't see us because of his own fire, and he'd attached us to the old desks. While our hands were encumbered, our feet were free. He'd never come close enough for us to stand and attack him; with the desks still attached, it was too easy for him to dart away. But now we both simply stood up.
Fire blocked our way to the door. The flames caught the old wooden cabinets and inched up the walls. The warped and leaky windowpanes stood between us and clean air.
I could now hear fire trucks wailing in the distance, adding to the din of the fire alarms. Awkwardly, encumbered by the desk, I moved as rapidly as possible, as far toward the heat as I could. Then, with a desperate rush, I flung myself toward the back wall. The desk splintered on impact. Scott followed suit. Our arms still cuffed, we hurried to the window ledge, swung our bodies on top of it, and stood up. I felt sweat dripping from my forehead and heard Scott cough from the smoke. Desperate kicks splintered glass and wood. The rush of oxygen from outside fanned the flames, but we leaped through the opening.
As I flew out, I felt a stab into the side of my left leg. After we landed, I glanced down to see my pant leg ripped completely up the side and a jagged piece of glass embedded in my thigh and sticking out of it three inches. I gasped in pain. I looked for Scott. He lay on his side about three feet from me, gulping in bushels of fresh air.
I looked back at the school. Smoke and flame roared from my classroom. I felt hands pulling me back, looked up to see a fresh-faced fireman.
They got my leg to stop bleeding. We sipped cups of excellent coffee and watched the firemen. They confined the blaze to the one wing, but both floors went up. An hour after the fire started, the roof of the section fell in.
We'd told the first cops to show up about Bluefield; Daniels and Johnson arrived about five minutes after the roof collapsed. We told them they should examine the fire for spent shells and compare them to Bluefield's gun. I said they might catch him before he thought to pitch it, especially if he believed we were dead. They said they'd check it out.
Carolyn showed up. She offered her place for us to stay the night. Glancing at my watch, I found it was only a little after nine. I told her we needed to be in the city. I wanted the comfort of Scott's place.
We stopped at the hospital to get my cut leg stitched up. I saw the same doctor who had handled me a couple of days ago. He was young and attractive. He smiled winningly at me, but smiled even more brightly atâand spent an inordinate amount of time applying salve to what I thought were very minor cuts and bruises on the nonpitching arm ofâthe winningest pitcher in baseball for the past ten years.
In the car Scott said, “The doctor was cute.”
I said, “Sometimes your popularity is a pain in the ass.”
He pulled onto I-80, merged with traffic, then said, “Sorry, I was just making conversation.”
I let a mile or so pass, then apologized too. I went on: “I thought we really had something today, with my little plot. Nero Wolfe always pulls off the big confrontation-confession scene.”
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