The Root of All Evil (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 4) (16 page)

“Right. Good attitude.” Cooper bobbed her head up and down, praying that something heavy would fall on her head and deliver her from the awkward situation. “Well, uh, I . . . um. I’ll go get back to work.”

She left Bobby to button his clean shirt and hurried to Mr. Farmer’s office.

“I can’t do it!” she announced, barging into the room without bothering to knock. She didn’t quite slam the door behind her, but she didn’t close it gently, either.

He looked up from his computer, brows raised and eyes wide. “I beg your pardon? What can’t you do?”

“I can’t interrogate my employees secretly, without them knowing they’re being interrogated! I just talked to Bobby Weller—who is an honest and upright man, by the way—and not only did I feel like a horrible person just allowing myself to think he
might
be guilty, but now he probably thinks I’m a socially inept idiot!”

Mr. Farmer bade Cooper sit, folded his hands on his desk and nodded. “I know this isn’t easy, Cooper, but it has to be done. I’ve weighed the options, and at this point it’s either you and Ben question your employees discreetly or we search every employee—person, locker, car. As a last resort we could call in the police, but I’m really hoping it won’t go that far.”

Cooper imagined Mr. Farmer emptying her locker and digging through the junk in her truck’s glove compartment. She imagined the police storming into Make It Work!, clad in full body armor, with riot shields and batons. It probably wasn’t what Mr. Farmer had in mind, but the visual persuaded her to rethink her reluctance to talk to her employees.

“Fine,” she finally sighed. “I’ll do my best to find what I can. But for the record, I don’t like it.”

“Duly noted. Have you had a chance to talk to Josh?”

Cooper shook her head. “Not yet, and I probably won’t today. He’s on a call, and I’m planning on leaving a little early, if that’s all right. I’ll find some time with him later this week.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Thank you, Cooper.”

“For what?”

“I know this isn’t easy for you,” he replied, smiling gratefully. “I appreciate you doing it anyway.”

• • •

By the time Cooper arrived at Hope Street, Quinton, Bryant and Nathan had already talked to most of the teachers, and the teachers to whom they’d spoken had left for the day. But the one Cooper was most interested in was still there in his science classroom, obsessively erasing every speck of writing from his board.

Leaving the male investigators to spend a few minutes with Pastor Matthews, Cooper poked her head into Harry’s room. “Harry?”

He turned from the board, a blank look on his face.

“You may not remember me, but . . .”

“Oh, right!” he snapped his fingers. “It’s Cooper, isn’t it? You were at my Sylvia’s memorial.”

Cooper fought to keep from shuddering at how creepy it sounded when he said
my Sylvia
. “Yes,” she answered. “That’s where we met. I wanted to talk to you some more about Sylvia, if you have a minute.”

Harry nodded. “I’m glad to talk about my Sylvia. She was beautiful, wasn’t she? And so talented.”

“She was a great artist and teacher,” Cooper agreed. “The students were very sad to lose her.”

“
Everyone
is sad to have lost her.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “Yes, Sylvia won’t be easy to replace . . . in any capacity.”

Cooper ventured further into the room. It was hard to believe this was the same room where the fun, lighthearted Sunrise Bible Study met each week. With Harry here it seemed dark and a little creepy. “Did you know much about what was going on in Sylvia’s life?”

“
My
Sylvia’s life? Of course I did! That’s what you do when you care about someone: you find out about them. You learn everything you can. So that’s what I did with my Sylvia. Is this about her death?”

“Actually, I’d like to start with her life, if you don’t mind.”

He clapped his hands together. “I would
love
to talk about my Sylvia’s life! She was born in Michigan. Did you know that? And her family was—”

“That’s a little further back than I need to go.” Cooper suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Harry was more than intense . . . He was obsessed. “Do you know of anyone who wanted to hurt her? Or any reason someone might have disliked her?”

“No one disliked my Sylvia,” he replied defensively. “Although some of us did have difficulty getting her to see how genuine our emotions were.”

“What does that mean?”

“Every time I made an overture, Sylvia was oblivious to my affections.” He spoke as bitterly as he had at the memorial. “Or rather, she was
made
oblivious to my affections.”

Cooper cocked her head in curiosity. “What do you mean? She was
made
oblivious?”

“I really shouldn’t get into it. It isn’t my place to . . .”

“Harry, if you need to talk about this, I’m here to listen.”

“Thanks. Very much.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just that . . . I always thought that someone was getting in the way. Every time I made an overture—albeit a subtle one—and I was sure Sylvia saw how I felt, she’d talk to a friend. I think that friend convinced Sylvia I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Rather than ask how an
overture
could be
subtle,
Cooper put on her best empathetic face. “That can be a difficult situation. Is this the same friend you mentioned at the memorial? Abbi Merken?

He nodded. “Have you spoken to her?”

“Not yet. I’m going to.”

“Well, she’s the one to talk to. She was the puppet master and my poor Sylvia was being manipulated by her.” Harry sighed. “My poor, poor Sylvia.”

Sensing that he was about to launch into sonnets or a complete history of Sylvia’s life, Cooper took a step toward the door. “Thank you, Harry, for your time. I’d better be going.”

“Cooper, would you do me a favor?”

Reluctantly, Cooper replied, “Sure . . . within reason.”

“Would you keep me updated on what you know about Sylvia? That would mean the world to me.”

Cooper smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

• • •

“It’s been
so
long since I was in college,” Trish said with a nostalgic look in her eye. She and Cooper walked together through Burnette Hall at the J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College Parham Road Campus. The school was located about a mile off the highway in northern Richmond, a nice drive away from the hustle and bustle.

They were on their way to see Abbi Merken. “Ah,” Trish sighed. “The good old days.”

“I remember all-nighters, grouchy professors and a lot of homework,” Cooper replied as she studied the “Announcement” wall. It was a mixture of official announcements and student ones, from course cancellations and schedule changes to a recent engagement and a keg party.

“No responsibility, all the energy you could ever want and a metabolism that allowed me to have my cake and eat it to. Of course,
you
still look gorgeous. After two kids I just don’t have the same body I had in college.”

Cooper laughed. “You look great. In fact, if you’re not careful, you might get some nice young college man inviting you to the keg party.”

“Ha! Can you imagine? Me at a college party? I’d be calling home every half hour to check on Phil and the kids, and I’d fall asleep by ten.”

“I don’t think those parties start until ten.”

Trish grinned. “Then I’d have to sleepwalk to attend at all!”

Burnette Hall was centrally located on the campus, between administrative offices and student life facilities. Here, during the day, Abbi Merken taught English to students in their late teens and early twenties. In the evenings, she taught working adults who could only take night classes.

Trish and Cooper meandered slowly down the hallway. Their target was in the room at the end, but since class wouldn’t be over for another fifteen minutes, they took their time getting there. Cooper scanned all of the school announcements and then studied the photos on the opposite wall. They were pictures of employees, and right in the center was Abbi Merken, sitting on a bench outside. She had the longest hair Cooper had ever seen, dark brown and pulled back in a ponytail that disappeared off the edge of the picture. She wore a fractal patterned top, a long skirt and reading glasses with thin, purple metal frames. She was immersed in Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
.

“Abbi Merken certainly
looks
like an English professor,” Trish commented. “Don’t you think she looks like an English professor?”

Cooper laughed. “I can’t deny that she does. Actually, she reminds me of my lit professor—in looks, anyway. Fun and eccentric.”

“I’m betting your professor wasn’t involved in murder.”

“She was too boring for that sort of thing. In all fairness, Abbi’s not involved in murder, either . . . that we know of.”

“Touché.”

They continued down the hall until they reached Abbi’s room. The door was propped open, and from the hall, Cooper could see the professor and hear the lecture.

“Never underestimate the value of words. Words come from the soul!” Abbi pounded her fist over her heart. “And how we string them together, how we choose to stop the flow of words and start it again, the words we use, all of that tells something about who we are.” She came to stand in front of one student. “So in answer to your question, no. It makes a very big difference which word you choose. You can’t just pick a synonym from the thesaurus willy-nilly and expect it to work. If you’re lucky, it’ll fit, but it may or may not convey the necessary connotations. It may not say what you want it to.”

Her tone was so convicting that Cooper was entranced.

Abbi glanced at her watch and continued. “Any other questions?”

Cooper leaned over to Trish and whispered, “I take it back. My professor wasn’t like that at all.”

“No?”

“I
wish
I’d had a professor with that much passion in college. I wouldn’t’ve gotten such bad grades in English.”

One of the students made a comment Cooper couldn’t make out, and then, with a flourish, Abbi announced, “Class dismissed.”

Fifteen students flooded out of the room, all of them checking their phones at once and cramming notebooks into their bags as they walked. Cooper and Trish waited until the students had left before entering the room. Abbi glanced up at them.

“I’m afraid the class is full,” she said. “You’ll have to wait for the next course.”

“We aren’t enrolling,” Cooper replied. “But we did catch the end of your lecture. It was quite inspiring.”

“Oh, that?” Abbi laughed. “There’s always someone who thinks word choice is random. They either learn quickly that that’s not the case, or they don’t care. Usually the classes comprised of more mature students learn quickly. What brings you to my class, if not to enroll?”

“We’re here to ask you some questions about Sylvia Cassel.”

The smile vanished from Abbi’s face. “I already spoke with the police. Have a good night.” She picked up her briefcase and started for the door.

“Wait, please,” Trish said. “We attend Hope Street Church, and Cooper here met Sylvia at an event at Hope Street Christian Academy. We just want to help.”

Abbi slowed, then stopped, and she returned to where Cooper and Trish stood at the head of the class. “Why do you want to help?”

“Because she was killed at our church,” Cooper replied. She took a step nearer Abbi, pleading with her tone and expression. “I met the woman, and she was murdered in our pastor’s office. Anything we can do to get Sylvia some justice, we’ll do it. Talk to us, please.”

Abbi’s tone was skeptical. “Why do
you
want to talk to
me?”

“We were told that you and Sylvia were good friends.”

“And who told you that?”

“One of the other teachers at Hope Street. Harry Wintersteen.”

Abbi rolled her eyes and slammed her briefcase on the front table. “What did that jerk say? I told Sylvia she ought to get a restraining order, but did she? No. And look at how that worked out!”

Cooper cast a sidelong glance at Trish. “Are you saying you believe Harry killed Sylvia?”

Abbi sat on the edge of the table and rubbed her eyes. It was only then that Cooper saw how tired the woman really was. She could hide her grief while she taught, masking it with conviction about the English language, but now, without the audience, she was exhausted.

“I don’t know,” Abbi finally replied. “I . . . I doubt it. I’m just angry. Don’t listen to it. Harry’s a creep, but I don’t know that he’d go as far as murder. Then again, I have a hard time believing
anyone
would go as far as murder. I have a good imagination—I have to with what I teach—but I have a hard time comprehending some of the darker realities of life.”

“It’s difficult to think of people being that evil,” Cooper agreed. “To willfully take another person’s life in cold blood . . . It’s probably better to not comprehend it.”

The corner of Abbi’s mouth turned upward. “You make a very good point. I’m Abbi Merken, but you already know that. You’re Cooper . . .”

“Cooper Lee, and this is Trish Tyler,” Cooper said.

Abbi stared at Trish for a moment. “I swear I know you from somewhere.” Before Trish could mention her business ads, Abbi snapped her fingers. “Yes, I do know you from somewhere! I thought I recognized your face. My brother bought a house from you a year or so back. I saw your face on the ‘Sold’ sign.”

Trish beamed. “That’s me! Tyler Fine Properties. If you need to buy or sell a house, please give me a call.”

“I’ll let you know if the need should arise.”

Cooper waited until the moment had passed. She didn’t want to interrupt Trish’s pitch. “Back to Sylvia . . .”

“Yes, Sylvia,” Abbi said. “I don’t know that I’ll be any help.”

“Anything you can tell us would be beneficial,” Cooper replied. “Enemies, financial troubles, relationship problems, anything like that. Do you know what she would have been doing at the school in the middle of the night?”

Abbi settled back on the table. “I know she often went there after hours to use the kiln, but I don’t think it was usually in the middle of the night. Although, when Sylvia became immersed in a project, she lost all track of time.”