Underdead (18 page)

For some reason, that small decision opened some sort of floodgate. By the time I got to the checkout counter, I had collected a half-dozen more vampire books from the shelves, including two from the Young Adult section. I felt oddly guilty, as if I were checking out self-help books or porn, and was ridiculously relieved when the librarian, oblivious to my inner turmoil or just well trained not to raise so much as an eyebrow over anyone’s reading choices, merely look bored.

When I got home, I unplugged the phone and settled on the couch with a giant mug of hot chocolate and the rest of the chocolate chip cookies. Then I pulled all the vampire books out of my bag and spread them on the table. After careful deliberation, I picked up
Dracula
and began to read eagerly, curious to learn something about Will. Not that I suddenly believed
Dracula
was some sort of Vampires for Dummies. But it did seem reasonable that there might be
some
truth among the fiction. After all, the common perceptions about vampires had held up pretty well against the reality. So far.

I got through about half the first paragraph of the introduction before I snapped the book shut. Feeling a little numb, I replaced it with one of the vampire novels I had gotten from the regular fiction section. I made it a whole ten pages in that one before hurling it away from me. In desperation, I picked one advertised as a “fun, breezy read”. It had flowers on the cover. I lasted only two chapters before tossing it on the floor and pushing the remaining vampire books off the table with it in disgust. What were these people trying to do? Scare me?

The whole idea was stupid anyhow. Even if there were facts to be found amid the fiction, how the hell was I supposed to identify them? I couldn’t tell a legitimate horror from a trumped-up bit of dramatic license and wouldn’t be able to, no matter how many vampire books I read, until it actually happened. And from the little bits I had just read,
that
was going to be bad enough. I didn’t see any point in scaring myself needlessly in the meantime. If I really wanted to know something, I probably could just ask Gavin. I didn’t know how much he knew about vampires, but what he did know, I was sure I could rely on him to tell me straight, without any embellishments. I could call him right now.

But I didn’t want to. What I wanted, what I needed, was to enjoy some purely human entertainment. I upended the cookie jar onto a large napkin I’d spread over my lap and settled back into the couch cushions with
Emma
.

At six-thirty the next morning I should have been on my way to work, but I was sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor in my jammies. Around me, rejected outfits lay crumpled and worthless on the floor. I stared in hopeless desperation at my half-emptied closet, willing new, better clothes to appear, but though the clock ticked inexorably on, none did.

Becky had been right about my stupid, frumpy, old lady cruise-wear wardrobe! Everything I owned made me look pregnant or as if I were trying to hide that I was.

At ten minutes to the hour, I couldn’t stall any longer. I threw on a turtleneck sweater over some dark gray pants and hit the road. The sweater was probably baggy enough to house a pregnancy well into the second trimester, but I didn’t care anymore. People could think what they wanted—they would anyway. Besides, how long could the humiliation last? I worked at a
school
for crying out loud. It was only a matter of time before someone did something outrageous or embarrassing enough to draw the gossip mongers’ attention away from me, and then the stupid pregnancy rumor would die on its own. And if it didn’t, I thought grimly, I’d just have to kill it myself. Drinking gin in the hallways between classes and carrying around jumbo boxes of tampons should do the trick.

After school had let out and the last of my students needing extra help had gone home, I popped next door to see how Leah, Bob’s long-term sub, was holding up. She was the one person who didn’t seem to be in on the pregnancy rumor, which made her an invaluable companion. She was sitting in front of a computer, peering nearsightedly at the screen. I knocked lightly on the open door to get her attention and she looked up with relief.

“Oh good, someone’s here to distract me.”

“Yup. How’re things going so far? Okay?”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said dismissively. “Just a little review to make sure the kids are where they should be.” She hunched back over the keyboard and frowned at the screen. “Now if only I were as good at these things.”

“I’m no expert, but if I can help I will.”

“Well what are you waiting for? Pull up a stool and help me find Bob’s old lesson plans.”

After a half-hour of hunting, we managed to find a couple of promising files. Leah gave an exasperated sigh. “Surely it shouldn’t be this hard.”

“Normally it isn’t. But Bob was a popular guy who taught a popular but difficult subject. He had students in his room all the time. If he hadn’t been cryptic about this sort of thing, a determined student could have downloaded his tests in a heartbeat.”

Leah moved to the printer tray and began flipping doubtfully through the meager stack of printouts. “This is a start, but I’m still missing a lot of stuff.”

I drummed my fingers thoughtfully. “You know, Bob was in the habit of doing a lot of his prep work in coffee shops. I’m pretty sure he brought along his laptop, and it’s a good bet he sent copies of things to himself. If you’re lucky, you might find some of the stuff you’re missing in his e-mail.”

“And if I’m not lucky?”

“It’s all on a tiny memory stick somewhere. Good luck finding that.”

She groaned but rallied. “I think they gave me his e-mail password…” She rooted around the desk and triumphantly held up a bright green Post-it. “I used to think it was a horrible invasion of privacy when I read that employers could monitor their employees’ e-mail, but right now, I’m all for it.”

I looked away as she carefully typed in Bob’s password and hoped such nobility wouldn’t cost me later.

Her cell phone rang. “I’ve got to take this,” she said, glancing at the screen. “It’s my sitter.”

“Want me to keep poking around?”

“Would you?”

As she stepped over to the window where the reception was better, I clicked around in Bob’s e-mail, trying to find something that would help Leah out. Bingo. He’d archived his e-mails from last year. I scanned last February’s messages, finding a couple labs and the test in short order.

I began opening e-mails at random. I lucked upon lecture notes, which I added to the print queue. As I panned down to the next screen of e-mails I saw one that made me hesitate. The subject line read, “Hey there, sexy thang!”

I vacillated briefly between curiosity and respect for Bob’s privacy before going with the former. Gavin had Bob said most likely had been killed in a moment of extreme anger or passion. If he was right, this letter could be important. I printed out a copy, tucked it in my pocket and deleted it. It was bad enough I’d read it. Moving quickly, I scanned the rest of Bob’s e-mails for similarly personal letters, but didn’t find any.

By the time Leah finished her phone call, I had February’s test back up on screen and was organizing the printouts. She was thrilled and thanked me effusively.

The e-mail was burning a hole in my pocket, but I didn’t look at it again ‘til I was safely home. I sat down heavily at the kitchen table, smoothed it flat, and read it again. “Hey Sexy,” it began. It didn’t say much, just thanked Bob for a good time—a “rockin’ good” time actually—and ended with the suggestion that they should do it again soon. I read it several times over, trying to determine precisely how close the relationship was, hoping desperately the answer was “not very”.

I thrust the note away from me. I should have followed Gavin’s advice and stayed out of it.

The e-mail had been sent by “Ag1410”. The first part was easy enough to decipher. Ag is the atomic symbol for silver. A quick check in a chemistry text told me 1410 was its melting point. Only one person I knew would have that e-mail tag. A person who had dyed her spiky hair back to a silvery-blonde just that day. Becky.

Early the next morning, I headed for Becky’s classroom armed with two cups of Peet’s coffee and a bag of cinnamon buns I’d stress-baked around midnight the night before. After much soul-searching, I’d decided to confront Becky about her relationship with Bob before handing the e-mail over to the police, and now I was on my way to do it. Maybe I was being stupid or foolhardy, but Becky was my friend. She wouldn’t have thrown me to the wolves, and I couldn’t do it to her.

Her classroom was unlocked. Guided by the strains of an old Hendrix tune, I headed past a giant periodic table and a wall of The Far Side cartoons to the chemical storage room in the back. Becky was mixing a batch of dilute sulfuric acid and singing along in a passable voice to
The Wind Cries Mary
.

She shifted her attention away from the large triangular beaker she was filling with distilled water long enough to greet me brightly. “Hey, Jo. You’re here early. What’s shaking? Give me a sec to finish this up, will ya?”

Her cheerfulness made me feel even more tired than I was. Becky was one of those lucky people who only needed a few hours of sleep at night and could burn the candle at both ends. I, on the other hand, was no Queen of the Night (however hard Will might try to change that), and started in on my coffee while I waited for her to finish.

When she was done, she divested herself of lab coat, gloves, and protective goggles in a fashionable lime green and black that flattered her dramatic coloring. Becky had her own personal supply of lab goggles, “because if you have to wear them all the time, you might as well look good in ‘em.”

She led the way back to the front of the classroom. “It doesn’t smell so bad over here.” She accepted the coffee I handed her and tore into a cinnamon bun with a look of rapture.

“God, these are so good. If teaching those little soul-sucking monsters of yours doesn’t work out, you should go into the baking business. I swear, just set up a little cart at the front gate before school and at breaks and you’d make a fortune!”

She caught sight of my face, and the dreamy, slightly mercenary light faded from her dark eyes. I had a sudden appreciation for how awkward it must have been for her and Carol to tell me about the pregnancy rumor.

She waved her paper towel napkin in the air like a white flag. “Whatever they’re saying, I didn’t do it.”

I felt a cowardly urge to lie, tell her it was nothing, stop myself from saying something that could irreparably harm our friendship before it was too late. I didn’t have to be the one to show her the e-mail. She need never know that I’d seen it. I could just hand it over to the police and Gavin could ask the awkward questions, bear the burden of her response.

But then I’d always wonder, wouldn’t I? And if they didn’t find the killer, which seemed increasingly likely, that ugly fissure of doubt would grow into an unbreachable chasm, and I would lose my friend just the same.

I pulled the printout out of my pocket and handed it to her before I changed my mind. “Are you sure about that?”

She gave me a brief, quizzical look, unfolded the e-mail, and began to read. “Good Lord! Where did you get
this
?” She giggled.

I hesitated. It was not the reaction I had expected.

“Jeez, Jo, get your mind out of the gutter,” she scowled. “What, did you think Bob and I slept together or something?”

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to think.”

Becky’s dark eyes met mine, clear and straight. The only flicker in their depths was one of self-deprecating humor. “Well, I suppose it is suggestive, though
I
wasn’t the one lusting after him at the
Dead
concert, or the one who started calling him ‘sexy thang’. A group of college girls from somewhere in the South—at least they
said
they were in college, I put them at about sixteen—followed him around all day giggling and sighing.” She wiped away a mirthful tear that had collected at the corner of her eye. “Poor thing.” She flipped the e-mail over. “Where did you get this anyway?”

“It was in Bob’s e-mail files.”

“Bob’s e-mail? What were you doing rummaging through Bob’s e-mail?”

I explained how I’d come across the letter while helping Leah the night before.

“You didn’t see any other messages from me, did you?”

“How many more were there?”

“Hell if I remember. We probably e-mailed back and forth a few times before and after the concert. A
Grateful Dead
concert isn’t exactly the type of thing Headmaster Huntington wants us to broadcast.” She leaned forward and said in a dramatic whisper, “People smoke the evil weed at those things!” She sat back up and said disgustedly, “He gets enough flack from parents about my
hair
for Christ’s sake.”

“This is the only e-mail I saw, and don’t worry, I deleted it for you.”

She grinned. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

I didn’t respond. I felt undeserving of her gratitude. The copy I’d made for Gavin burned a hole in my pocket.

Becky didn’t notice my silence; she was re-reading the e-mail and chuckling reminiscently to herself. “Typical,” she muttered. “He would save the one with ‘sexy’ in it.”

The early bell rang shrilly, bringing us back to the present with a start. We both glanced reflexively at the clock, even though we already knew it was five minutes past seven and time to let our homeroom students in. Becky leapt to her feet, popped the last bit of cinnamon bun in her mouth, and threw the napkin in the trash. “Thanks for breakfast, and for showing me this.” She waved the e-mail and gave me a conspiratorial grin. “I needed a good laugh.”

I’m lucky she doesn’t hate me
, I thought miserably as I fought my way through the chattering upperclassmen outside her door. I had been too quick to suspect a friend on pitiful little evidence. Wasn’t it precisely to
prevent
such circumstantial, knee-jerk detecting that I had gotten myself involved in solving Bob’s murder in the first place? The police were the ones who were supposed to be ignorant of people and their relationships.
They
were the ones who were supposed to make ridiculous accusations and suspect people who couldn’t possibly have done it, not me! I was an idiot and a fool! If I had learned anything from all this, it was to leave the detective work to the professionals.