Dying to Teach Read online

  “Come on, let’s go,” Angie said.

  “That means he was cheating on her,” Kiana said softly.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Evan protested. “He asked her to marry him.”

  Angie didn’t mention that people sometimes behaved in horrible, unexplainable ways.

  What if Gwen found out he’d been cheating…one thing led to another and—

  “Let’s get going.”

  Evan started for the door. Kiana didn’t move. Angie eased the album from her hands and nudged her onto her feet. Kiana snatched the album away from Angie. “I want to keep it.”

  Angie didn’t see any reason for her not to have it. Nobody else seemed to have turned up to claim anything. “Tuck it under your shirt.”

  She did so. Then all the way downstairs and out to the car, walked with her arms around herself. No—nobody would guess she was hiding anything.

  Angie wondered if Gwen did indeed have any family. She asked Kiana, who looked up from the intense stare she’d focused on the front of her jacket.

  “Family? Um, no.”

  Angie hit the remote to open the car doors. Evan held the passenger door for Kiana to slip inside. He climbed in the back. As Angie started the car, she noted the time, just before 10 a.m. She checked her cell phone and found that Jarvis had called several times. Hoping there was no further trouble she dialed him back.

  Beside her, Kiana removed the album from her shirt and opened the cover, tears again gushing down her face.

  Jarvis answered on the third ring. His barked, “Where the hell are you?” almost made Angie jam the phone back in her purse. Apparently Evan heard the sharp tone because he pushed forward in his seat to listen.

  “In my car,” Angie said, catching Evan’s eye and raising her brows.

  “That didn’t answer the question.”

  “I’m here in Nashua. Where are you?”

  “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I kind of figured that. Where are you?”

  “At the school.”

  When Angie asked, “What’s wrong?” Kiana looked up from the album. On the page was a 5x7 picture of two women, both about twenty. They stood in front of a white clapboard house. Along both sides of the paved walkway were pink flowers. Probably petunias. One of the women was Gwen. The other, also dark haired and about the same height, held a dark-haired girl of about a year old.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Jarvis said in answer to her question. “I thought we could spend some time together.”

  Angie knew it was more than that but didn’t want to elaborate in front of the kids. “I’m on my way back to the hotel. Meet me there.”

  “When?”

  “A half hour.”

  “Where are you?”

  Angie held up crossed fingers that made Evan grin, and said into the phone, “Shopping.”

  Jarvis’s “Figures,” said she was off the hook. About time her past addiction came in handy for something.

  Angie hung up the phone then pointed to the album in Kiana’s lap. “Who’s that?”

  “This one is Gwen, of course.” Kiana touched the face of the other woman. “This is her best friend from college. Her name is Deb Fingerman.”

  “She’s pretty. Is that her baby?”

  “She has two children now.” Kiana turned the page. Since the photo had been mounted on a page underneath a clear vinyl sheet, any possible writing was hidden.

  At Farina’s Restaurant, Angie stopped the car next to Evan’s bike. She held the album while Kiana retrieved her backpack and handbag from the backseat. While she buttoned her coat all the way up, laughing about the chilly breeze on the bike, Angie thumbed through a few pages of the album. She recognized a group photo of the school drama club with Kiana crouching in the front row, right hand side. Another was of Gwen and Ted at some sort of formal affair. A third was taken at a church. A man of about twenty, with brown hair and a bushy mustache, held a dark haired newborn in a white dress. Deb Fingerman stood beside them. This must be the baby’s christening.

  Evan stowed Kiana’s bags on the back of the bike then came to Angie. “Thanks for going with us. You saved us from that neighbor. She would’ve called the cops if you weren’t there.”

  Angie handed Kiana the album, which she tucked inside her jacket. “We would’ve been in big trouble.”

  “Kind of like Mrs. Deacon’s gonna be when Jarvis catches up to her.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Evan’s prediction turned out wrong. Jarvis never mentioned a word about her shopping excursion though she knew he would once his mind was cleared of whatever errand they were headed out on. Which so far, he kept a secret.

  Until he was ready to talk about it, Angie figured she’d better come clean about the morning’s events. While they walked out to the parking garage, she told him where she’d been and how Gwen’s place had been upside down when they arrived.

  “I figured it was something like that,” he said. Then he laughed. “I knew you couldn’t not investigate.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you Sherlock, it had nothing to do with me. The kids begged me to go, and I went because I knew they’d go regardless.”

  His nod said he believed her. “Did you find out anything?” Jarvis asked.

  “Nothing much. Kiana found a photo album. I let her keep it to remember Gwen by. Don’t look at me that way, if the cops, or the intruder, thought it meant anything, they would’ve taken it.”

  “S’pose so.” Jarvis opened the passenger side door of the Lexus for her. “You want to stop someplace for lunch?”

  “Depends. Will we be gone long?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then yes, let’s stop.”

  Jarvis turned left, headed for Route 3 south. “I used to know a nice place over the state line in Chelmsford… I haven’t been there in a while. I hope it’s still there. Did it look like the intruder got what they were looking for at Gwen’s apartment?”

  “When someone finds what they want they stop searching. Since the entire apartment was a shambles, it tells me they didn’t find what they wanted. Which makes me wonder if maybe they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for.”

  “Oh, one of those I’ll know it when I see it kind of searches.”

  “Possibly. Oh yes, we met Gwen’s neighbor from across the hall. An elderly woman.”

  “She tell you anything newsworthy?”

  “Not sure. When I asked if she knew anything about Gwen ending up teaching a drama class in a high school instead of history to grade-schoolers, she had a second’s hesitation.”

  “You think she knows more than she’s saying?”

  “I do.”

  Angie leaned back in the seat. She was still determined not to work on this case, though it was becoming increasingly evident that people kept thrusting her into things—as Jarvis was doing now. In her defense, riding along while he investigated could not be considered her doing the investigating. Trouble was, the bits and pieces she gleaned every time somebody heaved her into the fray, were gelling in her mind. Were evolving into a mental investigation.

  They crossed into Massachusetts. Nothing much to look at outside the window, especially this time of year when trees were bare and grass was turning brown. It seemed like this was the season everyone spent waiting for the onslaught of winter.

  Jarvis laughed and she turned to look at him. “What?”

  “I hear your hamster’s wheel turning.”

  She refused to be baited into verbalizing her thoughts. She needed them to simmer a little longer without his input so all she said was, “You telling me where we’re going or will I just find out when we get there?”

  “Rodriguez is stuck on another murder case. He asked me to do a bit of follow-up on Gwen’s.”

  “Is the new case related?”

  “No. But it takes precedence over this one that’s growing colder by the minute. You want to guess where we’re heading?”

  “If it were me, I’d
be talking to Gwen’s friends from her college days.”

  “So, you think her past holds a clue to her murder?”

  Angie did think so. Of the two suspects floating around in her mind, one was definitely related to Gwen’s past. She was pretty sure how this person connected but could not yet assign a solid motive.

  Jarvis’s, “Earth to Angie,” was accompanied by a nudge in the elbow.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You suddenly stopped talking. Want to share your thoughts?”

  “Not yet. Which of Gwen’s friends are we going to see?”

  Jarvis said, “Guess,” as he turned into the parking lot of a small mom and pop type diner. He shut off the key and swung around on the seat to look at her.

  “Debra Fingerman.”

  He stretched across and kissed her on the temple. “You’re amazing. The last name is Ellis now.”

  * * * *

  In the historic college town of Bridgewater, the GPS instructed Jarvis to turn right off Route 28, which was Main Street. Another right and they found themselves on a narrow, tree-lined street with turn-of-the-century homes from one end to the other. The Ellis family lived in the first house on the right, a beautiful Colonial with an attached two-car garage. A recent model Chrysler was parked in front of the left-hand garage door.

  Angie and Jarvis stepped up and rang the bell to the cranberry colored front door. A pretty woman in her late forties appeared. She had wavy almost-black hair that was going gray at the temples. Her demeanor was friendly but sad. She pushed wire-rimmed glasses higher on her nose and then gazed over them at Angie and Jarvis.

  After he introduced himself and Angie, she ushered them into a living room that took a step back in time. The furnishings looked to have been taken from a house Angie once saw in old Salem village: a plank coffee table, a maple sideboard, and a braided rug in shades of blue.

  After offering refreshments and receiving a negative reply, Debra Ellis seated herself on one of two identical flower-patterned sofas set perpendicular in front of a red brick fireplace where a jolly fire flickered. In her jeans and Patriots sweatshirt, she looked out of place in the colonial style room.

  Angie and Jarvis sat on the second sofa with Jarvis leaned back and his leg crossed over one knee while Angie remained perched on the front of the cushion.

  “I am very sorry for your loss,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Deb said. She had a deep voice for a woman.

  “I’ve heard many good things about Gwen. She had a great many admirers.” To which Deb nodded. “You two were close.” Angie said it as a statement of fact.

  “We became best friends from the minute they assigned us as roommates. We had so many things in common. Both came from broken homes. We were both only children. We each loved history, especially American history.”

  “So much so that Gwen majored in it.”

  Deb smiled sadly. “As a child she hated the subject. Hated how all the teachers could do was recite dates and make them memorize battles and lists of presidents. Gwen had a plan for how she wanted to teach kids about their country.”

  “But she never did,” Jarvis said.

  “No.”

  “Is that reason related to her death?” he asked.

  She seemed surprised at the question. “Maybe.”

  Angie didn’t ask her to elaborate right now. Her mind was churning, assembling information. For a while she steered the conversation toward more general topics like the play and the school.

  “Did you and Gwen see much of each other?”

  “We had a standing date. The first of every alternate month, we met in Boston. We had lunch—each time at a different place. We did a little shopping or sightseeing, or just sat on a bench and talked.”

  “I assume you she told you she was seeing Ted? Did you ever meet him?” Jarvis asked.

  “Nice man.”

  Angie smiled at her. “Very noncommittal reply.”

  Deb smiled. “He was a noncommittal kind of man.”

  “What did you really think of him?”

  “Odd. He was odd. That’s the best way I can describe him. I never could put a finger on what it was. But he was good to Gwen. He doted on her. They were good friends.” She moved forward on the couch, assuming a position much the same as Angie’s—leaned forward, feet flat on the worn braided rug, hands clasped in her lap.

  “But when he proposed marriage, their relationship changed,” Angie said.

  She felt Jarvis’s gaze on her and knew he was wondering if his repeated proposals had damaged their relationship. Angie pushed on with her questions. Time enough later to face that topic.

  “Tell us about Randy.”

  “She adored that man. And he loved her. Till the day she died.” Deb brushed something off the cuff of her sweatshirt. “Some people look their whole lives and never find the one. Gwen had two.”

  Other times, Angie would ask if Deb was one of them, but she didn’t want to interrupt the flow of thought.

  “You know he’s gay, right?” Deb said.

  Angie and Jarvis nodded. “Was that what broke them apart?” Jarvis asked.

  “Yes. He couldn’t perform in the bedroom. No, no, I take that back. He could perform but it was frustrating for them both. His allegiances, if you want to call it that, were elsewhere.”

  “Was there someone else? For him, I mean.”

  “No. It was an emotional thing. He just didn’t mesh with women. Gwen understood. She was totally supportive.”

  “Was that why she moved out west?”

  “No. The UC—the University of California—offered great courses in childhood education. She’d heard they taught innovative ways of mentoring kids. Randy encouraged her to go.”

  “Maybe he thought that would be a better way to gain his freedom.”

  “I don’t believe it. He and Gwen were totally honest with each other. Remember, I was there. We were together every day. They always planned on getting back together. They talked about finding jobs at the same school so they could be near each other. Maybe share a house.”

  “They did get to be near each other,” Angie offered.

  “It took a little longer than they planned.

  “What happened?”

  “Life got in the way.”

  “Especially for Gwen.”

  Deb smiled sadly. “Yes.”

  Angie saw Jarvis shake off a puzzled expression and almost smiled. She loved when she could introduce information he hadn’t yet thought of.

  He got back on track with, “Which again brings up the question of why she didn’t end up teaching elementary kids.”

  “It seems like that’s the question of the day,” Deb said with a smile.

  “Here’s a new one,” Angie said. “Who do you think killed Gwen?”

  Deb lowered her head and, for several seconds, looked at her hands in her lap. “I can’t imagine it’s any of the kids—they adored her. Nor can I picture either Randy or Ted…”

  “Though there’s a small part of you that wonders if something could’ve driven one of them over the edge.”

  She took off her glasses and moved her gaze from Angie to Jarvis. Then she gave a tiny nod.

  “Since I arrived in Carlson, someone’s been ransacking all Gwen’s personal places. Any idea what they’re looking for?”

  Deb raised her face and looked Angie directly in the eye. “Again, all your questions come ’round to the same subject, don’t they?”

  “I hoped they would.”

  Angie’s comment earned another sharp glance and a soft grunt from Jarvis.

  “And he doesn’t know.” Deb tilted her head toward him.

  “I didn’t intentionally keep it from him. Right now, the thoughts are all tangled inside my head. I thought if I started throwing out questions…”

  “Have my answers led to any untangling?”

  “I have unraveled one nagging problem, though I still can’t fathom how it relates to a motive for Gwen’s
murder.”

  Deb nodded. “Neither can I.”

  Confusion rolled off Jarvis in waves. Still, he didn’t speak.

  “When will her body be released? I’d like to make plans for the funeral.”

  Jarvis scribbled a phone number on a sheet of notepaper and handed it across to Deb. “Detective Rodriguez is heading up the investigation.”

  To Angie’s left, a pair of oil lamps decorated each end of the fireplace’s rough-hewn mantle. Between them, spanning the length of the mantle were photographs, each encased in the same handmade wood frames. Angie went to look at them, hoping to see one in particular. It was there. She picked up the picture of four people. It had obviously been taken at a photographer’s studio. In it, Deb stood beside a good-looking blond man whom Angie assumed was her husband Jason. Two young boys, about four and six years old, were seated on stools in front of them. Both children were dark-haired like their mother.

  Deb came to stand beside Angie. She took the picture and gazed at it with love in her eyes. She showed the picture to Jarvis and waited while he examined it and handed it back.

  “Have you figured it out yet?” she asked them both.

  “I believe I have,” Angie said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Kiana and Evan stood on the sidewalk in front of a three-story building with yellow vinyl siding. It looked to be six apartments, two on each side of the center entrance. The building was wedged so tightly between two other tenements—these with peeling paint—that there wasn’t enough space between them to park cars.

  Evan stuffed the last of a hamburger in his mouth, chewed, swallowed and said, “Ready?”

  Kiana nodded and they climbed four steps to the front door, recently painted a brilliant green. Seven black mailboxes hung on the right hand wall of the small vestibule. The first were numbered one through six in white stencils. The seventh box was different, newer, and with the apartment number 1A in gold stick-on letters rather than the stenciled numbers. This newer box bore the name Underwood in the same adhesive letters. Strange. If her estimation of the building’s makeup was correct and the building had six apartments, then the seventh must be an add-on. Probably it was tucked into the attic—a tiny apartment in the eaves—the owner’s way of producing more income.