The audiovisual equipment room was hookup central, primarily because of its location off a desolate hallway behind the black box theater. The only other rooms nearby were used for storing theatrical sets and were accessed once a season when students were setting up for a performance. Therefore, the foot traffic on this particular spot of campus was limited to teachers in need of AV equipment. And with most of the electronics now installed in classrooms, there was less and less demand for this stuff. There was a sign-up sheet outside the room where faculty and students (who were supposed to get teachers’ permission but often didn’t) were required to note the time and date they checked out equipment. As soon as Luke and Oscar rounded the corner, they made a beeline for the sheet.
“I’ll take it,” said Oscar, swiping the clipboard before Luke could reach it. “Hmm…very interesting,” said Oscar, flipping through the pages.
“Are you going to show me or what?”
“Patience, my friend. Patience.”
“Come on.”
“Here,” said Oscar, turning the clipboard around so Luke could finally see it. “Bingo.”
Luke leaned in. On October 6—the Friday six days before Mrs. Heckler’s murder—she had signed out the DVD player. Luke felt a flash of sadness when he read her careful bubble print. That handwriting was now extinct. One day, she was signing out equipment, the next day…gone.
“So, what do you think?” asked Oscar.
“I don’t know.”
“Why does someone in the alumni office need the DVD player?” asked Oscar.
“You’re right. But maybe she had to show a video or something?”
“Seems fishy. I worked in the alumni office. Seemed like all she did was mailings. Pretty boring. That’s why she wanted to talk all the time.”
“Maybe we need to ask someone who’s working there now?” asked Luke. “I can check with Tariq. He does the student work schedule. I think he even runs the student-alumni committee, which would put him into direct access with Mrs. Heckler.”
“That kiss ass is all about padding his college applications,” sneered Oscar.
“Dude, if you don’t want to go to University of Nowhere, you should think about doing that crap too.”
“No thanks.”
“Whatever. Okay, so are we thinking that Mrs. Heckler was here hooking up with the mystery guy?”
“Totally. Checking out the DVD player was a cover. We both know this room has seen a ton of action. She had to be discreet, obviously, but she wanted a quickie.”
“It seems kind of risky.”
“That’s why people cheat,” said Oscar, as if he were an expert on the topic.
“How do you know why people cheat?” asked Luke. “Who are you, Dr. Phil?”
“No, I just know; it’s more about the thrill. Not so much to do with the person.”
Luke turned and gave Oscar a quizzical look. “You seem to have a lot of knowledge on this topic.”
“Hello? Kelsey? She has a boyfriend. And she’s into him. She clearly wanted some sort of high from me.”
“You sure it’s not the other way around? Because it kinda seems like she keeps bringing him up to make you jealous,” Luke said, his eyes still locked on Oscar. “And anyway, Kelsey isn’t married. Have you ever been with a married woman?”
“No,” said Oscar, quickly averting his gaze and glancing back down at the clipboard. He started flipping through the pages.
Luke was about to press him when he noticed something on the list.
“Hey, look who checked out the DVD player the next day. On a Saturday.”
Oscar leaned in to where Luke’s finger was pointing. CARL HECKLER was written in block letters, followed by OCTOBER 7.
“Coincidence?” asked Oscar.
“Come on, the dean definitely had no reason to check anything out. He’s a dean. All he has to do is administrative stuff.”
“And bust people for minor infractions,” reminded Oscar.
“Right,” said Luke. “And maybe he was busting his wife.”
“You think he was on to her?”
Luke raised his eyebrows. “I think he followed her here.”
“And came back the next day to see if he could find any evidence.”
Luke nodded. He scanned the rest of the list. There were several teachers and a few students who had signed out stuff. He turned the pages back and searched for names of people who signed out the equipment just prior to her death. On October 3 there was another name.
“Mr. Tadeckis was here too,” said Luke.
“Jeez, two of our suspects. Wonderful.”
Luke flipped the pages over again, comparing all of the different names and dates and handwriting. Something was bothering him. He looked again at Mrs. Heckler’s name and then scanned down to her husband’s. After that was Mr. Hamaguchi on October 6, then Mrs. McNamara, a math teacher, followed by Mr. P.
“Wait a second,” said Luke. His finger pointed at the date Dean Heckler had written.
“October 7, the day after Mrs. Heckler was here. So what?” asked Oscar.
“Right. He wrote October 7. But then right below him, Mr. Hamaguchi signed out equipment and wrote October 6.”
“So it goes October 6, October 7, October 6,” said Oscar. “Someone messed up.”
“I don’t think so,” said Luke. “I think Dean Heckler was here right after his wife. I think he wrote the wrong date so it wouldn’t seem suspicious. He had no idea Mr. Hamaguchi would come by later and write the correct date.”
“Nice catch,” Oscar said.
“Yeah. Dean Heckler was definitely covering his tracks. The question is, what does he have to hide?”
“Let’s go inside and see if we can find anything,” Oscar said. Luke opened the door, and they entered the darkened room. It was filled with all sorts of audiovisual equipment, and most of it had not seen any use in years because it was becoming rapidly outdated. There was a stack of VCRs on the window shelf, but now that videocassettes were practically extinct, they were useless. There were also carts to wheel televisions and radios around to various classrooms, and old computers from the 1990s.
The black shades in the room were drawn, and Oscar flipped on the garish overhead light. One light bulb promptly flashed and then died, and the one remaining bulb had little success in illuminating the room.
“So, where do you do it when you come here?” asked Luke.
“A gentleman never kisses and tells,” said Oscar.
“Come on.”
“Over here,” said Oscar. In the center of the room, there was a giant bookcase filled with reels of film and miscellaneous instruction manuals. It was as if whoever had brought it in there had gotten tired and, rather than placing it next to the wall, just abandoned it. The benefit was that it created a nice little nook behind it, where illicit trysts could take place and go unnoticed even if anyone walked in the door. Someone had even been brazen enough to drag a giant beanbag chair behind the bookshelf, and there was a wool St. Benedict’s blanket that could probably have used several rounds in a washing machine. Luke followed Oscar to the beanbag, and they both crouched down.
“This is kind of nasty. Do you really think a teacher would come here to get some?” asked Luke.
“I saw Mr. Larkin and Ms. Wakefield coming out of here last year, looking all disheveled.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah, but now they’re engaged.”
Luke looked back at the beanbag. He tried and failed to imagine Mrs. Heckler and some guy getting all hot and bothered here. He thought she’d go for a classier tryst, maybe at the Marriott in Waterbury or something. She always did dress young and kind of jazzy for a boarding school, wearing flirty clothes that were stylish and showed a lot of skin. He got the impression she identified more with the students than with her husband. Maybe she was trying to relive her youth? Maybe her boyfriend was? That could be one of the kicks for them.
“People are so careless, I don’t know why it’s such a problem closing this door,” said a man’s voice.
“Maybe it blew open?” asked a woman.
“The windows are shut, I doubt that.”
Luke and Oscar stared at each other. Yikes. They were not alone anymore. What should they do? How would they explain that they were just lurking around the audiovisual room? Oscar turned to Luke and mouthed What now? Luke shook his head.
“See, the windows are sealed,” said the man, who had obviously gone over to check them.
I know that voice, I know that voice, thought Luke.
“So, what do you need the DVD player for?” asked the woman.
“I’m showing my first-year class Fantastic Voyage.”
Oscar and Luke both looked at each other at the same time. Mr. Crawford! they mouthed in unison. That was best-case scenario. He would be cool. What should they do? Reveal themselves?
“Oh, I love that movie,” said the woman.
Luke felt like he was holding his breath. Both he and Oscar remained motionless, but it was getting uncomfortable down in their crouched positions.
Oscar tapped Luke on the hand. Ms. Chang he mouthed.
Luke nodded in recognition. She was the smoking-hot new English teacher who looked like a badass James Bond heroine. There had been rumors about her and Mr. Crawford. What if they were going to hook up here?
“You think they’ll like the movie?” asked Mr. Crawford. “If I’m trying to teach them human anatomy, maybe I should show them a different kind of film.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” said Ms. Chang. Although to Luke, it sounded like she didn’t think the joke was very funny at all.
“Come on, you seem like that type,” said Mr. Crawford.
“Okay, I’m over this conversation,” said Ms. Chang with irritation.
“Let’s go,” said Mr. Crawford. “Wait a second, what’s that?”
Luke panicked, thinking Mr. Crawford was referring to him, so he abruptly stood up. “Hey, Mr. Crawford.”
Mr. Crawford’s face dropped in astonishment. Luke’s heart skipped a beat when he realized that Mr. Crawford had been leaning down to pick up a DVD and not headed toward the hookup place where Luke and Oscar were hiding. They could have easily evaded detection if Luke hadn’t panicked.
“What are you doing in here?” asked Mr. Crawford, his brows furrowed.
Ms. Chang, who had been a few steps ahead of him out the door, came back into the room and gave him a puzzled look.
“I…” Luke was at a loss for words.
“We were just talking,” said Oscar, popping up.
Mr. Crawford and Ms. Chang appeared even more confused.
“In here? You guys are roommates. Don’t you get enough of each other in your room?” asked Mr. Crawford.
“I don’t think students are supposed to hang out in here,” added Ms. Chang.
“We were walking around the hall, trying to track down, well, let’s just say a certain girl, and we wandered over here, and I swear I thought I saw some animal in here, like a rat or a dog or something, it was big, so we came in here to check it out,” said Oscar.
Mr. Crawford appeared skeptical. “Animal? Wasn’t the door closed?”
“No, someone had left it open,” said Oscar, fumbling.
“Yeah, it’s true,” added Luke. His face was reddening. He was definitely not a good liar. “So we poked around. But no animal.”
Mr. Crawford and Ms. Chang looked at each other, then back at the boys. Finally, Mr. Crawford spoke.
“Okay, well, I think you guys better hit the road now.”
“Yeah.”
Mr. Crawford smiled. “I know this place is where kids come to, you know, get together. Is there something I should know about you two?” he added teasingly.
Luke and Oscar were relieved. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” said Oscar with a wink.