Chapter 15

“Look at this,” I said, entering the store and grabbing a Hula-Hoop. I thrust it over my head and tried to lasso Kat with another one, but she backed off. My hoop swiveled around my hips. “I’d forgotten this was great exercise.”

Kat looked away from customers who watched, suggesting she was highly embarrassed. I kept my hoop going a while and then it struck my knees. “Very good,” Kat said.

“Thank you very much.” I lunged for the next thing that enticed me.

Kat snickered. “You remember how?”

“Just like riding a bike.” I whipped the jump rope out of its container and clasped the wooden handles. “Such great memories.” I flung the rope around and tried to jump, but the rope caught toys on a shelf. Dinosaurs tumbled to the floor, and something shattered. Kat’s hands covered her mouth. “Of course,” I said, “I never did learn to ride a bike.”

A grim-faced man stomped to us, eyeing the scattered items.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll pay for them.” I replaced the jump rope, and Kat and I scooped up the remains of a piggy bank. “I’ll take care of it on our way out,” I told the clerk, and then I led Kat toward the store’s rear. Unseen by others, she giggled. A woman with bluish hair appeared and stared at her. My granddaughter and I smirked at each other and shuffled around corner shelves. We became like two bad girls, ready to pull something off.

“This used to be so much fun,” Kat said, drawing a box down from a counter.

“Oh, an Easy-Bake Oven. Would you like one?”

She frowned. “I have enough with my real stove.”

“Take this one just so you can play again. I’ll play with you.”

She slipped the carton back into place. “That’s okay.”

Getting Kat to lighten up was proving most difficult. I glanced at her serious face. Engaging Kat in play might distract her so that I could discover more. How could I get her to tell me what she knew about people who might be involved in a killing? Or anyone who might want to harm me? Surely no one would try to hurt her. Would they?

I shivered. Nobody from Sidmore High had given straight answers to all I wanted to know. And Kat balked every time I asked outright about motives of people connected with the school. Should I push her to return—or make certain she wouldn’t?

We needed to play.

I guided her to another aisle empty of people. Kat opened a book that played a tinny version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and I pulled up all the ladders on a fire truck and made its little driver climb them. We touched fluffy stuffed animals and I offered to get some for Kat’s bed, but she declined.

“Now that’s great fun,” I said, spotting familiar boxes. Kat agreed. I opened a box, spread the Twister mat on the floor and spun the arrow. “Right hand, green,” I read. I placed my hand on a green circle. “Now your turn.”

Kat shoved the arrow. “Left foot, yellow.” Finding no spectators, she slid off her shoe and stepped on that color.

I spun right foot, blue. Kat took her turn, and we worked at getting ourselves into bent positions while not losing our footing. Once Kat was involved in the game, I said, “Yesterday medics took Mrs. Peekers away from school.”

Her face shot up toward mine. “What?”

“It was an accident. Probably.” I explained what I knew. From my twisted position, I raised a hand, pointed toward where her left foot should be, and almost fell over. Kat automatically shifted her foot. “Baby girl,” I said, “I like Miss Hernandez.”

Kat’s expression warmed. She almost smiled.

“Your turn,” I said, getting her attention back on moving her body. While she made the next move, I asked, “What connection did she have to Grant Labruzzo?”

Kat exhaled. “Miss Hernandez was at school late on the day he died.”

“I’ve noticed that many people stay around after the bell rings. Although I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that.”

Kat didn’t grin as I’d hoped. I took one turn after another, striving to keep her distracted.

“All of the practices were over that afternoon,” Kat said, “and there weren’t any games the evening he fell.”

I didn’t want to move lest I jolt the scene playing in her head. I tightened my shoulders to make my arms quit wobbling.

Kat said, “Mr. Labruzzo yelled at her that day.”

“The custodian yelled at a teacher? Why?”

Kat stared off. Wanting to keep her with me, I stretched to spin and wound up bent like an aging pretzel. Kat spoke in a quiet tone. “Some kids in Miss Hernandez’s class said she asked him if he’d hang some things from her ceiling. With a long ladder, he could reach.” Her unfocused eyes slid to Sidmore High. “Before homeroom that day she’d told me she had an idea for displaying her students’ work. Their projects would make the room colorful, and if the students who needed incentive saw their accomplishments, they might work harder.” Kat took a breath. “That’s the last time she really spoke with me.”

“Do you know why Grant Labruzzo yelled at her?”

“She had stopped him when he was passing her room and glancing in it. And after she asked him to hang the pictures, he hollered that teachers needed to start doing their own jobs, cleaning their boards and desks, and taking care of stuff written on their walls.”

I shook my head. “So why would people think she killed him? Just because he yelled?”

“Miss Hernandez never got mad at anyone. And she was there late that day, doing things in her room.” Kat spoke lower. “She seldom stayed after school hours. It’s one of the things they’ve questioned.”

“They?”

Kat’s gaze flickered. “The police. Some kids in her class said she’d looked so humiliated when Mr. Labruzzo yelled at her in front of them. Her face turned kind of purple.” Kat stared off. She didn’t want to talk but needed to. “He just walked away, and Miss Hernandez raised her arms and made fists. She slammed them down, like she’d like to slam him, the kids said.”

“And then what?”

The portion of Kat’s face that I saw went blank. “And then the bell rang. She stormed out of her room before the last students left.”

Neither of us cared about spinning. I felt a catch in my groin. “So some of the students who saw that incident suspect her. At least one of them told the police, and they’ve questioned her. But they haven’t made an arrest.”

Kat’s knees lowered to the floor. “Ever since then, it’s like she doesn’t want to talk to anybody. She teaches her classes and that’s all.” Kat unfolded herself on the mat and sat, her inner pain almost palpable.

But she’s not your mom, I wanted to say. If the woman did something horrible, your life hasn’t ended. I couldn’t tell that to Kat. I wasn’t in her position and wasn’t even living close to her. “Miss Hernandez seemed hesitant about speaking to me yesterday,” I said, sitting on the mat, “but she spoke.”

Kate smiled wanly. “People have to respond to you, Gram.”

I grinned. “She said to tell you she’ll be okay.” But I considered the varying responses I’d received at Sidmore High and shuddered. Was the school a place of higher learning—or violence? “Kat, are you afraid of any kids at school, like Roxy or Sledge? Or anyone on the faculty?”

Her lips tightened. She shook her head.

“Was Grant Labruzzo a flirt?”

She made a rapid eye blink. “Not really. But he had that look.”

“What look?”

“Like when a guy kind of likes somebody.”

I let that image sink in and didn’t especially like it, but he was a young man. “So he gave you that look, and he’d looked at Miss Hernandez that way too, right?”

Kat swallowed. She made a slight nod.

“Did he flirt with everyone?”

Kat sighed, her eyes shifting. “I don’t know, Gram. I’m ready to leave when you are.” Her clenched mouth told me she wouldn’t disclose more.

“Final averages are important,” I said. “And exams contribute a lot to those averages.” Kat didn’t seem to be listening. She looked at a young woman and her daughter who entered this section but didn’t seem bothered by their presence. She helped me replace the Twister in its box. “I guess your daddy leaves for work before you leave for school,” I said, “so he probably wouldn’t know if you were missing any days. Unless somebody told him.”

Kat’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you think he worries enough?” Her firm gaze steadied on mine, warning me not to interfere. “And the school doesn’t contact parents of seniors. They know we’re old enough and mature enough to make our own choices.”

I swallowed, responding with the smallest nod. I remembered that I had to pay for the broken piggy bank. Kat went outside to wait, and I grabbed something on the way to the checkout line. Joining Kat, I said, “You haven’t chosen anything, but this is a start on your graduation present.”

“Oh, Gram.” She took the panda and held it at arm’s length. The glittering in Kat’s eyes came from tears. I knew they weren’t for the bear. As much indecision as I bore, how much more did this child carry? Should she return to school or not? Go and take exams? Was her good friend a killer? Kat rubbed the soft bear along her cheek. She clutched him in her arms, and I was especially satisfied that she had accepted something to cling to. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Kat!” a male shouted.

She and I turned to see John Winston pumping his arms, storming toward us.

“You bitch!” he yelled at her.

“What?” Kat and I said in unison.

John Winston headed toward us, red-faced with anger, a husky buddy at his side.

“Don’t speak to a lady like that,” I told John.

He jabbed an index finger at Kat, his aqua blue eyes flaring. “You started a crappy rumor about me.”

“What rumor?” she said.

“You told everybody I wrote a note about the police arresting Miss Hernandez.”

“I didn’t tell anyone that.” Kat stopped. She turned abruptly and flung an infuriated gaze at me.

I felt the blood drain from my face. I raised my palms. “I only asked him. But now we know it wasn’t even true. They didn’t arrest her.” Kat’s glare pierced my heart. “It wasn’t even true,” I repeated, squirming under her accusing eyes.

“But that’s just fine,” John told Kat, “because now I’m telling everybody in our class not to trust you. And nobody ever will!”

John hustled away, his buddy giving us a smirk before he followed behind.

Kat’s green eyes nailed me. I shook my head. Raised both shoulders and palms. Cried inside.

* * *

We remained silent on the long ride home. Needing sound, I raised the radio’s volume. Kat’s gaze shifted toward me, and I said, “You can change the station if you’d like.”

She turned away.

We reached her house, and she shoved her car door open. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said, my tone pleading. Kat slammed her door. I yelled, “You forgot your panda.”

She yanked the bear off the seat. “Thanks.” Kat ran up the front stairs and dashed into her house. The door reverberated with its slam.

Tears building behind my eyes rushed out. My arms quivered while I drove. I slunk into the condo and tumbled onto the recliner. Cocking it back, I remained still, exhausted. My forearms and hips ached from twisting. My spirit’s pain was my main concern. Everything in me felt drained.

I had butted in. And made my granddaughter hate me?

My eyes felt as if they dropped further into their sockets. I stared at shadows lying across the den’s rented furniture. Was this my whole future? When I gave up my home to go seeking the uncertain—was this what I wanted to find? Neutral leathers and floral prints surrounded me. Attractive rugs, sleek ceramics, and woods. Everything glistened. In all the places I stayed, I always left floors and kitchens looking like I’d found them. Barely used. Never tarnished. I’d muss one side of the beds, turning back just my portion of the sheet. At night I returned to that single pillow and space.

Weights seemed to press against my eyes.

I pushed myself up and crossed to the light switch, flipping on brightness. That did little for my mind-set. I strode through the condo, flooding each room with false lighting. Perfect colors still stared at me, each blending with the others, nothing about them human.

Human. Alive? Leave or die bitch. Telling Kat that those words had been written on my truck would have added to her worry. I’d already piled enough on her by questioning John Winston at school. Now what if all her peers turned away from her because of me?

“Oh, Cealie,” I said with a sigh. How stupid I’d been to think I could remedy all her problems. I’d thought I could learn about a man’s death and fix up Kat’s life. But detectives knew how to uncover truths. I needed to do what Gil suggested and let them do all the detecting. And, I hoped, soon my grandchild would once again want to be around me.

I strode into the kitchen. “‘Evening, Minnie,” I said, grabbing my plant’s pot. Her slender stem leaned against its side. I’d messed up enough. I had alienated Kat. I could have stayed with Gil months ago but left and now felt responsible for thrusting the young woman with long legs onto his lap. Gloom set in, heaviness weighing on my shoulders. I needed to get something right. I had a dependent again. Minnie depended on me for survival. And I didn’t even know what type of cactus she was. I had to let other people live as they chose and keep Minnie alive.

School counselor Harry Wren had mentioned online sites concerning cacti.

I studied Minnie. One short triangular stalk formed her torso. Bumpy nodules on her ridged sides showed lighter spots where thorns might have been shaved. Out of all the cacti in the nursery, she’d seemed dainty. Attractive without being showy. Those tiny pink sprouts grew out from her pink head like old-fashioned hair curlers, giving the suggestion that she didn’t give a damn. She was my kind of lady. She didn’t stick and would fit perfectly in my hand for jet travel. In cars, she’d snuggle in cup holders. I had immediately known her name should be Minnie. She’d had no label to tell what type of cactus she was, and the salesclerk hadn’t even known.

Okay, I could surely take care of this sweet plant.

I carried her to the den, set her beside me, and typed “cactus growing” on my laptop’s search engine. The results offered me 39,145 sites. I blinked. Was I the only person in the country not already raising cacti?

I hit on general plant care. Plants like to be talked to, an expert advised. “I’m in the mood for love,” I sang, hoping Minnie would also like songs. I liked this search already since I enjoyed learning new things whenever the subject interested me. My gardener had planted and tended all those lush plants in my gardens. I supposed he also spoke to them, for my flowers and bushes thrived. Maybe he also sang. I hummed a few bars of the love song, my thoughts encompassing Gil. Without clothes. Hmm.

Shoving those ideas away, I continued my search. I clicked on Cactus Mall and flipped through screens, searching for a cactus that looked like mine, while an idea came.

“After I learn about you, I’m going to search for chemicals that give off noxious fumes,” I told Minnie. Why had someone spilled—or poured—cleaning fluids under the door of the custodians’ room? And had it really been locked? Why try to harm that teacher, Mrs. Peekers?

She did resemble Marisa Hernandez.

I spoke while watching the wrong cacti spring up on my monitor. “I doubt that I’m any closer to getting Kat to take exams. Should I push harder, or let her decide?” I glanced at Minnie but saw no inkling of a reaction. “Nancy would know.”

Maybe plants that were spoken to would hint at a problem’s solution? Minnie only bent a little, possibly to listen. Ponder? More conversation might help. Her and me. I scanned more cactus pictures and spoke. “The first little house my husband and I owned had no flowers, except plastic ones. Freddie and I worked so hard at being Mom and Dad.” I mentioned Roger, our currently brooding son. “A lovable child, he always wanted to be cuddled.” An urge came to cuddle him now. He didn’t want me to. My eyes warmed, and I tried to focus on Minnie instead of my son.

“The main thing that grew in our lawn was grass,” I said, scanning photos of cacti with spectacular flowers, and some coated with fuzz. “We took turns shoving our rickety lawn mower through that. I was glad when it snowed and everything froze.” I winced, not having planned to tell Minnie about wanting any plants dead.

To my relief, she didn’t seem any worse from my comment. I nudged more dirt against her side and noticed a tiny sprout of pink. “You have a new button,” I said. Smugly, I determined my plant was prettier than Harry Wren’s. And he’d looked conceited, telling me about all his cactus knowledge.

My Web search for cacti took me to the Adenium species, a cactus that looked like a regular plant with flowers. I found Grumbley White, a Red Everbloomer, and an obesum that resembled a pink-blossomed tree as tall as the man standing beside it. The Ferocactus stainesii showed what I’d always thought of as a cactus. The plant was eight feet tall, its clump ten feet in diameter. “Its attractive red spines,” I read to Minnie, “make this plant deservedly popular. In cultivation in the UK, the plants are quite slow to mature. They need to be moderately large before they flower.”

Mmm, a challenge. I was beginning to see why so many people were interested in cactus cultivation. And this site gave the exact areas where these plants were found—the mountains east of Illapel in Chile, another in Brazil in Rio Grande do Sol—but both of these always grew alone. “Poor things,” I told Minnie. “I hope your type doesn’t always grow all by itself.”

I viewed cacti from Bolivia, Peru, Argentine, Uruguay, and Burma. “Maybe we could travel to those locales to see them growing in the wild,” I said, trying to get more enthusiastic. I was alone. I glanced at Minnie. So was she.

Kat’s tumultuous situation rooted through my brain. Could I solve her problem? Should I try?

I scooted Minnie closer to my laptop. “Look at this.” From Kenya and Tanzania, the cactus looked like a star wearing a zebra print. “It will grow in the middle of the freeway,” I read. “But its flower stinks of death and it is pollinated by blowies.” I didn’t know what blowies were and didn’t want to find out. The next plants reportedly also stank, one like old socks, another of dead meat. A Dutch missionary named one of them in 1809; he couldn’t spell, so his error remained immortal. Interesting. The Cero, developing into a large tangle of leafless vines, was once marketed in Australia as The Condom Plant. The man who coined that phrase supposedly made a fortune.

I grinned. My smile faded. “Cero.” The thing just looked like a bunch of vines, Brad McClellen had said.

My heart went out to this leafless plant. It was one such as this that Grant Labruzzo knocked over and killed in Harry Wren’s office. And Harry had mourned. He still did.

“Ha, look at this.” I indicated what resembled a reddish ball and read, “This cactus needs to be kept awash with water, and the occasional shot of Jack Daniels will keep it in a good mood.” Maybe a good shot of Jack Daniels would perk up Roger. Or, lately, me.

“I’ll find your relatives soon,” I told Minnie. And how about mine? Troubled, troubled, troubled.

As soon as I learned exact care for Minnie, I’d search for those deadly chemicals.

“We’ll probably even get to discover where you come from,” I said, interested now in the history I was learning about plants I viewed. “Oh, this one’s lovely.” The stately cactus with yellow ruffled flowers was a Notocacti. “This beauty,” I read, “was unfortunately lost—” Uh-oh. It rotted due to being overwatered.

Immediately, I changed screens. “Hm,” I said, “where are you on here, Minnie?” I saw a Pedilanthus with two stems, each looking like a penis with an orange flower on the side. (Need I think of Gil again?) A thin nine-foot plant with pink flowers grew in a greenhouse. In the wild, this specimen was pollinated by bats. I imagined scores of dark creatures closing in on one plant and considered threatening people closing in at Sidmore High. Was one of them actually deadly?

Maybe not, but all of this week’s happenings pointed toward a person who yielded a definite threat. To my grandchild? I didn’t think so. But that person had implicated me with the warning on my mail truck. Should I take those scrawled words seriously? I doubted it, yet…

I didn’t know if you should tell plants problems, but I had to mention my concerns. That was talking. “Kat will be destroyed if the woman she loves proves to be a killer.” I rose and paced, scenes swelling in my head. Marisa Hernandez, tall and flat-chested, but so pleasant, raised both arms, threatening. The young man Grant Labruzzo tended to his job, pushing a wide dust mop. He emptied trash cans from classrooms, but not most of them.

When he reached into Marisa’s room for her overflowing gray can, she held students’ colorful posters and screeched, “Hang these things for me!”

“Way up there?” Labruzzo said, pointing to her high ceiling.

“Yes, there. And do it now!”

In my mind the ceiling rose. “I won’t do it!” Labruzzo said. He swore about dumb teachers and strode out, leaving her trash behind.

Heads of seated students whipped back toward Hernandez. She turned all colors of the rainbow and her colors darkened, growing harsh. Fury pumped her up so that the woman resembled a pro wrestler. A bell jangled, and the teens watched her stalk out, a blade growing in her hand. Hernandez crept stealthily behind the custodian.

Kids slunk behind, while their teacher slid on her toes, following handsome young Labruzzo. He entered the auditorium, pushing his mop in sideways motions. Folded seats filled the room. A bare stage stood between curtains. Labruzzo went up the stairs toward the balcony, his wide mop circling. He didn’t notice from behind—a flash of silver swerved up.

Marisa Hernandez appeared, her blade raised.

Labruzzo saw her.

“And then what would have happened?” I asked myself. “He’d give her a flirtatious smile?”

Ridiculous.

No, the children would watch their teacher pounce on him.

My mental scene returned. Labruzzo jumped in time, knocking her knife away.

“You think I won’t kill you!” Hernandez screamed, her dark eyes fierce beneath long red-black bangs. “But I don’t need a weapon!” She grabbed him and thrust him headfirst over the railing. Teenagers wailed. Kat stood among them, staring in horror.

My breath trapped in my throat. Could Kat know more than she’d admitted? Had she seen her mentor kill that man?

Reasoning slapped away my imaginings. “How could a woman toss that man off a balcony?” I asked Minnie. “And would a person kill just because she’d been embarrassed?”

Hernandez’s hair was blond, and she didn’t wear bangs. Grant Labruzzo hadn’t been stabbed.

I had witnessed many unpleasant happenings at Sidmore High over the last couple of days. Besides the obvious, a small event kept niggling with my mind. I needed to decipher what it meant.