CHAPTER

fifteen

I DIDN’T FIND PRINCIPAL Lewis in the school office the next day. Instead, he stood in the staff room, near a table with a bakery box on it. He was arranging napkins into a fan-shaped display.

He’d dressed up in his usual professional attire, but the long-sleeved shirt looked a little wrinkled. Concentrated on arranging the goodies with flair, he hadn’t heard me enter the room.

I tapped him on the arm to get his attention, and he jumped.

“Oh, Mimi.” I remembered the effusive greeting from when I first met him, but this time, he didn’t offer me a hug, a pat on the back, or even a handshake. In fact, he stepped about a foot’s distance away from me. “You startled me.”

Peering into the open bakery box, my mouth salivated. “Wow. Porto’s,” I said. The local Cuban bakery was known for its pastries, particularly the guava strudels I now eyed with glee.

“My wife got them for the staff,” he said. “Everyone’s under a lot of stress right now and could use a tasty pick-me-up.” He adjusted his checkered tie as I grabbed a napkin.

“May I?” I asked, pointing at the box. “It’d be nice to take one for my sister.”

Principal Lewis had the courtesy to look embarrassed. “I guess that’s why you’re here. I’m sorry your sister has to miss work. She’s a wonderful teacher, but I believe it’s in the best interest of everyone involved if we’re proactive and try to avoid legal ramifications.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” I remembered the legalese in Helen’s note to him.

He took a napkin and mopped his brow. “I’ve recently learned to be more understanding.”

Using a tactic from my college psych class, I stayed quiet. Sometimes people will fill in an uncomfortable silence with more information.

“I need to have clearer actions,” he said.

He didn’t seem to want to volunteer anything further, so I decided to broach another subject. “You must have a tough job.” I gestured toward the window. “Like the other day, out on the lawn with Helen’s father.”

Principal Lewis crumpled his damp napkin. “I thought I’d met my share of angry parents, but he was of another scale.”

“Why was he so upset?”

“Guess the authorities couldn’t get ahold of him until really late. Then it took time for him to fly in from overseas.”

Sounded like transference from Helen’s father. He’d taken his rage at being informed tardy about his daughter’s death and placed it on the principal’s shoulders. “Having Helen die so suddenly must have felt awful. Did Mr. Reed happen to say when he’d be holding the funeral?”

Principal Lewis moved away from me and rummaged in the cabinet. He pulled out a mug and filled it from a nearby coffeepot. “No, and I didn’t ask. I wasn’t a personal friend of Miss Reed.”

“Did Helen’s father leave his contact info with you? I know that Alice would like to attend the service if possible.”

The principal sipped his coffee and forced himself to swallow. “Lukewarm again.” He fiddled with the button on the coffeepot. “You’d think Richard would’ve fixed this already.”

I cleared my throat. “How can I reach Mr. Reed?”

Principal Lewis shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“You don’t have a phone number? Or an address?”

“Well, he’s staying at the extended stay hotel about two blocks from here.”

I thanked the principal, but he seemed distracted again by his tepid coffee. He placed his mug in the microwave, failing to notice the “Out of Order” sign.

Naturally, it didn’t work. As I left the room, he mumbled, “Sometimes I think Richard is sabotaging everything around here.”

A joke of a comment, but might there be a smidgeon of truth? I remembered the broken glass in Helen’s classroom and decided to search the school grounds for the janitor.

After ten minutes of looking, I tracked Richard down. He wore his usual down jacket and baseball cap combo and was wiping down the windows of the school library when I found him.

“Finally cleaned off the seagulls’ crap,” he said, as he threw a dirty wadded-up ball of newspaper away. The harsh scent of vinegar assaulted the air.

“Maybe you should clean the windows of Helen’s classroom,” I said.

“Why’s that?” Richard fiddled with the brim of his Dodgers cap. “The birds don’t typically fly through the hallways.”

Perhaps he’d indulge me if I took a different tack. “I apologize. It’s just that I really wanted to see her classroom, for closure.”

“I didn’t know you were such good friends with her, Alice.” He shuffled down the hallway in his down jacket and jeans.

Again he’d called me by my sister’s name. I shrugged it off. We did look alike, and perhaps I could continue to use the identity confusion to my advantage.

Richard paused before the door to Room 6 and fished out a pocket watch from his jacket. After holding it close to his face, he said, “You’re not going to have very long until you need to get ready to teach.”

“I promise to be quick,” I said.

He put his watch away, but a frown crossed his face.

Remembering the napkin-wrapped guava treat I’d snuck in my bag, I took it out. My sister would never know, and I needed it to clinch the deal. “I got you something, Richard.”

“For me?” He offered his hand, palm up, where I deposited the pastry. After unwrapping it, he said, “I do have a sweet tooth. Is this . . . a doughnut?”

“Even better,” I said.

Smiling, he pulled out a giant brass ring of keys and unlocked the door to Room 6.

I stepped into a classroom of wonder. Cardstock clouds hung down from the ceiling, and suspended pretend raindrops the size of my palm hovered above the student desks. A large area rug, which covered one-third of the room, featured a detailed city map, complete with happy yellow buses traveling twisty asphalt roads. It even had a book nook with a mock rocket ship curtain door. The banner above the area said, “Reading Is a Blast.”

“Wow,” I said. “What a bunch of lucky kids. I wish I had a classroom like this growing up.”

Richard shuffled in through the open doorway and sat down at the teacher’s desk, munching on the strudel. “You didn’t see her room before?”

“I never had the time to. Oh, how cute,” I said, pointing to a lamp on the teacher’s desk in the shape of a yellow pencil. The rubber eraser served as the bottom of the light, while the top looked like a lead tip. As I peered closer, I realized that the cord lay wrapped around the base of the lamp. “But why is it unplugged?”

“I haven’t had time to replace it yet.”

Busted microwave, semi-functioning coffeepot . . . A lot of things didn’t work at the school. “What was wrong with the lamp?” I asked.

“The bulb broke,” Richard said.

Shattered glass. I traced the length of the yellow pencil up to its pointed tip, where a bulb could be screwed on. The lamp wobbled at my light touch. “Kinda flimsy.”

Richard nodded. “A hand-me-down.”

“Did you clean up the glass?” I asked.

“I swept up the big shards. Those twisty bulbs, when they shatter, get glass everywhere.”

Hmm. Despite Detective Brown’s assertion, maybe some extra-sharp glass splinters had somehow hurt Helen?

I studied the lamp again and noticed chunks of rubber missing from its underside. No wonder it had wobbled earlier. I also saw something written there in permanent marker: “Property of Room 13.” Interesting.

Richard pulled out his pocket watch. “Time to get going for the both of us. You need to teach, and I have to whittle down my long to-do list.” He ushered me out of Helen’s old classroom.

The janitor seemed like a kind but aging gentleman with a sweet tooth. I just hoped it wasn’t only an image he projected to others.

I said goodbye to him. As I walked down the hallways back to the front of the school, I made sure to pass by Room 13. Peeking through the window, I saw it housed a bunch of laptops. A computer lab.

Disappointing. I’d hoped it’d belonged to a teacher, especially one of those on my suspects list.

In the parking lot, I did spot two people I wanted to investigate further. I saw Amy, dressed in a gray twinset, dangling a lucky clover keychain in her hand. She approached the driver’s side window of a peach-colored sedan.

Based on the outline of the driver’s high ponytail, I figured it had to be Jessie in the car. I walked behind her vehicle to get to my Prius and noticed she had a vanity license plate. The shortened combination of letters and numbers looked like it spelled “Number 1 Teacher.”

How power-hungry had Jessie been to win the Teacher of the Year title? Enough to knock out the competition . . . permanently?