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Shandra sat in a corner of the multi-purpose room reading Travis’s poems. He saw so much, and yet, forgave even more. While she had several possibilities of who would want Travis to be found guilty, he never used names in the poems. She hoped Nancy would be able to help her discover who the people were.
She glanced up from reading as Ryan stepped through the side door.
“There you are,” he said, crossing the vinyl floor.
“What did you find out?” She’d thought about texting Ryan before she started reading but had decided to wait for him to catch up to her.
“Do you still have the clay head?” he asked, rather than answer her.
She studied him uncertain what that had to do with the bomb. “It’s still in the box in my Jeep.”
He held a hand out to her. “You’re sure?”
Shandra grasped his hand and he pulled her to her feet. “Why wouldn’t it be there?”
“Because the box on my step had a head like what you described to me and shredded paper of an online conversation.” He started to lead her away from the table.
“Wait. I need these papers.” She gathered Travis’s work together.
“What is that?” Ryan picked up one of the papers.
“Nancy wasn’t here to ask her which students had an issue with Travis. I asked Rachel who else might know and she sent me to his English teacher. These are poems Travis wrote in creative writing.” She folded the papers and put them in her purse.
“He sees a lot more than you’d think,” Ryan said, reading down the page in his hand.
“Yes. And there are several people who he’s written about who I could see causing him trouble.” She plucked the paper from Ryan’s hand and put it with the others.
They walked side-by-side toward the front of the building.
“Names.” Ryan asked, pulling out his notepad.
“I don’t know. He never uses names. I’m going to ask Nancy when she arrives after lunch.” They stepped out of the building and walked to the teacher parking.
Shandra stopped at her Jeep and pushed the unlock button on her key fob. The locks clicked up and she opened the back, passenger door. The minute she picked up the box she knew it was empty. The weight was too light.
Holding it in one hand, she opened the flaps and found nothing. “It’s gone. How?” She peered into Ryan’s eyes.
“Did you lock your vehicle after all the chaos last night?” Ryan took the box from her hands and tossed it back into the Jeep.
“I’m sure I did.” She thought a minute. “I had to unlock it to get in this morning.”
Ryan closed the back door and stepped to the driver’s. “See that mark there?” His finger hovered above a scratch about six inches down from the top of the door. “It looks like someone used a wedge to unlock the doors.” He pulled out his phone.
“Someone broke into my Jeep to get the head? No one knew I had it.” She stared at Ryan as he asked for a deputy to come dust Shandra’s driver’s door for fingerprints.
He hung up and studied her. “The Langes knew about the head. Did you tell anyone else what you found?”
She thought back to finding it, carrying it out to the Jeep, and going to the office for the Langes’ address. “No. But why would one of the Langes steal it and put it back on your step? I told them I was going to show it to you.”
“Maybe it was the person following you. If they knew you picked it up and followed you everywhere to see what you did with it and when you didn’t take it in the house thought you weren’t going to show me, decided to make sure I saw it.” Ryan led her back toward the school building.
“But they didn’t put it on your step until you’d left. It doesn’t make any sense.” She was even more confused than before. The bell buzzed, ending second period.
“I have to get to my class. Will you be here during the lunch hour?” She remained on the sidewalk waiting for an answer as students sifted out of both the main building and the Art Quad, flowing together and passing as they moved to their next class.
“I need to catch Jennifer in food services now, before she gets busy at lunch and then I need some class rosters. If I’m still around where will I find you?” He pushed her hair behind her ear as the last bell rang.
“I have to go. I’ll stay in my room.” She turned and headed to the Art Quad. This would be the first time since volunteering she wasn’t in the room to greet the students.
Ryan watched Shandra hurrying into the building. When she was inside, he returned to the main entrance and straight to the office window.
“Detective, I thought you’d be finished at the school by now,” the secretary said.
“I have one more person to question. Could you tell—”
She interrupted him, “Hasn’t your girlfriend been telling you all she’s asked about around here?”
He glared at the young woman. “What is the quickest route to the kitchen?”
The woman didn’t even blush. Her eyes flashed. “That door on the left side of the Math and Science hall.”
“Thank you.” He strode across the multi-purpose room and straight to the door. He opened it and walked into the middle of chaos.
Metal pans clanged, voices carried, and something whirred. The tang of tomato sauce and yeast hung in the air.
He tapped the first person he came to on the back.
It was a man of about fifty. He glanced over his shoulder, then did a double take. “You shouldn’t be in here.” he said.
“I’m Detective Greer. I’m looking for Jennifer Sabo.” Ryan showed his badge.
“She’s in the back. She’s the dessert princess.” The man nodded deeper into the room.
Ryan continued. He noticed two women, one in her thirties and one near retirement, talking as they put carrots and celery in little paper boats.
A younger woman stood at a counter with her back to the room. With the noise it was easy to walk up and observe her before he caught her attention.
She spread frosting on large pans of cake. Once one pan was frosted, she shook colored sprinkles across the top. When she started to pick up the spatula to spread another one, he tapped her on the shoulder.
“What do you need, Grace?” She caught sight of him and swung the spatula at his face.
Ryan ducked and held up his badge. “Whoa! I’m Detective Greer. I want to ask you some questions about Mr. Huntley.”
Her wide frightened eyes, grew wider. Her rapid breathing blew out in a hiss. “What do you want to know about that creep?” She swung the spatula up and down. “He used to sneak up on me just like that. Only he didn’t back up, he’d force me into a corner and...” She plunged the spatula into the frosting and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Grace, I’ll be back in five!” she hollered over the noise and nodded for Ryan to follow her.
She walked along the back wall to a door. It opened out into a courtyard between the two hallways. Classroom windows looked out into the courtyard. Benches and picnic tables dotted the pave stone area.
Jennifer sat at the table closest to the kitchen door. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry the creep is dead.”
Ryan pulled out his notebook. “I don’t expect you to. What I want to know is what you were doing Wednesday between twelve-thirty and one-thirty?”
“I was serving until twelve-thirty and then I went home. Because I do the desserts, I come in early to get them going and leave after we’ve finished serving.”
“How do you leave the kitchen and go to your car?” While the woman was answering his questions, he could tell she also knew what he was fishing for.
“I leave through this door and walk down to the end of the building and out to the parking lot.” She thrummed her fingers on the tables. “I haven’t gone anywhere near that art building any day I’ve worked here.”
“How did Mr. Huntley come to be in the kitchen?” Ryan wondered at the man’s knack for finding the women alone.
“I don’t know how he knew I would be alone the first time he came in. It was early. I’d only been to work for about thirty minutes and I felt a presence behind me. I turned, and he was leering at me. I asked him to leave. He said, that wasn’t any way to talk to someone who just wanted to meet me. He kept moving closer and closer and...” Her body shuddered. “It was creepy. Once he touched me, he closed down, and then disappeared. But I marched straight over to the office and filed a harassment complaint, and nothing came of it. He came in several more times, always the same, sneak up on me, back me in a corner and...touch me. Either brush a hand over my breast or rub his, his crotch against me and then disappear. But one night I’m sure I spotted him watching me from his car.”
Ryan nodded. He’d learned from the therapists Huntley had seen, he had frotteurism. A sexual disorder. “That seemed to be what he did to all his victims.”
She stared at him. “All his victims? You mean I wasn’t the only one?”
He hated to admit it, but it was what it was. “Yes.”
“And Mr. Pawner did nothing about it? Well applause to the woman who finally did do something about it.” Jennifer stood. “I really need to get back to work.”
“Why do you think it was a woman who killed him?”
“If there were more women at this school who felt as vulnerable working here as I did, someone must have cracked and decided they weren’t going to take it anymore.” Jennifer walked back into the kitchen. Ryan stood at the picnic table wondering that same thing. Who out of all the women Huntley had harassed had finally cracked and killed him?
He strolled down the courtyard and turned right, walking along the outside of the school. Did the woman really make this walk even in the middle of winter just to avoid seeing the deceased? He stepped onto the sidewalk and scanned the cars in the parking lot. Two rows back sat the car that had followed Shandra last night. It appeared the Lawrence twins drove the car to school. The one their mother admitted this morning was the kids’ car and they used it whenever they wanted. She’d also admitted that Lenny had gone out the night before to visit a friend.