Chapter 30
Gin sat in an easy chair at right angles to the couch, where I had my feet curled up, each of us with one of the four yearbooks she’d brought. She’d accepted a glass of wine.
“Where’s your main man?” she asked.
“Baking for a big event tomorrow, and his assistant is sick.”
She nodded and gestured at the yearbooks on the coffee table. “Tonight, this seems to make less sense than it did earlier,” she said. “What do you think we should look for?”
“We already know both Uly and Edwin went to Westham High, and both had conflicts with Mr. Byrne. I don’t know, maybe scan for pictures of one or both with him? Or maybe a candid showing anger or another strong emotion.” I scrunched up my nose. “You might be right. Yearbooks won’t have snapshots of fistfights or a teacher sneering at a student.”
“It’s worth a shot. Which year do you have?”
I held it up.
“That’s their freshman year,” Gin said. “I’ll begin with Lucy’s senior year, and we can meet in the middle.”
“And then swap. I’m sure we’ll each see different things.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I started paging through. The book, which smelled of paper and ink, began with the usual portraits of the administration, the staff, and the faculty. I paused at the photo of Mr. Byrne and examined it. The picture was less than ten years old, and he didn’t look that different than he had when I’d seen him—except for being dead. The teacher held a pointer in one hand and a dry-erase marker in the other. He looked as if he’d just turned toward the camera from the whiteboard, on which was written an underlined Homework. The photographer must have told him to smile, and he had, but it was lackluster, bordering on a frown. Exactly like twenty years ago.
The senior class came next, with senior pictures taken the summer before and those stupid popularity awards like Most Likely to Succeed and Best Dancer.
I examined every page. Byrne was in only a few candid shots. When I came to the freshman class individual photos, I first saw Uly Cabral. Nobody looks great in ninth grade, particularly not skinny boys with braces. Edwin Germain’s face was on the same page. His hair was shaggy and half obscured his eyes, his cheeks were smooth and still boyish, and he didn’t smile for the camera. Gin’s daughter, Lucy, on the other hand, had wavy hair on her shoulders, a V-necked top, makeup, and a big smile.
“Whoa,” Gin said. “You’re going to want to see this.” She extended the open senior-year book toward me and pointed. The photograph showed the Rainbow Club. A group of boys and girls posed in front of and atop a stone wall. Two girls were kissing, and two boys held hands. Mr. Byrne stood in the periphery as if he’d been passing by and glared at the students.
“This looks like what we used to call the Gay-Straight Alliance,” I said.
“Right, except now it’s called the Rainbow Club. But it was Lucy’s senior year, when everybody signs each other’s yearbook at the end of the year. Check out that comment in the margin.”
Someone had used purple ink to write “Gay-phobe” in a circle with an arrow pointing to Byrne.
“Wow,” I said. One of the kids caught my attention. I peered at a skinny guy with one pierced ear, hair shaved up the sides but long on top in a classic fade, and a big braces-free grin. “That looks like Uly. I wonder if he’s gay.”
“It does look like him. If this is the current incarnation of the Gay-Straight Alliance, anybody can join.”
“True. Can you ask Lucy about Uly’s preferences?”
Gin tilted her head. “Does it matter?”
“It might.” I filled her in on what Norland had said about a link between Byrne’s wife and Yvonne, and his thought that it might have been a romantic relationship. “If it was and Byrne found out, he could have been furious. I mean, he might have already had homophobic tendencies, but that would have notched it up a level.”
“And we all know how gentle Byrne was to students who were different.” She gave a snort. “Not.”
We both went back to our paging through the smooth, shiny paper of the books. After the four years of class photos came the clubs and the sports teams. I flipped past the Garden and Landscape Club, then turned back. Mr. Byrne apparently was the faculty adviser for the group. While I was a student, I wouldn’t have been aware of the club’s adviser. I’d never had the slightest urge to put my hands in the dirt. The students each held a shovel or a trowel, and Byrne beamed at them.
“Did you ever once see Mr. Byrne smile?” I asked Gin.
“Never.”
“Take a look at this.” I showed her the page.
“Amazing. He must have liked growing things.”
“I guess. My mom said he was the chair of the UU building and grounds committee, so that fits. The kids in that club might have been the only ones in the history of the school who saw his good side.”
“I think that kid standing apart is Edwin Germain.” Gin pointed. “Isn’t it?”
“You’re right. I hadn’t spotted him. Same shaggy hair, baby-faced cheeks as in his class picture. He doesn’t look happy to be there, though.” If he didn’t like being in the club, why had he shown up for the picture?
I finished paging through the freshman yearbook and sat back.
Uly’s resentment against Byrne might have been festering for years. He could have seized an opportunity to get back at the teacher in the most final of ways. Except if the method of death was poison, that wasn’t a spontaneous crime. Spur-of-the-moment murders involved beating over the head, strangling, stabbing, pushing the victim over a cliff. A restaurant kitchen shouldn’t have a lot of toxins lying around, except for cleaning supplies.
“Gin, do you feel like the group isn’t communicating as well about this homicide?”
“Now that you mention it, yes. On the other hand, it’s high season for all of us. Everybody’s super busy.”
“True.” I took a sip of my wine. “Today I asked Zane if he’d learned anything about Uly, and he got weird.”
“Weird how?” Gin asked.
“I don’t know, kind of evasive. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. But then, he had customers and couldn’t talk any more. Also, Flo is usually on top of her action items. I haven’t heard a word from her about Byrne.”
“Interesting. She’s, like, the only one who isn’t flooded with summer business, too.”
“Exactly. Plus Norland. He, at least, told me about the thing with Byrne’s wife, but I didn’t get a chance to ask if he’d turned up anything on Yvonne.”
Gin raised a hand. “I’m supposed to be digging into Carl, but so far, I’ve come up emptier than the calories in a bag of sugar. And it’s mostly because I haven’t dedicated the time.”
“I hear you. Listen, after I saw Zane today, I happened to run into Carl on the sidewalk.”
Gin grinned. “Sure, you did.”
“It’s true. He had a reaction when I mentioned Byrne’s name, and I tried to find out how they knew each other. All he would say is that they went way back. And then I mentioned the next Chamber gathering. He basically said he wouldn’t be there.”
“So noted. You should group-text that stuff.”
“I will,” I said. “Can you add what we saw in the yearbooks?”
“Sure.”
“Speaking of the yearbooks, maybe we should get back to them.” I couldn’t help yawning.
“Or not.” Gin closed hers. “We’ve picked up a few bits about Bruce. I’m tired, too.” She drained her glass and stood. “But maybe we should have a group meeting tomorrow night.”
I groaned out loud.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“I can’t. I was supposed to make dinner for Tim tonight—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened to Never-Cooks Mackenzie Almeida?”
I laughed. “I can try, right? But anyway, I postponed my gourmet gala meal until tomorrow, because Tim was already gone when I arrived.”
“The Cozy Capers should meet soon and catch up with each other’s info in person.”
“I know, but for me it’ll have to be Friday. Happy hour somewhere?”
“As long as it’s not in the Rusty Anchor.” She raised her eyebrows. “Plus, you know they can’t call it Happy Hour, right?”
“I know. It’s illegal, and we have to call it Not Happy Hour. Same difference.”
I hoped Tim would be home soon. What I really wanted to do was have a happy few minutes curled up in his arms. He would tell me all his worries, and I could forget about murder for an evening.