Contrary to common belief, the presumption of innocence applies only inside a courtroom. It has no applicability elsewhere.
—Vincent Bugliosi
I SAT UPRIGHT in the bed so suddenly that my blanket, comforter, and throw pillows flew in every direction.
“The application!” I cried, clutching my head. “The job application!”
I was out of bed and in my robe when, seconds later, Aunt Sadie burst through the door without knocking.
“Pen! I heard you yelling all the way in the kitchen. Did you have a bad dream?”
“No, Aunt Sadie, I had a revelation.”
She touched my forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m great. But I have to ask you about something important.”
Sadie nodded.
“Yesterday you told us the story about how you hired Norma to work Sundays in our store. You said Norma filled out our standard application, the one you downloaded from Forms.com.”
“That’s right, she did. I think I still have it, down in the storeroom files—”
Suddenly my aunt’s eyes went wide behind her spectacles as she had the same revelation. “Oh my goodness, Norma must have written down—”
“The name and address of her next of kin!” I cried. “We may have had the information the police needed all along.”
“Should I call Eddie?”
I froze, wondering what Jack would advise. Unfortunately, he was still sleeping or resting or doing whatever it was he did to re-energize himself after the draining experience of conjuring a dream from the memories of his past life.
“Let’s make sure we have that application first,” I replied, avoiding the question for now.
“I’m going down to the shop to find it,” Sadie announced.
I poured myself some tea and began to serve up the slow-cooker steel-cut oats. As I was placing the bowls on the table, my son, Spencer, appeared.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi yourself.” I gave him the once-over, a busy mom’s version of a fast preflight check.
“You look good,” I concluded. “Sit down. The milk is already poured, and you have time for a helping of Aunt Sadie’s honey raisin oatmeal before the school bus arrives.”
Spencer didn’t reply. Only then did I notice the frown etched across his young face.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”
Spencer slumped into his chair and stared at the Crock-Pot in the middle of the table. He took his first bite of oatmeal and chewed, a pensive expression on his face. Finally, he ran one hand through his copper bangs and spoke.
“Mom, did you ever find out something bad about a person?”
Concerned now, I sat down in the chair beside his. “Sure, Spencer. People aren’t perfect.”
“Did you like that person?”
I thought of Norma, then my brain took a U-turn to another time, another person.
“I know people I like who may have done something bad,” I said softly. I may even have loved someone like that once, I thought but didn’t say. Instead, I hand-combed Spencer’s hair and said, “It hurts to find out people have feet of clay.”
Spencer blinked. “Is that like the cement shoes on the Shield of Justice show?”
“No, Spence. it’s just another way of saying nobody is perfect. It comes from the Book of Daniel, where a statue was described as appearing powerful and strong, made of gold, silver, and bronze, but the feet were made of clay. The base was so flimsy and weak, it was easily smashed, and the statue destroyed. In other words, everyone has flaws, even the people you admire.”
Spencer frowned and spooned up another bite. I could tell by his furrowed brow that my reply didn’t address his problem, so I took the direct approach.
“What’s up? You know you can tell me about it.”
“Well,” he began, “last week I heard Miss Merrimac tell the principal that someone was stealing her juice out of the refrigerator in the teachers’ lounge. She said the person drank her cranberry juice and left the empty bottle every couple of days. She told the principal she was diabetic and needed her juice, like for in an emergency or something.”
“I get it.”
“Anyway, later that day I snuck into the teachers’ lounge and took the empty bottle out of the trash—”
The subject of my son’s science project suddenly loomed large. “Oh, Spencer, you didn’t—”
“I lifted fingerprints off the glass,” he replied with pride. “Later that day I got Miss Merrimac’s fingerprints off her desk for a comparison, just like it says to do in all the books. They call it the process of elimination.”
I sighed, figuring what’s done is done. “And?”
“One set of prints belonged to Miss Merrimac, for sure. But I only found out who put the other print on the juice bottle yesterday. I was testing every teacher, and the very last one I checked was a match.”
“Who is it?”
Spencer’s frown deepened. “Mr. Burke.”
My heart sank just the way Spencer’s must have when he made his discovery. There weren’t many men teaching elementary school, and Alan Burke, who’d just taken the job a few months ago, had become Spencer’s favorite teacher in that short time. In fact, all the boys liked him. In an irony of ironies, it was Mr. Burke who had encouraged Spencer to enter the science fair.
I met Alan Burke at the first PTA meeting of the year, and he seemed like a smart young guy and a positive role model.
“I don’t get it, Mom. Miss Merrimac is diabetic. She needs her juice. How could Mr. Burke do that? It’s mean.”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“But his fingerprints are on the bottle. I kept the bottle in a paper bag to prove it—”
“Spencer, those fingerprints are what you call circumstantial evidence.”
“Huh?”
“All the teachers use the same refrigerator, right?”
My son nodded.
“Come on,” I coaxed, “you watched Jack Shield solve crimes. There are a lot of ways his fingerprints could have ended up on that bottle. Maybe Mr. Burke moved the juice out of the way to get his own lunch out of the refrigerator.”
Spencer brightened. “Or maybe someone is trying to frame him!”
“I wouldn’t go that far, honey, but it is quite possible he’s perfectly innocent of juice theft, which I am sure is a misdemeanor.”
“Then I shouldn’t tell anyone?”
“No,” I said. “What if you’re wrong? Then you’d only cause hard feelings. I doubt Mr. Burke would be pleased to be accused of misdemeanor juice snatching by one of his favorite students.”
I paused to let that sink in. “There’s a lesson here, Spencer. Don’t accuse anyone of a crime unless you’re absolutely sure of their guilt.”
Spencer actually smiled—but it was his crafty smile, the one he got right before he pulled a prank on his pal Amy. If that didn’t set off my alarm bells, what he said next certainly did.
“That’s it!” he cried. “I should try to find out who’s guilty and prove it to everyone. Maybe I can catch them in the act!”
“Spencer, I don’t think you should—”
A loud horn from the street below interrupted me.
“The bus is here!” Spencer cried, jumping out of his chair and snatching his backpack from the floor. “Bye, Mom!”
“We’re not done talking about this!” I called after him. “Don’t do anything until we do!”
He either didn’t hear me or pretended he didn’t. Either way, he was off to school, and I was suddenly off to the races. No sooner did my son depart than my aunt entered the kitchen, triumphantly waving a piece of paper.
“What is it?” I asked.
With a grin, she told me what she’d found.
Norma the Nomad’s job application.