Mother's Day, Muffins, and Murder Read online

  “I’m not following,” Mrs. Kirk said.

  “The trash can,” Gabrielle said, her voice triumphant. “It was one of those big ones—you know, the thirty-gallon ones on wheels, like the kind in the cafeteria. It was right here by the door. Where is the trash can now?”

  Mrs. Kirk blinked a few times. “Klea probably moved it to the cafeteria,” she said gently, referring to the one of the school’s janitors. With her cap of curly dark hair and a quick smile, Klea was a familiar sight around the school. I’d met her a few years ago when I’d helped with the annual book sale, which had been held in the library. Setup had involved rearranging furniture to make room for the book displays. Klea had helped me pack away the unneeded tables and chairs from the library and found space to store them at the back of the stage, which filled one side of the cafeteria. (For plays and events, the cafeteria could be turned into a makeshift auditorium.) Klea and I, along with a few other moms, had lugged tables and chairs up the stairs to the stage for a couple of hours. She could have left the moving of everything to us, but she’d pitched in and helped. I’d also met with Klea two weeks ago for an organizing consultation. I made a mental note to check in with her today and see if she’d made a decision about whether or not to hire me.

  Gabrielle looked mulish. “I know what I saw. It was here.”

  “I’m sure you thought you saw something,” Mrs. Kirk said in a soothing tone, one that I’d heard her use with especially upset kindergarteners during the first week of a new school year. “But whatever you saw, it’s not there now. Let’s go back to the office. We can talk there.” Mrs. Kirk motioned for Gabrielle to release the door.

  Gabrielle didn’t look happy, but she let the door close and followed Mrs. Kirk back to the office. I fell into step beside Gabrielle, consulting my phone as I walked. I still had time to get to my appointment if I left now. Gabrielle must have been imagining things. I’d learned that she was a bit prone to exaggeration. She must have seen a shadow . . . or something . . . and jumped to the conclusion that it was a body.

  Mrs. Kirk went into the main office, and Gabrielle was about to follow Mrs. Kirk into her separate office at the back of the room when she noticed that I’d peeled off from their little group. I swiveled the mouse and waited for the screen to come up so I could check out, another requirement for all visitors to the school campus.

  “Ellie, what are you doing?” Gabrielle saw the checkout screen load, and she widened her eyes. “You can’t leave now. We have to figure out what happened.”

  “Gabrielle, I have an appointment with a client in twenty minutes.” Gabrielle was a businesswoman and I figured she—of all people—would understand that I needed to leave. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Kirk was inside her separate office, then turned back to me and whispered, “You heard Mrs. Kirk. She doesn’t believe me. She spoke to me like I was a pre-K kid who’d had a bad dream during naptime. I can’t have her thinking I’m . . . losing it. I need to stay in good standing with the school district. You know how much bad word of mouth can hurt an organizer.”

  I sighed. She was worried. I could see it in her strained expression. And I’d learned a while back that even though Gabrielle presented a tough and confident exterior to the world, she had issues—and some of them had been financial issues. As much as I would have liked to have landed the organizing contract with the school, I knew she needed it and I wouldn’t want to see her in a precarious financial position.

  “And there’s your kids,” Gabrielle continued. “They go to school here. Don’t you want to make sure everything is really okay?” she asked, sensing that I was wavering.

  “Of course I want to make sure they’re safe, but like Mrs. Kirk said, there’s nothing in the storage closet.”

  “You saw me seconds after I looked in there. Did I look like someone who’d imagined . . . a body?” She lowered her voice as she said the last two words and looked out of the corner of her eye at Peg. She had been sitting motionless at her desk on the other side of the counter, but suddenly became very busy, quickly unwinding the string that held an interoffice envelope closed.

  “No, you didn’t.” Gabrielle had looked truly shaken to the core.

  I picked up my phone and called my client, asking if I could reschedule. I could tell from her voice that she wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but she did agree that we could reschedule for next week.

  I ended the call and followed Gabrielle into Mrs. Kirk’s office. She had an insulated carafe on a credenza and handed us each a cup of coffee, then waved us into chairs across from her desk before closing the door on Peg’s curious gaze.

  “We should call the police,” Gabrielle said.

  Mrs. Kirk sat down behind her desk and sipped her own coffee before saying, “I know you’ve been putting in quite a few hours on the organizing project, Mrs. Matheson. You could probably use a break. I think you should take the rest of the day off.”

  Gabrielle shook her head and looked briefly at me in amazement before turning back to Mrs. Kirk. “I don’t need time off. We need—”

  “To find that body,” Mrs. Kirk said. “Yes, I understand that’s your concern. But what would you suggest we tell the police? You saw for yourself that there is nothing for them to investigate in the storage closet.”

  “Well, then it must have been moved.”

  “Where?” Mrs. Kirk set her coffee down. “Where could it have been moved that it wouldn’t have been noticed? I did think there might be some sort of prank going on when I went to look in the storage room after you told me what you thought you saw. When it was empty, I checked the bathrooms on this hallway as well as the other storage closet in the next hallway. As you know, that is the only other storage closet we have. There was nothing out of place. Every classroom we have is in use, and the cafeteria as well as the library and the gym are open and staffed at this time of day. There are very few quiet, disused places here. If there were a body on this campus, I assure you, Mrs. Matheson, we would have heard about it by now.”

  I took a small sip of my coffee. It wasn’t my favorite drink, but I didn’t want to be impolite. I thought that while Mrs. Kirk was mostly right, there were a few places that weren’t always bustling, like the gloomy backstage area. And each classroom had storage closets, but I didn’t suppose we could go from room to room and search without alarming the students. Mrs. Kirk didn’t look like she’d allow it.

  Gabrielle seemed to be winding up to continue arguing her point, but Mrs. Kirk looked immovable. I put my coffee cup down on the edge of the desk and said, “Perhaps we could check and make sure all the teachers and staff are accounted for?” I looked at Gabrielle. “You thought it—the body—was an adult, right? You said it was a woman, didn’t you?”

  Gabrielle nodded, her gaze fixed absently on the desk. “Yes. It was definitely a woman. I just—knew.” She suddenly looked up. “There was a ring on one of the fingers. Not a wedding band. It was silver with a large dark stone. Maybe it was green. I’m not sure. But it was feminine. The stone was a big oval, maybe half an inch long. A man wouldn’t wear something like that. And the arm was thin and didn’t have any hair on it.”

  “You couldn’t see a sleeve?”

  “No.”

  “So.” I looked toward Mrs. Kirk. “Would it be possible for you to check and make sure everyone is accounted for—all the teachers and staff? That would make Gabrielle feel better, right?”

  Gabrielle looked as if she was about to argue, but I kicked her foot, and she nodded after a second.

  Mrs. Kirk seemed to be suppressing a sigh, but then she said, “Yes. We can do that.” She stood and walked around her desk. As she opened the door and spoke to Peg, Gabrielle leaned toward me and said in a whisper, “That’s a start, but you know as well as I do that there are places in this building where someone could stash a body.”

  “Let’s make sure everyone is accounted for first,” I said in an undertone.

  Mrs. Kirk returned to the
office. “Peg says that we have only one substitute today. Mrs. Patel is out.” Mrs. Kirk sat down and brought up a file on her computer, then dialed a phone number. After a few seconds, she said, “Mrs. Patel, this is Mrs. Kirk. Sorry to bother you today. We’ve had a bit of a mix-up here in the office and I just needed to speak with you to confirm that you’re out today.... Yes, the substitute is here and everything is fine.... Okay. We will see you tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Kirk hung up the phone. “She’s traveling to her son’s graduation ceremony in Florida.”

  “What about the staff?” Gabrielle said quickly, as she glanced over her shoulder to the empty desk in the office. “What about . . . Mary, isn’t it? Where is she?”

  “It’s Marie,” Mrs. Kirk said. “She’s on vacation.” She didn’t bother to disguise her sigh this time. “I’d rather not bother her, but I can see that you’re quite determined to track down everyone.” She consulted her computer again and dialed another number.

  “Marie. It’s Mrs. Kirk,” she said, shooting a rather disapproving glance at Gabrielle. “Sorry to bother you, but I needed to check on when you’ll be back in the office.... Monday? Excellent. That’s what I thought, but I didn’t have a note of it here. How is your vacation? Oh, that’s a pity. I hope it clears up for you soon.... All right. See you next week.”

  Mrs. Kirk replaced the phone. “She’s on Jekyll Island, waiting out a thunderstorm.”

  Peg appeared in the doorway. “If you’re checking on the staff as well as the teachers, everyone is here, except for Klea. I just got a text from her saying she didn’t feel well and was going home. Vaughn said he can cover for her for the rest of the day.”

  Mrs. Kirk shook her head impatiently. “Put it in the system, then. Klea never has liked using the computerized personnel system.”

  As Peg stepped away from the door, Gabrielle said, “And what about the moms who were here today? How can you be sure that they’re all . . . okay?”

  Mrs. Kirk tapped a few keys and studied her monitor. “The only people who signed in this morning before the first bell who haven’t signed out are you and Mrs. Avery. And before you say someone could have signed out another person . . .” She swiveled her chair and looked out the windows behind her desk, which overlooked the front of the school. “The overflow lot is almost empty. I see only two extra cars, which I suspect are yours and Mrs. Avery’s. So I do believe we can rest assured that all visitors to the campus have left . . . except you and Mrs. Avery.”

  Mrs. Kirk linked her fingers together and placed them on her desk. “As you can see, everyone is accounted for. No need to worry. Now, Mrs. Matheson, I do think you should take a break.”

  Gabrielle stood up. “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly do that. I have too much to do. I know you think I’m imagining things, but I assure you I did see a body. I can’t explain what happened to it, but I know what I saw.” She gave a sharp nod of her head and left the office.

  Mrs. Kirk leaned over her desk and said in a low voice, “She told me yesterday that she would finish today by noon. Can you keep an eye on her for a bit this morning?”

  “As it works out, my schedule is clear, so yes.”

  I caught up with Gabrielle in the lobby. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  She crossed to the little nook where the janitors had their office. “Look around.”

  “What about implementing your de-cluttering plan?”

  “That will have to wait.” She tapped on the door, then opened it. The little office was empty. A messy desk filled one side of the room and a short section of lockers covered the wall opposite the desk. A few scruffy plastic chairs and a small, round table with some books and papers filled the remaining space in the center of the room. “Nothing here. Let’s check the workroom next.”

  I didn’t argue with her or try to talk her out of her search. I knew her well enough to know that nothing short of an act of God—something like a hurricane or tornado—would slow her down. And I did want to be completely confident that everything was okay at the school.

  The workroom contained two copy machines, a set of cubbyholes stocked with papers in a rainbow of shades, and a long table with staplers, pens, and sticky notepads ranging over it. I had spent many hours in this room copying and collating for various teachers. It didn’t take long to confirm the room was empty. Next door, the teachers’ lounge with its scattering of tables and chairs was also deserted.

  We entered the cafeteria, which was already filled with the smell of ground beef and spices. The long rows of tables were empty and no one popped out of the kitchen to ask us what we were doing as we made our way up the stairs at the side of the stage. The red curtains were open, but the main lights weren’t on. “There’s a switch over here,” I said, and found the panel on the wall. I flicked on a few. Gabrielle took stage right, and I took stage left. There was nothing but stacks of extra chairs on my side. We met in the middle of the area behind the back curtain and poked around, checking behind the scenery leftover from the first-grade play, a couple of trees painted on plywood, and a five-foot-high house that looked like so many of Livvy and Nathan’s simple line drawings that they’d made when they were in pre-school.

  “Nothing here,” I said.

  “I know.” Gabrielle’s hands were on her hips. She surveyed the area once more. “On to the gym.”

  “Mrs. Morrison isn’t going to let us look in the storage room in the gym,” I said.

  “She will if I tell her I need to see them for my organizing project,” Gabrielle said.

  And Mrs. Morrison did. In fact, she handed over her keys and said, “I have to get out on the field. It’s a tee ball day,” before disappearing out the open double doors.

  As Gabrielle took the keys, she must have caught the disapproving expression on my face.

  “It’s not a total lie,” Gabrielle said as she unlocked the door. “I am working on another proposal for the school district and need to do a survey of a typical school. This is a typical school. I hadn’t planned to do the survey today, but I can do it now instead of next week.”

  Gabrielle threw open the doors to the gym’s storage room. A quick circuit of the room revealed nothing more than rolling racks of basketballs, portable netted goals for soccer, miniature orange cones, Hula-Hoops, and vests for playing capture the flag. It was the same situation in the library, except the librarian, Mrs. Roberts, unlocked the door to the storage room herself and watched us as we surveyed boxes, rolled-up posters, and a few dusty stacks of books with damaged spines or wavy, water-damaged pages. “Perhaps you’d like a notepad?” she asked, a thread of suspicion in her voice.

  Gabrielle smiled brightly at her as she said, “I use my phone,” and proceeded to take pictures of the room.

  As we left the library, Gabrielle caught sight of the school’s other janitor in the hallway. “Vaughn, could you unlock the records room for us? I just need to take a quick peek. It’s for more organizing stuff.”

  Vaughn didn’t seem to think the request was odd. In his fifties, he was a big, broad-shouldered man, pudgy around the middle, with thinning gray hair. We followed his lumbering stride down the hall to the main lobby, where the door to the records room was located, adjacent to the door to the main office. His hefty key ring tinkled like jingle bells as he spun it in the lock. He opened the door and stepped back, then waited for us to have a look around.

  The fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating four rows of filing cabinets. Gabrielle snapped a few photos. We both walked the aisles, then exited the room.

  “Thank you, Vaughn. That was very helpful,” Gabrielle said. Vaughn shrugged a shoulder as he relocked the door, then clipped the key ring to a belt loop and ambled away. He wasn’t nearly as personable as Klea, I thought, glad that she had been the one to help with the book sale setup.

  Gabrielle eyed a classroom door. “If only we could get into the classrooms . . .”

  “No, Gabrielle,” I said, using the firm tone that I took with the kid
s when I absolutely wouldn’t let them do something. “That is where I draw the line. We’ve looked everywhere we can. There is no way Mrs. Kirk would approve of you going from classroom to classroom.”

  Gabrielle scowled at me.

  “You do want to keep your organizing contact with the school, right?” I asked. “Disturbing every classroom would really tick off Mrs. Kirk, I can promise you that.”

  She sighed. “I know. You’re right. But what if some poor teacher opens her storage closet door and a body tumbles out? Think of the trauma to the kids. It would be awful.”

  “It would be terrible, but I think you’ve got to let it go. Since nothing has happened so far, I think we can probably assume . . . it . . . the body . . . whatever it was . . . wasn’t moved to a classroom.” I tried to keep the doubt out of my voice, but she zeroed in on it.

  “I know you’re thinking that I hallucinated or something, and you’ve been humoring me, but I didn’t imagine it.”

  “Okay, let’s say it was a body, and it was moved,” I said. “Why would someone move it to a classroom? It would probably be discovered very quickly, if that were the case. I think the areas we’ve just searched, the out-of-the-way places, would be a much more likely place to leave a body, and we didn’t find anything.”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes for a second, then snapped them open. “Okay. Have it your way. We’ll stop. But if some poor kid is scarred for life, it’s your fault. I guess I better try and do some actual work, although I have no idea how I’ll be able to concentrate. You’re so lucky that you’re just a part-time organizer. At least all you’ve got to worry about is end-of-year parties and Teacher Appreciation Week.”

  I gritted my teeth and went to the office to sign out.

  * * *

  I negotiated through the car circle’s double one-way pickup lines at the school that afternoon, stopping even with the front doors of the school when it was finally my turn. As Mrs. Kirk slid open the van’s door, the walkie-talkie she held in her hand crackled with static, then a voice stated that bus number twelve was departing.