The Skeleton Paints a Picture: A Family Skeleton Mystery (#4) Page 23

  Renee was making a mad dash to escape, but the footing was treacherous, and more than once she went down only to pop back up again. In the meantime, the tractor was slowly gaining on her, and finally she turned and aimed her gun at the driver.

  The tractor braked, and the driver stepped off and went toward her.

  “Stay right there! Stop!” she yelled.

  The driver ignored her.

  There were gunshots, spaced too closely together for me to count, but she soon ran out of ammunition. The driver stopped just a few feet from where Renee was still pulling the trigger, slowly pulled down his hood, peeled off a ski mask, and let it fall to the ground.

  Even from a distance, I could tell Renee had drawn in breath as if to scream, but instead she slid to the ground in a dead faint.

  The driver turned, and of course it was Sid, but the expression on his skull was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I almost recoiled myself, but the fury was gone in a second, and it was Sid’s smiling face again. He grabbed the gun and my satchel from Renee, and trotted toward us.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Who is that?” Dahna said and twisted under me. I pushed harder to keep her face to the snowy ground.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Sid.

  “I think she nicked a rib, but chicks dig guys with scars. Let’s get you untied.”

  “Renee’s got a knife you can use.”

  “She’s lucky I don’t use it on her,” he said, with just a shadow of his previous intensity. He started back in her direction, but the sound of sirens sliced through the night. Somebody must have heard the gunshots.

  “Go!” I said, and Sid dropped my bag and Renee’s gun and ran for it.

  It was a few minutes before the police reached us, and I wasn’t overly surprised to see Officer Buchanan leading the pack. They got me off of Dahna, who was still cowering on the ground, cut me free, and cuffed her. After that I lost track of exactly what was happening in the incredible confusion as the combination of relief, adrenaline crash, cold, and bone-tiredness caught up with me. I started to wobble, and two police officers had to stop me from keeling over.

  “I better get Dr. Thackery inside,” Officer Buchanan said. “And somebody can take Doctors Turner and Kaleka to the station.”

  Renee was stonily maintaining her right to silence, but Dahna resisted the officer taking her away long enough to say, “Georgia, you must tell them. I am not a killer. It was Renee who killed Kelly. You must tell them.”

  I just glared at her. “Would you have cried at my funeral the way you did at Kelly’s?”

  She just stared at me.

  “Get that ossifying piece of sacrum out of my sight,” I said and turned my back on her.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Officer Buchanan insisted I get into the ambulance that had shown up to go get checked out at the hospital, and since my head was pounding, I didn’t argue with her. The EMTs were all business, and so were the people at the emergency room, but I could tell that there was a lot of gossip about the case going on behind the curtains surrounding my bed. A doctor quickly determined that while I had a mild concussion, no stitches would be required for the big goose egg on my head. My wrists and ankles were rubbed raw and I had a wide variety of bruises, but there was no sign of frostbite or any other permanent damage from being in an unheated building for so long. The combination of pain meds and finally feeling warm again, thanks to a heated blanket, put me to sleep almost before the doctor finished her diagnosis. I woke briefly as I was being moved from the ER to a regular room, and at various points when nurses came in during the night, but by the time I woke up all the way, it was daylight.

  Mr. Perkins was sitting in a chair next to my bed, reading.

  “Good morning, Dr. Thackery,” he said cheerfully.

  “Good morning,” I responded automatically.

  “I hope you don’t mind my being here, but Professor Waldron had a commitment she had to keep and tasked me with making sure that you were recovering from your ordeal.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Not at all. Is there anything you need?”

  “Is my phone handy?”

  “Of course.” He handed me my satchel and added, “I believe it is in here. I heard several alert buzzes from it earlier.”

  I’d received a slew of messages from Sid from before he rescued me. He’d started texting about an hour after I was attacked to see if I’d made it home okay, and had kept doing so with increasing urgency. The last text said that he was coming to look for me. He hadn’t texted again since. I told myself it only meant that he’d left his phone somewhere or he’d run the battery down, and there was nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, I didn’t entirely convince myself.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I do need to go to the restroom, but…”

  “For that, I shall summon a nurse.” He stepped out, and though I expected to have to wait for attention, a nurse arrived promptly to help me get up and go to the bathroom. I was stiff and a little sore, but otherwise fine, and the nurse promised to rustle up something for me to eat, which sounded better than any medicine at that point.

  Mr. Perkins returned once I was back in bed and decently covered, and wonder of wonders, he had a cup of coffee for me. “Black, if I remember correctly.”

  “Mr. Perkins, you are the best department secretary at FAD.” I took a sip and added, “In fact, you’re the best department secretary of any college in the United States.”

  He allowed himself a smile of satisfaction.

  “I understand you’re waiting for breakfast,” he said, “but if you’re up to it, I would appreciate an explanation of last night’s events. Professor Waldron is most anxious to hear.”

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing more of that story myself,” said Officer Buchanan, who’d opened my door without knocking or making any noise whatsoever. Now that she knew I hadn’t killed Kelly, I shouldn’t have been bothered by that, but I still found the woman uncanny.

  To give myself a chance to weigh whether or not I should hold anything back other than the obvious Sid-related bits, I took a big sip of coffee, but by the time I swallowed, I’d decided to be frank and open. Mostly.

  I started with learning about Kelly’s investigation, which I attributed to finding the pictures in the file combined with conversations with Indigo and Marissa. Officer Buchanan wanted to know why I hadn’t come to her.

  “One, I had no proof and didn’t know who the art thief was. Two, I didn’t want to hurt FAD’s reputation until I was sure somebody on campus was involved. And three, I had the distinct impression that you suspected me of killing Kelly and would have considered anything I said to be dubious.”

  She chuckled. “Well, I did believe some of your answers about the night you found Ms. Griffith’s body were less than forthcoming, but people lie to the police all the time for all kinds of reasons, most of which aren’t criminal. Just in case, I checked you out with my colleagues in Pennycross, and they said your family is pretty respectable and they’d be mighty surprised if you were doing anything like killing anybody. In fact, a Sergeant Raymond said you had a habit of stumbling onto crimes, which you then solved. I thought if I made you nervous enough, you might do the same here.”

  “Excuse me? You sent me after a killer?” I was going to give my sister an earful about her boyfriend Louis Raymond telling tales on me, too.

  “It seems to me that you made your own decisions and went into it with your eyes open.”

  “Well, maybe. But if you were so sure that Kelly was murdered, why didn’t you investigate yourself?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “No, no, you do not get to be enigmatic and mysterious anymore.”

  She chuckled again, but it was more rueful this time. “Fair enough. The fact is, I felt like there was something about that accident that didn’t ring true, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was,
and my chief didn’t buy it. I even told him about Kelly’s investigation, but he just didn’t see how stolen pictures could lead to murder.”

  “Wait, you knew about the art theft?”

  “Not the details, but that she was investigating. You remember Kelly and I lived in the same apartment complex? When she got started with this mess, she came to me for advice, but I had to tell her that even if stealing designs was against the law, it wasn’t really a police matter the way stealing an actual painting would be. Once she found evidence of the plagiarism, the victim could take it to court and sue for infringement, but unless somebody stole a physical object, there wasn’t much I could do.”

  “And you didn’t think that had anything to do with her death?”

  “Of course I did. Which is what I told my chief, but there wasn’t the first shred of evidence that Kelly’s death was anything but an accident. I wasn’t lying when I said I was waiting for the blood test results. Which have returned, by the way. Nothing showed in the standard tox screen, but after that character Deen tried to drug you with GHB, I had them test for that and a few other nasties, and sure enough, Kelly had been drugged. Now, you go on and tell me how you figured out who it was.”

  My breakfast arrived, so the rest of my story was punctuated with bites of cheese omelet, fresh fruit, and toast. I was glad of it, because as I got closer to the end, it got harder to avoid mentioning my sleuthing partner, and I needed the extra time to think.

  I started by explaining why I started looking at my fellow adjuncts. “The name ‘Scarlet Letter’ was the clue. FAD treats us adjuncts pretty well—”

  Mr. Perkins cleared his throat.

  “In fact,” I said, “they treat us better than any place I’ve ever worked. If they’d give us enough hours to qualify for benefits, it would be just about perfect.” He could clear his throat about that all he wanted. “It’s different at a lot of other schools. I’ve been at some where the tenured professors barely acknowledged our existence, and—” I stopped. “Sorry, it’s a sore spot, and not really relevant right now. The point is, I remembered a school where my parking pass was marked with a big red A.”

  “A scarlet letter,” Officer Buchanan said.

  “Or A for adjunct.” I explained Sid’s spreadsheet magic as if it’d been my own doing. “It turned out that the only adjunct who’d been at all five schools was Dahna. So she had to be the thief.”

  “But not the killer?” Officer Buchanan said.

  “That’s right, though I didn’t know that then. I’d been assuming they were one and the same, but the pieces didn’t fit together quite the way I’d expected. As far as I can tell from things Renee and Dahna said last night, Dahna got the idea to steal T-shirt designs when she was dating Jeremy and went to him to get help with graphics. When they broke up, they stayed partners in the plagiarism business, even after he and Renee got engaged.”

  Officer Buchanan said, “Dr. Turner is pretty insistent that her fiancé never knew that the design ideas Dahna brought to him were stolen.”

  “I think she’s fooling herself. Maybe Jeremy didn’t know at first, but the later Scarlet Letter designs were so close to the originals that it’s hard for me to believe that he never saw them, no matter what he told Renee. At any rate, Renee heard the gossip about Kelly investigating art theft, and realized that Jeremy could lose his job. When it was just an adjunct job, she was willing to accept that he and Dahna were hiding their tracks. But then tenure for Jeremy came into the equation, and an opportunity like that was too valuable to risk. So Kelly had to go.”

  “She says her fiancé didn’t know about that, either.”

  “That I’m willing to believe. From the way we—” I faked a cough and took a swallow of orange juice. “From the way I worked out the murder, Renee could have handled it all by herself.” I explained how Sid and I thought it had been done.

  “So you had the method and the motive, and thought you had the killer. Why didn’t you call me then?”

  “Because there was still no proof. Then the stuff with Owen happened, and I wasn’t so sure anymore. It took a while for me to convince myself that Owen wasn’t the thief and unfortunately, I let that slip in front of Renee. So she decided she had to take care of me, too, and convinced Dahna to help her. I don’t know if Dahna realized that Renee intended to kill Kelly, but I’m sure she figured it out afterward.” Which explained her unexpected tears at the memorial service—it had been guilt, not sorrow. “And of course, she was perfectly willing to kill me.”

  “But somebody rescued you last night. Any idea of who that could have been?”

  “He was on a school snowblower, wasn’t he? I thought he was part of the maintenance staff.”

  “No, the maintenance people have all been accounted for, and the shed where the snowblower was stored had been broken into.”

  “Then maybe a student pulling some sort of prank. The cars in the parking lot were all buried in snow, you know.”

  “We saw that, and we thought of a student, but nobody’s come forward. And you didn’t get a good look at the guy?”

  “No, I never saw his face. What did Renee say?”

  “She said it was somebody wearing a ski mask, with a skull mask under that.”

  “It must have been a good one to make her faint like that,” I said with a hint of malice. I’d really enjoyed seeing Renee pass out. “All I know is that the guy took off right about the time we heard the sirens—I never even got a chance to thank him.”

  “And I’m guessing that even if you did know which student it was, you wouldn’t want to get him into trouble anyway, under the circumstances.”

  “Well, he had just saved my life.”

  Officer Buchanan and Mr. Perkins both wanted me to elaborate on a few things, which I was willing to do. I thought I was doing a good job hiding the fact that I had a partner until the very end.

  “That seems to cover everything,” Officer Buchanan said as she put her pad away. “There’s just one little detail. I know doggoned well that somebody has been at that bungalow with you. I’ve seen movement in there during the day and way more tracks in the snow than one person would leave.”

  “Then you’re the one who’s been spying on me! We—” I faked another cough that fooled nobody. “I was scared to death when I saw your footprints. Isn’t that trespassing?”

  “As it happens, the folks who own the place asked me to keep an eye on the place over the winter, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “That was before I moved in.”

  “That’s true, but the Benstommes never got around to calling and asking me not to keep an eye out.”

  Coccyx, she was tricky.

  “So I’m asking again,” she said, “and I realize it’s not really any of my business, but I would like to know. Who’s been out there with you?”

  I was trying to choose between lying—knowing that I’d probably be found out—and refusing to answer—knowing that she wouldn’t rest until she got an answer. Help came from an entirely unexpected quarter.

  “It was me,” Mr. Perkins said.

  We turned to him in surprise and confusion—Officer Buchanan was surprised and I was sure as sacrum confused.

  “I appreciate Dr. Thackery’s—Georgia’s discretion,” he went on, “but there’s no reason to be reticent about our relationship under these circumstances.”

  “Your relationship?” Officer Buchanan said.

  He reached over and put his hand on top of mine. “Yes, our relationship.”

  I nodded but couldn’t think of a single word to say.

  “Then you’ve been together…”

  “Since February,” Mr. Perkins said. “Valentine’s Day, in fact.” He actually squeezed my hand.

  “He brought me chocolates and roses,” I said, thinking I should offer details of my own to add verisimilitude. I thought his first name was Justin, but if I was wrong… “He’s very romantic.”

  Officer Buchanan didn’t look compl
etely convinced, but after a moment she shrugged and said, “Okay, then. That clears up a lot. I just wish you two had told me sooner.”

  “We’ve kept it quiet because we were concerned people would be worried about favoritism, given my role in the department and the fact that a tenured position is open.”

  “And people around FAD gossip so,” I said. “We wanted to keep it private.”

  “Okay, no law against that,” she said with an air of finality. “I’ll let you know if I have any more questions.”

  “We’ll be happy to help in any way we can,” Mr. Perkins said.

  The two of us continued to beam like lovebirds until she was well out of eyesight, then Mr. Perkins swiftly pulled his hand away.

  “That should keep her off your back,” he said smugly.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “No need to say anything. We all have our secrets. You have kept mine, and if you have one you wish kept, I am more than happy to assist.”

  “But what—?”

  He lowered his voice to a husky whisper I never would have suspected him to be capable of and half-sang, “Don’t you want to play a glitter game?” Then he cocked his head to one side, looked at me from under his surprisingly lush eyelashes, and puckered his lips.

  I flashed back to the pictures Sid had shown me from the fan site for Pteriwinkle Gleam. Mr. Perkins wasn’t just mimicking the pose—it was his pose! Sid and I had been amused by the idea of Mr. Perkins being such a big fan of the glam group but had never realized that he was the lead singer himself.

  “How did you know I’d found out?” I asked, not letting on that I was just now catching up.

  “I could hardly be the best department secretary of any college in the United States if I didn’t have decent security on my computer. I wasn’t sure who’d been into my system, but given the fact that you were in the midst of an investigation, you seemed the most likely suspect. Since your project had been sanctioned by Professor Waldron herself, I could hardly complain, but I confess I was anxious for several days afterward, awaiting the inevitable snickers as the news spread via the faculty grapevine. Not that I’m ashamed of my former identity, but I would not wish my fame—if I might call it that—to detract from the gravitas of the department. But the snickers never came.”