Jerry growled. “Look, Timmons, Paula and I had nothing to do with this. Weiss and I might have had hard feelings, but I sure as hell didn’t poison him.”
We all exchanged uneasy looks.
Sherwood clapped his hands with the glee of an infant beholding a popsicle. “The brandied peach compote! How utterly fascinating! Miss Parchester has more strength of character than I had credited her with.”
Now Evelyn, Miss Dort, Paula, Jerry, and the two Furies all growled, sounding like a pack of wild dogs converging on a wounded animal. Sherwood smiled at them, but his goatee trembled and his eyes flickered in my direction.
Pitts, who had managed to include himself in the group, chorded. “I saw that yellow slime on the floor. Is that what killed the old man? Miss Parchester was here earlier; I saw her sneak into the lounge, and she had a funny look on her puss.”
She probably did look rather peculiar, but I saw no point in discussing her condition with the lizard. “Mr. Pitts,” I said, “you were not a witness to the unpleasantness in the lounge, so there really is no reason for you to be here. I’ll speak to Lieutenant Rosen about allowing you to leave.” For Mongolia, on a train.
“I saw plenty of interesting stuff. I know who went in the lounge-and why. Mr. Fancy Lieutenant Rosen will be pretty damn eager to talk to me.”
Mr. Fancy himself came into the classroom, “We have not finished with the lounge. I’ll need a room from which to conduct my investigation.”
Miss Don fluttered her clipboard. “I’ll see to it at once, Lieutenant. However, what shall I do about the students and other faculty? The bus schedule will require modification, and-”
“Don’t do anything,” Peter said hastily. “Is there someone who can take charge upstairs for the remainder of the school day?”
“Mr. Chippendale is the dean, but I doubt he could manage,” Miss Don said, shaking her head. “And who will notify Mrs. Weiss and poor little Cheryl Anne?”
Peter beckoned to the officer in the doorway, and told him to locate Mr. Chippendale. Paula Han mentioned that Cheryl Anne was in the typing room at the end of the hall and left to tell her the news before the gossip spread. Once bureaucratic details were under control, Peter gazed around the room at his collection of witnesses.
“Cyanide, I think,” he said conversationally, as though running through the menu for a dinner party. “although we’ll have to run tests to be sure. I would guess it was introduced in that yellowish substance on the floor. Would anyone care to tell me where it came from?”
We all stared at the floor. The linoleum hadn’t seen a mop in at least a decade.
Pitts waggled his mop. “I can tell you exactly where the goop came from, sir. Miss Emily Parchester brought a jar of brandied peach compote this morning, ‘cause she knows how much Weiss liked it. I think you got yourself a murderer, sir.”
Peter looked at me. “Is that true, Mrs. Malloy?”
Presumably I was the very same Mrs. Malloy with whom he shared bottles of wine and moments of ecstasy on an occasional basis. He seemed to have forgotten. I stared at him and said, “She did leave a jar of compote in the kitchenette, but she did not lace it with cyanide, Lieutenant.”
“That will have to be determined,” he said. He paused as a gurney squeaked past the closed door on its journey to the morgue. “I’ll need to take statements from each of you. Will Miss Parchester’s address and telephone number be available in the main office?”
Mrs. Platchett rose like a missile head. “Emily Parchester did not leave a jar of poisoned compote in the lounge, Lieutenant. Her father was judge Amos Parchester of the state Supreme Court, and her mother came from a very old Farberville family.”
“The Borgias were an old family, too,” Sherwood commented. “That hardly kept the children from-”
“Who are you?” Peter said. His teeth glinted, wolf-style. His molasses-colored eyes were flecked with yellow flints.
I might have melted, but Sherwood merely bobbed his head. “Sherwood Timnons, at your service. I was speaking in jest; nenune contradicente when I say that we all have faith in Miss Parchester’s unflagging innocence.”
Evelyn once again overlooked his verbal transgression. “Emily is hardly the sort to do such a thing, Lieutenant. She’s a harmless old lady who taught journalism for forty years, until unfortunate circumstances forced her to retire.”
“The journalism teacher,” Peter said. He turned back to me. “She was here earlier today, with the compote. Weiss was fond of the stuff.”
“The jar was left in the kitchenette for over half an hour,” I retorted. “Anyone could have put cyanide in it.”
“But why?” he countered.
I tried not to glance at Jerry, who had been thundering threats the previous afternoon, or at Sherwood, who might have been muttering them in Latin. “I have no idea, Lieutenant Rosen.”
Paula Hart had been there, too. “Jerry didn’t mean what he said,” she offered tremulously. She clutched his hand and held it to her cheek as she stared defiantly at Peter.
“What didn’t he mean?”
“He was only kidding when he said someone ought to take care of Mr. Weiss,” she said. The girl was a veritable wealth of helpful information. “Jerry didn’t poison the compote.”
The coach’s face matched his gray sweats. “That’s right, Lieutenant, I was just blowing off steam.”
Peter was unmoved by the sincerity glowing on the young faces. “Let’s discuss it in private,” he suggested with a smile. His teeth-or should I say fangs-glistened in the subsequent silence.
From the Falcon Crier, October 29
Dear Miss Demeanor,
Do you think it’s undignified for juniors to throw eggs and toilet paper at houses on Halloween and basically act like children? I think it’s immature, gross and utterly disgusting.
Dear Reader,
Miss Demeanor senses an underlying trepidation in your letter. She wonders if you’re worded that no one will throw an egg at you or decorate your lawn with white steamers. Have no fear:
Miss Demeanor has your address.
Dear Miss Demeanor,
I’m a sophomore with a terrible problem. You see, this boy wants me to go steady, but we both have braces. I read somewhere that the braces can get locked. I would absolutely die if that happened.
Dear Reader,
Miss Demeanor wonders where in the annals of history going steady got locked with kissing. Sophomores have no business kissing, anyway. Take advantage of your lowly status to perfect hand-shaking and meaningful looks. Then, Miss Demeanor suggests that you search for a boy whose father is an orthodontist, for financial as well as utilitarian concerns.
Dear Miss Demeanor,
How’s this for a trick-or-treat surprise? I call somebody’s wife and tell her that her husband has a standing reservation at the Xanadu Motel every Thursday afternoon. Do you think she’d get a kick out of that?
Dear Reader,
Although Miss Demeanor promised to answer every letter in her box she must admit this motel business is becoming a bit tedious. This is clearly adult stuff. The only person who’s getting a kick out of it is you, Reader. If you call somebody’s wife, you’re likely to get another kick-in the rear. Can we just drop it, please?
FIVE
The afternoon did not skip by; it trudged in lead-lined snowshoes. At the end of the last period, the students were sent away. Several hundred of them found a reason to parade down the basement hallway, all very casual and distracted by meaningful inner dialogue. Adolescents respond to violence much the same way moths do to a candle, or iron filings to a magnet. It is not endearing.