He nodded. “I knew all about Agnes and her hockey.”
It was Harry, the school’s security guard and janitor. No wonder I didn’t recognize him; I’d never seen him out of the navy blue slacks and light blue dress shirt that passed for his uniform.
“Are you a hockey fan, too?” I asked.
“Blackhawks,” he said, referring to the NHL team in Chicago. “But Agnes and me got along anyway.”
I remembered the night Agnes presented the school renovation design. She and Harry had stood together in back, beforehand. So much for my assumption that they were talking about what time to turn down the lights.
“Agnes knew hockey,” Harry said. “She played goalie. Best kid goalie in Superior until they wouldn’t let her play anymore ’cause she was a girl.” He looked at the floor.
I laid my hand on Harry’s thin arm. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t be dead.”
“No, she shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t.” His voice shook. “I’ll miss her,” he said. “A lot.”
I squeezed his arm. “She was a fine principal. We’ll all miss her. We’ll—”
Harry jerked his arm away. “Bull,” he said loudly.
I shrank away. I knew what was coming next. Harry was going to blast me, the PTA, the administration, the teachers, and the parents with being sanctimonious, self-righteous snobs who couldn’t stand Agnes in life and didn’t have the courage to say so at her death. He was going to say none of us should be here. And he’d be right.
Harry’s shoulders went back and his chin lifted. I dove deep into my imagination, and the unironed collar of his shirt disappeared. The black suit expanded into a voluminous cape. He surveyed the people streaming by with a fierce and challenging glare. “She deserved better.” He turned on his heel, swirling the cape gracefully, and strode off.
I watched him go, hearing the jangling of spurs on leather riding boots. Poor Harry, born four hundred years too late. He would have made a wonderful defender of feminine virtue.
“Was that Harry?” Marina came up beside me. “He looks different. The suit, I guess.” But there was doubt in her voice.
“Mmm.” She kept talking, but my thoughts were back in the Elizabethan era with Sir Walter Raleigh and mud puddles, so it took me a moment to come back to the present. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” She waited until a passing group was out of earshot. Then she leaned close. “I know who killed Agnes.”
Chapter 11
I sat at Marina’s kitchen table, drinking decaf and shooting holes in her latest who-killed-Agnes theory. “Agnes and her ex-husband have been divorced for more than twenty years,” I said. “Why on earth would he wait until now to kill her?”
Marina twiddled her fingers in the air in a don’t-bother-me-with-mere-details gesture. “It’s always the ex-husband. There are lots of reasons why he waited this long.”
“Name three.”
Though Marina’s lower lip had momentarily drooped when I’d said I already knew Agnes had been married once upon a time, she’d recovered as she retold her tale of grilling Randy Jarvis for Agnes information while buying a candy bar. The empty wrapper now lay on the table in front of us, and I spun it in circles while I waited for Marina.
“Maybe,” she said, “Agnes changed her last name and it took this long for him to find her. Sure.” She warmed to the idea. “Other than those expensive shoes, who ever heard of a name like Mephisto? Mephistopheles, Mephisto, the devil, same thing. No one would marry a guy with a name like that.”
“Agnes did,” I said. “John Mephisto, in 1975. There was a wedding invitation in the photo album.”
“Well, fooey.” Marina licked her finger and touched it to the candy wrapper, sticking on the tiniest of chocolate scraps. “How about Agnes was stalking him for years, making his life miserable, and he finally snapped?”
“Hard for someone in Rynwood to stalk someone who lives in California.”
“Aren’t you the party pooper? She could have been cyberstalking. Maybe she stole his identity. Maybe she—”
The alarm on my watch started beeping. I pushed the stem to shut it off and got up. “Much as I’d love to stay and listen to you flounder for theories, I need to get home before Richard drops off the kids.”
“I’m not floundering.”
“Okay, you’re not.” I slid on my coat. “But you’re taking on a lot of water.”
“Oh, hah very hah.”
I was turning the doorknob when she said, “Hey, Beth?” She was sticking her finger into the chocolate wrapper again. “Nice speech.” She didn’t look up at me. “At the memorial service. That was really nice.”
“Oh.” I was used to Marina’s carefree dispensation of compliments, but this sounded deep and real. “Well, thanks.”
“You were right. None of us really knew her.”
I thought of Harry. There was one person. But just one.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say you did good.” Marina looked up and grinned. “Who would have guessed?”
I stuck my tongue out at her and went into the black night.
Three hours later, Jenna and Oliver were hugged, unpacked, and sound asleep. I took their dirty clothes to the laundry room, wondering if I’d done the right thing in divorcing Richard. Did every divorced mother wonder the same thing? How much damage had I done to my children by removing their father from their daily life?
Not that he’d been home every day. His job put him on the road three weeks out of four, and I’d thought divorce wouldn’t be all that different for the kids. “Wrong again,” I told the jug of laundry detergent.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
I jumped. Who would be pounding on the back door at this time of night? I started the washing machine and went through the kitchen. Marina’s face was on the glass, pressing her nose flat and making a mark I’d have to clean off later. I waved her in. She rattled the door, and I remembered I’d already turned the dead bolt.
The second the door was unlocked, Marina shot inside. “It’s me. It’s me,” she wailed. Her hair flew around her head in a red nimbus.
“I know it’s you.” I shut the door behind her. “Who else would I let into my house late on a Sunday night?”
“No, no. It’s me. I’m doing it. And now he’s after me. What am I going to say to the Devoted Husband? I can’t tell the DH—I just can’t.” She paced the room in a very un-Marina-like way. Nervous energy and Marina weren’t on regular speaking terms, but she was tapping her knuckles together and whirling around as if to the manor born.
“What am I going to do?” Marina said over and over, each repetition growing louder and louder. “What am I going to do?”
“I’d suggest taking a deep breath and calming down.”
“You don’t understand!” Her eyes darted around. “I’m in danger. I’ll put you in danger.” A horrified look crossed her face. “I’ve put your kids in danger just by being here! I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” There was a chair nearby, and I shoved her toward it. “Sit down and calm down.”
“But I can’t.” She tried to rise.
I pressed on her shoulder and didn’t let her up. “Sit.” When she remained motionless for a full second, I said, “Deep breaths. No arguing. We’ll do them together. Ready? One.” After we’d done three, I sat in the chair next to her. “Now, start at the beginning and go to the end. Don’t leave anything out.”
She gave a shaky laugh. “I knew this was the right place to come. You’re the best person in a crisis I’ve ever known.”