"Stick with me, I'll make you a star." Jody mimicked the dead headmaster.
"Mr. McKinchie said he'd try to get old equipment donated to the school."
"I didn't think it was boring," Sean told Brooks.
"Mr. Fletcher said we'd be the only prep school in the nation with a hands-on film department," Karen added. "Hey, see you guys in a minute." She left to talk to one of the young men on the fencing team. Sean seethed.
"She likes older men," Jody tormented him.
"At least she likes men," Sean, mean-spirited, snarled at her.
"Drop dead, Hallahan," Roger said.
Jody, surprisingly calm considering her behavior the last two weeks, replied, "He can call me anything he wants, Roger. I couldn't care less. This dipshit school is not the world, you know. It's just his world."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sean, angry, took it out on Jody.
"You're a big frog in a small pond. Like—who cares?" She smiled, a hint of malice in her eyes. "Karen's after bigger game than a St. Elizabeth halfback."
Sean's eyes followed Karen.
"She's not the only woman in the world." He feigned indifference.
"No, but she's the one you want," Jody said, needling him more.
Roger gently put his hand under Brooks's elbow, wheeling her away from the squabbling Jody and Sean. "Would you go with me to the Halloween dance?"
"Uh—" She brightened. "Yes."
30
Harry dropped the feed scoop in the sweet feed when the phone rang in the tack room.
She hurried in and picked up the phone. It was 6:30 a.m.
"Miranda, it had to be you."
"Just as Rick Shaw said, the story of Roscoe's poisoning is finally in the paper. But no one is using the word 'murder.' '
"Huh—well, what does it say?"
"There's the possibility of accidental ingestion, but deliberate poisoning can't be ruled out. Rick's soft-pedaling it."
"What has me baffled is the motive. Roscoe was a good headmaster. He liked the students. They liked him, and the parents did, too. There's just something missing—or who knows, maybe it was random, like when a disgruntled employee put poison in Tylenol.
"That was heinous."
"Except—I don't know—I'm just lost. I can't think of any reason for him to be killed."
"He wasn't rich. He appeared to have no real enemies. He had disagreements with people like Sandy Brashiers, but"—Miranda stopped to cough—"well, I guess that's why we have a sheriff's department. If there is something, they'll find it."
"You're right," Harry responded with no conviction whatsoever.
31
The repeated honking of a car horn brought Harry to the front window of the post office. Tucker, annoyed, started barking. Mrs. Murphy opened one eye. Then she opened both eyes.
"Would you look at that?" Harry exclaimed.
Miranda, swathed in an old cashmere cardigan—she was fighting off the sniffles—craned her neck. "Isn't that the cutest thing you ever saw?"
Pewter bustled out of Market's store. She had put in an appearance today, primarily because she knew sides of pork would be carried in to hang in the huge back freezer.
Jody Miller, her black eye fading, emerged from a red BMW sports car. The fenders were rounded, the windshield swept back at an appealing angle. She hopped up the steps to the post office.
Harry opened the door for her. "What a beautiful car!"
"I know." The youngster shivered with delight.
"Did your father buy you that?" Miranda thought of her little Ford Falcon. As far as she was concerned, the styling was as good as this far more expensive vehicle's.
"No, I bought it myself. When Grandpa died, he left money for me, and it's been drawing interest. It finally made enough to buy a new car!"
"Has everyone at school seen it?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, and are they jealous."
Since she was the first student to come in to pick up mail that day, neither woman knew what the kids' responses were to the newspaper story.
"How are people taking the news about Mr. Fletcher?" Miranda inquired.
Jody shrugged. "Most people think it was some kind of accident. People are really mad at Sean, though. A lot of kids won't talk to him now. I'm not talking to him either."
"Rather a strange accident," Miranda mumbled.
"Mr. Fletcher was kind of absentminded." Jody bounced the mail on the counter, evening it. "I liked him. I'll miss him, too, but Dad says people have a shelf life and Mr. Fletcher's ran out. He said there really aren't accidents. People decide when to go."
"Only the Lord decides that." Miranda firmly set her jaw.
"Mrs. Hogendobber, you'll have to take that up with Dad. It's"—she glanced at the ceiling, then back at the two women—"too deep for me. 'Bye." She breezed out the door.
"Kendrick sounds like a misguided man—and a cold-blooded one." Miranda shook her head as Pewter popped through the animal door, sending the flap whapping.
"Hey, I'd look good in that car."
"Pewter, you need a station wagon." Mrs. Murphy jabbed at her when she jumped on the counter.
"I am growing weary, very weary, of these jokes about my weight. I am a healthy cat. My bones are different from yours. I don't say anything about your hair thinning on your belly."
"Is not!"
" Mmm ." The gray cat was noncommittal, which infuriated the tiger.
"Do cats get bald?" Tucker asked.
"She is."
"Pewter, I am not." Mrs. Murphy flopped on her back, showing the world her furry tummy.
Harry noticed this brazen display. "Aren't you the pretty puss?"
"Bald."
"Am not." Mrs. Murphy twisted her head to glare at Pewter.
"Wouldn't you love to know what this is about?" Harry laughed.
"Yes, I would." Miranda looked at the animals pensively. "How do I know they aren't talking about us?"
"And this coming from a woman who didn't like cats."
"Well—"
"You used to rail at me for bringing Mrs. Murphy and Tucker to work, and you said it was unclean for Market to have Pewter in the store."
Mrs. Hogendobber tickled Mrs. Murphy's stomach. "I have repented of my ways. 'O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them alclass="underline" the earth is full of thy riches.' Psalm one hundred four." She smiled. "Cats and dogs are part of His riches."
As if on cue, the Reverend Herbert Jones strolled in. "Girls."
"Herb, how are you?"
"Worried." He opened his mailbox, the metal rim clicking when it hit the next box because he opened it hard. ' 'Roscoe Fletcher murdered . . ."He shook his head.
"The paper didn't say he was murdered—just poisoned," Harry said.
"Harry, I've known you all your life. You think he was murdered, just as I do."
"I do. I wanted to see if you knew something I didn't," she replied sheepishly.
"You think his wife killed him?" Herb closed the mailbox, ignoring her subterfuge.
"I don't know," Harry said slowly.
"Fooling around, I'll bet you," Miranda commented.
"A lot of men fool around. That doesn't mean they're killed for it." Herb lightly slapped the envelopes against his palm.
Miranda shook her head. "Perhaps retribution is at work, but there's something eerie about Roscoe's obituary appearing in the paper. The murderer was advertising!"
"Some kind of power trip." He paused, staring at Mrs. Murphy. "And Sean Hallahan is the cat's-paw."
"Yes, Herb, just so." Miranda removed her half glasses to clean them. "I know I've harped to Harry about the obituary, but it upsets me so much. I can't get it out of my mind."
"So the killer, who I still say is a coward, is taunting us?"
"No, Harry, the killer was taunting Roscoe, although I doubt he recognized that. He thought it was a joke, I really believe that. The killer was someone or is someone he discounted." Herb waved his envelopes with an emphatic flourish. "And Sean Hallahan was the fall
guy ."
"In that case I wouldn't want to be in Maury McKinchie's shoes or Sean's."
"Me neither." Harry echoed Miranda.