go .
Jody screamed, loosening her grip on Harry’s neck. The enraged girl lurched for her hockey stick. Tucker was dragging it down the hallway, but the corgi couldn’t go fast, she being small and the stick being large.
Jody yanked the stick hard out of the dog’s jaws. Tucker jumped for the stick, but Jody held it over her head and ran for Harry, who crouched. The hallway was long and narrow. She would use the walls to her benefit. Harry, a good athlete, steadied for the attack.
Jody swung the stick at her head. Harry ducked lower and shifted her weight. The tip of the hockey stick grazed the wall. Harry moved closer to the wall. She prayed Jody would crack her stick on the wall.
Jody, oblivious to the damage the cats were doing to her legs, she was so obsessed, swung again. The stick splintered, and that fast Harry pushed off the wall and flung herself at Jody. The two went down hard on the floor as the cats let go of their quarry. Tucker ran alongside the fighting humans, waiting for an opening. Her fangs, longer than the cats’, could do more damage.
Sounds down the hall stopped Jody for a split second. She wriggled from Harry’s grasp and raced away from the noise. Tucker caught her quickly and grabbed her ankle. Jody stopped to beat off the dog just as Cynthia Cooper rounded the corner and dropped to one knee, gun out.
“Stop or I’ll shoot.”
Jody, eyes glazed, stared down the barrel of a .357, stared at the bloody fangs of Tucker, then held up her hands.
73
Because of their bravery, the animals were rewarded with filet mi-gnon cooked by Miranda Hogendobber. Harry, Fair, Susan, Brooks, Cynthia, and the Reverend Jones joined them. The animals had place settings at the big dinner table. Miranda went all out.
“This is heaven,” Pewter purred.
“I didn’t know Pewter had it in her.” Susan smiled at the plump kitty.
“There’salion beneath that lard,” Mrs. Murphy joked.
As the humans put together the pieces of the murderous puzzle, Tucker said, “Murphy, how did you figure it out?”
“Motherwason the right track when she said that whoever killed Roscoe Fletcher did it at the car wash.Anyone of the suspects could have done it, but not one person recalled anyone giving Roscoe candy, although he offered it to them. Jody walked past the Texaco station on herwayto the deli. The station blocks the view from the car wash. She gave him the candy; no onesawher, and no car was behind Roscoe yet. She could have worked fast, then run back to the office. It would give her a good alibi. Shewaswaiting for an opportunity. She was smart enough to know thiswasa good shot. Who knows how long she carried that candy around?”
“I don’t know whether to pity Jody or hate her,” Susan Tucker mused.
‘Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches!’ Psalm Seventy-three, verse twelve,” Miranda recited. “Roscoe and Maury did increase in riches, but they paid for it. As for Jody, she was very pretty and vulnerable. But so are many other young people. She participated in her own corruption.”
“The slush fund ledger gave me part of the motive—money— but I couldn’t find the slushers. Drugs weren’t it.” Cynthia folded her arms across her chest. “Never would I have thought of porno movies.”
“It is ghastly.” The Reverend Jones shuddered.
“What tipped you off?” Pewter asked Murphy.
“It took mealong time to figure it out. I think finding that address label at the bottom of Roscoe’s desk was my first inkling. Neptune Film Lab. And wonderful though it might be to have a film department at a private secondary school—it seemed like a great expense even if Maurywassupposedly going to make a huge contribution.”
“Kendrick was more of a man than we’ve given him credit for,” Susan said.
“He guessed Jody was the killer. He didn’t know why.” Cynthia recalled the expression on his face when Jody confessed. “She’d told Irene and Kendrick that she was pregnant by Sean. It was actually Roscoe.”
“I’d kill him myself.” Fair’s face flushed. “Sorry, Herb.”
“Quite understandable under the circumstances.”
“She had slept with Sean and told him he was the father of her child. That’s when he stole the BMW. He was running away and asking for help at the same time,” Cynthia continued. “But she now says the father might be Roscoe. And she said this is the second film made at St. Elizabeth’s. Last year they used Courtney Frere. He’d pick one favorite girl for his films. We tracked her down at Tulane. Poor kid. That’s what the sleeping pills were about, not low board scores. The film she was in was shot at Maury’s house, but then Roscoe and Maury got bolder. They came up with the bright idea of setting up shop at St. Elizabeth’s. It certainly gave them the opportunity to troll for victims.”
“Monsters.” Miranda shook her head.
“There have always been bad people.” Brooks surprised everyone by speaking up. “Bad as Mr. Fletcher and Mr. McKinchie were, she didn’t have to kill them.”
“She snapped.” Susan thought out loud. “All of a sudden she must have realized that one mistake—that movie—could ruin the rest of her life.”
“Exactly.” Cynthia confirmed this. “She drove out with Winifred Thalman, thinking she could get the footage back, but Winifred had already mailed the rough cut to Neptune Lab. She only had outtakes with her, so Jody killed her. She threw the outtakes in the pond.”
“How,” Harry asked, “did she kill her?”
“Blow to the head. Maybe used her hockey stick. She walked across the fields after dark and arrived home in time for supper. After that she was driven by revenge. She wanted power over the people she felt had humiliated her—even though she’d agreed to be in these movies for money.”
“The slush fund?” Harry asked.
“Right. Forty-one thousand dollars withdrawn by Maury, as it turns out. Forty-one thousand dollars for her BMW … it all added up. Imagine how Kendrick must have felt when he saw that figure in Roscoe’s secret ledger. The deposits were from other films. Maury and Roscoe shot porno movies in New York, too. There they used professionals. Roscoe’s fundraising trips were successful on both counts,” Cynthia said.
“How’d she kill Maury?” Brooks was curious.
“She slipped into the girls’ locker room, put on the Musketeer outfit, and rejoined the party. She saw Maury start to leave and stabbed him, with plenty of time to get back to the locker and change into her skeleton costume. She may even have lured Maury out of the dance, but she says she didn’t,” Cynthia answered.
“Does she feel any remorse?” Miranda hoped she did.
“For killing three people? No, not a bit. But she feels terrible that she lied to Sean about being the father. About goading him into calling in the false obituary and about following Roger on his paper route and stuffing in the Maury obit. That’s the extent of her remorse!”
“Do you believe she’s crazy?” Fair said.
“No. And I am sick of that defense. She knows right from wrong. Revenge and power. She should be tried as an adult. The truth is: she enjoyed the killing.” Cynthia stabbed her broccoli.
“Why wouldahuman pay to watch another human have sex?” Pewter laughed.
“Boredom.” Tucker ate table scraps slipped her by Fair.
“I wouldn’t pay to watch another cat, would you?” Pewter addressed Murphy.
“Of course not, but we’re cats. We’re superior to humans.” She glanced at Tucker.
“I wouldn’t do it, I’m superior, too,” Tucker swiftly said, around a mouthful.
“Yes—but not quiteassuperioraswe are.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.