“That’s just what I’ll do,” I said, not mentioning the little detour I’d planned to my garage. I could bring the boxes back any time over the weekend, once I’d gone through everything. It’s not like the dean needed anything inside them, or was hanging around waiting for the delivery.
Woody brushed dust off his bony hands. “I don’t know who’s going to want to use this office now.”
I hadn’t thought of that. And it occurred to me that Woody could be of even more use to me. I patted him on the hand. “I’ll bet you remember every detail of the scene and will remember it for a long time.” I cringed. I was such a hypocrite.
“You betcha I remember, Dr. Knowles. Everything tossed around like that”-Woody waved his arms around to indicate chaos-“all the papers, and the lamp, and the food and all.”
“Food?” Did Woody say food? “Did you say food?” The word seemed to have a life of its own.
“Uh-huh, there was this pretty little paper plate with cake from the party downstairs, and a couple of cookies, and a can of cola”-he pointed to the chair tucked under the small desk-“right there.”
I replayed my conversation with Virgil. No cake, no food, no drink he’d said. He’d flipped through his notes right there in my den and come up empty on edibles and potables. Rachel, on the other hand had claimed she left the cake outside the door. Now Woody was saying he saw the cake, but on a chair in the office. My head reeled.
“And you’re sure, Woody-’cause I know that scene must be so clear in your head.”
“You betcha.” Woody leaned over his barrel, his personal shield against the ill-fated office, and probably as close as he would venture for a while. “I got rid of it, you know, while I was waiting for the police to show up,” he whispered.
I felt my heart beating up higher in my chest than it should have been. “You got rid of the food? Why did you do that, Woody?”
You destroyed evidence, I wanted to shout. But it was more evidence that worked against Rachel, who’d told the police she never entered the office, and who’d told me she’d-very confusing. So was I glad Woody tossed it, or not?
Why was this all so complicated? Why wasn’t it like one of those simple yet fascinating puzzles where all you had to do was fill in a grid of letters, given a few clues like P is next to L, which is above Q but below G?
I looked at Woody. Apparently, although I hadn’t shouted, the old man picked up on my distress. He clutched the rim of his barrel.
“I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I thought Dr. Appleton would have wanted me to take that food away. First off, he always gave me things like that when anyone brought him something.”
Another point for Keith, feeding the help.
“Did you eat the cake, then?” I asked without thinking.
Woody looked horrified. “’Course not.”
I chided myself: bad move, Sophie. “Of course you didn’t, Woody. I’m just a little upset, like you. I’m not myself today.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, Dr. Knowles. See, Dr. Appleton, he never allowed dirty plates or leftover food in his office. He wouldn’t never leave cake or nothing just sitting around on a chair like that. Sometimes I’d see him right after he ate his lunch in there, carrying his bag of trash, and he’d toss it down the chute, and he’d say thanks to me even though he done it hisself. Like he knew I’m the one that takes it away in the end.”
I could barely grasp this new Keith Appleton, who thanked people and gave them unsolicited presents.
Woody wiped away the beginning of a tear and went on. “I couldn’t pick up all the stuff that was broke, but I figured I could at least take away that messy plate. It was the least I could do for him.”
Woody set his chin with a determined, proud look, and I thought maybe he was the one person at Henley who genuinely liked Keith and whom Keith respected.
How could I blame him for trying to uphold his friend’s reputation for neatness and order?
I had one more thing to clear up, once Woody was stable.
“I hear you saw Rachel Wheeler outside this door yesterday. Do you remember what time that was?”
“Yes, ma’am, Dr. Knowles. I know she’s your friend and all and I didn’t mean to get her in trouble or nothing, but I saw her while that party was going on. I figured I better tell the police everything.”
Except for that little matter of disposing of evidence at a murder scene. “And you didn’t see anyone else?”
Woody shook his head. “Just her. I come by the closet over there to pick up my rags for cleaning. Anyway, no way a sweet young kid like that did anything bad, and I’m sure everyone knows that.”
I sincerely hoped so.
CHAPTER 9
Alone again in Keith’s office, I got back to my task. I piled what was left of his folders and binders into boxes. Each time I emptied a cabinet or a drawer of Keith’s desk, I had the urge to mark the piece of furniture for salvage. I wondered what the administration would do with the office and furnishings. I hoped at least they’d redo the whole place before reassigning it, bad vibes and all, to some unsuspecting freshman teacher.
I worked quickly. By now I’d convinced myself that I really had been sent by the dean. I told myself that there might well be a voice mail from her on my cell, which I’d turned off before entering the building, or on my home phone, which I could access but chose not to.
“Dr. Knowles, please go to Dr. Appleton’s office and take away everything but the office furniture,” she might have said.
On the off chance that I wasn’t the legitimate designee, I tossed material into the boxes without looking too closely, for the sake of speed. I counted on the fact that any sane faculty member-that would be the dean’s actual designee-would wait until Monday to carry out an ad hoc task she’d assigned him.
All the drawers were unlocked but showed signs of having been manipulated by police tools. Another good reason for me to take them-the police had already declared them useless. It felt strange to fling grade books, lab logs, and even a little black address book into a box for later examination, not only because their owner was dead, but because Keith Appleton was undoubtedly the most private person I knew.
When he inhabited this office, he kept all his drawers locked. If you wanted a piece of paper from him, you had to wait until he unlocked a drawer or file cabinet, took out the document, then locked the drawer again. Now here it all was, available to anyone. To anyone foolish enough to be here on a Saturday afternoon.
When I finished, I decided not to call Woody for help loading the boxes into my car. Maybe he was taking quiet moments to grieve for his friend. Or maybe the real delegate from the dean had contacted him. With the help of the metal dolly he’d left in the hallway, I could manage by myself.
I rolled my baggage back down the hall, noting the special building safety features Keith had added. Under the fire extinguisher was a metal box that I knew contained a fire blanket and first aid supplies. I remembered the Franklin faculty meeting when he’d made the proposal to outfit each floor with the kits.
Another time he’d come with a brochure from a company that made laboratory safety glasses out of recycled composition notebooks. We teased behind his back, asking each other what new thing Keith would come up with for the next meeting. We called him at various times, Green Keith and School Monitor Keith.
Now he was Deceased Keith. I felt the tension in my jaws increase with each step. I needed to stop the tape running in my head. Maybe whatever was in these boxes would hold the answer to the problem that kept me in this wrecked state.
I pulled my heavy load onto the elevator and pushed B for the basement, where there was a side door at ground level. Trying to get a loaded dolly down Franklin’s white marble front steps would not be a pretty sight. I hurried along a dark hallway, past storage areas and the noisy generator room. The wheels of the red dolly rumbled by entirely too many dark and dusty nooks and crannies. I hated coming down here when the building was alive with classes; the eerie feeling and musty smell were even worse on a day like today, hot and scary and reeking of death.