Murder Among Us: The Kate Austen Suburban Mysteries, #3

Prologue

Orphaned.

The girl rolled the word around in her mind. It sounded like something out of a Dickens novel. Like she was some poor, rag-bedecked child of the slums, not the daughter of a prominent network newscaster.

But here she was, fifteen years old, raw with grieving over her mother’s death—and utterly alone. She’d been spared the orphanage at least, but she was afraid the alternative would prove just as bad.

The girl glanced at the lawyer. He sat sideways in his chair, fingers steepled at his chin.

Are you listening to me, Julie? Do you understand what’s been decided? His voice was as flat and dry as summer asphalt.

Julie nodded. She kept her shoulders square, her spine erect, her chin firm. Inside, the pain and loneliness churned.

Your mother’s sister and her husband live in California, near San Francisco. They’ve agreed to take you in.

Half sister, Julie said.

The lawyer frowned, removed his reading glasses, and cleaned them with his handkerchief. He wasn’t interested in splitting hairs. As far as I’ve been able to determine, there isn’t anyone else.

Aunt Patricia and Uncle Walt. Julie had only the faintest recollection of them. A stern man. A woman whose face wore the look of immutable disapproval and was otherwise lifeless as straw.

I assume this arrangement is acceptable to you, the lawyer said. It wasn’t a question.

His voice droned on but Julie had stopped listening. She was thinking about her plan.

Her secret.

A quest conceived one rainy afternoon late last winter. It had begun with a simple what if? and then lodged immediately in her breast like a ray of warm sunshine.

And now it had taken on new importance.

Chapter 1

I could have said no. In fact, I should have said no. I knew that the moment I found myself agreeing to her visit. But it’s not easy to refuse your mother-in-law, especially when she plays the grandchild card.

I haven’t seen Anna since last Christmas, she’d wailed, bellowing into the phone as though to propel her voice, by volume alone, all the way from Florida to California. I tried to get you to come here over the summer, remember. Only you couldn’t find the time, so now I’m coming to you. You’re not going to deny your daughter a chance to know her own grandmother, are you?

I assured her that wasn’t my intention, but I did point out she might be more comfortable in a hotel than with us.

Nonsense, Faye said. I’ll be perfectly fine staying with you. No need to go to any trouble, I can make myself at home almost anywhere.

That was partially what worried me.

It wasn’t that Faye Austen was particularly difficult, as mothers-in-law go. And she doted on Anna. But the house was tight and cramped, even for the four of us who regularly inhabited it—a population, I reminded her, that currently included a man other than her son Andy. This was a detail that seemed to elude her. Or maybe she simply chose to ignore it.

Now, as I pulled the comforter up close under my chin, warding off the brisk October morning, I kicked myself once again for not having stood firm. I’d managed to get through the first night of her visit with the help of several glasses of zinfandel. An occurrence that Faye had noted with raised brows and starchy silence. Would I make it through the remaining nine nights? Certainly not without help. I made a mental note to stop by the store and pick up more wine. Maybe even a bottle of good champagne to share with Michael when Faye departed.

Michael. That was the hardest part. My right foot drifted to the empty space in the bed beside me. The space occupied for the last five months by Michael’s lovely, warm body.

His moving out for the week made no sense to me at all, but Michael had been adamant. I’d be uncomfortable, he said.

But this is your home now.

The last thing I want is to be stumbling around the kitchen in my pajamas making small talk to Andy’s mother.

Since Michael doesn’t wear pajamas, his argument was flawed from the start, but he had made up his mind. Nothing I said (and I said plenty) persuaded him to change it.

I rolled onto my side and punched the pillow in frustration. If only I’d stood my ground with Faye and insisted that she stay in a hotel. It seemed so easy in retrospect.

The story of my life.

At the other end of the house, the water pipes thunked, signaling the end of Libby’s shower. That was another situation that seemed clearer with the benefit of hindsight.

It had started as a temporary arrangement early last spring, a favor to a friend. But temporary is a relative concept, and it now looked as though Libby would be with me until she finished high school. Although I was genuinely fond of Libby and had come to think of her as family, I hadn’t, at the time, given due regard to the repercussions of living with a teenager. Particularly as they affected an impressionable six-year-old.

Finally, the bathroom door creaked open and Libby padded down the hall to Anna’s room, which the two of them were sharing during Faye’s visit. I hugged the comforter for a moment longer, then forced myself out of bed. No time this morning to wait for the steam to clear and the hot water tank to refill. Friday was one of my teaching days.

Not that much teaching went on in beginning high school art, dubbed by the students Art for the Artistically Challenged. The class was required for those who chose not to take the more rigorous course in drawing and design, but it was offered on a pass/fail basis with the understanding that attendance in a wakeful state practically guaranteed a pass.

From my perspective, this was a win/win arrangement. The students got class credit and I got a regular, though paltry, paycheck. My soon to be ex-husband, Andy, has certain virtues, but fiscal dependability was not one of them.

My shower was quick, my attempt at makeup even quicker. Fifteen minutes later I was pouring milk on Anna’s cereal, trying to decide whether it would be wise to point out to her that orange and green pinstripe leggings were not usually paired with a purple print top.

Where’s Grandma? she asked, kicking the table with her foot.

In bed. Where I hoped she would remain until I was out of the house for the day.

She promised me pancakes this morning.

Grandma’s tired after her long trip, I explained. And she’s still on East Coast time. As soon as I’d said it, I realized that I had things backwards. But Anna nodded wisely. She found the idea of time zones fascinating. I think she confused them with time travel.

Tomorrow, I told her. We’ll all have breakfast together and we’ll have pancakes.

Even Daddy.

I don’t think Daddy will be here for breakfast.

Anna raised her chin. Grandma said so.

She did?

My daughter nodded with authority.

She gets things mixed up sometimes, I explained.

I was sure Faye saw Michael’s absence as a promising sign, even though I’d taken care to point out that it was only temporary, and had been occasioned by nothing other than our concern for her comfort. Faye still clung to the hope that Andy and I were simply going through a rough phase that would eventually pass.

As I was pouring my own bowl of cereal, Libby made a pass through the kitchen, picking up a Coke and a handful of pretzels on the way. I’m going in early. There’s a newspaper staff meeting before school. And don’t count on me for dinner. I’ll get something to eat at the football game.

You’ll be careful?

It’s a football game, Kate. There’ll be hundreds of people around.

Just make sure you don’t wander off anywhere alone. Remember, they haven’t caught that guy yet.

Libby flashed me an exasperated smile, swung her backpack over her shoulder, then nodded at Anna’s attire. Rad-looking outfit, she said, giving Anna’s nose an affectionate tweak.

In between mouthfuls of corn flakes, I put the milk back in the fridge and started on Anna’s lunch.

Can I have pretzels and a Coke? she asked.

For breakfast? No way.

Lunch then.

Sorry kiddo. That’s hardly nutritious.

But Libby—

Libby’s sixteen and you’re six. There’s a big difference. Though not as big as I would have liked. Under Libby’s tutelage, Anna was whittling away at those ten years with unsettling zeal.

By the time I turned around again, Anna had fed her cereal to Max, who was lapping the remaining drops of milk from the floor. Doggy heaven.

I was glad Faye was still in bed.

Anna Austen, my mother-in-law called sharply from the doorway. We do not let animals eat from our dishes.

I turned abruptly. I thought you were still asleep.

I’m afraid not. Faye’s thinning gray curls had flattened considerably since her arrival yesterday afternoon, giving her a somewhat moth-eaten appearance. In fact, I hardly slept at all. I’m accustomed to a firmer mattress. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but I felt a reprimand all the same.

Why don’t you try my bed tonight, see if that’s better.

Faye brushed the air with her plump hand. Don’t be silly. I can manage. Emphasis on the last word. She planted a kiss on Anna’s head. How’s my grandbaby?

I’m not a baby.

No, of course you’re not. But a grandbaby’s something different.

I handed her a cup of coffee. Anna and I are going to have to run off. Help yourself to anything you want. Cereal’s in the cupboard and there’s bread for toast on the counter. Jam’s in the fridge.

Don’t worry about me. I never eat much anyway. This from a woman who’d eaten as much of last night’s meatloaf as the rest of us combined.

<><><>

When I arrived at my classroom, my star pupil, Julie Harmon, was leaning against the wall, waiting for me to open the door.

Good morning, I said, sounding to my own ears so teacherly it brought me up short. I’d never been fond of school in my youth, but now that I was on the other side of the desk I found I was enjoying it.

Julie raised her eyes and gave me a smile that barely touched the corners of her mouth. She was a tall girl with cornflower-blue eyes and straight blond hair that brushed her shoulders. She had a kind of regal bearing and grace that most of us never achieve, even in maturity. Her classmates found her standoffish. A number of the teachers agreed. For myself, I was inclined to see Julie’s reserve as a sign of uneasiness rather than disdain.

I thought there was a meeting of the newspaper staff this morning, I said.

There was. Her voice was soft and without inflection.

It’s over?

She shrugged. I didn’t go.

I unlocked the door and we moved inside.

Julie stood for a moment near the front of the room looking uncertain. Finally, she turned in my direction. Can I work more on that charcoal drawing we did the other day?

Sure. You know where the unfinished pieces are, in the right-hand closet at the back.

Julie was the only one of my students with any real talent. She actually belonged in the advanced course, but since she’d enrolled in school after the deadline, her class schedule had been determined as much by available space as suitable placement.

She glanced toward the back of the room but showed no inclination of retrieving the sketch. Instead, she hovered around my desk, fingering the strap of her backpack. Twice, she cleared her throat as if to speak.

You have a question? I asked.

She tugged harder at the strap, clamped her lips together, and studied her feet.

From the look on her face, I thought it might be more than a question. You want to talk?

Julie’s shoulders rose and then fell in an almost imperceptible shrug. I took a seat at one of the desks and motioned for her to join me. What’s on your mind? You seem bothered by something.

You won’t tell anyone, will you?

It depends. If you’re in trouble—

Just then Mario Sanchez appeared at the door, slouching against the frame as if he owned the place. Mornin’, Mizz Austen, he said, then crinked his neck in Julie’s direction, beckoning her.

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment before heading for the door. Guess I’ll work on that drawing some other time, she told me. Thanks, though.

Anytime.

I’d have to ask Libby if Mario and Julie were an item. I hadn’t seen them together before, but I’d learned that romantic pairings among teens were as ever-changing as the ocean. Still, it would be an odd match.

Five minutes later, on my way to the office, I passed Julie and Mario in the breezeway. Mario leaned against the gray stucco exterior, bracing his wiry frame with his elbow. His voice was low and intent, his jaw tight. Julie, who was several inches taller, stood facing him, arms crossed, face determined. If they saw me, they didn’t acknowledge it.

I picked up my mail and the daily stack of announcements, grabbed a cup of coffee from the faculty lounge, and was headed back to my classroom when Yvonne Burton, who teaches biology, beckoned me into the science lab.

You haven’t forgotten the ten dollars, have you?

Ten . . .

For Sarah’s baby gift.

I offered an apologetic smile, set my coffee on the table, and reached into my purse for the money. Sorry.

Sarah’s unexpected maternity leave was the reason I was now employed at the high school. Two days into the fall semester, she’d received a phone call from the adoption agency. Twenty-four hours later, she was a mother—and her art students were without a teacher for the semester.

Yvonne stuck the two fives I gave her into an envelope and added my name to the list of contributors on the front. Like the rest of her, Yvonne’s hands were small and delicate. With her olive complexion and cap of jet- black hair, she looked like an exotic, handcrafted doll.

Any luck finding a painting for our front hallway? she asked, sticking the envelope in her bottom desk drawer.

Art consultant was a career I’d stumbled into a year earlier when the gallery where I was working closed. Yvonne and her husband, Steve, were clients of mine, and well enough off that they could afford to select artwork based on what they liked rather than what fit their budget—a situation that was nice for both of us.

The more I think about it, Yvonne continued, "the more I like your idea of something abstract. But subtle. We want our friends to know that it’s art, not some class project Skye brought home. She smiled. That’s no reflection on your teaching, Kate. It’s just that squares of black and red aren’t what I have in mind for the hallway."

They weren’t what I’d had in mind when I asked the class to sketch an everyday object, either. But when I told Skye I didn’t want to see another horse, she’d settled on a checkerboard.

I’ve got my eye on a couple of things, I told Yvonne, but I’m not sure any of them are right.

No rush. I don’t want to settle for something that’s a compromise.

I picked up my coffee and turned to leave, then stopped in my tracks. A shiver worked its way down my spine. Harvey, the lab skeleton, was grinning at me from under a hooded black cape. A scythe had been wired to his right hand, a knife to his left.

I see you’ve decked Harvey out for Halloween, I told her, stepping back.

This wasn’t my doing. If I had to guess, I’d bet it was someone from my senior physiology class. There are a couple of real pranksters in there.

They’ve got a macabre sense of humor.

That’s what I thought, too. But then I figured maybe I was overreacting, letting what happened in the park get to me.

This was common shorthand for the murder of a twenty-year-old Berkeley coed whose body had been found two weeks earlier near the duck pond in Walnut Hills’ Reservoir Park. With unspoken accord, we’d somehow adopted the manner of speaking obliquely, as if by avoiding the word murder, we could avoid the fact itself.

Not that we’d talked of much else since it happened. Walnut Hills is a quiet, comfortable suburb whose residents are more at home talking golf handicaps and bond yields than crime. And while this wasn’t the first homicide in the town’s history, it was one of the most unsettling because it had the earmarks of big-city depravity. A young woman had been strangled to death, her body discarded with indifference, like the used tissues and bottle caps that littered the shore. Her blond hair had been shorn on one side, her toenails painted with blood-red polish.

I think it’s gotten to all of us, I told Yvonne.

Except certain high school seniors. She gestured toward Harvey.

The notion of a madman loose on our streets had shaken the town in ways too numerous to name. It wasn’t just that we looked over our shoulders as we left the grocery and jogged only with a friend, even in daylight. There was a subtler, more unnerving change as well, a sense of undefined menace that hovered continually somewhere in the back of our minds.

The killer shadowed us all.

I took another look at Harvey and met his ghoulish grin with one of my own. Maybe the kids have the right approach. Thumb your nose at the dark forces and ward off evil with a little humor.

I’m not sure, Yvonne said, that I consider this humor.

The warning bell rang and I headed back to my classroom. Julie was once again waiting by the door, along with half a dozen of her classmates. As the others settled into their seats, I took Julie aside.

I have some time after class if you want to talk.

She shrugged. It’s nothing important.

It doesn’t have to be important.

Julie’s hair fell across her face, obscuring her expression. But she nodded. Thanks. I’d like that.

After I’d taken roll and read the morning’s announcements, I started the class on their self-portraits. With back- to-school night approaching, I thought it would be fun for parents to pick out their own child. I’d stolen the idea from Anna’s kindergarten teacher, I admit, but I thought it would work just as well for older students. It also tied in nicely with last week’s exercise on facial drawing and representational portraits.

I saw a number of eyes glaze over while I gave instructions. Julie stared out the window, motionless as a statue.

Once I let them get to work, however, the energy level picked up. I’d learned, early on, that with teenagers, artistic expression is stymied unless accompanied by a certain level of verbal expression. As long as the conversations were good-natured and not too loud, I didn’t mind.

While they worked, I walked around the room answering questions and offering help when needed. A couple of the female students took the assignment quite literally. They pulled out mirrors to study the planes of their faces, the width of their eyes and, I imagine, the state of their makeup. Others decided to have fun with the assignment. Grant depicted himself on a surfboard atop a giant wave, Michelle behind the wheel of her dream car, and Skye, predictably, shared the page with her horse.

Julie was back to staring out the window by the time I made it to her seat. Her sketch occupied only a small part of the page. She’d drawn the top half of her body, positioning it in the lower-right-hand corner so that her lower torso disappeared into space. Her front-button blouse, hoop earrings, and wispy, shoulder-length hair were drawn with close attention to detail. She’d begun the nose, but the face was otherwise featureless.

Why don’t you finish it, I suggested. You’ve done a wonderful job so far.

Julie studied the picture a moment. It is finished, she said, meeting my eyes with a look of defiance.

Just then Mr. Combs, the principal, stuck his head into the room.

Mrs. Austen, he said without preamble. I’d like a word with you after class.

Sure.

My office. He nodded, without looking at me, and was gone.

Skye made a face—pantomimed shock—but it was veiled in smugness. Not to worry you or anything, but Mr. Combs must be pretty upset. He wouldn’t come barging into class like that if he weren’t.

He didn’t exactly come barging in, I replied, irked by her tone. Skye often used her mother’s position on the faculty to intimate inside knowledge. In much the same way, she liked to flaunt her stepfather’s status as judge. Usually, I ignored it. What bothered me this time was that I had the sinking feeling she just might be right.

Chapter 2

You wanted to see me? I asked.

Combs looked up from his impressively neat desk and offered me the briefest of smiles. Not a good sign.

Have a seat, he said solemnly.

None of the usual chitchat. That wasn’t a good sign either.

Aaron Combs had once played professional football. I imagine he didn’t play very often, or very well, which was why he had become a physical education teacher, a position he’d left only last year in order to take the helm at Walnut Hills High. He was not a tall man, but he was thickly built and surprisingly solid for a man nearing fifty.

He folded his hands on his desk, thumb pressing thumb. I’m afraid I’ve received a complaint.

About me?

He nodded. Well, not you so much as your teaching.

I swallowed a gulp of air. So much for the steady paycheck.

Combs did not look happy. He cleared his throat.

Something about presenting pornography to the students.

What? My jaw dropped open in surprise. "Where’d you get that idea?"

You deny it?

Of course I deny it. It’s not true.

No full-color slides of nude men and women?

I shook my head in disbelief.

No magazines filled with partially clad bodies?

Absolutely not.

Combs relaxed visibly. Well, that’s a relief. Not that I ever really thought there was any truth to the accusations. But these days, one never knows.

Apparently not. What’s this about, anyway?

I got a call from the family of one of your students. We have to take these things seriously, of course, but given the source, I must say I wasn’t overly concerned. There was, I noticed, no mention of my own sterling character and reputation as a mitigating force.

They are opinionated, intolerant people, Combs continued. Always disgruntled about something. Had a son who was a student here not too long ago. I thought we’d seen the end of them when he graduated.

Which family is it? I asked.

Combs leaned back in the chair, arms crossed behind his head. His customary affable mood was restored. Their name is Shepherd. Julie Harmon is the girl. She’s Mrs. Shepherd’s niece. Julie’s been living with them since last summer when her mother died.

I nodded. Julie’s mother, well-known newscaster Leslie Harmon, had been killed in a boating accident last July. Julie had come to Walnut Hills to live with the Shepherds, her only blood relatives. According to Libby, it was not a good match.

Why would they accuse me of something like that? I asked. I can’t believe it came from Julie. She’s a talented artist and she seems to enjoy the class.

Combs shrugged, clearly happy to have the crisis averted. As I said, they’re difficult people. The kind who are easily outraged. Who knows why they decided to vent their irritation on you? He stood and smiled apologetically. Anyway, I’m glad I can assure them you weren’t corrupting our youth with pictures of bodies in the altogether.

I reached for my purse and stood, also. Then I had a horrible thought. "Wait a minute. Maybe I