Dear Miss Demeanor

SIX

Nothing much happened over the weekend. Peter called Sunday evening to say the CID was making little progress, but they had confiscated enough poison from the school to wipe out the country, if not the continent. The lab results were not yet in, so they had no theories as to the origin and composition of the cyanide compound. All of the teachers and staff had been questioned again, as had a few students who admitted they’d been in the halls during the second period. I mentioned that I hadn’t been questioned again and was informed that I was not a suspect-or a particularly important witness. What charm the man possessed. The freshman class took me more seriously than he did, even if they overestimated the depth of my desire to avoid the yearbook.

Peter was not especially amused when I asked if he had found Miss Parchester, and his response does not bear repeating. Nor does mine when he inquired about my progress on the layout. The conversation ended on a slightly testy note when he reiterated his order about interference in the official investigation and I laughed. The man requires deflation to keep his head from ploding. It falls in the category of public service.

His utile jibe did, however, remind me of earlier questions about the school newspaper’s most infamous columnist. Said columnist was doing homework on her bed, a bag of potato chips within reach should malnutrition threaten to impair her intellectual skills. The radio blared in one ear, and the telephone receiver was affixed to the other.

I suggested she turn off, hang up, and cease stuffing potato chips in her mouth. After a nominal amount of dissension, we achieved an ambiance more conducive to conversation, albeit temporary and at great personal sacrifice on one party’s part.

“When did you take over the Miss Demeanor column?” I asked.

“Last week. That’s what makes all this So Irritating, Mother. If you don’t do something about this mess, I’ll never get to actually write the column. Bambi said-”

“So you didn’t write any of the previous columns?”

“I intended to do the next one, but then Miss Parchester Absolutely Ruined Things by getting herself accused of embezzlement. This whole mess is incredible.” And her mother’s fault, although the sentiment remained unspoken.

“I’m sure Mr. Weiss agreed with you, as do his widow and daughter.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about Cheryl Anne,” Caron sniffed. “She hated her father because of what he did to Thud. Inez’s sister said that Thud told one of the junior varsity linebackers that he wished he could meet Weiss in a dark alley some night.”

“Does this have something to do with eligibility?” I remembered the discussion in the teachers’ meeting, but not with any clarity. It hadn’t made much sense.

“Thud’s furious,” Caron said solemnly. “So is Cheryl Anne. In fact, she’s reputedly livid.”

“What precisely is he ineligible to do? Produce an intelligible remark? Walk and count at the same time? Marry Cheryl Anne?”

Her expression resembled that of a martyr facing slings and arrows from a herd of drooling tribesmen. “Football, Mother. Thud is a big football jock, the captain of the team and all that, and plans to get a college scholarship for next year. Mr. Weiss pulled his eligibility, which means he won’t get to play in the Homecoming game.”

“Merely because he’s flunking all his classes? How unkind of Mr. Weiss. After all, what’s a mere education when it interferes with football?”

“It’s our Homecoming game, Mother. If Starley City wins, it will be too humiliating for words. The dance will be a wake. Cheryl Anne is this year’s Homecoming queen-naturally-and she’s told everyone she’ll literally die if the team loses on the most important night of her life.” She eyed the telephone. “I really do need to work on my algebra. Big test on Wednesday.”

“Your devotion to your education is admirable, but it will have to wait another minute or two. Has anyone suggested that Cheryl Anne or Thud might have-r-done something drastic because of the ineligibility problem and the impending ruination of Cheryl Anne’s life?”

“It sounds rather farfetched, Mother, but I could call Inez and ask her if her sister’s heard anything,” Caron said with a flicker of enthusiasm. “Inez’s sister hears Absolutely Everything. She’s a cheerleader.”

Caron was right; it did seem farfetched to poison daddy to ensure a football victory and subsequent festive celebration. Daddy’s demise wouldn’t guarantee that the eligibility would be reinstated nor would Thud’s presence on the field guarantee a victory. Neither of the two had access to the lounge, although it seemed as if cyanide in some form or other was accessible to all. I put the theory (which wasn’t much good, anyway) aside and went on to a more promising line before my daughter commenced a full-scale rebellion.

“I need to speak to the girl who wrote the column before she caught mononucleosis,” I said, raising one eyebrow sternly in case she made a grab for the telephone.

Caron produced the information. I razed her dreams by telling her to stay off the telephone until I was finished, then ducked out the door before her lower lip could extend far enough to endanger me.

Rosie’s mother was reluctant to allow me to speak to her, but I finally persuaded her that I was not a girlfriend with a weekly gossip report. Rosie came on the line with a timid, “Yes?”

I gave her a hasty explanation of my current position at the high school, then asked how she chose the letters to answer in her column.

“There’s a box in the main office,” she told me. “I emptied the box every week and answered all the letters. I made a pledge in the first issue, so it was vital to my journalistic integrity.”

I had rather hoped Caron would mellow with age, but it seemed we might have a few more years of tribulation if this was the norm. “I found your column very a musing, Rosie. Some of it rather puzzled me, though. What did you think about the Xanadu Motel letters?”

“I thought somebody was bonkers, but I felt obligated to answer as best I could. It was vital to my- “Of course it was,” I said quickly. “Did you have any idea who wrote those letters? Any clues from the handwriting?” “The letters were confidential, Mrs. Malloy,” she said, sounding scandalized. “Even if I had been able to guess the identity of the correspondents, I would never divulge the names. That would compromise my-”

“Indeed,” I said. I wished her a speedy recovery and a good night’s rest, then retreated to my bedroom. There wasn’t any reason to link the peculiar letters in the Falcon Crier with Weiss s murder, or even with the accusations against Miss Parchester. It was just a nagging detail, a petty and obscure campaign being waged by an anonymous general against an equally anonymous enemy. Who, according to the letters, spent many a Thursday afternoon at the Xanadu indulging in activities that required little speculation. After a few minutes of idle thought, I dismissed it and spent the rest of the night dreaming of bell schedules, lounge visitors armed with lethal jars, and the prevalence of Tupperware. Monday morning arrived. I arrived at dear old FHS and scurried down to the cavern just as the bell shrieked its warning to dilatory debutantes and lingering lockerites. As I stepped through the door, the intercom box crackled to life for the daily homeroom announcements. Miss Doff rattled off a brief acknowledgment of our beloved principal’s sad demise and extended all of our collective sympathy to the bereaved family. School would be closed the following day so that we could, if we desired, evince the above-mentioned sympathy by our appearance at the funeral. Date and location were announced.

She then swung into a more familiar routine of club meetings, unsigned tardy slips, and illicit behavior in halls and rest between classes, all of which made her tidy little world go round.

I went to the teachers’ lounge for a shot of caffeine. As I entered, Evelyn caught me by the arm and pulled me back into the hallway. “I need your help,” she whispered. “We’re going to get Pius. The filthy slime has gone too far, and I’m going to expose his nastiness once and for all. Now that Weiss is no longer around to protect him, Pitts will get exactly what he deserves.”

It was mystifying, but certainly more interesting than Miss Dort’s announcements or the watery coffee in the lounge. Evelyn was flushed with anger; her dark eyes sparkled with an expectancy that bordered on mayhem. Once I had nodded my acquiescence to whatever she had in mind, she hurried into her classroom and returned with her student teacher. The quivering girl was told to go into the ladies room in the lounge and make a production of checking her lipstick and hair in the mirror.

“Is Pitts in the ladies room?” I asked.

“Worse. I’ll show you where the beast is-and what he’s doing.”

She led the way around the corner into the dark area of the hallway where I’d had the conversation with the Latin pedant. We entered the custodian’s door and tiptoed through a labyrinth of paper towels, murky mops and buckets, odoriferous boxes of disinfectants, and the other paraphernalia necessary to combat youthful slovenliness.

Beyond the storage mom was Pitts’s private domain, a dismal room with a chair, a coffee table, and a sagging cot covered with a tattered blanket. Yellowed pinup girls gaped over their exposed anatomies, pretending astonishment at having been snapped in such undignified poses. The calendars below were from former decades, but I supposed Pitts hadn’t noticed.

In one corner was Pitts himself He failed to notice our entrance, in that he had one eye and all of his attention glued to a hole in the wall. Evelyn glanced back at me to confirm my perspicacity as a witness, then crossed the room and tapped his shoulder.

He spun around, his lips shining moistly in the dim light. “Why, Miz West! What’re you all doing in here?”

“The more important question is: What are you doing, Mr. Pitts?”

“Nothing. Gitting ready to mop the hall like I always do on Monday morning. Then I got to repair a broken window in Mr. Weiss’s office and see about the thermostat in the girls’ gym. Don’t want those girls to get cold in them skimpy gym suits, do we?”

“Imagine all that work. Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to peek at the women teachers in the ladies room?”

“Now, Miz West,” he began in an awful whine, “I don’t know why you’d say something like that. I wouldn’t never-”

Evelyn brushed him aside with one finger and put her eye to the hole. “What a delightful view, Pitts. I’d always presumed you received your jollies smoking dope with the sophomore boys, but now I see you’ve branched out into visual amusements as well. I am going upstairs to report this to Miss Doff, the superintendent of schools, the head of custodial maintenance, the school board, and anyone else who will listen.”

“Now, Miz West-”

“You will be dismissed, Pius, and it will be a day of celebration for the entire school. A holiday, with dancing in the halls, followed by a touching ceremony in which you will be literally booted through the back door, never to be seen here again.”

“I didn’t make this hole. I jest found it and was trying to see where it went is all I was doing, Miz West. That’s the honest-to-gawd truth-I swear it.” He ducked his head and shuffled his feet in a cloud of dust. I waited to see if he actually tugged his forelock in classic obsequiousness, although it would have had to be unglued first. He settled for the expression of a basset hound put outside on a cold night.

Evelyn gave him a cold look as she joined me in the doorway. We left the room and made our way back to the hall, Pitts’s sputters and whines drifting after us like a breeze from a chicken house.

“Brava,” I murmured. It had been impressive.

She was shaking with anger, but her expression held a hint of satisfaction. “I meant every word of it. That filthy man is finished at this school and at every other school in the system. He can go clean sewers, which is what he deserves. On the other hand, I deserve a medal, a bouquet of long-stemmed roses presented by a lispy, angelic child, and a year’s sabbatical to Paris to brush up on my vocabulary.”

“When did you notice the hole?”

“This morning, but I have no idea how long it’s been there. It almost makes me ill. Not only could he watch us adjust panty hose and hike our skirts, he could probably hear every word said in the lounge when the door was ajar. Lord, I feel the need of a shower, or at least a rubdown with disinfectant.”

I was in the midst of agreeing with her when the bell rang and students exploded into the halls. I retreated to the journalism room to meet my first-period class. Said group was silent and soberly watchful as I entered the room and sat down behind the desk. It took me a moment to recall that they were freshmen- and we all knew whom the freshmen had chosen as their candidate for Weiss’s murderer.

After some deliberation, I decided to let things stand as they were, It did keep the class under control, in that they seemed to feel it necessary to watch me for signs of imminent attack upon their persons. I tossed over the roster book and leaned back to think about the murder, since I, armed with the wisdom of age and the inside track, knew the freshman class was mistaken.

I had reached no significant conclusions when the bell rang and the class galloped away. The second-period class came, milled around quietly, and left at the bell, as did I. The lounge was empty, which suited me well, and I was dozing on the mauve and green when the sound of water in the kitchenette roused me.

A Fury entered the main room, a porcelain cup and saucer in hand, and offered me a timid smile. Tessa Zuckerman had not been seen since her collapse during the distasteful events of the potluck, and Mrs. Platchett was difficult to confuse with anything except, perhaps, a bulldozer. Therefore, I deduced that it had to be Mae Bagby. And Caron swears my mental capacity is changing in inverse proportion to my age.

“How is Miss Zuckerman?” I asked. “Has she recovered?”

“She’s still in the hospital, and the doctor wants to keep her a few more days. She hasn’t been well for several years, you know, because of female problems, and her strength isn’t what it ought to be.” The Fury perched on the edge of a chair, her back rigidly erect, her knees glued together, and her ankles crossed at a proper angle. She looked dreadfully uncomfortable, especially to someone sprawled on a sofa. “We are taking up a collection to send her flowers,” she continued in a thin waver, “although you certainly wouldn’t be expected to donate anything since you hardly know her.”

“But I would be delighted,” I said. It was one of the perils of aligning oneself with any group, from secretarial pools to construction workers’ unions. Someone’s always being born, married, or buried-all of which require a financial contribution from coworkers. “Is there also a collection to send flowers for Mr. Weiss’s funeral?”

Mae Bagby turned pale, and the teacup began to rattle as though we were in the early stages of an earthquake. “Bernice is taking care of that, I’m sure. Bernice is very efficient about that sort of thing. You might inquire in the office later in the day, or wait until there is a mimeographed note. There is one almost every day during sixth period. The collection for Tessa is a more personal gesture from those of us who frequent this lounge, our little group.”

One of whom was apt to have poisoned Weiss. Before I could mention it, Miss Bagby stood up and drifted into the kitchenette to dispose of her cup and saucer. She then visited the ladies room (I hoped Pitts had retired from peeping), gave me another timid smile and a cozy wave, and left the lounge in a flurry of faint creaks from her crepe-soled shoes.

Once she was gone, I found myself wondering if she had really been there, or if I had hallucinated the presence of a shade, a ghost of teachers past. All schools were likely to have a few in the darkest corridors, moaning at the transitory fads and disintegrating moral standards. Rattling lockers at midnight. Reading faded files of students long since departed, in both senses of the word.

I was getting carried away with my Dickensian reverie when I was saved by the bell. Evelyn and Sherwood came in the lounge, followed by Mrs. Platchett and Mae Bagby, who was still insubstantial enough to warrant a second look. Once everyone opened Tupperware, took sandwiches from plastic envelopes, fetched drinks, and found seats around the table, I asked Evelyn if she had reported the custodian to Miss Don.

“Yes, I did, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to him, and I really don’t understand.” She told the others what we had discovered during homeroom, which produced a considerable amount of outrage from all except Sherwood, who looked smugly amused.

“What did Bernice say?” Mrs. Platchett demanded.

Evelyn sighed. “She was horrified, naturally. Then she said things were too chaotic to deal with the problem immediately, and once we settled down she would inform the proper authorities. I presumed she was the proper authority. I put tape over the hole, but I won’t feel comfortable in the ladies room until Pitts is gone-permanently.”

“Nor shall I,” said Mrs. Platchett. “I am surprised that Bernice did not react with more forcefulness. Surprised and disappointed, I must add. I could never determine why Mr. Weiss tolerated Pitts’s slovenly work and disgusting presence, not to mention the possibility that he was corrupting some of our students. One must surmise Mr. Weiss had his reasons. Bernice should know better.”

“What is Pitts rumored to be doing with students?” I asked.

Sherwood waved his pipe at me. “It’s all speculation, of course, and the man has never been caught in flagrante delicto, but it is whispered in the hallways that Pitts operates a major retail operation from his lair. Not only is it said that he peddles ordinary cigarettes and alcohol, but also that he has such things available as funny cigarettes and contraceptives. Names of abortionists for students caught with their panties down.”

“And this is tolerated?” I said, appalled by both the information and Sherwood’s hlage tone of voice. “The custodian is allowed to sell illegal things to the students and send them to back-alley abortionists-and no one objects?” I stared at the teachers busy with their lunches. “Why hasn’t someone reported him to the police? Don’t you care?”

“I said those exact things,” Evelyn said. “We’ve all repeated the gossip over and over again to Weiss. He always promised to investigate. When we tried to follow up, he would say that there was no proof, and that he couldn’t fire Pitts or go to the police on the basis of idle gossip, especially from a bunch of students with big mouths and bigger imaginations.”

Mrs. Platchett nodded. “He went so far as to imply that we also had oversized imaginations. It was monstrously insulting to those of us who have dedicated ourselves to the education of youth, and I was forced to say so on more than one occasion. I even showed Mr. Weiss proof that Pitts went through the refrigerator during class time, touching our food with his germ-ridden hands and helping himself to whatever caught his fancy.”

I hadn’t exactly warmed up to Mrs. Platchett in the past few days, but I felt a good deal more kindly toward her now. “What did Mr. Weiss do?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Malloy. He did nothing.”

Miss Hart and her coach came in to the lounge, both aglow with young love and/or hunger. She greeted all of us with a warm smile, but Jerry continued into the kitchen and began to feed coins into the soda machine.

“I say, Finley,” Sherwood called, “we’re all dying to know what Weiss had on you. Be a good chap and share the secret with us. We swear we won’t say a word to Mrs. Malloy’s policeman.”

“Can it, Timmons,” growled a voice from the kitchenette.

Sherwood rolled his eyes in feigned surprise. “Cave canem. particularly those with sharp teeth and rabid temperaments.”

“Leave him alone, please,” Paula said earnestly. “It wasn’t anything important, and Jerry doesn’t want to talk about it. Mr. Weiss wasn’t going to do anything; he was just-being difficult about a minor issue.” She turned on the warm smile once again to convince us of her sincerity and unflagging faith in her coach. “Would anyone like some of my salad? I made the dressing myself.”

Jerry stomped out of the kitchenette with a bottle of soda and a brown bag. “Don’t you have a secret of your own, Timmons? Weiss’s comment about the library sounded as if he knew something about you-something you might not want to get spread around the school. Did you kill him to keep him quiet?”

“Or did you get him first?” Sherwood sneered.

“Really!” Mrs. Platchett gasped.

“Jerry!” Paula Hart whispered.

“Sherwood!” Evelyn West muttered.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mae Bagby sighed.

I, in contrast, did not make a sound. But I was scribbling notes on my mental clipboard faster than Miss Dort in her prime could have ever done. And praying I had every word down.

The remainder of the lunch period passed in silence. Each teacher tidied up and departed with noticeable haste. There were no companionable farewells. I made it through the rest of my classes without incident, although I cold-heartedly denied Bambi’s request that she and the staff be allowed to return to the printer’s to remind him the newspaper would not be forthcoming. The blue slips were too much to think about. My darling daughter kept her nose in her algebra book, pretending she was a motherless child. Thud and Cheryl Anne did not appear during their appointed hour; I marked them absent without a qualm.

During the last few minutes of the last class, a mimeographed page was delivered. It proved to be a missive from Miss Dort, containing information about the flower collection, a thinly-veiled threat not to miss the funeral, another about blue slips, and a final paragraph about the homecoming game and dance. Which was, I realized as a chill gripped me, slated for the immediate Friday. Miss Don would not spend the week in search of a better-qualified substitute, since she would be occupied with the duties of assuming command, even if in a temporary capacity.

It was inescapable: I was going to chaperone the dance unless I solved the murder and resolved the journalism accounts in the next four days, in which case Miss Parchester could resume her duties and I could cower at my bookstore. It did not strike me as probable, considering the quantity of suspects, the wealth of opportunities, and the dearth of motives. I made a note to purchase shin guards and earplugs, not to mention a tranquilizer or two, and a stun gun, should the crowd go wild.

I was still brooding that evening when Peter came by. For reasons of his own, he was back to being Mr. Charm Himself He stirred up a little warmth (he can, if he wishes, be quite adept), then politely asked if he might be presumptuous enough to request beer and sympathy.

I opened the beer, reserving judgment about the sympathy until I figured out what he was up to. “Any luck in the investigation?”

“I spent most of the day in Weiss’s office, but it was a waste of time. Jorgeson says he feels more acned with each hour we spend in that damn place, and I’m beginning to feel the same way. I don’t know how anyone can stand it.”

“The teachers are a sincere lot. They’ve got to be dedicated to put up with the bureaucracy and low pay. There was an odd conversation today during lunch, by the way.” I told him about Sherwood’s crack and Jerry Finley’s retort. “Both of them seem to have secrets that Weiss knew and was using to needle them. Did you find anything about either of them in the personnel files?”

“Nothing that I intend to repeat to a civilian who is not sticking her lovely nose into things that are off-limits.”

He made a amatory lunge for the civilian, but she wasn’t having any of it. “Then you did find something,” I said excitedly. “What was it-criminal records? Falsified credentials? Accusations from parents about incompetency? Was it something serious enough that one of the two would actually poison Weiss to stop him from exposing it?”

“There was nothing significant in anyone’s file. Okay?” He tried a feint and a second lunge, but I slithered from under his arm and gave him a cool look.

“If you think I believe that, Peter, then you underestimate me. You will regret it, especially when I solve this case and prove Miss Parchester innocent of everything, from embezzlement to sloppy bookkeeping to murder. Your aversion to sharing information may slow me down, but it won’t stop me.”

“Would being locked up as a material witness stop you?”

“Not on your life.” Which is precisely what it would cost him, along with beer, sympathy (should it be proffered at some future date), successful lunges, and incredibly witty conversation with a red-haired bookseller. He wouldn’t dare.