Dillon just looked at me, brows slightly elevated. I sighed. “Six thirty—handed out candy with Mrs. Jones. Seven thirty or so—ran to the store with Vonda. Eight o’clock—home alone, watching a DVD, then sleeping. Midnight—investigating an explosion at Mrs. Jones’s house.”
“What?” He spluttered coffee on the blueprints and dabbed at the spots with a sheet of paper.
Pleased at having startled him, I explained.
“I’ll see what the SEPD came up with,” he said, making a note and asking me to spell Varina’s name.
“What about you?” I asked, feeling daring.
“What about me what?”
“Where were you last night?”
“I’m not a suspect.” He said it with a purposely smug expression.
“And I am?” I asked indignantly, even though I was sure—pretty sure—he didn’t really think I’d killed Braden McCullers.
A certain light in his eyes told me he was amused. “I was helping my troop learn first aid techniques.”
“You’re a Scout leader? Don’t you have to have a son?”
“Who says I don’t?”
I goggled at him and the grin he’d been suppressing spread across his face. “I’ve got another appointment,” he said, rolling up the blueprint.
Fine. If he wouldn’t volunteer information about his kids—if he had any—I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get over to the school. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you.” I kept my voice cool, but it didn’t seem to faze him.
“Do that,” he said. Picking up his mug, he said, “I haven’t seen Shears around recently. Is he staying busy up in Atlanta?” His tone was so casual I knew his interest was more than that.
“He got a new job—in DC,” I said, equally casually. “I was supposed to visit next weekend, but that fell through.” I rubbed at a smudge on the glossy table.
“Really?”
“Um-hm.”
The conversation trickled to an awkward halt. I looked up from under my lashes to see him staring at me intently. His gaze lingered on my mouth. “I’m going to be late,” I said, bolting for the door.
In my car, I pounded the steering wheel. Why had I run out like a nervous high schooler? I drove too fast on the way back to St. Elizabeth and parked outside Mom’s; I knew from experience that parking within two blocks of the high school was impossible on a school day. Mom’s house is situated on Bedford Square, the historical shopping district in town, and the high school was only six blocks away. It was actually a relief to walk to the high school and let the pre-hurricane bluster blow away my confusion and frustration. The wind kicked up leaves no one had bothered to rake this fall and flung them at me. Stepping into the gutter and scuffing leaves up with my feet, I watched the wind swirl them away. It was fun and I arrived at the school feeling better than I had all day.
St. Elizabeth High School, a characterless rectangle of red brick from the ’60s, housed about a thousand students. The school’s mascot, a sabertooth tiger, leered at me from the wall beside the office. A strange orangey color, the sabertooth’s paint was flaking off in spots, revealing a mint green layer beneath that made him look like a Dr. Seuss character. The hall surged with jean-clad teens, laughter, and the clanging of locker doors as the students switched classes. Many of them stopped at a large display on a folding table that said: “Winter Ball Fund-raiser!! Vote for Your Favorite Teacher or Friend to Shave His/Her Head!!! Each Vote $1.” Coffee cans with slits in their plastic covers were placed beneath photos of five people I took to be SEHS students and teachers. The kids in the hall were egging each other on to put money in the cans. As the crowd thinned out, I looked into one coffee can; it was crammed with bills. A bored-looking kid with severe acne sat behind the table, probably to ensure money got put into the coffee cans and not taken out. Sad. He eyed me suspiciously but didn’t say anything.
Putting a dollar into each of the cans, I approached the office. Standing at the half door, I told the heavyset woman at a computer terminal why I was there.
“Oh, yes, Miss Terhune,” she said in a high-pitched voice that didn’t match her generous build. “The principal wants to see you.”
Ye gods! I’d only been back in the building two and a half minutes and already I was being sent to the principal’s office. It was weird how those words made my tummy do a little flip. Not that I’d spent much time in the principal’s office when I went here, but still. The woman motioned me through a full-sized door to my right and then led me past two unoccupied desks, a water cooler, and a dying philodendron to a door with “PRINCIPAL” and “Merle Kornhiser” stenciled in gold. Rapping once on the open door, the woman said, “Merle, here’s Miss Terhune.”