Murder Most Trivial

 

 

 

 

 

Virginia Beach, VA

 

 

Also by L.K. Ellwood

 

 

Saints Preserve Us

Pray For Us Sinners

 

 

 

 

 

Murder Most Trivial

a Jason Greevey Mystery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L.K. ELLWOOD

 

Murder Most Trivial copyright 2009 by L.K. Ellwood

Originally published in 2002

 

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imaLization or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

 

 

 

Virginia Beach, VA 23451

 

ISBN-13: 9781449539269

First DLP Edition – November, 2009

Smashwords Edition

Printed in the United States of America

 

 

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

 

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Chapter One

 

 

 

“Hey, baby!”

She was a blur of red lipstick and oily black curls, wobbling ungracefully toward Dan Greevey from a gaggle of mid-week revelers congregated on the second floor of Norfolk’s Waterside entertainment complex. A dewy plastic cup of beer crinkled in her hand as she bayed her greeting. “You’re lookin’ sponge worthy, wanna make me the queen of your castle?”

A gust of beer-scented breath stung Dan’s eyes and nostrils. He turned his face away but was assaulted from the side by a blast of cigarette smoke originating from a clique dressed in sharp business suits. The woman, his son Jason had pointed out as they ascended the stairs, strongly resembled Seinfeld character Elaine Benes. Sporting a voluminous hairdo similar to that of the television character with the curls piled on top of her head, the woman wore a long floral print skirt, saddle shoes with white socks and a black sport coat, a surprising complement to Dan’s white Polo shirt and blue jeans.

“No thanks, I’m spoken for,” he said politely and turned to follow his girlfriend, Willie, and his son into Jillian’s. Pseudo-Elaine, however, managed to pin Dan against the picture window of the Christmas shop situated between Jillian’s and Bar Norfolk, blocking all escape routes back to his party. She showed no signs of letting him go, either.

“So,” she grinned, exposing tall rows of white teeth and giggling like a smitten schoolgirl, “you think I’ll win the contest?”

“Contest?”

Dan spied a distant poster advertising Bar Norfolk’s television character look-alike competition, put on by the popular night spot as part of the Waterside’s “May Sweeps” week. The Waterside’s other bars and restaurants were sponsoring similar activities. Dan, at the behest of Willie and Jason, had allowed the two to drag him to Jillian’s for a trivia contest designed along the lines of Trivial Matters, currently the most popular game show on prime-time television.

Dan wondered if he would make it inside Jillian’s in time, seeing as how this woman had no intention of moving along to more interested, more intoxicated prey. He glanced over the woman’s shoulder; several feet away Willie was studying the menu display in front of Jillian’s and turned in his direction only when Jason elbowed her arm and pointed toward him and Pseudo-Elaine. Apparently neither one had witnessed his abduction, and they laughed at his predicament.

A little help here? Dan mouthed, growing irritated. Pseudo-Elaine, meanwhile, braced her free arm against the wall and leaned in with the other to offer Dan a sip of beer, which he declined with a gentle swat.

“No thanks. Uh, yeah, I think you’ll win,” Dan said at last, easing to the left along the storefront and carefully moving the woman aside. “You got the cast of Law and Order over there beat, anyway. Nice meeting you.”

He hurried away and a string of animated partygoers flooded the space between him and the woman whose glazed yet devilish eyes followed him to the entrance of Jillian’s as he ushered Jason and Willie deep inside.

Jason and Willie continued to laugh heartily at Dan’s slight misfortune, each clinging to Dan as they wove through Jillian’s noisy video game parlor toward the back dining area, where the trivia contest was scheduled to take place. “Dad, that was so funny!” Jason gasped, soothing his father with a good-natured pat on the shoulder. “Did she tell you that you were sponge-worthy?”

“She did. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?” Dan asked to further howling laughter. He furrowed his brows; Jason noticed his father’s perplexed expression and explained briefly yet candidly the Seinfeld episode that spawned the catchphrase: how Elaine, in a frugal attempt to conserve a dwindling supply of contraceptive sponges, became quite selective with whom she chose to use them.

Dan reddened and shook his head. “Utterly tasteless,” he declared, surprised to hear such talk from his son’s mouth. A copy of his father with hazel eyes and short, straw-brown hair cut short with bangs, Jason was a senior at Colley Avenue High this year, where Dan taught Latin and Advanced Placement English. Dan enjoyed having a job that allowed him to be home for Jason, and while the boy enjoyed the freedom to watch movies and television and purchase music without parental supervision, Dan never imagined the cultural influence would be so strong as to cause Jason to repeat and relish such crude humor.

Jason was a good kid, a straight-A student, Eagle Scout and altar boy, the envy of most parents in their parish who suffered unruly offspring. Dan had raised his son to appreciate better things than off-color jokes.

“Aw, Dad.” Jason shook off his father’s frown. “It’s just a TV show. It’s not like I’m dressing up as characters like those people back there were.”

“Yeah, and don’t forget the Trekkers,” Willie added. “They don’t need an occasion like this to wear their uniforms in public.”

“Whatever,” Dan grunted, exasperated. He looked around at the people hypnotized by the flashing arcade lights and calliope music and realized he was more concerned now with the number of drinks in hand rather than television shows. These same people would be on the streets in their cars later. Perhaps he should have been firmer with Jason, he thought, and negated this whole outing. They could have stayed home and watched the trivia program from the safety and sanity of their living room. Willie could have come over, they could have popped some corn and ordered in pizza and kept score on note pads.

Then again, he and Jason rarely did anything out together anymore given the growing piles of homework Dan brought home to grade, not to mention Jason’s increasing social calendar and part-time job, though Jason was planning to resign this weekend to free up his last summer before college. To have Willie present was a plus. Herself a teacher at Colley, she got along fine with his son long before she and Dan began dating six months ago.

He relaxed a bit and let Willie lead him by the arm toward the dining area. He did like Trivial Matters, and maybe they would have some fun with the contest. “Maybe I’ll just kick your butt, too,” he teased his son.

“Oh yeah? You willing to put your money where your mouth is?” Jason drawled.

“Son, I’m a high school teacher. What’s money?”

People filed noisily into the back dining area, many toting drinks procured from other bars and eateries located within the huge entertainment center that was Jillian’s. This particular area was decorated in a sports motif: regional team pennants, posters and photos were tacked high on the walls alongside worn football jerseys and other memorabilia. “This place must get crowded during the big sports events,” Dan commented to himself.

A hostess seated the three at a booth alongside a large picture window overlooking the Elizabeth River. The town of Portsmouth, across the water, twinkled and hummed along the late evening horizon. Willie pointed at the progress of a distant hotel under construction as a waitress arrived to take their drink orders and deliver menus.

“We’ve set up the complimentary appetizer buffet by the bar,” the perky, petite blond in the skimpy blue and white uniform explained in a little girl’s voice. The shiny name tag pinned to her half-exposed bosom announced that her name was Courtney. “I’ll be right back with your drinks and answer sheets for the contest.”

The waitress bounced away, her ponytail swaying like a pendulum, and Jason leapt from his seat immediately afterward for the buffet with a promise to get snacks for the whole table. Willie, anticipating a private moment, slid closer to Dan but was surprised by the mild scowl on his face.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“Thanks a lot for coming to my rescue back there,” Dan said sarcastically. “I’ll try to remember your unselfish courage when I’m drafting my will.”

Willie only tossed her head back and laughed, throwing her frizzy bronze hair in the air. The stale, yellow lights beaming down upon their booth cast a kind of ethereal glow about her, bringing out the copper highlights. Dan, no longer able to hide his irritation, laughed along with her, enamored with how the look enhanced her light mocha skin and brown eyes, which were at the moment sparkling and reflecting the gaiety around them.

“Oh, Danny, loosen up!” she chided. “She was harmless! Two more seconds and she probably would have slumped to the floor and you could have stepped over her towards freedom.”

“Now, Willie,” Dan groaned. He saw little humor in the sight of the intoxicated Waterside patroness. Not that Dan was a complete tee-totaler; his Irish father often joked about how Greevey blood was seventy-proof, but he knew his limits and it ached to see others abusing themselves in such a manner. Who knew what poor schlep pseudo-Elaine had pinioned in a corner of Bar Norfolk at this very moment? Worse yet, would she eventually be the one preyed upon by somebody unscrupulous and willing to take advantage of her current state?

Lord, see her home safely, he prayed. See them all home, sober and wiser for it.

Lost in this reverie, Dan jumped in his seat slightly as he saw a large plastic tumbler of iced tea cross his line of vision; the waitress had returned. Willie carried on lightly, unaware her boyfriend had tuned out the rest of the world. “Anyway,” she was saying with mock irritation, “go ahead and cut me out of your will. Everything you own is so dang tacky, I probably couldn’t give it away at a garage sale.” She tightened her lips around her straw and took a long pull from her Diet Coke.

Before Dan could retort, Jason slammed back into his side of the booth, arms laden with small plates of spicy chicken wings, bacon-wrapped scallops, crab rangoons, and puddles of bleu cheese dressing. “This should hold us until the food arrives,” he said.

Willie paled at the spread. The tiny mountain of greasy scallop appetizers on one plate looked to ready to avalanche. Not a vegetable in sight. “What do you mean, when the food arrives?” she cried. “Look at this! It’s more than I eat in a week! Surely we’re not going to be ordering off the menu, too?”

“Trust me, he will, at least,” Dan said dryly as he pulled apart two ends of a fried wonton wrapper before devouring the split bulb of flaked crab bits and cream cheese.

Courtney returned once more with small, eraserless pencils, three contest papers and an apology for not delivering them with the drinks, as the demand for entries sorely outnumbered the supply. Dan imagined a crowd of wait staff huddled around a copy machine in the restaurant office, eagerly awaiting copies to distribute.

Jason sucked clean his sauce-soaked fingers before pawing his papers. “So, how’s it work? Is it like the show?”

“Pretty much,” Courtney nodded, tapping the corner of one of Willie’s answer sheets with a bright red fingernail. “Everybody gets three multiple-choice answer sheets, one for each round of play. When the game starts, we’ll have people stationed around the tables who will collect them and check for answers. The people with the most correct answers in the first wave move on to the next round, and so on.”

Jason studied his papers, all of which looked very similar to the bubble answer sheets distributed with the recent slew of standardized tests he had to take, and nodded. He knew the rules of the hour-long Trivial Matters by heart. On television, the game started with fifty contestants who began the first lightning round answering twenty multiple-choice questions by punching letters on a small keypad. People watching at home saw each question and four possible answers on the bottom of their television screens. Once completed, the answers were revealed, and the ten highest scorers advanced to Round Two. In the event of a tie for positions, timed questions were given to the players in question, with the first person to answer correctly winning the coveted spot in the top ten.

Round Two of the game was played the same way, only the questions were more difficult. From there the top five scorers advanced to a longer round, where the answers were revealed after each question. Questions, too, were now worth money. Players who got a question right won ten points which translated into dollar amounts, while those who did not received nothing. The player with the most points at the end of the game moved on to the special bonus round to answer five mind-bending questions in the space of a minute. A perfect score won the player ten thousand dollars.

His back to the video screen, Jason craned his neck around to survey the crowd; the dining area capacity well exceeded fifty people. “I take it you’re not going to limit the number of players like they do on the show, huh?” he asked the waitress.

Courtney shook her head. “No, the way we’re going to do it is to have only the people who get perfect scores advance from Round One, doesn’t matter how many. Same for the second round, but we’re going to try to keep only ten people for the longer round. Top five winners there get the prizes.”

“So, does the big winner here get ten thousand dollars?” Willie folded her arms over her own test sheets.

“Hardly. Course, if they did, I’d play myself.” Courtney rolled her eyes, then poised a pen to her pad as Jason ordered a Philly steak sandwich and French fries. Dan ordered the same.

“For you, ma’am?”

Willie eyed the plates of appetizers arranged around Jason in a semicircle and fought back a ripple of nausea when Dan scooped a dollop of dressing onto a loaded potato skin. “Salad,” she finally requested. “Just a nice, big salad.” Courtney left with a smile to place the order.

“So what is the big prize then, if it’s not a wad of cash?” Dan asked. Jason printed his name in thick block letters on lines indicated at the top of the first answer sheet. “I saw a board over by the buffet,” he said. “First prize is a wad of cash, actually, but it’s only like a thousand bucks, plus passes to see a live Trivial Matters taping. I guess you use the money for expenses. Second through fifth places get free gift certificates for dinner.”

“Really?” Willie exclaimed. “Good for anywhere in Jillian’s? I’d love to try the tappan tables they have over by the pool tables. If I win, we’re definitely going there,” she told Dan.

Dan raised his iced tea in a salute. “Won’t argue with a lady if she’s buying.”

Trivial Matters the show was not scheduled to begin for another fifteen minutes, and until then patrons were sufficed to watch a muted Simpsons episode on the video screen. “I hope I do well,” Jason said. “I tend to freeze up on timed tests, and I get stuck on some subjects. Like geography, that’s my big weakness.”

“I find it hard to believe that you have any weaknesses in academics,” Willie commented with a slight smile. “You’re closing in on the top five in your class.”

Jason shrugged. “I won’t get valedictorian, though.”

“What about a major for William and Mary? Have you decided on that?”

Dan leaned forward, more interested than Willie in knowing the answer to that question. During his middle school and early high school years, Jason had often expressed interest in pursuing journalism, but in the last year said not so much as a word about what he planned to do in college. He tested well in all his subjects, but Dan never saw a true spark of interest in his son’s eyes anymore as he studied and did his homework. Even the passion evident in Jason’s writing and research during his tenure as editor-in-chief for the Colley Avenue High General Gazette diffused somewhat over the past school year.

Jason would likely use his freshman year at William and Mary to satisfy his core requirements, but the semesters after that were a mystery to Dan. Not even Jason’s guidance counselor, whom Dan queried often, could get any definitive answers from the student.

Jason swallowed a bite of chicken wing. “I got a few ideas,” he began quietly, but quickly changed the subject by asking Willie about her trivia strengths and weaknesses.

Willie held up her hands. “Just don’t look to me for any pop culture questions past 1980,” she said. “I stopped paying attention to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Whitney Spears could knock on my door and ask to use the phone, and I wouldn’t know her from Eve.”

“Britney, Dad,” Jason corrected him and tucked into another Buffalo wing.

“What did I say?”

“You said Whitney,” Willie reminded him. “You were probably thinking of Whitney Houston.”

“Or J.C. Whitney,” Jason offered with a wink. “Thinking of ordering some car parts?”

“I know who Whitney Houston is, thank you,” Dan said gruffly. He drained his glass and set it down on the table with a thud. Like magic, Courtney arrived at the table with a filled replacement, and when dinner arrived shortly afterward Dan made a mental note to leave her a generous tip.

He could only manage one bite of his sandwich before the volume on the video screen rose and the sharp, brassy theme song for Trivial Matters filled the room. Various wait staff and Jillian’s employees took predetermined positions around the dining area as an unseen announcer reminded contestants to play along with the questions on the show. All answer sheets for the first round would be collected, checked, and returned to their owners during the first commercial break. Those who did not advance had to turn in their remaining answer sheets.

“Okay, let’s do it.” Jason reclined sideways on his side of the booth and poked his head above the family of four sitting directly in front of him as they clamored to get organized. Since Jason was left-handed, he had no problems ticking off the answers comfortably in that position. The only problem any of the three had was the speed with which the questions were read.

By round’s end, a lanky employee with a pale buzzcut marked Willie’s paper and Dan’s with red ink and took the rest of their sheets away. The family in the next booth was also eliminated.

“I can’t believe I got that question about Psycho wrong,” she muttered, stabbing her fork into her salad. “I could have sworn Hitchcock won the Oscar for that.”

Jason shook his head, eyeing the perfect score on his paper with pride. “No, I remembered seeing somewhere that Hitchcock never won an Oscar, at least not for Best Director. I think I saw that on A&E.”

“God bless television,” Dan sighed, amazed with the things the human mind retained. “My own son can recall a snippit of trivia from a television show long past, but ask him what day he has to bring the garbage to the curb...” He ignored his son’s scowl.

With the remaining players settled, Trivial Matters returned and Round Two progressed just as quickly, though this time several heads were focused upon Jason as he glimpsed from screen to paper answering the litany of trivia questions. Tiny, chubby fingers curled around the seat as the young child in the next booth peered over at Jason’s progress, watching attentively as Dan offered suggestions on the few current events questions that nettled at Jason’s brain.

When the buzzer sounded onscreen, many more test-takers were bobbing their heads back, red-faced and disappointed as they were stripped of their final answer sheets. Willie gaped at the increasing volume of papers being collected by Jillian’s wait staff.

“Those questions were tough,” she commented. “I know I wouldn’t have gotten those science ones right.”

“You sure did, though, guy,” said the employee with the buzz cut. He held Jason’s paper high over his head to signal another employee who approached the table followed by another, pudgier man, one clearly not employed by the restaurant as Dan noticed he was dressed rather casually in a red t-shirt and nibbling a Buffalo wing.

Dark, bristly hair crowned this man’s large, melon-shaped head. Round, black eyes shot a suspicious glance toward Jason through tortoiseshell rims. He wheezed slightly as the older employee explained that as a finalist, Jason and the seven others who achieved a perfect score would finish the game at a table by the video screen to make the scoring easier.

Before Jason could rise from his seat a sticky, fat palm shot forward and nearly grazed the boy’s nose. Jason, stunned by the move, thumped back down on the bench.

“So, you’re my competition, eh?” sneered the stranger. “Well, best of luck to you. You’re going to need it, too, kid, ’cause you’re going down!”

He then released a bellowing laugh straight from the gut which startled everyone at the table; Dan swore to himself that the silverware clattered untouched. Jason and Willie laughed timidly along. Dan imagined they were thinking the same thing: whether or not to take the man seriously.

“Bart Scarsdale, certified public accountant. Glad to meet you,” the man said jovially, giving Jason’s hand a good pump. He extended the same greeting to Willie and Dan, who felt his hand wither in the accountant’s vigorous shake.

“Dan Greevey, certifiably insane,” he said. “One would have to be to come to a thing like this.” A playful slap from Willie stung Dan’s shoulder.

Jason introduced himself and Willie and offered to accompany Bart to the finalist’s table. He pointed out the impatient expressions on the faces of the employees preparing for the final leg of the contest. “Looks like the commercial break’s almost over,” he said. “You can tell when the news anchor comes on to tease the news.”

Bart concurred with a loud slap across Jason’s shoulder. “May the best man win, Jase,” he boomed as they started toward the finalists’ table. “And don’t worry. I will, too.”

Willie pushed a clump of wilted lettuce soaked in vinegar dressing around her plate, frowning at Bart Scarsdale’s retreating form. “Best man,” she muttered. “There’s three women sitting at that table, you know. I’d like to see one of them clap his clammy neck when she wins the big prize.”

“What, you’re not rooting for Jason?” Dan threw her a look of mock hurt, and Willie pouted back at him.

“Oh, Danny, you know I am,” she sighed, and Dan felt his heart flutter. Few people called him Danny, but hearing it from Willie was pleasing, like hearing a favorite melody. There was something moving about the way she said his name, not unlike how Mary Tyler Moore wheedled Dick Van Dyke nearly four decades ago. Ohhh, Rob...a person would have to be deaf and blind not to sense the love there. Ohhh, Danny, Willie would chide him, and Dan never tired of it.

Liza talked to him that way, too, he remembered.

Though more than five years had passed since his wife Liza’s death from cancer, Dan still had difficulty discussing anything pertaining to her, much less thinking about her, without dissolving into tears. That she would never see the momentous occasions in store for her only child—high school and college graduations, job promotions, marriage—was heartbreaking, and just watching Jason studiously mark an answer sheet as the host of Trivia Matters barked questions onscreen with rapid-fire intensity made Dan sniffle slightly. Even in silly situations like these, he knew Liza would be excited for her son.

Willie leaned her head against Dan’s shoulder; the mere touch brought him back to the present. “I wonder how he’s doing,” she mused aloud. “The show’s giving the answers to the questions, and I can see them checking all the papers as they go along, but there’s no way to tell who’s winning. That Bart guy sure looks confident, though.”

“That he does.”

“Either way, this is nice, being here,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind coming back here to eat again.”

“Payday is tomorrow,” Dan hinted, clasping her hand in his. “And we do have the whole weekend.”

Willie grinned and opened her mouth to speak when the piercing feedback of a microphone squealed at high volume throughout the bar, standing their nerves on end. They looked up with everyone else in the restaurant to see a throng of Jillian’s employees congratulating Bart Scarsdale as the eatery’s official trivia champion. Jason, a smile of disappointment plastered on his face, applauded with the other finalists as Bart was handed his check. The elated contest winner raised his arms and whooped in victory, his voice a siren above a commercial jingle for cat food and the dining area’s general white noise.

“Nothing trivial about this!” Bart waved the check in the air and led a one-man victory parade toward the bar, pushing aside several finalists in the process. Jason loped back to the booth, clutching the second place prize of ten dinner gift certificates which he slapped down on the tabletop.

“One lousy question!” he berated himself. “I could’ve won the whole damn thing!”

Dan did not like hearing profanity from his son, even mild epithets, but let it pass. “What question was that?”

“Who was the first president to ride to his inauguration in an automobile? The answer was Harding but I put down Wilson.”

“Don’t sweat it. I guessed Wilson, too. I suppose it was because he was one of the first presidents of the twentieth century.”

Courtney arrived to clear plates and offer dessert, which everybody declined. Minutes later she returned with the check just as the final contestant on Trivia Matters blew his chance for the ten thousand-dollar grand prize by guessing incorrectly for whom the Baby Ruth candy bar was named.

“Duh, Ruth Cleveland!” Jason shouted at the video screen. He turned back to Dan and Willie. “Why couldn’t I have been asked that one?”

Dan pinned a few folded bills under a salt shaker for the dinner bill and Courtney’s tip. It was only nine o’clock, but he was bone tired. He eased Willie out of the booth and they both stood and stretched. “I figured you’d have gotten some other question wrong,” he pondered. “Like the one about who wrote the Tales from the City series. Even I don’t know that one, and you guys know how much I read.”

Jason guffawed. “Oh, that was an easy one, Dad. Armistead Maupin.”

“What are those books about, anyway?”

Willie led the way to the exit. “Oh, they made a miniseries from the first book several years back. They follow this group of people living in San Francisco in the seventies. I know a professor at ODU who taught them as part of a series on gay literature.”

Dan arched an eyebrow and cast a sly glance at his son. “Really? When did you become an authority on gay literature, son?”

“Dad, I work in a bookstore.”

“Anyway, second place isn’t too shabby, either,” Willie told Jason soothingly. “You won’t have to worry about paying for dinner on Prom Night.”

The prom. Dan snapped his fingers. Willie was faculty sponsor of the prom committee this year, hence they would be chaperoning the event. “Man, that reminds me. I have to get my good suit cleaned.”

“Speaking of prom.” Willie fished inside her purse for a tissue. “I haven’t seen your RSVP come in yet, Jason. I hope it’s not an oversight on my part, or that it didn’t get lost.”

Jason shook his head. “Nah,” he said quietly, shoving the gift certificates in his back pocket. Dan noticed how quickly his son’s face tensed at the mention of the prom. “I just haven’t gotten around to filling it out yet.”

“Well, be sure that you do. We need a complete head count by next week. If you wait too long you might not be able to get a tux, either. There are three other proms scheduled for the same night around town.”

“Yeah.” Jason turned his attention toward the video games, shoulders slumped and teeth clenched in the familiar posture of a teenager enduring an oft-heard lecture. Dan opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He would find a subtle way to bring up the topic of the prom and his son’s sudden discomfort when they got home.

Downstairs the stands in the food court were preparing to close for the night, yet the Waterside appeared far from deserted. Lively patrons congregated around the stairs leading up to Bar Norfolk, joking among themselves as they ascended.

“That television character look-alike contest must not have happened yet,” Dan mused. People were still arriving dressed as familiar fictional figures; Dan recognized a Morticia Addams in a form-fitting black dress with a neckline plunging practically to her high heels, followed by a very interested fellow dressed as a character from a medical drama in aquamarine scrubs. The woman winked as she passed, turning Dan’s and Jason’s heads.

“Hey!” Willie yanked on her boyfriend’s arm. “Remember me?”

“Hey, check it out.”

Dan thought at first Jason was watching the same scene, but he followed his son’s gaze back toward the food court. A gleeful, inebriated Bart leaned against the back escalators, flirting with the same drunken Elaine who earlier had cornered him at the Christmas shop storefront.

“Go, Bart,” Jason muttered. Dan could only shake his head. God help her, and him, he thought, wondering suddenly if Bart was sponge-worthy.

Chapter Two

 

 

 

At five-thirty in the morning, Jason was in the shower, so Dan noted as he and their pet beagle Ringo returned from their morning jog. Dan tapped the door of Jason’s bathroom and pushed it ajar, shouting to be heard over running water and the waterproof radio Jason had affixed to the tile shower wall.

“You’re up early.” Usually each morning saw a struggle to wake Jason before six-thirty, leaving the boy only minutes to prepare for school if he wanted to make the first bell.

The noise of a raucous morning radio show abruptly muted. “Yeah, I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep,” Jason hollered back. “I’ll be down in a little while to eat.”

“Take your time,” Dan said, shaking his head. Surely his own son was not entertaining the idea of actually sitting down to the breakfast table? Since starting at Colley High, Jason had been content to partake of the offerings from the school’s selection of vending machine fare with his friends. Rarely did he eat a breakfast that did not come sealed in a plastic bag.

Soaking with sweat in a pair of bright orange shorts and a white mesh singlet, Dan padded into his own bedroom. Ringo followed closely behind and hopped upon his unmade bed to resume sleep. A quick shower, shave and change of clothes left Dan feeling refreshed and ready to take on the school day, one he hoped would pass without incident. Not that he expected any trouble from his three advanced English classes and his foreign language electives, but as a teacher his authority extended well beyond the students in his classroom. Things sometimes got testy as the halls swelled between bells, particularly with the end of the school year fast approaching. It was not uncommon for students pent up with academic frustrations to release their energy into a midday scuffle by the lockers.

Dan straightened his tie in his dresser mirror, then paused to glance at the wedding photo of him and Liza perched to his left. Unconsciously he smoothed down his tie, letting his fingers slide down to the point. Until he met Liza he had settled upon clip-ons or not wearing a tie at all; it had taken a good year for Liza to teach him to tie one properly.

A melancholy twinge rose from his heart and nearly choked him. Everything I do brings a back a memory, he thought. They should be happy memories, too, so why am I not smiling?

He flashed a crooked grin at the photo. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I forgot your number one rule. No moping, move forward.”

Grabbing his briefcase, he nudged Ringo awake with his free hand. “C’mon, boy,” he cajoled. “Let’s get something to eat.” He passed Jason’s room to find his son sitting on the edge of his bed, engrossed in a magazine. “You ready to go?” he asked.

Jason’s head shot upward, startled. “Yeah, yeah. In a sec.” Deftly he curled the reading material into a tube and inched it just under his pillow. Suspicious, Dan tilted his head for a better look.

“What’s that you’re reading?”

“Nothing,” came a quick reply, said with all the innocence of a dieter caught holding a pint of ice cream. “Just a magazine, you know. Gooch lent it to me.”

“Ah.” Dan did not move from his spot by the doorway. Instead he shifted so that his body blocked more of the hallway as Jason gathered his things. “You need to give it back to him today?”

Jason shoved a workbook into his bulging backpack. “He doesn’t need it right now,” he said. “I’m not done reading it, anyway.”

“Okay,” Dan nodded sagely. No sense in pushing the issue. While he and Jason agreed that the boy was permitted some privacy, there were naturally certain things Dan would not tolerate in the house. Pornographic magazines were at the top of the list, and Lord help the boy were he to find a familiar bunny-shaped logo on the cover of any magazine in the room during a fit of housecleaning, Dan thought.

“I was going to heat up some oatmeal in the microwave. Want me to make you a bowl?”

“Sure, Dad. I’m right behind you.”

Jason watched his father trot downstairs to the kitchen, then quickly snatched the rolled-up magazine from under his pillow. He unfurled the glossy cover, his gaze falling upon the handsome young cover boy smiling back with ice-blue eyes. Spending only a few seconds more to contemplate the pages within, he quietly slid the magazine between two textbooks in the pack, berating himself for having lied earlier.

The magazine did not belong to Gooch, nor any of his other friends. Hopefully, Jason prayed, his father’s curiosity would be displaced by the work day. He did not need for his father to find it, at least not until he felt brave enough to explain why it was in his possession.

 

* * * *

 

Dan clocked in at the school office and learned immediately that Mrs. Wallis, the school’s other Advanced Placement English teacher, had called in sick. This negated any possibility of a meeting to discuss disbursement of AP funds for the next school year.

“How could she have a cold? Mrs. Wallis never gets sick,” Dan griped. “Remember a few years back when she scheduled a root canal after school? She was at her desk the next day! We should all be so dedicated to our jobs.”

Spanish teacher Maura Arnaiz, having overhead this comment, piped in, “Well, maybe she’s not as hardy as she used to be, and considering how much she smokes I’m not surprised. I swear, when she coughs it sounds like her lungs are about to explode.”

Alise Allan, the school’s secretary, proposed an alternative theory, that Mrs. Wallis was in mourning. “You know that singer finally kicked off last night. That crooner she really liked, you know, what’s-his-face,” she said flippantly. “As much as that woman worshipped him, I don’t blame her taking off.”

“Alise, who calls in sick when a celebrity dies?” Maura laughed. “That’s ridiculous!”

Alise shuffled a stack of readmission slips for distribution to students absent the previous day. “Well, don’t tell that to Grady,” she said, referring to the school’s shop teacher. “Three months ago he called in, but I found out later he went to some public memorial for Dale Earnhardt.”

“She really could be sick, you know,” Dan offered. Office gossip tired him, and he knew if he lingered by Alise’s desk the secretary would only be encouraged to launch into an unflattering summary of her conversation with his colleague, complete with gargling sound effects.

Maura quickly sifted through the mail in her cubbyhole. “I imagine it is kind of depressing, though, when all the big names of your era start dying. First it’s The Velvet Fog, Ol’ Blue Eyes, and now Ol’ What’s-His-Face.”

“Oh, Maura,” Alise snapped her fingers and reached into the bottom drawer of her desk, extracting a thick stack of colorful magazines and newspapers. “Your monthly package arrived the other day.”

Dan looked on disdainfully over Maura’s shoulder as she was handed her own horded periodicals, all of which were expected the week before. The covers were dog-eared from use, and as Maura flipped idly through People en Español, Dan saw that the secretary had attempted the crossword, in ink.

“Brushing up on your español, señorita?” Maura asked, her voice coated with acid.

“Sí,” Alise sneered back. “Lay goo-stow Jimmy Smits.”

“Me gusto,” Maura corrected her as she bundled the magazines under her arm and walked stiffly into the hall, muttering one last word under her breath. “Puta.”

Dan stifled the urge to laugh and prayed a silent plea for control as he turned back to his own mail. For a brief moment he was relieved People did not publish a Latin language edition for the secretary to ruin. “So,” he asked, “who’s subbing?” He and Mrs. Wallis kept similar lesson plans per their involvement in the Advanced Placement program, and he knew that today she had planned to continue, as he was, a unit on Madame Bovary which would finish the regular curriculum before finals. Dan made a mental note to check in on the sub in between bells. He did not want to have to deal with a skittish substitute being railroaded by a pack of students who preferred to play.

“Why don’t you ask me yourself?”

Dan spun around as Bailey Stone, her slender fingers intertwined and resting against her breastbone sauntered into the office. The young woman brushed a long strand of honey-colored hair away from her heart-shaped face. Her bright blue eyes, a perfect match to her long denim skirt and white blouse, drank in the sight of her handsome former boyfriend. “Hello, Danny Boy,” her voice trilled with an awkward, fake Irish accent, “how’s tricks?”

“Hey, Bailey,” Alise called, holding up a clipboard. “Just sign in here.”

Bailey signed the substitute roll sheet with a flourish and looked at Dan expectantly. “I said hello, Danny,” she said, a pout pushing forward her lower lip.

Dan, seeing Bailey for the first time in several months, tried to return the greeting but found his voice box suddenly drained, and the best salutation he could offer at that moment was a timid grunt. He gathered up his briefcase and quiz papers, thinking of the politest way to push past Bailey and barrel into the hall toward class. Seeing as how other teachers were streaming toward them and thickening into a wall, however, he stayed put. Those who took their time checking in to work made much to each other of the foolish stare on Dan’s face.

Alise told Bailey to check the copy room for handouts to give to Mrs. Wallis’s classes. Dan glanced at his watch, grateful that Willie always arrived at work early and headed straight for class to banter with her English II class before settling them down into the day’s lesson plan. Willie, as a traveling teacher, held no classes near his room, so he did not feel worried about the two meeting today.

“Bailey, good morning,” he said finally. Or, he thought, as his son once called her, Number Five on Dr. Laura’s list of things men do to mess up their lives.

“Have fun today, Bailey,” Alise added, casting a sly glance at Dan, who now wished he too had had the foresight to call in sick and mourn a dead has-been singer. He could have gone to morning Mass and lit a votive candle, praying for the repose of the soul of Ol’ What’s-His-Face. Calling in would not have been a complete deception on his part, as his head still ached from last night’s excursion to Jillian’s.

“Your son’s a celebrity, I understand,” Bailey told Dan. “I saw this smiling at me over my Rice Krispies, just as Alise called.” She slapped a folded newspaper against Dan’s chest. “I’m surprised he didn’t win the big prize. Jason’s such a smart young man, but that must run in the family.”

“He is,” Dan said, sensing deja vu. How was it that women were always trapping him against his will?

Alise, pretending to search for a critical document necessary to the school’s survival, looked up from her desk. “What’s that paper say?”

Dan laid the lifestyle section of The Virginian-Pilot lengthwise atop Alise’s desk and pointed at the large photo collage above the fold. Snapshots of the Waterside’s May Sweeps celebration were arranged in a zig-zag pattern—one of Jason mugging for the camera with some of the other trivia contest finalists overlapped candids of people for Bar Norfolk’s party, as well as some patrons from Hooters enjoying a few beers and the lovely view.

“Well, look at that,” Dan marveled at the photo. His paper was still rolled in its plastic bag on the kitchen table. “I’ll have to save this section. I don’t recall seeing photographers there, but I guess it makes sense.”

“Is there anything about last night’s murder in there?” Maura asked.

“What?” Dan shuffled through pages of movie ads and classifieds, resisting Alise as she tried to still his hands so she could read the Waterside article. “What murder? What happened?”

“You didn’t hear? Somebody was killed last night at the Waterside. You weren’t down there when it happened?”

“No, I hadn’t heard a thing.” Dan felt his heart numb. A murder at the Waterside, just after they left? To hear such a thing was unnerving. Who was the victim? Courtney? The accountant? Pseudo-Elaine? “Jason went up to his room to watch television when we got home. Me, my head hit the pillow and next thing I know my alarm was going off.” Any intentions he had of approaching Jason about his reluctance to discuss the prom faded into distant memory the second he sat down on his bed to undress.

“Oh, I didn’t bring the whole paper, so I don’t know,” Bailey told Maura. “I didn’t see anything about a murder on the front page, though.”

“Must have happened after the paper went to press,” Maura surmised. “It did make the late news, though, that’s how I know.”

“Say, Bay,” Alise said, “you should have gone to that trivia thing. I bet you could have won instead of this guy.” She grimaced at the close-up of a sweating, wide-grinned Bart Scarsdale clutching his prize as one would a winning lottery ticket.

Bailey raked a hand through her hair, her college class ring snagged in a tangle just behind her ear. “I did go,” she said icily, staring at Dan. “I don’t usually go out to bars by myself, but it’s been so long since I had a night on the town, and I figure why wait for the phone to ring...”

Dan could feel the prickly heat of her gaze flush his cheeks. Bailey, at Jillian’s? He did not recall seeing her there, then again the place was crowded, and he had been focused for the most part on Willie...

Willie. Had Bailey seen him with Willie? That would certainly explain the sudden frost in her voice.

“Bailey,” he sighed. He did not need to get into an argument right now, with Bailey especially, who seldom knew when to stop.

“You still keep the same lunch, Danny?” Bailey had the same expression on her face as Ringo normally did every day, that look of unconditional devotion declaring to the world that Dan Greevey could do no wrong, he observed. Absence really must make the heart grow fonder, he decided, for any beliefs that Bailey was over their breakup were fading fast.

“Fourth period, second lunch,” he told her. “Same as the last two years. Edna Wallis has third lunch, and so do you today.”

“Ah.” Bailey pursed her lips. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.” With a wistful smile, she hugged her teaching materials to her chest and glided out into the congested hallway. Dan waited until she disappeared around a corner before releasing a murderous glance in Alise’s direction.

“What?” Alise unconvincingly played innocent. A tiny clump of mascara smudged under her left eye.

“You could have called a hundred other substitute teachers, all of whom are infinitely more competent!” he roared. “Why her? Why for AP English? Doesn’t Mrs. Wallis keep a list of recommended subs with you?”

The secretary shrugged and let a line on her phone blink unanswered. “Well, yeah, but it’s only three names long, and they were all taken today. So I went to the regular list and started calling by alphabetical order.”

“Bailey Stone? What alphabet are you using?”

“Hey, she comes up first when you go by first names.” Alise flashed him a light yellow smile. “Plus she used to work here, so she knows her way around. Now,” she settled back into her chair and unfolded the paper to the comics section, “enjoy your planning period, Danny Boy.”

 

* * * *

 

As Dan had feared, Bailey Stone’s tenure with Edna Wallis’s Advanced Placement English and Humanities classes was nothing short of riotous, with even some of the school’s best behaved students cutting up as if unsupervised. Jason’s friend and classmate Caitlin Stevens made much of the chaos as she and another student breezed into fourth period Latin III and took their seats, but quieted when she caught a surreptitious look from their teacher.

“Oh, Jason won’t be giving her any trouble, Mr. Greevey,” she hastily rejoined. “Mrs. Wallis is gonna be ticked though, because we didn’t get anything done in that class today. It took forever just to get roll called.”

Dan finished adjusting the transparency projector for the day’s lesson and slumped against the light panel. Great, he sighed to himself. Now Edna Wallis would lose a second day trying to right the wrongs caused by Bailey’s incompetence. A dead crooner was certainly not worth all this hassle. “We’ll let Mrs. Wallis worry about her classes, Caitlin,” he said wearily. “You worry about Latin right now. The bell’s about to ring.”