Murder at the PTA Page 12
She planted a kiss on a man’s cheek and waved him away. “See you next week, Hank.”
The man gratefully nodded, unable to speak he was so satisfied and happy, and then he scampered off like an obedient schoolboy.
Sandra wasted no time and quickly approached Nell. “Excuse me, Nell, I’m Sandy. I just started here. Can I have a word with you?”
Nell barely glanced at her. “I’m about to take my break.”
Sandra had expected this. She pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “I’ll pay you for your time.”
Nell eyed the money and grinned. “My rate is two hundred.”
Sandra fished through her bag for another hundred and held both bills out to Nell. She snatched them from Sandra’s fingers, stuffed them down her cleavage, and then waved Sandra into her “office.”
The room was bare except for a double bed.
“I’d offer you a seat, but the sheets haven’t been cleaned.”
Sandra peered down at the unmade bed and couldn’t help but scrunch up her face, which Nell found hilarious.
“You’re a newbie,” Nell said, laughing. “So let me give you some valuable advice. It’s usually the men who pay for my services, not the other working girls.”
“I know, but this is really important,” Sandra said before raising her phone and showing Nell the picture of Joel.
Nell stared at the picture but kept a poker face, not indicating one way or the other if she recognized him.
“You a cop?” Nell asked evenly.
“Me? Oh, no! Hardly! Do I look like a cop?”
“No, but you can never be too careful.”
“He’s a friend of mine, and I’m concerned about him.”
“Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“He could be. I’m trying to help him.”
Nell considered all this and then folded her arms. “Yeah, I know him.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Tonight. He comes here every Wednesday, always the same time. In at eight, out by nine. Literally.”
Nell howled at her own dirty joke.
“Every Wednesday?” Sandra asked.
“Hasn’t missed one in almost a year . . . maybe once, right before Christmas.”
Sandra believed Nell. There was no reason not to because she had absolutely no motive to lie.
“Is there anything else? Because I’ve only got ten more minutes to rest this weary body before my next appointment.”
“No, I’m good, thank you, Nell,” Sandra said before scooting out of the room and down the hall toward the exit.
Joel was in the clear. He could not have killed Maisie that night because he was with Nell. It was a huge relief.
Suddenly a hand clamped down on her shoulder. “I know all my girls who work here, and you aren’t one of them.”
The hand gripped Sandra tighter, and then she was spun around. She didn’t know what to expect but was surprised to see a petite young brunette with a hardened face, in jeans and a white T-shirt. This had to be Aggie, but she certainly was not what Sandra was expecting. Some dolled-up, older woman, like the madams from the movies she had seen as a kid. No, this woman looked as if she were just out of Stanford and working in the tech industry in Palo Alto.
“This is private property, and you’re trespassing,” Aggie said in a cool, detached tone.
“I’m sorry, I was just leaving,” Sandra said, quickly turning away and running smack into the big, broad, muscled chest of Tiny the doorman.
“My girls tell me you’ve been snooping around asking a lot of questions. Why? What’s your deal?”
Sandra’s lip quivered, and she thought she might burst into tears, but she forced herself to remain calm. “Look, I don’t want any trouble . . .”
“Too late,” Aggie said, feigning a sad face. “You got some. Tiny, why don’t you take her outside and teach her a lesson?”
Tiny grabbed Sandra by the wrists so tight she yelped in pain.
“Maybe next time you’ll think twice before coming into my backyard uninvited,” Aggie said.
Tiny lifted Sandra up like a rag doll and carried her away under one arm. Before Sandra had the chance to cry for help, a giant paw of a hand clamped tightly over her mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sandra struggled mightily in the giant’s grip, using her fingers to try to pry his beefy hand loose from her lips. But anticipating the move, Tiny tightened his hand against her mouth even tighter, effectively muffling her screams and nearly suffocating her. He carried her behind the warehouse, into a dark alley near a couple of industrial-size dumpsters, and then dropped her. She hit the pavement hard, banging her knee and cracking her head. She felt dizzy and disoriented and had very little fight left in her. She could feel the blood dripping down her leg from her scraped knee, and her vision was a little blurry. When she finally was able to see straight, she gulped at the towering figure standing over her, staring menacingly down at her.
“You sure picked the wrong night to come out here, sweet thing,” Tiny said in a low, guttural Maine-accented drawl.
Sandra slowly began crawling away from him, keeping an eye on his sneering face.
Tiny shook his head. “Ain’t nowhere to go, darlin’.”
Sandra put a hand up and whispered, “Please . . .”
“Sorry, I don’t get paid to be understanding. I make my living roughing people up, and the woman who pays my bills told me you need to be taught a lesson.”
“Listen to me. I’m the wife of a United States senator.. . .”
Tiny stared at her, getting a good look at her trashy getup, and then his sneer widened into a big grin. “Yeah, and I’m Prince Harry.”
“I’m serious,” Sandra begged.
“So am I, babe.”
He flipped open the top of the dumpster and then reached down and hauled Sandra to her feet.
“What are you going to do?” she asked weakly.
“My job. Put a few bruises on that pretty face of yours and then throw you away.”
He hauled back, balling up his fist, and was about to punch Sandra in the face. She threw her hands up to block the inevitable blow, when suddenly from behind them, she heard a familiar voice.
“I wouldn’t do that if you want to live.”
Tiny spun around.
Maya had a gun trained on him. Next to her, a very pregnant Frances with one hand on her belly and breathing hard, clenched a gun in her free hand at her side.
“Who the hell are you two?” Tiny yelled.
“The two women who the police will not charge for putting a bullet through your forehead because they will say our actions were justifiable since you were about to physically harm our friend.”
It was a lot for Tiny’s small brain to process, but to his credit, he finally did, and he relaxed his fist and stepped away from Sandra.
Sandra, a wave of relief rushing through her entire body, fell against the dumpster and started to cry softly.
“So you’re not cops?” Tiny asked.
“Nope. Just two concerned citizens making sure bullies like you don’t assault a poor helpless woman. But we can call the cops, if you like.”
Tiny’s eyes popped open, panic rising. “Now I don’t see why you have to do that. The lady and I here were just having a small disagreement, and it might have gotten a little out of hand. . . .”
“Is that what happened?” Maya asked Sandra.
Sandra debated whether she should insist on calling the police and having Tiny arrested, but then she considered the fallout and all the questions that would arise about why Senator Wallage’s wife was dressed up like a hooker loitering around the waterfront and a known brothel. She decided it would be best not to push it.
“Yes, that about sums it up,” Sandra said. “Let him go. I won’t press charges.”
Tiny exhaled, his fears allayed.
“We ever hear you raised a fist to a woman again, we’ll be back,” Frances promised.
Sandra rushed to Maya and nearly collapsed in her arms. “Thank you so much, Maya!”
Maya pushed her away. “What the hell were you doing out here?”
“Well, when you and Frances refused to investigate Joel Metcalf, I decided to take matters into my own hands and—”
Maya stepped forward. “Are you seriously that loony? You put on some Halloween hooker costume and drove your fancy car out to this dangerous area crawling with lowlifes so you could play out some fantasy of being a private eye?”
Sandra’s face flushed. She was taken aback by the sheer intensity of Maya’s anger. “I know it was impulsive, but—”
Maya cut her off. “Not impulsive. Irresponsible. Where’s your investigator’s license? Do you own a registered weapon? How were you going to defend yourself?”
“I don’t have a gun. . . .”
“Why not?” Maya snapped.
“Because I don’t like them,” Sandra said softly.
“Unbelievable,” Frances scoffed, shaking her head.
“Just because we didn’t team up with you doesn’t mean we were going to ignore the information you gave us. We’ve been tailing Metcalf too. That’s why we are here. We saw him show up at the warehouse earlier this evening, and then double backed to find out more,” Maya said.
“It’s a good thing too. Otherwise, you probably would have wound up in that dumpster, brain-dead or in a coma,” a disdainful Frances spat out.
Sandra knew she had gotten in way over her head. And Frances was right. If they hadn’t shown up when they did, she probably would have been a national news story by morning, if someone even found her. “I’m sorry.”
Frances angrily approached Sandra. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Frances, dial it down a bit. She’s been through enough for one night,” Maya said, resting a hand on Frances’s arm, pulling her back.
“I’m sorry, but she needs to get it through her thick skull that we are not a team. This isn’t some retro episode of Charlie’s Angels. We don’t need a third.”
Maya adopted a more measured approach. “I know you were just trying to help, Sandra, and I applaud your determination to get to the bottom of Maisie’s death, but with no formal training, you’re just putting yourself in danger.”
Sandra sighed, embarrassed. “I get it. I won’t do anything like this again.”
Frances opened her mouth to continue her tirade, but Maya stopped her abruptly with a tight squeeze to her arm. Frances obliged and kept her mouth shut.
Sandra nodded and then turned to leave. “Good night.”
But before she took two steps, she turned back around. “For what it’s worth, Joel Metcalf has an alibi for the night we found Maisie’s body. He was with a sex worker named Nell. She struck me as credible, so I believe her. I think Joel is in the clear.”
Maya gave her a half smile. “Thank you, Sandra.”
And then Sandra fled to her car, where once she was behind the wheel, the floodgates opened and she sobbed, not because she was humiliated or embarrassed, but because she had just barely escaped being beaten within an inch of her life.
She had learned her lesson.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sandra ignored her phone buzzing incessantly inside her bag for the whole drive back to her house. Only after she was parked in the driveway did she rummage through the bag for her phone to see who had been calling.
It was Stephen.
She listened to his voice mail message. No earth-shattering news or last-minute request to fly down to DC so she could be on his arm for some political fund-raiser or White House state dinner. He just wanted to check in and see how she was doing. He had been on pins and needles ever since his last visit home and was anxious to hear that everything was fine and that he didn’t have to worry about the state of their marriage.
Sandra decided not to call back just yet, because the last question she wanted to hear from him when he answered was, “What are you doing?”
What would she tell him? “Hi, honey, not much. I just went down to the waterfront to a brothel, where I posed as a hooker to get some information and nearly got my face smashed in by a three-hundred-pound thug. How was your day?”
No, that was not an option at the moment.
She had to clear her head first before she talked to her husband.
Sandra unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car, crossing the lawn to the front door. The door was unlocked. She headed directly to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator, pulled out a half-empty bottle of pinot grigio and poured herself a generous glass. She gripped the stem and tossed the wine back into her mouth, finally relaxing, happy to be safe at home.
That’s when she heard a cough.
It came from behind her.
Sandra slowly turned around to see her two sons, Jack and Ryan, along with Kevin Metcalf, and another player from Jack’s football team whose name she could never remember, all sitting around the kitchen table. They stared at her, wide-eyed, their mouths hanging open.
“What, do I have something stuck in my teeth?”
None of the boys even attempted to answer her.
She suddenly realized what was so interesting to look at. She was still sporting her “hooker” look.
Oh God.
“Hi, Mrs. Wallage,” the boy whose name she couldn’t remember squeaked.
“Hi . . . ,” she drew it out, hoping he would help her.
“Gary,” he croaked, staring at her immodest green halter top that accentuated her ample bosom.
She folded her arms in a lame attempt to cover herself. “Hi, Gary. Have you boys eaten? I’ve got a casserole in the fridge I could heat up for you.”
Kevin Metcalf’s eyes were glued to her tight black leather skirt. “No, we had pizza earlier. . . .”
“Mom, what are you . . . ?” Ryan whispered, unable to finish his question.
Gary finally tore his eyes away from Sandra’s breasts and turned to Jack, whispering, “Dude, when did your mom get so hot?”
Jack just shook his head, speechless.
Sandra pondered attempting a reasonable explanation but then sighed, deciding against it. The last thing she needed was for Gary to rush home and tell his parents about her extracurricular activities as an amateur gumshoe. And she certainly didn’t want to alert Kevin to the fact that she had been investigating his father and had discovered that his weekly poker nights were actually trips to a prostitute to satisfy his carnal needs.
No, these boys, along with her own, were better off being left in the dark.
“I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower. If you boys change your mind, just give me a holler.”
“Yes, Mrs. Wallage,” Kevin said, nodding, eyes still fixed on the tight leather skirt.
Sandra instinctively pulled the skirt down a bit to cover more of her thigh before spinning around to leave.
There was a flash.
She whipped back around to see who had taken a picture.
It was Gary, capturing the moment for posterity, his phone held up in front of him. He quivered at the stern look on her face. “I just wanted to . . .”
Sandra marched over to the table and held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
Gary wavered but knew he was not going to win this one, so, reluctantly, he handed her his phone.
Sandra deleted the photo of her bum he had just taken before handing his phone back to him.
Ryan leaned forward. “Mom, are you in a play or something you didn’t tell us about?”
That sounded at least plausible.
“Yes, why? You don’t have to be the only actor in the family, you know.”
And then she got out of the kitchen as fast as she could before she had to suffer through any follow-up questions.
She raced up to her bedroom, where she pulled off the green halter top, shimmied out of the skintight leather skirt, a
nd then stepped into the shower, where the cascading rush of water began to wash away the heavily caked makeup on her face.
Sandra was determined to rinse off every last remnant of her adventure as a lady of the night, hoping the traumatic memory of the experience would also swirl down the drain and be gone forever. Even though she had a strong feeling her days as a tenderfoot detective were far from over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I still can’t believe she’s gone,” Principal John Hicks lamented as he sat slumped behind his desk, his face drawn and tired. He stared at his hands while he fiddled with his fingers, lost in thought. “It’s been a shock for everyone here . . . especially the students. Those poor kids . . . I’ve brought in some extra counselors in case they need to talk to someone.”
Maya sat opposite him, upright and legs crossed, all business. She had a lot of questions but didn’t want to appear insensitive to his grief. So she remained silent until she felt he was ready.
Finally, she cleared her throat, pulling him out of his random thoughts. “Were you aware that Maisie was the one who was behind the Dirty Laundry website?”
This aroused him out of his mournful fog. “Good Lord, no! I had no clue! I was as surprised as everyone else when I found out. That website was horrible and cruel, and I still can’t believe Maisie had anything to do with it.”
“I heard rumors Maisie had a few conflicts here at the school last year,” Maya casually mentioned.
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember.”
Of course she did.
Her source was Vanessa.
“Yes, well, it was nothing, really. Maisie had come to me, concerned about the moral decline at the school.”
“Such as?”
“The usual stuff. Girls wearing tops that were too revealing. An abundance of public displays of affection in the hallways between boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls, you name it. She was very upset that the culture at the school, and society in general, had become so sexualized and permissive. It really bothered her. So she took it upon herself to try and restore a little modesty.”