Текст книги "Alibi High"

Автор книги: Jeff Shelby

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EIGHT

“Sophie and Grace brought home these bottles with brown liquid in them,” Jake said, shaking his head as he got out of the car. “They said it was some sort of super healthy tea or something. I said it looked like sewer water.”

I'd gotten home from Prism around three – thirty. Bingledorf was off-campus for a meeting when I went searching for her, so I held onto the inventory sheet and finished sorting the mail. Ellen was unbelievably gracious and thankful and seemed on the verge of tears when I said I would be back the following day. So I'd gone home and started the laundry and pulled weeds from the garden. I waved at Emily as she scurried into the house when the bus dropped her off and had just started pulling yanking all of the ripe tomatoes from their vines when Jake pulled up with the rest of the kids.

“It's kombucha,” Sophie said, holding hers up. Her blond hair was tied back in a loose ponytail , her long bangs hiding her eyes. “It tastes like iced tea. Only a little grosser.”

“And it came from Brenda's mother!” Grace yelled, holding up her bottle. She scampered over to me and shoved the bottle in my face, within g inches of my nose.

“Brenda's mother?” I asked. “Really?”

“No, it came from something called a mother,” Will said, the last one to exit the car.  He held his bottle with his thumb and forefinger, like he was afraid to touch it. “It's this totally disgusting thing that lives on her counter now. Like an alien or something. Totally creepy.”

“ What?” I asked. “What lives on the counter?”

Will's blue eyes darkened. “The mother of this disgusting drink. Which I am not drinking.”

“Totally looks like sewer water,” Jake muttered.

The kids scampered into the house and Jake stayed out in the garden with me.

“How was your first day of school?” he asked, grinning. He was wearing khakis and a blue button-down shirt that matched the color of his eyes.

“Eventful.” I told him about the stolen computers.

“Wow,” he said, when I'd finished. “That's crazy. All of the computers?”

“All of them.”

“How would someone do that?”

I tugged on a tomato clinging stubbornly to the vine. “Uh, I guess they'd carry them out.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got that part. But I mean, you'd need a really big car for that. Or a rental truck. Or something. Because that's a lot of computers if it was the entire lab.”

“Which you'd think someone would notice.”

Jake nodded. “Which you'd think someone might have on video surveillance.”

“They're checking that.”

He shook his head. “Tape is probably already lost.”

While I'd viewed Prism with skepticism, he'd openly shared his disdain for it. Not because he was against schooling, but because he'd claimed it felt like a rinky-dink operation from the beginning. He said the word “charter” was code for “parents who have no clue what they're doing” and he'd shared his frustrations about inconsistent teaching, poor communication and the website that never seemed to work. He'd tempered the complaining once he realized that Emily was enjoying it so much, but like with most things that irritated him, he'd usually mutter something under his breath about it when the opportunity arose.

“I have no idea,” I said, dropping another tomato into the basket next to me. “But the computer teacher guy didn't seem all that worried, which was kind of weird.”

“Probably just going to show movies until they get new computers,” Jake said.

I frowned at him. “Stop.”

He frowned back. “Yeah, let's see what happens.” He paused. “On a different note, when is the first time we have the Witt kids here for babysitting?”

“In two weeks, I think. Why?”

“I'm gonna try to schedule a trip or something so I'm not here,” he said. “Maybe for the duration of these trade days or whatever you're calling them.”

“You are very grouchy,” I commented. “Bad day at work?”

“Not at all. I got to their house to pick the kids up and that little tyrant threw a rock at me,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“Maybe you should try making friends with him.”

“That's what I did!” he said. “I walked up to him on the front porch and said 'Hey, little man, what's going on?' and he said 'You're weird!' and fired a rock at me. I ducked and it hit the front of the car. Add that to the sewer water thing and I'm really thinking I need a business trip to Abu Dhabi or something.”

“You're exaggerating,” I told him.

“I did not exaggerate that rock coming at my head.”

“Maybe he wanted to play catch.”

“Or maybe he's into stoning people he doesn't like.”

“Yeah, I'm sure a two-year-old has a hit list going,” I said, rolling my eyes at his comments. “Back to the computers. Shouldn't the school have a record of what they purchased?”

“What do you mean?”

I sat down on the steps that led to the porch, the late day sun and breeze making me want to stay outside a little longer. It was a beautiful September day but fall could be fleeting in Minnesota and I wanted to savor every snowless minute I could.

“Like at your work. Isn't there some sort of purchasing system?”

Jake sat down next to me, his leg pressing against mine. “Yeah. You have to fill out a P.O., then get it signed off by a supervisor.”

“And then what happens when you buy it?”

He thought for a moment. “Well, with computers or phones or stuff like that, they go into our I.T. department because they actually do the buying. But when they come in, they give each one a serial number and the serial number is on a sticker or something that's placed on the device. Then when they go to whoever requested it, it's logged somewhere because if someone quits or gets fired, then I.T. knows exactly what needs to be turned back in before they leave.”

I nodded. “That's what I thought.”

“Why?”

“Well, I just thought it was odd that they wanted me to go make an inventory list on a spreadsheet,” I explained. “I thought they should have some sort of record of what was there. I mean,  shouldn't it be easy to figure out what's missing? The computer teacher didn't even seem to have a clue as to what had been in his classroom.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Uh, isn't that what we're sort of used to with Prism?” he asked. “It's all pretty and shiny on the outside, but there seems to be a lot of incompetence on the inside.”

“I know, but still,” I said. I stared at the tomatoes in the basket. “These are big ticket items. I just feel like they should have a better handle on what's gone missing.”

“So ask,” he said, standing up. “Ask tomorrow. Maybe they were just in panic mode today and weren't thinking there was an easier way to go about it. They probably have it scribbled in crayon somewhere.”

I smiled. “You're so bad.”

“I know,” he said, holding out his hand. “Come on. Let's go inside.”

“Are you hungry for dinner?” I asked, letting him pull me up. I'd pulled out some hamburger meat to defrost but hadn't decided what to do with it yet.

“Yep,” he said, kissing my cheek. “Plus, I wanna check fares to Abu Dhabi two weeks from now.”

NINE

“Ellen, does Prism have a business office or someone responsible for school purchases?” I asked.

It was the next morning and I'd slept well, passing out as soon as I hit the bed, my day of volunteering taking more out of me than I'd expected. I struggled out of bed in the morning but managed to get the kids up and dressed and out the door with Jake at the same time as Emily headed for the bus. My feelings were a tiny bit hurt that she still wouldn't consider riding with me, but I was trying to be an understanding parent who was giving her daughter room.

Totally out of character for me.

So I showered, dressed and was in the front office of Prism by nine o'clock, asking Ellen about purchasing.

She smiled nervously. “Oh, my. That's a bit of a gray area,” she said, tugging on the collar of her paisley print shirt.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pursed her lips, considering her answer. “We had a controller, but she left at the end of last school year.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She wasn't really a controller,” Ellen said, almost wincing. “She'd done some accounting work in the past but she didn't really have the experience necessary to handle our finances. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that until...well, until things got a bit out of hand.”

I nodded, thinking I really wasn't looking forward to sharing that information with Jake. I could visualize his reaction, nodding and smiling, telling me he wasn't surprised at all.

“We haven't replaced the position as of yet,” she explained. “So it's been kind of piecemeal at this point.” She fingered her collar again. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Well, I just got to thinking that there might be some purchase records for the computers and it might be a more efficient way of figuring out what was stolen,” I said.

She chewed her lip while she thought. “I'm not sure,” she finally said. “Record keeping was part of the problem, so I don't know what we can find. I tell you what. How about if you work with Mr. Riggler this morning to see what you can come up with and I'll do some digging and see if I can find anything?”

“That would be great.”

“I'd tell you we could dig together, but Evelyn phoned in this morning and asked me to make sure you complete the list today. If at all possible,” she added meekly.

I adjusted my purse, shifting it higher on my shoulder. “She's not here this morning?”

“She's meeting with a board member,” Ellen answered. “She spends a lot of time off-campus, meeting with community leaders and board members and reps from the school district. She's as much of a salesperson as she is a pr incipa esident l .” She hesitated. “And I don't mean that in a bad way. She's very good at the sales part.”

I wondered if that meant that she didn't think Evelyn was very good at the principal president part.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm happy to work on it and see what we come up with for an inventory. Does Mr. Riggler have a class right now?”

She tapped at her keyboard, studied the screen, then nodded. “Yes, but you can go down there. I really think Evelyn would like to have some sort of list today.”

“He wasn't crazy about having me there yesterday when the kids were there,” I said, remembering his reaction from the previous day.

“Well, if he has an issue with it, let him know that Evelyn asked you to come down and work on it,” she said. “If he still has questions, let me know and we'll get it squared away.”

“Will do,” I said. But I wasn't convinced Ellen could stand up to a mouse, much less the school's computer teacher.

I set my purse in the conference room, pulled the spreadsheet from it and walked down the hallway to Mr. Riggler's room.

Every face in the room turned to me when I opened the door to the classroom.

Including Emily's.

I smiled at her and waved.

She attempted to disappear in her seat, her shoulders slumping over as she sank lower in her desk.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Savage,” Mr. Riggler said from behind the podium at the front of the room. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Bingledorf asked me to come down and continue working on our project from yesterday,” I said. “She'd like it as soon as possible.”

His cheeks glowed pink as he looked nervously around the room. “Oh, alright. Maybe you'd like to have a seat at my desk and I'll join you in just a moment?”

I nodded and worked my way around the desks and tables, every head turning to follow me.

Except, of course, Emily's.

I slid into his chair and unfolded the spreadsheet and pretended to study it.

“Uh, okay, let's see,” Mr. Riggler said. He glanced at the white board in his room but there was nothing written on it. “So, uh, social media. That's what we were talking about. So let's say you're using Twitter. What are some things you might post as your status?”

There was some quiet laughing and then one boy in the back raised his hand.

“Tim?” Mr. Riggler said, calling on him.

“You don't post statuses on Twitter,” the boy said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “That's on Facebook. You just, like, tweet stuff.”

“Ah, right, yes,” Riggler said, stumbling a bit over his words. He adjusted his glasses. “So what might you twit?”

Another ripple of soft laughter rose from the classroom.

“Tweet,” Tim corrected. “I don't know. Just, like, stuff you're thinking about. Or links to stuff.”

“Links!” Riggler exclaimed, glancing around the room. “Good. I'm glad you brought that up. So how would you Tweet a link? Would you just copy and paste the RUL?”

Tim shook his head and looked down at his desk.

“It's URL, man,” another boy muttered. Louder, he added, “The address is the URL.”

“Ah, of course,” Riggler said, his cheeks flushing. “I'm always getting that confused, aren't I? So would you just copy and paste the URL?”

“No,” a girl said from behind Emily. She wore glasses like Mr. Riggler's. “You should use a link shortener if you're linking on Twitter. Like bit.ly or one of those places.”

“Right,” Riggler said, nodding vigorously. “Because the...URL...address is really quite long and just doesn't look right when you post it on Twitter.”

“Well, no,” the girl said, frowning. “It's because you're limited to the number of characters you can use on Twitter and pasting the whole URL will eat up the character space.”

The pink in Riggler's cheeks brightened. “Right.”

It went on like this for several more minutes, with Riggler suggesting things about social media sites and the students correcting his assertions. Each time they refuted his statements, he'd get a little more flustered and the kids would tune out a little more. By the time the bell rang, I was pretty certain Mr. Riggler was not an expert in social media. And I was definitely sure that no one had learned a thing in computer class that morning.

Emily hesitated at her desk, then walked back toward me. “Why are you here?”

“Because I need to work on something with Mr. Riggler,” I told her. “Like I said when I walked in.”

“You couldn't have waited until after class?” she asked, clutching her binder to her chest.

“Was my presence that horrific?” I asked, not bothering to hide my annoyance with her sullen act. “Have I completely destroyed your reputation and your day by showing up and sitting her e quietly in the back of the room?”

Her face immediately went red and her shoulders slumped further. “No, I just...I meant...” She sighed and shook her head. She'd worn her hair loose and stray strands clung to her cheeks. “Never mind.”

I'd put up with the disgruntled teen act for a few days now and I was done with it. Until I attempted to sit at lunch with her and show her baby pictures to her friends, she had no reason to be upset with me. She was going to have to learn to co-exist with me.

“Mr. Riggler seems a bit...confused,” I said, lowering my voice as I watched him speak with several students near the front of the room.

She rolled her eyes. “You think? He knows nothing.”

“I'm not sure he's ever been on any of those sites,” I said.

“I'm not sure he's ever been on the Internet,” she countered. She brushed her hair away from her face. “It's always like this. He can barely turn on the computers.”

I frowned. “But he's the computer science teacher.”

“And the media literacy teacher,” Emily added. “Except he knows nothing about computers or media literacy. Every kid in here knows more than he does.”

I knew that teachers were sometimes thrust into teaching a subject that might not have been their first choice or their area of expertise. But listening to Mr. Riggler made it sound as if he'd never been on the Internet. Emily was prone to exaggeration, but in this case, I believed her.

“I gotta go,” she said, backing up. “I'll see you at home.”

“Or you could ride with me,” I reminded her. “I'll probably be up in the front office.”

“We'll see,” she said. Her tone had changed and she sounded almost apologetic. “Don't wait for me. See you.”

I watched her walk down the middle of the room, say something to Mr. Riggler as she passed him on the way out, and disappear out into the hallway.

Mr. Riggler smiled nervously at me as he made his way to the back of the room. “Class is a little disjointed right now, I'm afraid. With no computers, I mean. It's hard to teach things when we can't use them.”

“I'm sure,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic.

“I, uh, ended up creating an inventory list last night,” he said. “I was here late so I just thought I'd go ahead and finish ed what we started.” He reached for a manila folder on his desk and handed it to me.

I opened the folder. There was a single sheet of paper in it, listing computers and printers and a few other things. All of it was handwritten and a bit hard to read.

“I was going to use Powerpoint, but I thought it might be easier to just write it down,” he explained.

“Powerpoint?”

“Yeah, like the sheet you started with yesterday?” he said. “With all of the columns and stuff?”

I stared at him. “You mean...Excel?”

His eyes darted away for a moment and his hands fidgeted at his sides. “Oh, right, right! Right, Excel. That's what I meant. Not sure why I said Powerpoint.”

I wasn't sure either, except for the fact that I was thinking he really didn't know the difference between the two. Which was kind of a problem, given that he was the one responsible for teaching the kids how to use those programs on their computers. I didn't know if he was tired or stressed because of the computer theft, but I genuinely hoped that his confusion was due to one of those rather than simply not knowing.

I stood from the chair. “And you think this is everything?”

He nodded. “Yes, and it includes what we came up with yesterday. I just started from scratch. I think that's all of it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, I'll take it down to Mrs. Bingledorf's office. I'm sure she'll get in touch with you if she has any questions.”

He slipped into the chair I'd just occupied. “Yes, yes. I'm sure she will. And thanks again for all your help.”

I left the classroom with the folder in my hands.

I really wasn't sure what help I'd given him.

But it was pretty evident that he needed some.

TEN

I reached the office and Ellen's face brightened as soon as she saw me.

“Evelyn is back,” she announced, as if this was news I'd been waiting on. “She'd like to see you in her office.”

For a moment, I was transported back to my own high school days, struck with a pang of anxiety that an educational higher authority wanted to see me for reasons I wasn't aware of. I reminded myself, however, that I was now an adult and couldn't be sentenced to detention. I headed down the hall to her office.

Evelyn Bingledorf was on the phone but waved me in and motioned for me to have a seat. She wore a red business suit today and long silver earrings that reflected the overhead florescent lights.

“Yes, yes, very good,” she said, smiling at me, then glancing away. “That all sounds wonderful. Alright, I'll be in touch in a day or two. Goodbye.” She hung up and amped up the smile. “Good morning, Daisy. How are you today?”

“I'm well, thank you. Yourself?”

“Excellent!” she said, nodding for emphasis, as if I might doubt her. “Things are a bit calmer this morning than yesterday.”

I wasn't sure why that was so because the computers were still missing, but maybe she was just referring to the chaos of finding out that the school had been robbed.

“I have this,” I said, holding out the sheet the computer teacher had given me. “Mr. Riggler actually completed it last night. He just gave it to me this morning.”

She reached for a pair of reading glasses, a sturdy pair with zebra print frames. She studied the sheet for a moment. “This is...difficult to read.”

I'd thought the same thing when Riggler had handed it off to me. “Well, I think he was trying to do it quickly,” I offered. “We'd started with the sheet you'd given me, but I had that with me, so I think he was just trying to get it all down.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, not sounding convinced at all. “Well, I'll have Ellen type it up and make it a bit more presentable.” She set it down on the desk and refocused on me. “This is great to have. Thank you.”

“I can't really take any credit for it,” I said. “I went to his room this morning to complete the list, but he'd already done all of the work.”

“Nonetheless, I appreciate your effort,” she said, as if she hadn't even heard me. She removed her reading glasses and set her hands on the desk. She studied me. “Daisy, you seem like a doer to me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “A doer?”

“One who gets things done,” she said, tapping her fingers on the desktop. “A woman who can handle tasks. A woman who can accomplish things.”

I was glad Jake wasn't in the room because I was sure he would have burst out laughing. He would have immediately countered by saying I spent more time thinking – or rather, obsessing – about doing things than actually getting things done.

“Uh. Okay.”

“I like your personality,” she said, pointing at me. “You are a go-getter. Definitely a doer.”

This was our third conversation and the previous two had been extremely brief. While I liked to think of myself as someone who could get things done once in awhile, I wasn't exactly sure what she'd seen that made her come to this conclusion.

“Which is what we need here at Prism,” she said, smiling. “Especially now.” mom asked if I could and

“Especially now?”

She leaned back in her large leather chair and her expression grew somber. “We are in a crisis here, Daisy. An emergency of sorts. As a school that bills itself as a technological leader in education, we find ourselves without the means to carry out that mission statement.” She paused. “We need to rectify that. Immediately.”

Her words sounded like those of a politician trying to win my vote or to get me to understand an issue that she thought was important. I wasn't clear on where she was headed.

“And we need your help,” she said, emphasizing every word.

“We?”

“The Prism community,” she clarified. “We are in a time of need and I think you are just the person who can help us.”

“Well, I don't know about– ”

Bingledorf raised her hand to stop me. “I know a doer when I see one and you are a doer, Daisy,” she said, ignoring my attempts to thwart her filibuster. “I'm one myself. So I recognize it when I see it.” She placed her palms down carefully on the desk. “You can help quell the crisis here at Prism.”

I swallowed and cleared my throat. The stolen computers were definitely an issue but her words were like a call to war. “Uh, how?”

She slapped her palms down on the desk and smiled like she'd won an election. “With a fundraiser.”

“A fundraiser?” I said, staring blankly at her.

“Yes, a fundraiser,” she said. She picked up a pen and twirled it slowly. “We need something that can help the community raise the money to purchase new computers, so that we remain true to our mission statement and so that our students can continue to move forward with their education. We cannot wait. What we need from you is to help us find a way for our school community to raise the necessary funds to replace our computers.”

So her speech wasn't just about pumping me up and singing my accolades.

It was to recruit me.

“I'm not sure I'm the person you need,” I said, shaking my head. “I have three kids at home, plus my daughter that's here. I've only volunteered for a week and, while I'd like to tell you that it was altruistic, the truth is I was simply doing it to get our family's required volunteer hours out of the way for this year.”

Bingledorf nodded, wrinkles forming at the corner of her eyes as she scrutinized me. “I'm sure we could arrange something. Because the way I see it, Daisy, is this: you are in the right place at the right time.”

She was talking in circles and she wasn't listening. “Organizing a fundraiser takes a lot of time,” I countered. “A lot of time that I don't have.”

“We aren't looking for anything too complicated,” Bingledorf said. “Because, frankly, we'll need to pull it off soon. Each day that the school goes without a computer is one day too long. So what we need is something simple, but that has the potential to bring in dollars.”

“Yes. You do,” I said.

Then we sat there staring at each other, the silence deafening.

“Here's what I can offer you,” Bingledorf said. She straightened in her chair and folded her hands together and stared down her nose at me as if she were queen. I wondered if she had a crown behind her desk. “Let's say you went home this evening and tossed around a few ideas with your husband. Just brainstormed a bit. And let's say you came back tomorrow morning with an idea that was straightforward, but would generate the money that we need.” She paused and tucked her chin slightly, eyeing me. “I would be willing to count that as not only your volunteer hours for this year, but also for your daughter's remaining years here at Prism.”

I considered that for a minute. Each year, the number of volunteer hours doubled. So the commitment to fulfill them would grow. It was an interesting offer. But I still wasn't exactly sure what she thought I could pull off in a short amount of time. I could think of small things off the top of my head – bake sales, thrift sales, raffles – but those wouldn't generate the kind of money needed to replace an entire computer lab.

Which left me with a question.

“Have you spoken to your insurance company?” I asked. “About when you might see a check for the lost items? That would still seem to me like the quickest way to reestablish the lab.”

She pursed her lips for a moment, her confidence wavering. Then she smiled. “Yes, well, it's all very complicated. Insurance companies can be difficult to deal with, as I'm sure you're aware, particularly with something this...involved. I have been in touch with them and I'll certainly be presenting them with our inventory list here, but I don't have much faith that we will see any sort of quick reimbursement.”

“But if you impressed upon them how vital the computers are,” I said. “I'm sure they'd be able to come up with something. I mean, they're insuring a school, so they must have some experience with this kind of thing.”

“Oh, absolutely,” she said, nodding quickly. “Absolutely. But given that there is a criminal investigation that is ongoing and the amount of paperwork and red tape, I fear they may be a bit slow on the uptake to cover our losses.” She smiled, satisfied with her own answer. “So. I really believe that a fundraiser might do the trick.”

I still didn't agree with her, but it was pretty clear that she wasn't going to change her stance at that moment.

“So perhaps we can meet again tomorrow morning?” she said. She picked up her reading glasses, along with a file on her desk. “To discuss what you've come up with and to discuss the viability of the best idea?”

I sighed. I didn't see the point in arguing any further. Evelyn Bingledorf was like a bulldog with a turkey leg in her teeth . She wasn't letting go.

“Sure,” I said, already dreading the conversation with Jake. “Let's talk tomorrow.”