Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри, Эллин Стенли
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Penny Publications
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016». Краткое содержание книги:
“No,” Carrie said. “Seven years altogether, though.”
As Carrie got up to leave, Anne said, “Didn’t you date Holt Halsey?”
Of course Carrie knew that Anne was seeing Holt now; everyone at the school knew that. But Carrie’s expression stayed uninterested. “Oh, for about five minutes,” she said. “I’ve been seeing Mack McCormick for a year now. You know him? The manager at Chili’s?”
Anne was convinced she could strike Carrie Ambrose off the very short list, unless Carrie turned out to be a superlative actor.
That left Lois Krueger or Melayna Tate. Anne had read every word of Lois’s record, and the nurse’s office was close to Anne’s. It was easy to find a chance to talk to Lois, and Anne felt the time was right when Lois came into the office to report a student who’d developed symptoms of what looked horribly like measles. Lois had called the boy’s mother, who’d come to get him to take him straight to the doctor. They’d find out later.
“Good call, Lois,” Anne said.
Lois looked at her doubtfully. “Anne, what else was I going to do? Tell him to go back to class?”
Anne had hit a false note. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m so used to cheering on the kids that it’s leaking over into my conversation with adults.”
Lois relaxed. In a moment, they were laughing together over Ross Montgomery’s takedown.
Anne just couldn’t picture Lois doing everything her persecutor had had to do. For one thing, Lois had a child, a ten-year-old girl. That would make it hard (though not impossible) for Lois to sneak around with secret payments or a stepladder.
If the persecutor wasn’t Carrie or Lois, barring the discovery of some secret, ardent Holt fanatic, Anne was reasonably sure that Melayna Tate was the woman she was after. Anne could think of no justification for calling Melayna to her office. The basketball coach was popular with her talented team, and she was a competent teacher; more than Anne could say for most coaches.
To make absolutely sure she had treed the right raccoon, Anne arranged for her path to cross Melayna’s when they were on outside duty during the senior lunch period. The weather was beautiful, so most of the kids went to the covered picnic-table area in the few minutes they had after eating in the cafeteria. Anne wandered over to the coach, who was staring into space.
When Melayna woke from her daydreaming to find Anne was standing beside her, her whole posture altered. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Melayna snapped. Obviously, she thought better of her words the minute they left her mouth. She looked away, her jaw hard because her teeth were clenched. Anne knew that body language.
It was something of a revelation to Anne, all the feelings that welled up inside her at that moment of clarity.
“I believe I can go where I like in this school,” Anne said calmly.
After a visible struggle, Melayna regained control. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was off in the clouds somewhere. You startled me.”
“Yes,” Anne said, and moved away at a calculated angle. Anne could see Melayna’s face reflected in a classroom window. It was tense and taut with strong emotion. One of Anne’s instructors had called such an open display of feeling “showing your ass.”
Anne strolled away, suppressing her smile. Objective acquired.
Anne called Melayna Tate’s previous school at a tiny town in South Carolina. She talked to the principal, a cordial man who knew Melayna’s whole extended family. “Melayna’s volunteered to be on the staff counseling service,” Anne said. She’d just made that service up. “We just wondered if she were strong enough?” Anne let the question trail off. “Since she was in therapy herself, she told me,” Anne said, following a hunch.
“Well, yes,” Mr. Sherman said unhappily. “Melayna was a student here before she became a teacher. She had a problem with her mother’s remarriage. It took her a long time to adjust to Jay Tate as her father. But she got over that! Then, after her senior year, she had trouble with her boyfriend. He transferred to another college, and she, ah, took it wrong. But getting help is a sign of health. I hope she’s feeling well now? I haven’t said too much?”
“She’s got a solid record here,” Anne said reassuringly. “Her name before she adopted the Tate name was Wilson?”
“Yes,” Sherman said, relieved. “The Wilsons are all... well, they’re, ah, interesting people. Very nice!”
That hadn’t been the first comment that had popped into Mr. Sherman’s mind. Anne would bet good money that Sherman had been about to say, “The Wilsons are all high-strung,” or “The Wilsons have had their share of nuts on the family tree.”
Of course, Wilson was a common name, and there was a small chance that Melayna Tate had no connection with Tom Wilson, the mentally ill man who had claimed to be Anne’s first husband. But Anne did not believe in small chances.
Anne worked out her course of action. She was smiling. That night, in the dark, Anne left her house.
The Travis Panthers had a home game the next afternoon. Anne was in the stands, as usual. Melayna was there too, perhaps because she could sit and watch Holt Halsey for a long time without anyone noticing.
Anne watched Melayna, perfecting her plan as she did so.
That night, around one A.M., Anne again crept into Melayna’s yard. She’d parked a mile away. She was wearing dark clothes, but not all black, just in case she was stopped. She didn’t want to look like a secret creeping ninja. She had prepared a backup story involving a broken-down car, a lost cell phone, and her need to find the nearest person she knew for help. She could sell it, but she didn’t want to be obliged to do that.
Much better to be unseen.
Anne was uniquely qualified to do that. She enjoyed employing the craft she’d once taught others. She hadn’t realized how confined she’d felt, being in the public sight all the time, being Anne. She paused beneath a large magnolia, safe from observation. She allowed herself to relax and revel in being Twyla again. But then she thought of how Melayna had made a fool of Anne. And how she had coveted Holt.
I’ll kill her, Anne thought. To hell with the plan. The reckless joy she felt was as pure an emotion as she possessed.
Anne had told Holt that she was not jealous, and she had thought she meant it.
She’d been lying.
It wasn’t that Holt had had sex with Melayna Tate. That was immaterial. It was that Melayna presumed to think she had a prior claim on Anne’s man.
Anne closed her eyes and breathed deep. This was no time to go off track. She recognized her conflict, dealt with it, controlled it. She would stick to the plan. When Anne was sure she’d regained her control, she proceeded.
Melayna had no security system. She lived in a home built around 1950. Though the windows were stiff and noisy, the back door was easy to finagle, for someone with Anne’s skills. Anne swept through the small house like a dark wind. She knew the floor plan well. She’d scouted the house the previous night. She moved silently into Melayna’s bedroom.
After checking to make sure Melayna was soundly asleep, Anne propped something up against the alarm clock on the night table.
The next day, Melayna Tate was late for her first class. When she arrived at the school, she was not only disheveled, but distracted. She jumped at any sudden noise, and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on her players at practice. Melayna asked Coach Jennifer Lee if she could spend the night at Lee’s house.
After a couple of days, the basketball coach was a little better. She resumed sleeping at home, but she got new locks and a security system.
After a month, rumors circulated that Miss Tate had applied for two jobs elsewhere in the state, one at Travis’s chief rival, Powell High.