Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) by Jonnie Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

asked for an envelope.
    “You going to mail it?”
    I’ll say one thing for the woman, she was an effective gatekeeper. I handed her the note, sans envelope, and left to try my luck elsewhere.
    At the corner gas station, I stopped to phone the school and inquire about Nancy Walker’s schedule. Not only was Nancy familiar with the town, she knew Eddie — knew him better than I did at any rate. I was hoping she would be able to give me a quick run down of the “who’s who” variety, and save me some time.
    I was planning to swing by and catch her at the close of school. As it turned out, she had a prep period coming up in twenty minutes. I hopped in my car and took off. The timing would be just about right.
    The high school is out on El Camino Road at the eastern edge of town. When I was growing up, there wasn’t much out that way but open grassland where cows, and occasionally a truant student or two, vied for shade under the smattering of twisted oaks. Things had changed though. Rows of flat, box-like houses had sprung up along the sloping terrain on both sides of the road, and at the intersection of El Camino and Marsh, a three-way light provided easy entrance to a fancy new 7-Eleven. There wasn’t a cow, or an oak, in sight.
    The school itself hadn’t changed at all, however, at least not from the outside. The big brick building with its wide steps and carefully trimmed oval of lawn looked just as somber as I remembered.
    I got out of the car and locked it, taking care to set the alarm. Interest in cars has always run high among Silver Creek youth, and I figured a shiny silver BMW might just push their infatuation to new heights. I’d worked long and hard for that car, and I wasn’t about to take any chances.
    The school hadn’t changed much on the inside, either. The hallways were still a dingy greenish-brown, a good half the lockers still bent and broken, the linoleum on the floor cracked in exactly the same spots. The smell of the place had an unpleasant familiarity, as well. How many years of sweaty bodies, cleaning solvents, and God knows what else hung there in the air? I found myself taking short, shallow breaths, as if that would make a difference.
    The main office, directly to the right of the stairs, was staffed with a student assistant, just as it had been in my day. Usually timid and quiet kids, almost always female, they helped out by sorting attendance records, carrying messages to teachers, and filling in for the secretary when she was away from the front desk, which was the case when I arrived.
    “I’m here to see Mrs. Walker,” I told the girl who greeted me. She had to have been at least fourteen, seeing as how she was in high school, but she didn’t look a day over ten. Her blonde hair was baby fine and hung in her eyes so that she had to brush it away to see me clearly. “I called about fifteen minutes ago and left a message.”
    “Oh, gee.” Obviously flustered, she looked at her hands, then toward the door. “I don’t usually work in this office; I’m in attendance, across the hall. But the girl who’s supposed to be here, she’s out today and Mrs. Green had to, um, use the rest room, so she asked me to cover for her.” The girl finally managed a weak smile. “She should be back any minute.”
    Just then, Nancy herself popped in. “Got your message just a minute ago.” She retrieved a stack of papers from her mailbox and leafed through them quickly, tossing a considerable portion into the trash. “Let’s go upstairs to the teachers’ lounge. It should be pretty quiet this time of day.” Here she half-covered her mouth with a hand and whispered, “And I’m dying for a smoke.”
    The whole four years I’d been a student at Silver Creek Senior High I’d speculated about what lay behind that dark oak door which led to the teachers’ lounge. The notion of grim Mr. Bayles or straitlaced Miss Johnson eating and drinking, or joking with another teacher — it was a concept