Page 18

CHAPTER 18

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through air to find the bright abode,

Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.

—Phillis Wheatley, “On Imagination”

WHITNEY

Collin and I spent Monday evening with my parents, having dinner at Colette’s Collection Plate Caf é and catching up. We chatted as we enjoyed bowls of her hearty butternut squash stew, a seasonal dish that she served with a side of roasted cauliflower, and which had proven very popular with her patrons. Colette had the night off, but her assistant manager Emmalee, who’d been our roommate at the cottage some time ago, was on duty.

“Tell me what you think of this,” she said, serving us small samples of a new appetizer she’d come up with, a cold lemon pistachio orzo salad.

I forked a bite into my mouth and closed my eyes in bliss when the nutty citrusy flavors hit my tongue. “It’s delicious!”

“Different, too,” my mother added. “Not the same old, same old you get some places.”

My father had wolfed his sample down, and now held up his appetizer plate like Oliver Twist requesting some more gruel. “Any chance I can get some more?”

Emmalee laughed. “Pace yourself or you’ll get a tummy ache! But sure. I’ll be right back with a full serving.”

Once Emmalee had gone, my mother asked what I had been up to. Trying to find a killer was not going to set well with her. Thus, I downplayed the history of the Victorian, ensuring my mother that, although the house was the scene of an as-yet-unsolved cold case, nothing more had happened since, and the faculty and board member I’d spoken with seemed to accept that the deaths were a murder-suicide.

“You’re talking to people?” she asked, her eyes dark with worry and suspicion. “Why?”

Ugh. I was forced to tell her about the bullet I’d found in the post. “I turned it over to the sheriff’s department. They felt it probably meant nothing and could be explained away. Collin said the same thing. Tell her, Collin.”

He squirmed in his seat, reluctant to mislead my mother but also wanting to be supportive of his wife, who couldn’t seem to stop herself from sticking her nose into other people’s business. He gave me a strained look that said he wished I had left him out of it. “The bullet could have been fired before the night the Finsters died,” he explained, “or it might have been an accident. A miss.”

“I hope that’s all it means,” my mother said. “I’d hate to think there’s been a killer going around unpunished for the last forty years.”

I didn’t like that idea, either, which was precisely why I’d been pursuing this case so hard. I turned the conversation to my parents’ upcoming vacation to Savannah, Georgia, and nearby Tybee Island.

“We’re staying at this charming bed-and-breakfast near Forsyth Park,” she said. “I just love the huge fountain there. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. Could you watch Yin-Yang for us while we’re gone?”

Yin-Yang was my mother’s black-and-white Boston terrier. She and Sawdust had been best buddies back when I lived in the converted pool house in my parents’ backyard. “Sure. Sawdust would love to play with her.”

I wasn’t so sure that Copernicus and Galileo would be as welcoming, but I hoped they wouldn’t throw a hissy fit.

She gave me a tentative look. “I’d be happy to return the favor any time and keep an eye on your cats. Better yet, maybe I could babysit a real baby sometime soon?” She raised hopeful brows.

I couldn’t help but snort. “Real subtle, Mom.”

She gave up any pretense of nuance. “Your father and I want to be able to play with our grandchildren. We’re still in decent shape now, but that could change. We’re not getting any younger, you know.” She gave me a pointed look. “Neither are you.”

I exchanged a glance with Collin to see if it might be okay if I shared with them that, while we hadn’t yet definitively decided to start trying for a baby, we had agreed to start thinking about it once I finished the renovations on the Victorian. He lifted his chin in what I took to be agreement, and I turned back to my mother. “We’re planning to start thinking about kids,” I said, “but not until I finish the work at the headmaster’s house.”

“Glad to hear it.” Mom raised her wine glass in salute, then took a sip and set it back down. “I can’t wait to be a grandmother! Or a gigi? Isn’t that what the hip grandmothers are calling themselves these days? Or maybe I’ll stick with something tried and true, like granny or nanny or nana . What do you think? Should I be modern or go with a more traditional title?”

I groaned loudly in jest. “I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself and that you’ve got plenty of time to think about it.” Though true, it made my heart warm to see how happy she was about the mere thought of a grandbaby. I could only imagine how thrilled she’d be when she actually got one. I knew not to count my chickens before they were hatched, though. Fertility issues were common, and there were no guarantees.

Thankfully, Emmalee returned, putting an end to the baby talk for now. She placed a heaping family-sized bowl of the orzo dish on the table for all of us to share. “Enjoy!”

Our entr é es arrived a few minutes later, and we dug right in. We topped off our dinner with slices of pecan pie, and parted with hugs in the parking lot.

The home address for Dwight Nabors was easy to find, at least once I pulled Sawdust off my computer keyboard after work the following evening. My furry little guy sure was being naughty that night. I knew why. He missed me. In the past, I’d brought him with me while I was working on projects so that he could get a change of scenery and explore, exercise his cat’s curiosity. But Ridgetop Preparatory Academy was too big a property, with too many workers coming and going. There was too great a chance he could escape out a door, or accidentally get into something he shouldn’t, like fresh paint.

Dwight Nabors lived in Springfield, the county seat and the same small city where the Robertson County Sheriff’s Department was located. It wouldn’t be a long drive to visit him.

Collin was taking a rare guy’s night, attending a Nashville Sounds minor league baseball game with another detective and three patrol officers he’d buddied around with back when he’d been a beat cop. The Sounds were playing the Memphis Redbirds. It would be a fun game.

I decided to spend the evening with Sawdust on my lap. After finding Nabors’ address, I carried my cat to the couch, where I dove into the untitled, unpublished manuscript that would have been Irving Finster’s third book—had he lived to finish it and submit it to his publisher. Earlier, I’d checked the last typed page and realized he hadn’t completed the book. In fact, the manuscript ended mid-scene. Still, I wanted to see what it might tell me, what insights it could offer into his mental state at that point in time.

The story featured a high school principal, several faculty members, and two dozen students who’d taken a field trip from their public high school in Nashville to the Great Smoky Mountains in the eastern part of Tennessee. There, they’d immersed themselves in all the mountains had to offer, studying the region’s flora and fauna, the earthly forces that led to the formation and evolution of the Appalachian Mountain region, its people and cultures as they had existed over a broad expanse of time.

As the group was heading back to Nashville, America was invaded by forces from another country. Though Finster didn’t name the nation, it was clear he’d fashioned the invaders after the Soviet Union, playing on a Cold War theme as he had in his first book, A Dark Day for Justice . From the bus, the group witnessed bombs being dropped from planes in the far distance, taking out the city of Knoxville in an explosion that sent up a huge plume of smoke and debris, rocked the mountains, and sent echoes ricocheting off the slopes and into the valleys. Boom-boom-boom!

Finster’s third manuscript was a vast improvement over his sophomore title, and just as engaging as his first novel. He seemed to have recaptured his magic. My heart pounded as I read through the pages.

“Turn this bus around!” ordered the principal. The driver was already on it, barreling across the median as fast as the rattletrap bus would allow, turning back to the east and the tree-covered peaks in the distance.

The group had been forced to backtrack, fleeing to safety in the Great Smoky Mountains. They hiked into the wilderness and set up camp around the decommissioned Mount Cammerer fire tower, which they used as both a shelter and a lookout. The dystopian theme was ahead of its time, akin to the Hunger Games and Twilight series that had been popular during my youth, but also similar to some of Stephen King’s work, such as The Stand, and the various zombie books and movies that had been so popular. Though teens might find the story interesting, the target audience seemed to be adults, who would relate to the principal and the enormous weight of his burden to keep the teachers and students of his school alive and safe, a seemingly insurmountable task. He wonders, though, is he still the leader here, out of his element? Or will someone else rise to power?

Fortunately, the bus driver is an astute handyman who knows how to fell trees and build fences to protect their small community. The principal’s wife, Rebecca, is a charming and sweet social studies teacher, who turns the experience into a homework assignment to distract the children from the reality of their desperate situation.

What’s more, a physics and science teacher named Arnold teaches the kids how to dig wells for water and identify edible plants. He encourages the group to dig an underground bunker where they can hide from air patrols and be protected from flying shrapnel. He is able discern by the color and density of the smoke in the distance whether the bombs are general-purpose bombs, nuclear bombs, or chemical weapons delivering nerve agents or lung toxicants.

The principal and Arnold had a strained relationship early in the story, but the principal begins to realize over time that Arnold is an invaluable asset, and without him they’d have likely perished almost immediately.

Rebecca was clearly Rosie’s fictional alter ego. My guess was that the handy bus driver could be based on Dwight Nabors. Arnold is Dr. Joule, isn’t he?

The children in the story were probably fictional counterparts for actual Ridgetop Prep pupils, but since I knew no students other than Terry Thorne, the only one I could readily identify was a girl named Wendy, who undermines the principal’s authority at every turn and stirs up conflict between her classmates, putting the entire community at risk. Though the girl is certain to perish outside the walls, the principal finally decides he has no choice but to banish her. The remaining students and faculty thank him for it. Her bones are found several weeks later, her body picked apart by animals and insects, her cause of death unknown. No tears are shed for the girl, nor is she memorialized in any way. In fact, her death is celebrated, as the group can now rest assured that she won’t be scaling the fence and coming for them in the middle of the night.

On Wednesday, I went into work early and stayed at Ridgetop Prep helping my uncle until four o’clock. I cleaned myself up in the Victorian, just as I had before going to visit Dr. Joule. I set off in fresh coveralls to speak with Dwight Nabors.

Nabors had a lovely single-story gray brick home not far from a golf course. The place appeared to be impeccably maintained and had lush, colorful landscaping—not a surprise for a man who’d been the chief of maintenance and groundskeeping at the boarding school. Still, the guy had to be getting up in years now. Lawncare must be much more taxing than it used to be. I was already feeling the effects of aging, and I’d spent only three decades on the planet. I didn’t quite have the stamina I had in my twenties.

I knocked on the door and, shortly thereafter, a dark-skinned man with broad shoulders and grayish-white hair answered the door. From behind him, I could hear the sounds of hammering. But it wasn’t someone on site performing repair work. The sound came from the television, which was tuned to HGTV. A woman I suspected was Nabors’ wife lounged on the couch, a small, fluffy golden-haired mutt curled up beside her.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Whitney Flynn. I’m doing some work out at the Ridgetop Prep school property.”

“Work?” He cocked his head. “Demolition?”

“Actually, no. A former student bought the property and plans to turn it into a retirement home.”

His face brightened in happy surprise. “No kidding! Which student?”

“Troy Loflin.”

The name earned me another “No kidding! I remember Troy. Matter of fact, he’d follow me around like a little puppy when I was working, wanting to learn how to fix things, how the plumbing and electrical systems worked. I was so proud when he went on to study architecture after he graduated from Ridgetop. I’d like to think I had a hand in that.”

“I’m sure you did. My uncle Roger did the same for me. Taught me and my cousins how to make birdhouses when we were young. One thing led to another, and now I work for him as a carpenter.”

He gestured to my coveralls. “That explains the suit.”

“I was wondering if you’d mind answering some questions about the Finsters.”

His face clouded in suspicion. “What about them?”

“My cousin and I are going to rehab the headmaster’s house and turn it into a boutique hotel. I know the Finsters were shot there, but the case was never closed. That bothers me. I’m trying to figure out what happened to them.”

He shrugged somber shoulders. “Nobody knows. The way it looked, Dr. Finster ended things for both of them. But I always had my doubts that was the case.”

My senses started to tingle. “Why is that?”

“Because I saw how Irving looked at Rosie. He might have been a quiet man, and nobody much knew what was going on in that head of his, but when he looked at his wife, it was like the sun broke through the clouds after a year of rain. He had some troubles, sure. A lot, in fact. But he still had what was important to him: Rosie. As long as he had her, things were going to be fine.” He glanced back at his wife with a smile before turning back to me. “I suppose I recognized that feeling in him because I had that same feeling myself.”

His wife rose from the couch and stepped up beside him. Like her husband, she looked to be in her seventies and, also like him, she was in good shape. She wore a pink and orange golf skirt and shirt, along with a grin. “Are you two talking about me?”

“We sure are, honey.” Nabors leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I was just telling Whitney here how much I love you.”

She snorted softly and shook her head. “Sappy old man.”

She looked me up and down, taking in my steel-toed boots and coveralls. “Did I hear you say you’re doing carpentry work out at Ridgetop Prep? You’re dressed for it. I’d love to hear what’s going on out there.”

I reiterated my spiel.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” the woman said sweetly, pushing the door open wider, “come on inside.” As she led me and her husband into the living room, she looked back over her shoulder. “Can I get you a glass of lemonade? I make it myself from scratch, add a little homemade lavender syrup to it.”

Knowing a drink might buy me some more time to ask uncomfortable questions, I said, “I’d love one.”

A minute or so later, I was seated on an easy chair, and Dwight and his wife were seated side by side on a striped loveseat. Along the mantel were photographs of their seven children, all middle-aged now.

I took a sip of the lemonade and declared it delicious before cradling the glass in my hands. “I’ve been trying to learn what I can about life at the school back in the early eighties, before it closed. I’ve read through the notes for staff meetings. Performance reviews, too. Yours were always very complimentary, Mr. Nabors. Dr. Finster seemed to think highly of you.”

His wife beamed up at him before turning back to look at me. “That’s because Dwight knew what he was doing and worked hard.”

I gestured to the photos on the mantel. “It’s my understanding that your two oldest children attended Ridgetop as day students.”

“They did,” he said. “Until I resigned, anyway.”

“About that,” I said. “May I ask why you left so suddenly?”

He and his wife exchanged glances. Her grin was gone. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business,” she said.

“I know it’s not. Believe me. But I found a piece of evidence that could indicate that the Finsters’ deaths were not as they appeared.”

Her mouth gaped just slightly as she processed my statement. “Are you saying they were both murdered?”

“No,” I said. “At least not yet. I took my evidence to a detective at the sheriff’s department. He thought it was interesting, but not enough for him to put time into revisiting the case. I’m trying to get more evidence—assuming there’s more to get. If I find some, he might look into it.”

The two exchanged a serious glance before her lips pursed in a sour, though resigned, expression. “I suppose if it’s for Rosie and Irving, you should tell her. It’s been so long nobody can come after you for it.”

Come after him? Had he committed a crime?

Nabors moved his finger in the air, indicating the photos of his children on the mantel. “See those seven kids? They cost an arm and a leg to raise. The little one there? In the pink shirt? She has cerebral palsy. A mild case, luckily, but she still needed all sorts of specialized care and equipment. Ridgetop was a great place to work. Folks were nice. The grounds were beautiful. Irving was a good man to work for. Didn’t micromanage. Trusted me to do my job. Problem was, the salary wasn’t competitive. It was average when I started years before, but by the time I resigned, it was about ten or twenty percent less than comparable jobs were paying. There wasn’t enough money coming in to the school, and my raises had been small. Irving always said he wished he could give me what I deserved, but he couldn’t. The board of trustees helped make the budget, and they were a bunch of tight—”

“Language!” cried his wife.

“Wads!” he said. “I was going to say tightwads.”

She gave him a steely look as if she wasn’t so sure he hadn’t been going for another term.

“They never approved my requests for new equipment. We had to make do with a bunch of outdated tools. If I fixed that old riding lawnmower once, I fixed it a hundred times. They expected Irving to make money appear out of thin air. He wasn’t good at begging for donations. He did his best, but you could tell he felt like he was groveling. With all the problems going on at Ridgetop, he didn’t have a lot of time to spend chasing dollars, either. The board put too much on him. Crushed his spirit.” He released a soft sigh.

“I spoke to one of the trustees recently,” I said. “He told me the same thing. He said he felt guilty about it, expecting too much and not offering enough support.”

“I’m glad to hear at least one of those folks had a conscience. Anyways, back to why I quit. It was pretty much the same around here, though we weren’t in this nice house back then. We had a little three-bedroom place on the east side. We were struggling to make ends meet. I tried to work a side hustle as a handyman, but Ridgetop had so many problems it kept me too busy to make much extra bank. Dr. Joule happened to mention one time when we were having lunch in the staff lounge that he’d heard of a teacher at a local high school who’d made a fortune buying alcohol for the students. He’d triple the price he’d paid, and the kids were happy to fork over the money. I shouldn’t have done it, I know that, but when your kids are wanting, you’ll do anything for them, even if it’s a little shady. I figured beer wasn’t so bad. It takes a lot of the stuff to get really drunk, and the students weren’t allowed to have cars on campus, so I didn’t think I was putting them in any real danger. I’d have never bought hard liquor for them.”

I hoped I’d never be in such a desperate situation, but I could certainly understand it.

“There was this one boy,” Nabors continued, “always getting in trouble. I figured if I only sold to him, I’d have less chance of getting caught.”

“So he’d resell the beer to other students?”

“Right. I brought up the idea one day when I saw him out by the pond, and he jumped on it. He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone where he got the beer. He kept his word, too. In fact, he was expelled after some boys were caught with beer and pointed fingers at him. He refused to tell Irving where he’d got it. Irving had no choice but to expel him. Alcohol wasn’t allowed on school property.”

Items prohibited on school property. The vague reference in Elijah Clemson’s disciplinary report must have been the beer. “The student you sold the beer to, his name didn’t happen to be Elijah Clemson, did it?”

The couple exchanged another glance before Mr. Nabors turned back to me. “I feel bad snitching on Eli when the boy never snitched on me. But it was so long ago, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Yeah, it was Elijah Clemson.”

“Did Dr. Finster figure out that you were the one supplying the beer?”

“He did, but I know he didn’t learn it from Eli. At one time, I thought Dr. Joule might have set me up, but I’ve got no proof of that. I never really trusted that guy, though. I saw him coming out of the boys’ restroom late one night. Teachers normally used the faculty bathrooms, so I thought it was odd. I took a look around and noticed that someone had scratched up the stall door with some nasty gossip about Rosie. I thought he might have done it.”

Is it possible? Could Joule have been trying to start a rumor about Rosie out of spite?

“Eli spent a lot of time down at the pond,” Nabors said. “Got caught swimming there on more than one occasion. That’s where I’d leave the beer. I’d tuck the six-packs under the dock, out of sight. Eli would come down and retrieve them, hide the beer in his backpack, and carry it back to the dorm. Irving must have put things together and realized something had been going on down at the pond. He caught me removing a stash of the beer from under the dock one evening after Eli was expelled. I was trying to get rid of the evidence. I might not have been caught if I’d just left it there.” He heaved a loud breath. “At any rate, Irving said he didn’t want to fire me. He knew I’d only done it because the school wasn’t paying me enough to support my family. He allowed me to resign instead. Gave me a good recommendation, too.”

His wife chimed in. “Worked out better for us. Dwight got a job managing facilities at the golf course right down the road here. The pay was much more than he’d been making at Ridgetop. Our older kids were upset at first that they had to switch schools, but they got involved in activities and adjusted pretty quickly. They’d felt like they’d been missing out on some of the social events at Ridgetop since they didn’t live on campus, so switching to a regular high school meant they were no longer being left out. In an odd way, the whole thing was a blessing.”

“It’s true,” Nabors agreed. “I never would have left Ridgetop otherwise. That school was like a second family to me, and you don’t run out on family.”

“I’m glad things worked out for you.”

“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”

I had a final question for him. “Is there any chance someone got hold of your master keys and used them to get into the headmaster’s house? Maybe make a copy?”

“I don’t see how,” he said. “I kept them locked in a safe when I wasn’t there. Only Dr. Finster and I knew the combination. When any of my workers needed access to a building or room, I’d generally unlock it for them. I gave them a key sometimes, but never to the headmaster’s house.”

In other words, if Irving and Rosie had been murdered, the killer had not accessed the home with Dwight Nabors’ key. The killer would have had to break in somehow. Or be let in by either Irving, Rosie, or someone else who was already inside.

Having gotten the information I came for, I thanked the couple for both their time and the lemonade, and headed back out to my SUV. As I made my way down the road, my imagination went to work. Elijah Clemson had sold beer that had been hidden at the pond. Might he have also used the pond as a hiding place for something else?