Schooled in Murder Read Online Free Page A

I’ve been here practically since they built the place. I waited my turn for the best classes. She just wanted to step right in and hog the whole show. And as for going places for conferences. Well!”
    Jourdan said, “Those statistics Pinyon had didn’t look right to me. I don’t remember going to a conference in the early eighties.”
    Luci said, “Even if we have been to conferences before doesn’t mean we should or shouldn’t go again. They’re all like Gracie. She couldn’t wait her turn. Stupid cow. And she said older teachers should have to give up their classrooms! And travel! On carts! So young people could have rooms. I don’t work thirty years in a place to get a low-class assignment. That’s against the union rules, isn’t it?”
    After all these years of not coming to my senses, I was still our building’s union rep. I said, “They need to show cause to make a change in working conditions.” Being made to schlepp all your materials from class to class using a cart was considered the lowest-class assignment.
    Luci said, “These new teachers have no concept of what it’s been like. The fights we had to get this far. What it took for me, for us, to get what we have.” Luci was the commando grandmother in our department.
    “Selfish,” Jourdan said. “They only want what’s good for them, not for the group.”
    “And if we dare to criticize them, we’re accused of not being team players,” Gamboni said. “Team players? We were working in teams in this department when most of them were still in diapers. Team players? And a few of us arebarely ten years older than they are, but they think we’re all ancient.”
    Morgan asked, “Did you touch the body?”
    “I checked for a pulse.”
    Morgan shuddered. “I couldn’t do that.”
    Gamboni said, “We’re turning into the Cabot Cove of the educational world.”
    Jourdan said, “That could be a good or bad thing depending on who dies.”
    Gamboni said, “Oh dear.”
    Morgan said, “You’ve had some experience with this kind of thing, Tom. What do you think?”
    I said, “Whatever’s happened in my past doesn’t give me any special insight now. I know the police don’t like it when amateurs try to interfere.”
    “Who would want to kill her?” Morgan asked.
    “All of us,” Luci said. “Look at that fight today. Jourdan, what did the police say to you?”
    “They asked a million questions. They wanted to know all about even the most minor set-to. Well, what could I say? We do fight. There were a million witnesses to today’s battle, not to mention all the other fights we’ve all had. I’m not the only one who’s had public fights with these people, but I’m the only one who had somebody murdered right after. I think I’m in trouble.”
    Brook Burdock entered the room and hurried over to the table. Brook was the kind of guy who was always just a few minutes late for everything. He was a few pounds overweight and a couple years past forty. He struck me as a bit too bluff and friendly, seeming to be a bundle of energy that was always ready to burst forth. Brook worked out once every two weeks and called himself in shape. His wife dressed him in trendy male fashions from Ralph Lauren that never fit quite right. He sat down and said, “The kiss-asses are dying. Dead.Dead. Dead. I am going to do a dance of joy.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
    Luci gasped. “That’s awful,” she said.
    Brook thumped his hands on the table, a drummer giving himself a cue. “There is news. You are not going to believe this.”
    “What?” Luci asked.
    “It is the latest hot rumor. They arrested Mabel Spandrel for the murder.”
    A round of astonishment swept the group.
    Morgan said, “I knew it. I knew it. Those two were having an affair.”
    Jourdan leaned forward in that hot-gossip-tell-me-more posture. He asked, “They were lesbians?”
    “I’ve seen them go out drinking together constantly,” Morgan said.
    Brook said, “I