“Dear God!” Eileen clutched Jazz’s arm with both her hands. “It’s Bernadette Quinn!”
* * *
“And so what makes you think the deceased is this…” The detective who’d arrived in response to Jazz’s phone call to the Cleveland police was a man she didn’t know. He was middle-aged and middle-sized, with a receding hairline, a wide nose, and a square jaw that made him look like he had no sense of humor. He smelled like coffee and cigarettes and he chewed on the end of his pencil while he paged through his notebook for the information she’d given him only minutes before.
Jazz found herself wishing Nick was there instead.
Nick would be more efficient. And he’d certainly be better dressed. Nick would be cool and professional, but underneath it all, she knew Nick would care.
This man, Detective Gary Lindsey, was simply going through the motions.
“Bernadette Quinn,” he said, and just hearing the name made Jazz flinch. “What makes you think it’s her?”
“The clothes for one thing.” The crime scene techs had already arrived and they were in the cramped attic access space with what was left of the body, blocking her view, but Jazz looked that way anyway, picturing all she’d seen before they arrived—the scraps of plastic that had been torn by small animals, the shredded pieces of flesh still clinging to the bones, the places where the animals had feasted and nothing was left but bone. “Bernadette was famous for white blouses and plaid skirts. And then there’s the cross.” She swallowed down the horror of the memory of the gaudy cross that seemed less sacred and more of an abomination wrapped in plastic and nestled in rotted flesh and bone. “Bernadette always wore that cross.”
“And she’s been missing how long?” Detective Lindsey wanted to know.
The answer was better coming from Eileen so Jazz looked her way.
Eileen, always so self-assured, always so calm, had aged a decade since they made their discovery. There were deep creases at the corners of her mouth and her eyes were dull. But she was, after all, the powerhouse who made St. Catherine’s tick and she knew she didn’t have the luxury of giving in to the shock or the slap of grief that had overwhelmed both Jazz and Eileen while they waited for the police to arrive.
Eileen pulled back her shoulders and scrubbed her hands over her face. “She wasn’t missing,” she told the detective. “Not as far as we knew, anyway. Bernadette taught here for one term and she resigned a little more than three years ago.”
“Right after Christmas,” Jazz added. “That’s when we received her resignation letter. It was in the mail when we got back from break.”
“And you didn’t think that was odd?” the detective wanted to know.
“There was a lot about Bernadette that was odd.” Jazz felt guilty the moment the words were out of her mouth.
“She had the potential to be a really good teacher,” Eileen admitted. “She was willing to try new classroom techniques and she wanted so badly for the girls to be involved in their learning experiences. Exactly the kind of professional we look for here at St. Catherine’s. Unfortunately, students don’t often appreciate that teaching is a special talent. And it was Bernadette’s first year on the job. She had some problems adjusting.”
One of Detective Lindsey’s eyebrows slanted. “Problems?”
“Classroom discipline wasn’t her strong suit,” Eileen said, and it wasn’t Jazz’s place to contradict her. Not in front of Detective Lindsey. Discipline was a challenge for Bernadette, but it was the least of her problems. “As good as she was in the classroom, she had a difficult time connecting to the girls when she wasn’t actually teaching. She prepared up one side and down the other for each and every class. She had that kind of commitment. But when she had to talk to the girls or their parents without a prepared lesson plan in front of her, well, she was uneasy and tongue-tied. She didn’t relate well to our students, and they…” Eileen drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “They had a hard time relating to her.”
“And we got a postcard from her!” The memory popped into Jazz’s head and she blurted out the information. “After she was gone, she sent us a postcard. Maybe…” She looked to Eileen for confirmation. “Six months? Nine months after we received the resignation letter? Bernadette sent a postcard from Florida, said she was visiting friends, that she was fine. Only…” Jazz couldn’t help herself. Again she glanced at the access door and at the techs who worked there, their backs bent and their heads ducked. She heard the crinkle when they rolled back the plastic that covered what was left of the body. “Only it looks like she wasn’t fine, doesn’t it?”
“You still have it?” the detective wanted to know.
“The postcard?” Jazz really didn’t have to think about it, but she pretended to just to give herself a moment to let her heartbeat slow and the whooshing of the blood in her ears settle. “I tossed it,” she admitted. “There was no reason not to. But her resignation letter would still be in her file.”
“I’ll need it.”
“Of course,” Eileen told him.
“And a list of everyone who has access to this room.”
“There hasn’t been anyone up here in years,” the principal told him. “As you can see, the space is inconvenient.”
“But you’re here today, why?”
“The dogs.” Even though Wally and Gus were already gone, Jazz looked toward the radiator where they’d been tied. She’d called the police first, Margaret Carlson right after that, and Margaret had come for the dogs. Jazz imagined that by now Wally was ensconced on Margaret’s couch—just as Gus always was when Jazz stopped in—chomping bits of raw carrot. She only hoped Wally didn’t get any ideas about dogs on furniture and try it at home.
She shook away the thought and got back down to business. “I was giving a demonstration,” she explained to the detective, “about human remains detection dogs and—”
“I dunno. Yeah, I’ve seen those cadaver dogs work and their handlers make it look pretty impressive. But I’m saying they’ve got what … a fifty-fifty chance of finding a body? Heck, I could do better than that with a good search team.” He emphasized his opinion with a snort.
It was the wrong time to get offended, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth Jazz felt a prickle of annoyance. She lifted her chin. “Gus found the body.”
“Why didn’t somebody find it before now?” Lindsey turned and paced as far as where the ceiling sloped and he was too tall to stand. “She must have created quite a smell.”
It wasn’t a detail Eileen needed to think about, so Jazz jumped right in. “The space isn’t heated in the winter and if she disappeared right after we saw her last, right when we broke for Christmas vacation—”
“Then how did she write that resignation letter? Or the postcard?” the detective asked.
She was tempted to remind him that he was the detective and it was his job to figure it out. If Nick was there, it’s exactly what she would have told him. Then again, if Nick was there, he never would have asked anything that stupid.