Baker's Deadly Dozen Read online

  “You mean you’ll change your mind about Chase?”

  “I don’t know about that. There’s a lot of evidence piled up against him.”

  “Yeah, it always comes back to the evidence, doesn’t it? Well, sometimes the evidence is wrong!”

  Ronnie turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen without looking back. Sam called after her, “You didn’t have your breakfast!”

  “I think breakfast is the least of her worries right now, Sam,” Phyllis said with a sigh. “We’d better let her go. She’ll cool off and see that you’re trying to be reasonable.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. We are talkin’ about a teenage girl, you know.”

  “An intelligent teenage girl who loves her grandfather. That will count for more than you think it might.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Sam said. He sighed heavily and sat down at the table.

  “She has a point about one thing, you know,” Phyllis said. Sam looked up at her and cocked a quizzical eyebrow. She went on, “Sometimes the evidence is wrong. Sometimes the truth we think we see isn’t true at all. We’ve run into that more than once.”

  “Yeah, but don’t forget the old sayin’ about who are you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

  Phyllis didn’t have a response to that. Every fact she had turned up pointed to the fact that Chase Hamilton was a bad kid.

  And the only thing he had on his side was the lovestruck faith of one girl . . .

  Chapter 14

  A tense air hung over the house for the next couple of days, whenever Phyllis, Sam, and Ronnie were all there. It made Phyllis think of an armed truce during wartime. Of course, the wrath of a teenage girl was nothing like having a whole army poised to wreak death and destruction . . . but it felt a little like that anyway.

  As far as Phyllis could tell, Ronnie was honoring Sam’s request to stay away from Chase Hamilton. She went with Sam to school every morning and returned home in the afternoon with either Phyllis or Sam. While she wasn’t very outgoing, she didn’t give either of them the silent treatment. She was just more subdued than usual.

  But that left hours every day when she was at school, and they couldn’t really keep an eye on her there since they had their own classes to teach. Phyllis would have liked to think that Ronnie couldn’t get into too much trouble while she was at school, but Phyllis’s decades as a teacher—plus memories of things that had gone on when she was a student herself—told her that kids could get up to all kinds of mischief, even within the four walls of a school building.

  Phyllis hadn’t told Sam of her suspicions about Chase and Amber. He’d already had his talk with Ronnie, and there was no need to muddy the waters with that. As long as Ronnie stayed away from Chase, it didn’t matter what was going on between those other two—if anything. Phyllis knew she could have been wrong.

  Thursday afternoon, after she had done what was necessary to prepare for the next day’s classes, she walked across the building toward Sam’s classroom. She hadn’t gotten a text from Ronnie about which one of them the girl was going home with, so she thought it would be a good idea to see if Sam had heard from her. The door was open, and when Phyllis reached it, she saw Ronnie sitting at one of the desks in the front row, working on some assignment while Sam finished with his chores.

  Ronnie glanced up, saw Phyllis, and set aside the iPad she was using to make notes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have let you know I was riding with Gramps. I just forgot.”

  Phyllis smiled and said, “That’s all right.” It appeared that Ronnie had also forgotten, at least for the moment, to feel resentful toward her, and Phyllis welcomed that. “I just thought I’d check. Anyway, I never mind seeing the two of you.”

  “And you’re a mighty welcome visitor any time you come around—” Sam began. He stopped short as angry voices were raised somewhere nearby. The commotion sounded like the prelude to a fight. There hadn’t been any students in the hall when Phyllis walked through it a moment earlier, though. Actually, the shouting seemed like it was coming from next door.

  Amber’s room.

  Sam stood up and moved quickly to the door. Phyllis was right behind him. He paused and motioned to Ronnie, who had gotten to her feet as well.

  “You just stay right here,” he told her. “Whatever that’s about, you don’t need to be mixed up in it.”

  “Maybe you don’t, either,” Ronnie said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’m just gonna take a look and see what’s goin’ on. If somebody’s botherin’ Amber . . .”

  He left the rest unsaid, but Phyllis knew what he meant. If someone was bothering Amber, Sam would step in to defend her. But, she reminded herself, Sam would step in to help anybody who was in trouble, not just Amber Trahearne.

  They stepped out into the hall. The door of Amber’s classroom was open, and now Phyllis could tell for sure that was where the angry voices came from. She was a little surprised that both of them were male, and a little familiar. It didn’t sound like Amber was taking part in the argument, whatever it was.

  No one else was close by in the corridor. Some kids were visible in the mall, at the far end of the hall, but they didn’t act like they had noticed what was going on. Sam and Phyllis went to the door of Amber’s room and looked in.

  “—done, kid. You’re gonna be expelled, but before they kick you out of this school, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

  “Back off, man. You don’t want to do this.”

  “The hell I don’t!”

  Phyllis and Sam had moved far enough into the room now to see the two figures confronting each other with fists clenched and angrily jutting jaws. Chase Hamilton and Ray Brooks stood in front of Amber’s desk. Amber was behind the desk, leaning forward so that her hands rested on it. Her face was taut with concern.

  “Please,” she said, her voice low but urgent. “There’s no need for this.”

  “The hell there isn’t,” Brooks blustered. “I come in here and find this little son of a bitch with his tongue down your throat.” A sneer twisted the security guard’s face. “I’d figure he attacked you . . . but I’ve been watching the two of you and I know better!”

  “Shut up!” Chase said. “You don’t know—”

  “I know enough,” Brooks went on. “I know it doesn’t matter if you’re over eighteen, you’re a student and she’s a teacher and this is illegal! You’re both gonna be in all kinds of trouble for this!” He closed in on Chase, who backed away slowly but stopped when he reached one of the desks. “Now you’re gonna get what’s comin’ to you, kid.”

  “Hold it!” Sam shouted in his best teacher’s voice. The heads of the other three jerked around. From the looks of it, they had been so caught up in their drama that they hadn’t noticed when Phyllis and Sam came in.

  “Butt out, Fletcher,” Brooks said. “This is none of your business.”

  “You go beatin’ up on a student and I’ll make it my business. It’s bad enough you’re threatenin’ him and sayin’ those things to Miss Trahearne.”

  “You’re gonna defend her? She’s fooling around with a student. That doesn’t make her anything but a—”

  Chase leaped at him, grappled with him before he could continue.

  It was less of a fight and more of an awkward dance as the two of them staggered back and forth, bumping into desks as they wrestled. They probably weren’t going to do much damage to each other as long as that continued, but at any second they might start throwing punches, and then things could get a lot more serious in a hurry. Phyllis remembered what Chase had said about hurting the bullies up in Pennsylvania.

  She watched anxiously as Sam shoved his arms between them and thrust them apart. He might not have been able to keep them that way if Amber hadn’t come around the desk and grabbed Chase from behind. He started trying to pull away from her, then stopped abruptly as if unwilling to do anything that might hurt her.

  Phyllis worried that Brooks might throw a pu
nch and accidentally hit Sam as he blocked the path of the stocky security guard. Brooks’s fists were up and ready, but he didn’t lash out. Instead, his face twitching with rage, he backed off a little and gradually lowered his fists.

  Amber said, “You need to get out of here, Ray, right now!”

  “Why? So you can go back to messing around with a student?”

  “Stop saying those ugly things.”

  “I know what I saw! Didn’t take you long after I broke up with you, did it, Amber? But with a kid? Is Hamilton the only one?”

  Even under the tense circumstances, Phyllis noticed what Brooks said. He and Amber had dated? That was news, although she had begun to speculate about that very thing.

  “You’re crazy,” Amber said. “You need to just leave me alone, Ray. Whatever was between us is over, and nothing’s going to change that.”

  Brooks laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. “You think I want you back? Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have you on a bet. But I’m not gonna let you get away with it, either. You or the kid. He’s probably just as much to blame for it as you are.”

  “You better just shut up—” Chase said, but Amber moved in front of him now.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told Brooks, and her voice was cold with anger. “Make any wild accusations about Chase and me that you want to. I’ll deny all of it.”

  “I saw you—”

  “You made up the whole thing because you’re mad that I broke up with you,” Amber overrode his protest. “Not that many people know that you and I dated, but a few do. Enough to make sure everybody finds out, and who do you think they’re going to believe, Ray? Most of the people around this school can’t stand you! They’re going to believe me.”

  “You bitch.”

  “Just go on. Swallow your pride and forget about this. We’ll all be better off if you do, I promise you.”

  “So you think the two of you should get away with it? With all of it?”

  Amber smiled. “There’s nothing to get away with. It’s just a figment of your imagination, Ray.”

  Only it wasn’t, Phyllis thought. She had heard the anger in Ray Brooks’s voice and knew it was genuine. He had seen something to set off that reaction, and Phyllis was convinced that he had walked in on Chase and Amber in each other’s arms, just as he’d claimed.

  Of course Chase didn’t have any interest in a blue-haired, angst-ridden teenager. He had Amber.

  But none of that made Phyllis like Ray Brooks any better, or feel sorry for him. Nor did it improve her opinion of Chase—or Amber, for that matter. In fact, the whole thing made her feel a little dirty.

  Brooks raised his hand and pointed at Amber. “I don’t care what you say, I’m tellin’ Shula. There are laws about this kind of stuff, you know.”

  Amber looked like she was going to say something else, but before she could, Brooks turned and stomped out of the classroom.

  Turning to Phyllis and Sam, Amber gave them a weak smile and said, “I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in this, that you had to see and hear all that . . . that craziness.”

  “Is what he said true?” Sam asked bluntly.

  “Oh, Sam,” Amber said with a look of dismay. “Don’t ask me that.”

  “I reckon that’s our answer then,” Sam said. His rugged features were set in stony lines. “I’m just glad nobody got beat up.”

  He headed for the door. Phyllis looked at Amber and Chase, unwilling in a way to leave them here together. But there was nothing she could do, she told herself. They would have to sort all this out themselves. She remembered something she had heard some of the kids say.

  Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

  Maybe those were pretty good words to live by, she thought as she put a hand on Sam’s arm and they went to the door.

  When they stepped out into the hall, Ronnie was standing there, just a few feet away, and all it took was one look at the girl’s stricken face for Phyllis to know that she had overheard the whole thing.

  Chapter 15

  Phyllis put out a hand toward Ronnie and said her name. Ronnie didn’t respond, though, other than to turn away abruptly and run along the hall away from them. Sam uttered a heartfelt, “Dadgum it! You reckon she heard what Brooks was accusin’ Amber and Chase of?”

  “I think it’s pretty clear she did,” Phyllis said.

  “She idolized that boy, whether he deserves it or not. Which it sure looks like he doesn’t, in more than one way. But now she’s finally seen he’s got feet of clay.”

  “She never would have believed it if we told her,” Phyllis pointed out. “She’s so used to defending Chase that her instinct would have been to deny anything bad about him. So maybe it’s a good thing she overheard, even though it’s painful for her right now.”

  Sam sighed. “Maybe. But all Chase would have to do is tell her it’s not true, and she’d go right back to defendin’ him.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” Phyllis said. “But maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Yeah. Where do you reckon she went?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll go see if I can find her.”

  Sam glanced back at the door to Amber’s classroom and said, “I ought to go try to talk some sense into those two, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm for it. What they do is their own look-out.”

  “I feel the same way,” Phyllis said with a nod.

  Ronnie had disappeared into the mall by now. Phyllis headed in that direction while Sam went back into his classroom. When she reached the mall, she paused and looked around but didn’t spot the tell-tale blue hair. There were several different ways Ronnie could have gone from here, and Phyllis wasn’t sure which one to try.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said. “Are you looking for Ronnie Ericson?”

  She looked around and saw a boy standing there. He was young, probably a freshman or sophomore, slender with dark brown hair. He was a little better dressed than many of the students, in slacks and a button-down shirt. Phyllis was certain he wasn’t in any of her classes and didn’t recall seeing him around the school, but there wasn’t anything particularly memorable about him.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Walter Baxter,” he said, which sounded to Phyllis like a name out of a 1950s TV situation comedy. “If you’re looking for Ronnie, Mrs. Newsom, she went that way.” He pointed along the corridor that led to the band hall.

  Phyllis gave in to curiosity and asked, “How do you know who I am?”

  “I know who all the faculty members are. I realize you’re a long-term substitute and not the actual teacher of record for your classes, but as far as I’m concerned you’re part of the faculty.”

  “And you know Ronnie?”

  A faint pink color rose in his cheeks. “She’s in a couple of my classes.”

  Walter Baxter was blushing, Phyllis realized. He probably wouldn’t be doing that unless he liked Ronnie.

  “And I know you and Coach Fletcher are friends and she’s his granddaughter and is staying at your house,” Walter went on. “She looked upset when she came through here, and then you came along right after her, so I figured you might be looking for her.”

  “You’re an observant young man,” Phyllis told him.

  “I try to be. You have to know what’s going on in the world to get ahead in it.”

  “That’s a good attitude to have. Thank you, Walter.”

  She turned away, but he said quickly, “If there’s anything else I can do—”

  “No, that’s all right. I appreciate your help.” Phyllis didn’t think Ronnie would want a potentially love-struck underclassman around right now.

  She left Walter in the mall and headed toward the band hall. She could see all the way along the corridor and didn’t spot Ronnie anywhere, but there were a couple of smaller halls that crossed this one.

  She found Ronnie in the second of those cross corridors. The girl stood with her back against the
wall. Her shoulders slumped and her head drooped forward. She wasn’t crying at the moment, but her face bore the streaks of drying tears.

  “Ronnie . . .” Phyllis said.

  She looked up and asked, “Is it true?”

  “About Chase and Miss Trahearne?”

  Ronnie said again, “Is it true?”

  “I’m not absolutely certain, but I believe it is.”

  “She didn’t deny it, you know. She told Brooks that she would, if he accused her, but she didn’t actually deny it just now.”

  “No, she didn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s true, but—”

  Ronnie lifted both hands and covered her face as if she were about to start sobbing again, but no sound came from her except a long sigh. When she lowered her hands, she shook her head and said, “I should have listened to you and Gramps.”

  The last thing in the world Phyllis wanted to do right now was say I told you so. Instead she said, “Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing is. And I’m not just talking about when you’re a teenager. That never ends.”

  Ronnie summoned up a faint smile. “You don’t ever get old enough to have all the answers?”

  Phyllis smiled, too, and said, “If you do, I must not be that old yet!”

  Ronnie grew solemn again. “Chase is going to get in trouble now, isn’t he? It isn’t just a matter of whether it’s true about him and . . . and Miss Trahearne. He fought with Brooks.”

  “It wasn’t much of a fight—”

  “But Chase attacked him. I was peeking around the edge of the door and saw it. Brooks will complain to Mr. Shula and get Chase kicked out of school. He may even call the police and try to have him arrested.”

  “I’m not sure the police will want to get involved in what was nothing more than a scuffle.”