Page 88 of Mad Mabel

“His fiancée was interviewed,” Ness said. “She was sobbing about how they were about to start their lives together. How they’d been looking forward to starting a family.”

I’ll admit, this stung. I thought of Tessa glaring at Mr. Loukas, her French manicured nails digging into my arm. My expression must have betrayed this, but Cess did away with her light tone.

“Where were you last night, Mabel? And don’t play me for a fool.”

She watched me carefully. When I didn’t respond, she added:“You came home late, covered in dirt, with no good explanation. Your shoes are scuffed to the high heavens and you have scratches on your forearm. The next thing I hear on the news is that your teacher was found dead last night. The one teacher I’ve ever heard you mention.”

There wasn’t a question. So I didn’t respond.

Ness took over, more softly. “Did something happen between you and this teacher? Something more than a normal teacher-student relationship?”

I jumped at the opportunity to turn the questioning around. “What are you suggesting?”

Cess threw up a hand. “I think you know what she’s suggesting.”

They waited, but I was mute. Finally, Cess sighed. “Darling, if something did happen between the two of you—”

“Something did,” I said. “I was with him last night. The scratch is from his fiancée’s nails, where she grabbed me after finding out. I thought he loved me. But she said I wasn’t the first student. Apparently, he liked them young. Apparently, the last one was prettier than me.”

It came out as a long stream. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I was crying. Cess closed her eyes.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “I promise. But I’m delighted he’s dead.”

Ness inhaled deeply and started pacing. Cess’s shoulders dropped. Finally, Cess shook her head, took two steps toward me, and hugged me, hard. “I suppose I’m delighted too,” she said into my ear. “Otherwise, we’d have had to kill him.”

57

It took ten days for Mr. Loukas’s autopsy results to come in. When they did, they put a swift end to the theory that the car had inadvertently fallen on him while he was changing a tire. The word on the street was that the scrapes to his shoulders and the back of his legs, and the deep wound behind his left ear, were cause for suspicion. That day, his death was officially deemed a homicide.

Everyone had a theory.

“He was hit in the head with something heavy,” Daphne said. We were on our bikes on the way to school. Daphne had started riding her bike to my place before school just so we could ride there together. She was slightly ahead of me, her hair flapping around under her straw hat. “Dragged to the jacked-up car, pushed underneath, and thenwham.” She kicked her leg. “Jack goes out, car comes down. Pretty clever, really.”

“Not that clever,” I said, “since the cops figured it out pretty quick.”

It wasn’t surprising that everyone was talking about it. Mr. Loukaswas a beloved teacher. He was a young man, and it was an unexpected death. But where I’d hoped that with each day, people’s interest in his death would wane, instead each day brought with it a new piece of information—whether fact or made up—or a new theory.

I slowed down, then got off my bike, preferring to walk. I held the handlebars and pushed.

Daphne got off her bike too. “Mabel? Are you okay?”

I nodded.

“What’s wrong?”

I lowered my voice and glanced around. “I saw him the night he died.”

“You did?” Daphne also lowered her voice. “Where?”

“We met in the sporting equipment shed.”

Daphne’s eyes grew into saucers. She understood what kind of thing happened in the sporting equipment shed. “You and Mr. Loukas?”

“It had been going on for a while,” I said. “But that night, Brother Stanislaus showed up.”

Daphne gasped.

“Shhh,” I said. “It was fine. I hid and he didn’t see me. He and Mr. Loukas left. Afterward, I went to Mr. Loukas’s house. I thought we’d laugh about what had happened. But a woman was there. His fiancée!”