Page 26 of Be A Detective, They Said. It’ll Be Fun, They Said

I hugged her harder. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known. I would have spoken to Neerie. I would have done something.” I dug in my purse for some tissues, handing them to her.

She wiped her eyes. “You’re always so kind to me—to everyone, even Neerie. I was just trying to lay low and not make trouble, and I didn’t want Neerie to tell everyone about…well, you know… Me. My private life.”

There was so much I didn’t know about what Neerie had been up to. “Did anything else happen that I should know about? Have you heard her talk about anyone giving her any trouble?”

Solange snickered. “Just me. Everyone does whatever Neerie says because they’re afraid of her.”

Marty approached, her eyes hesitant. “Hey, everything okay?”

I gave Solange one last hug and rose, smoothing my skirt. “Everything’s fine. You two done?”

Marty smiled, her blue eyes showing signs of wear. “We are. We definitely are.”

“Solange, will you be all right?”

She nodded, rising, too. “I will. Thanks for sharing my meltdown.”

I chuckled as I scooted out of the row of seats. “Please text me if anything comes up, or if you just need to talk, will you?”

She gave me a warm smile and a wave. “I will. Thanks, Wanda—for being so kind.”

As Solange took her leave, Marty hooked her arm through mine. “Everything okay with you?”

“Let’s go get Nina. I have so much to tell you and we have an office to investigate.”

* * *

“That Solange wasn’t fucking kidding, was she. It literally is a broom closet,” Nina said with a click of her tongue.

It sure was. The three of us could barely fit all at once. There was a folding table she used as her makeshift desk with a matching folding chair. A desktop computer that wasn’t even hooked up to the school Wi-Fi, a hook with a sweater on it. Her “desk” held some sticky notepads, a cup full of pencils and pens, and not much else.

Nina dropped into the folding chair, her long legs almost around her ears as she sat in front of the computer. “So Melba the Mystic wasn’t shittin’ around. She’s the real deal?”

I’d told them what both Melba and Solange had said as we made our way to Neerie’s office. They were as surprised as I was that Melba knew what Neerie had texted to Earl.

I leaned against the wood doorframe, nodding. “Yep. It appears so. How else would she know—verbatim, mind you—what that text said? She couldn’t have seen it on Neerie’s phone, because her phone was in the woods with…Hank,” I whispered. “And absolutely no way she knows Earl. The only way she could have seen that text was if she was there, and all the people in the woods are accounted for.”

“But remember,” Marty reminded, her finger in the air. “That Benny guy, the one who shot the cheater, said he saw Neerie, but no one else did. Maybe Melba was there and no one saw her, either?”

Pinching my temples, I nodded. I hadn’t even thought about that. “You could be right. For now, until we check her alibi, I vote the mystic isn’t such a kook but could definitely be a soft suspect. Good on you for not missing a possibly important clue.”

Nina clicked on the archaic mouse as she looked at the computer screen. “I vote soft suspect, too. I’ll check her alibi. Now, what about this Solange chick—who, by the way, is afraid of her own damn shadow? When I was questioning her, I thought she’d shit herself.”

Marty rolled her eyes. “Stop picking on that poor woman. She was terrified the entire time she talked to you, Nina.”

I held up a hand. “Both of you stop behaving like children and get to the task at hand, which is deciding if we can rule out Melba and Solange and find out if there’s anything in here that will help us.”

Nina stuck her tongue out at Marty before she tapped the computer screen. “Well, she has a thing for lists. She was really into the cleaning supplies in the supply closet and the pens, pencils, pads, coloring books for the kids and—get this—some chemistry books. She has a list of ’em on a Word doc, and beside each fucking item, she’s checked off the incoming stuff, noted how much there is, when an item was taken from inventory, and how much was actually gone when it was time to place an order.”

Marty rolled her eyes. “She had her nose in every part of this school, huh?”

“Are the PTA broads even in charge of stuff like this, Wanda? And was there some big spill or some shit? Like a toxic waste spill? Because she’s made note of a bunch of stuff that was gone. Mostly paper towels.”

She swung the comp screen my way to show me list after list of both school and janitorial supplies. Toilet paper, hand towels, soap, floor cleaner, pencils, pens, and a bunch of other items, like erasers and such.

How odd.

“As far as I know, she’s only in charge of things having to do with the PTA, like bake sales and family fun day…the winter carnival. I have no idea why she’s keeping track of soap and toilet paper.”

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