Sharpe Image: Prequel Novella (Maycroft Mystery Series Book 0)

  Sharpe Image

  Maycroft Mystery Series

  A Prequel Novella

  Lisa B. Thomas

  Copyright

  SHARPE IMAGE

  Copyright © 2017 Lisa B. Thomas

  Cozy Stuff and Such, LLC

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  • 1 •

  • 2 •

  • 3 •

  • 4 •

  • 5 •

  • 6 •

  • 7 •

  • 8 •

  • 9 •

  • 10 •

  • 11 •

  • 12 •

  • 13 •

  THE END

  More Works by Lisa B. Thomas

  • 1 •

  The day started for Deena Sharpe like any other day at Maycroft High School, until the police showed up, that is. It was Monday, just four days after the tragedy at Thursday night’s junior varsity football game. Deena had no idea she was about to be sucked into the case.

  “Accidentally jumping up and falling over the rail of the bleachers,” Detective Evans said as he jammed his hands in the pockets of his terminally wrinkled suit coat. Either he had slept in it, or he hadn’t had it pressed since a Bush was president. “C’mon, Mrs. Sharpe. You don’t really believe that, do you? This is JV football, not the Super Bowl.”

  He had a point. Maybe someone had indeed pushed Mrs. Baldwin over the rail. Still, Deena liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially considering how cold-blooded a man would have to be to do such a ghastly thing to his wife. Besides, this was little ol’ Maycroft. That sort of thing just didn’t happen here.

  Or did it?

  Deena sat at her classroom desk as Detective Evans hovered. She quickly closed the screen where she had been filling in students’ grades for the end of the six weeks. Just because Joe Evans was a detective didn’t mean she wasn’t bound by confidentiality rules.

  She opened up the computer file to look for the photos. She and her journalism students had an elaborate system for keeping up with pictures taken for the school newspaper and yearbook. The ones Detective Evans wanted to see should be filed under sports, then football, then junior varsity, then the date with the photographer’s name.

  She clicked open all the folders, finally getting to the one she needed. “Here it is.” She clicked again and it popped open. Curiously, there was only one picture in the file—the same action shot of the winning touchdown that the Tribune had run on the sports page of Friday’s edition. Her students loved it when the local newspaper printed their pictures or articles.

  “That’s odd.” She clicked on a few other folders in case some of the pictures had been misfiled.

  “What?” Evans moved in closer. “Is it the crime scene? Do you have a shot of the Baldwins?”

  “No, there’s only one picture here. I would have expected at least fifty. Carl usually has more good shots than we can possibly use.”

  “So, where are they? I need to see the pictures from the game. There may be one of Mrs. Baldwin being pushed over the railing. Did someone hack into the system and steal them?”

  Deena looked up from the screen, crinkling her nose just as the bell rang for the passing period to start. “This is a high school, Detective Evans, not a mafia hideout. Look, Carl will be here later, and I can ask him about it. I’ll call you if I find something out.”

  Chatty students trickled in as Deena hurried the officer out the classroom door.

  “Hey, Mr. Evans,” one of the girls said. “Are you here to arrest Mrs. Sharpe?” She and her friend giggled.

  Joe Evans had a son who was a senior at Maycroft High School and many of the kids knew him.

  “Ha!” Deena said. “No, he was just visiting.” She shooed him into the hallway.

  “Here’s my number.” He handed her his card. “Call me as soon as you know anything.” He stopped. “You don’t think me being here will raise eyebrows, do you?”

  Deena twisted her lips. “You probably think Maycroft has a long grapevine. It’s nothing compared to the gossip mill here at the high school. Before you know it, I’ll have a pack of teachers down here asking me if I robbed a bank or stole the school’s PTA fund.”

  “Huh,” Evans said. “Sorry about that. Better than them thinking we’re having an affair, I suppose.” He winked and headed off down the hall.

  “Better for who?” she called after him.

  Holly, the yearbook editor, brushed past Deena. “That’s, ‘for whom,’ Mrs. Sharpe.”

  Kids. You gotta love ’em.

  Carl, her best photographer, was actually in the class that was about to start, but Detective Evans didn’t need to know that. The last thing she wanted was a complaint from Mr. and Mrs. Greene that she had allowed the police to hassle their son at school.

  Deena got everybody started working before she approached Carl.

  If Doogie Howser had hung a camera around his neck instead of a stethoscope, you’d have Carl Greene. His curly red locks, freckles, and too-slender build made him the perfect newspaper and yearbook photographer. That is, most girls saw him as their kid brother rather than a potential boyfriend, so he had most nights and weekends free to take pictures at the school events no one else wanted to attend. Think, orchestra concert.

  It was Monday, and Carl had lots of new photos to upload. Friday night’s varsity game was one of the events he had covered as well as the Spanish Club’s Fall Fiesta.

  As he worked on the computer, Deena had a thought. Maybe he had saved his JV football pictures to the hard drive of the computer instead of the shared drive. That could be what happened.

  “Carl, I was looking at the folder for Thursday night’s football game and found only one picture in it. Where’s the rest of them?”

  “I didn’t think the others were that good, so I deleted them. I mean, how many pictures do you need from one game?”

  Normally, he’d be right. But this wasn’t a normal game. This was a school event where a student’s mother had fallen—or had been pushed—over the railing of the bleachers and died. If he had caught a picture of the moment the incident occurred, it could shed light on what actually happened.

  Deena considered herself only moderately tech savvy. She was an early adopter of computers in her classroom in the late eighties, but things had changed in the past thirty years faster than she could keep up with them. She counted on her students to know everything. And they usually did. “When you say ‘deleted,’ where exactly are those other pictures now?” she asked.

  “They’re in the deleted items folder of my camera—unless I emptied it. It seems like I might have.” His red face turned an even deeper shade of crimson. “Am I in…trouble?” His voice cracked, as it does with teenage boys at the most inopportune times. It usually happens when they’re trying to impress a girl. This time, it was possibly due to nerves.

  “No, of course not.” Deena’s teacher antennae went up. “Why, is there something you haven’t told me?”

  Poor Carl had yet to learn the tricks of deception most of his contemporaries had ma
stered. His eyes shifted and he took in deep breaths through his mouth.

  Before he could speak, Deena motioned for him to follow her to her desk. “What is it, Carl? You need to tell me.”

  By this time, little beads of sweat were playing connect the dots with his freckles. “I took some pictures you might not like.”

  It was Deena’s turn to panic. What had he done? Had curious Carl turned pervert? Had he taken pictures up some cheerleader’s skirt? Who would she get to take pictures at the FFA banquet if Carl were expelled?

  Never let ’em see you sweat. It wasn’t a teacher’s first motto, but it was an important one. She steadied herself. “What pictures did you take?”

  He lowered his head and sucked in a deep breath. “Pictures of Mrs. Baldwin. She was laying on the ground. There was blood.”

  “Oh my.” Actually, she was relieved.

  Carl’s words tumbled out, playing leap frog with each other. “I know you said to only use the school camera for school events and I was, I mean, I do, but this seemed newsworthy. I mean, I knew we wouldn’t use them in the newspaper or yearbook, but it seemed important, so I—”

  Deena held up her hand to halt the torrent. “It’s okay. You were being a photojournalist. I get it. But you’re right, we don’t want those pictures to be associated with the school. Heaven knows there were enough posted on Facebook and Instagram by other kids at the game.” She stopped. “Wait. None of those were yours, were they?”

  “No, ma’am. I know better than to do that. Besides, Lacy is a friend of mine. To have to see pictures of her mother like that…”

  “I know.” Deena shook her head. “So do you think you emptied the deleted pictures folder or not?”

  “No. I still have them. I’m not a sicko or anything, but there were some pretty good shots of the crowd and the reaction. I’ll do it right now though.” He turned to head back to his computer station.

  “No, wait. I think it would be best if you save them to a flash drive and give them to me. That way we could prove none of the ones posted online were yours if anybody asks.”

  Carl nodded and headed off to do as instructed.

  According to Evans, Mrs. Baldwin fell right about the time the Walters boy was crossing the goal line at the end of the game. The chances that Carl could get a shot of the touchdown and the bleachers at the same time were nil. However, Carl loved reaction shots. He excelled at capturing people’s faces and emotions. She held little hope the shots he took could help in the investigation, but she would perform her due diligence and examine them just in case.

  Poor Lacy. Would the images reveal that her father was a monster? Carl brought her the flash drive. She would have to wait until lunchtime to look it over.

  Hopefully, this was just a horrible accident. Shocking, but one of life’s unexplainable mysteries. Then Deena felt a wave of guilt for the tadpole of a thought swimming in her head. The journalistic side of her hoped Carl had indeed been able to catch just the right image at just the right time.

  Perhaps, instead, it was an explainable mystery. One for which the guilty party needed to be held accountable.

  • 2 •

  By the time the bell rang for her lunch period to start, Deena was itching to have a look at Carl’s pictures. She inserted the flash drive and pulled them up on her computer monitor. She scanned through dozens of shots. There were photos of players standing on the sidelines, cheerleaders in perfectly formed pyramids, coaches wearing headsets looking sternly across the field of play. The action shots were good but not spectacular.

  Then she got to the picture that had been used in the newspaper: Brent Walters, number 27, catching the game-winning touchdown pass in the end zone. And then, there it was.

  She stared at the picture of the crowd in the stands, on their feet, erupting in cheers. She scanned the shot for the Baldwins. Nothing. Detective Evans said they were sitting near the top of the bleachers by the old stadium sign. Carl had not aimed his camera in their direction. She clicked to the next picture, and then the next. No luck.

  The next few shots were of the players hoisting Brent on their shoulders. Another showed two players blindsiding Coach Talley with a bucket of Gatorade. All the usual celebratory pictures you’d expect to see from a Texas high school football game.

  Then Deena remembered that Carl said he had taken pictures of Mrs. Baldwin as she lay on the ground. Did she really want to see those? The only dead bodies she had ever seen before had been in caskets, and they always looked like wax replicas of the deceased.

  In the interest of her journalism program, she probably needed to see them. In reality, her curiosity would not have let her stop even if her mind had told her to. She clicked past a few more pictures until she got to the ones of Mrs. Baldwin.

  If Deena hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the woman had just laid down on the pavement to take a nap. The picture wasn’t nearly as bad as she had imagined. She clicked forward to the next shot. Carl had repositioned himself. Bright red blood pooled under the poor woman’s head. Deena fluttered her eyes, not wanting the picture burned into her brain. She clicked the forward arrow on the screen again. With each new image, the pool became larger.

  A picture of Vice Principal Metz, arms stretched out wide holding the crowd back, was the last shot in the file. Deena scrolled back to the picture of the bleachers and printed it out. Detective Evans might want to see it, although it wouldn’t be of much help. She used the high-resolution printer and set it for an eight-by-ten-inch picture to get as much detail as possible.

  They say that golf is a game of inches. In this case, so was photography. She stared at the photo. If only Carl had aimed his camera slightly higher, he might have captured the exact moment when Mrs. Baldwin went over the railing. Instead, his shot came up short. She dropped it into the back of her file drawer for safekeeping.

  *

  The final bell of the school day rang at last. Deena was as anxious to escape as her journalism students. It had been a trying day. Between gobbling down her sandwich at lunch and spending her conference period monitoring the voting for Homecoming Court, she was feeling anxious and annoyed.

  Several PTA parents had insisted on being present for the counting of the votes. Apparently, they couldn’t trust the student council sponsor and the head of the math department to be fair and honest. Deena was one of three teachers assigned to be present as well.

  She often got picked for such tasks since most of the administration believed her classes were just for fun. If only they knew the pressure and responsibility that came with preparing publications that would be perused and judged by the public. She had grown weary of the complaints that the choir got more attention than the band and that athletics deserved twice as much space in the yearbook as academics.

  Actually, her main duty during the Homecoming vote counting was to make sure the pushy parents let the teachers do their jobs. It was all she could do to keep smiling and nodding her head as the mothers talked about how perfect their daughters were and how they would make such good role models for the other students. Luckily, the counting carried over into the next class period and three other “lucky” staff members would get to be present for the final tally.

  As she packed up her satchel with papers to take home to grade, she looked up to see Vice Principal Justin Metz standing in her doorway. What was it now? Had someone taken too many boxes of pens out of the supply room, or was he there to complain about her exceeding her limit of copies for the six weeks grading period?

  “Deena,” he said, making her bristle, “I need a favor before you head out.”

  At just twenty-seven years old, Justin Metz had as much business being a principal as she had being editor of the New York Times. She had shoes older than he was. His charm and good looks had moved him up the administrative food chain quicker than most, and it didn’t hurt that his father was the former superintendent. His perpetual five o’clock shadow and steely blue eyes made him more suitable for a razo
r commercial than the classroom. But most annoying was his vast array of yuppie bow ties.

  She ignored the fact that he called her by her first name even though she always called him Mr. Metz. “I hope it’s quick. I have an appointment.”

  Okay, it was partially true. She had promised herself a long bubble bath and a glass of wine before Gary got home from work. That was an appointment, right?

  “It is my understanding that you are in possession of photographs taken at the JV football game Thursday night.” He gave her that boyish grin that worked so well on the younger teachers—the one where his dimples showed and his ultra-white teeth gleamed.

  She just stared back at him, waiting for a question.

  “Is that right? Do you have the pictures Carl Greene took?”

  Why was he asking? Was he aware of the First Amendment? “Yeah, they’re here somewhere. Why?”

  “I need you to turn them over to me. All of them.” He took several steps toward her.

  She thought about pulling out her sunglasses to shade her eyes from his pearly whites, but instead, silently repeated her mantra: You catch more flies with honey. “Well, now, why is that, sugar?” Although it wasn’t her usual workplace language, being fifty-something and a Southern woman, she could get away with it.

  “It’s important. It’s for Principal Haskett.”

  She had worked with teenagers long enough to spot a bald-faced lie from fifty paces. She tilted her head like a curious puppy and waited for more.

  “It’s—it’s for liability purposes. It has to do with the incident at the game. The one with Mrs. Baldwin.”

  “I wouldn’t refer to a woman falling to her death as ‘an incident,’ especially the mother of one of our own students. It was more of a tragedy, wouldn’t you say?”

  Metz pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as if by habit and then shoved it back in.

  Deena stifled a grin of her own. He wasn’t going to be able to Google his way out of this one.

  “Well, of course, but anyway, I—we need those pictures. For…”

  “Liability,” she said.