The Principal Cause of Death by Mark Richard Zubro Page A

didn’t know that.”
    â€œThat’s why you asked for my help. I find things out.” She poured some diet soda into a mug with bright red letters that said, LET’S PARTY.
    â€œEver notice how the way she dresses?” Meg asked.
    â€œI thought she wore nice clothes,” I said.
    Meg sighed. “I forgot. You have the fashion sense of a dead buffalo. Her outfits are perfect. She doesn’t wear spike heels or see-through blouses. No gobs of makeup or tons of jewelry. That’s passé. It’s the way she leans over a bit more than necessary, so that you can see a bit of cleavage, or that one extra button is undone on a blouse or skirt. Subtle things that say, ‘I’m available.’”
    I shrugged. “I never really noticed.”
    â€œWell, anyway, Fiona makes the term ‘clotheshorse’ obsolete. She’s a whole herd dressed to stampede. She’s dating a young man she met in Tahiti. They live together.”
    â€œNothing there to make her a suspect in a murder.”
    â€œI uncover gossip, but I don’t know all the secrets about people’s grubby little lives like I used to.”
    I asked her about Al Welman.
    â€œAs his union rep you’ve gone through the worst with
him in the past couple of years. I know he just got divorced a year or so ago after forty years of marriage.”
    I gave her a surprised look. “I never knew that.”
    â€œMost people don’t. My source didn’t know anything beyond the fact of the divorce. I don’t know what happened. Only met her once or twice.”
    I told Meg about Al’s reaction to my questions.
    â€œYou aren’t surprised, are you?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œYou’ve got to remember, besides what I said earlier about rats deserting a sinking ship, Jones was generally well liked. He was one of the few good administrators in the recent past, not counting Carolyn Blackburn, who I think is dynamite. She’s the first competent superintendent we’ve had in over twenty years. But Jones … Sure the guy made tough decisions. He had visions and ideas. He was young and idealistic. He wanted to make a difference, and quite often he showed he knew what he was doing. Sure a few old dragons who’ve taught here from the year one didn’t like him, but most everybody else did.”
    â€œTell me about Marshall Longfellow,” I said.
    â€œAn alcoholic. Couldn’t find the right end of a hammer even if you held a gun to his head. Been around for thirty years. One of the ones your buddy Jones wanted to fire. Might have been able to make that one stick. You’ve got a good suspect there. He and Welman were good friends.”
    â€œYou get anything on Dan Bluefield?” I asked.
    â€œOnly a little, and it was strange. This year you’re the only one who’s reported trouble with him. His past record is atrocious, but if you just looked at this year, you’d think he was a little saint.”
    â€œHard to believe,” I said.
    We talked a short while longer, but I learned nothing new about possible suspects.
    I wanted to talk to people from the football team and the cheerleaders. I made my way through the hallways to the gym. As it did yesterday, gloom infested the corridors. Fewer lights than usual beamed from inside classrooms:
Teachers were clearing out early in case a murderer still lurked in the halls. I decided to check in the locker room first for any coaches who might be around. I could save myself a trek out to the practice fields.
    To get from the gym to the locker room you passed through a tiled passage crammed with racks filled with footballs, basketballs, and volleyballs. Mounded in corners and scattered on the floor, other gym paraphernalia provided dark shadows to the already underlit hall.
    Inside the close and humid locker room I heard faucets dripping while I stumbled over loose tiles in the floor. The gym was part of the