Ear-Witness Read online

  Ear-Witness A Jessica March Mystery

  For my family, with special thanks to my daughter Martha, who introduced me to Parkdale and whose professional advice and perceptive comments have been invaluable.

  Ear-Witness A Jessica March Mystery

  Mary Ann Scott

  © Copyright 1996 Mary Ann Scott

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for the purposes of review), without the prior permission of Boardwalk Books. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective.

  Boardwalk Books

  A member of the Dundurn Group

  Editor: Doris Cowan

  Designer: Sebastian Vasile

  Printer: Webcom

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Main entry under title:

  Scott, Mary Ann, 1936–Ear-witness

  “A Jessica March mystery”.

  ISBN 1-895681-12-X

  I. Title

  PS8587.C6318E27 1996 jC813’.54 C96-932109-0

  PZ7.S36Ea 1996

  Publication was assisted by the Canada Council, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Ontario Arts Council.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information regarding references or credit for attribution in subsequent editions.

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on recycled paper.

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  CHAPTER 1

  It was 7:35 A.M., and I was desperate. When I heard my mother coming up the stairs I took a dive for the couch and stuffed a pillow under my head. The door opened. My eyes shut.

  “That’s an inspiring sight,” she said. “Bad night?”

  I groaned, and pointed toward the floor, to the apartment beneath us. Blaming the noisy neighbours was a nice touch, I thought. But getting permission to cut school from an attendance fanatic like my mother would take more than nice touches.

  I watched through half-closed eyes as she kicked off her shoes and collapsed into the chair across from me. She used to be easier to get along with when she came home tired after working all night, but the minute I turned fifteen she changed. Now she’s tough all the time, especially about school. It’s almost like she’s waiting for me to do something brainless, like turn into a dropout or something.

  “So what’s the problem?” she said. “Tammi and Ray acting up again?”

  I made a yes-sounding grunt. Our downstairs neighbours were OK most of the time, but occasionally, like last night, you’d swear they were bouncing off the walls.

  Mom yawned. “Was it love or war this time?”

  “War,” I mumbled. I yawned too. “Ray and some other guy. There was a fight. Then Tammi bawled half the night. So did the baby.”

  Mom’s mouth made a little “tsk” sound and she shook her head quickly from side to side. “Maybe you shouldn’t babysit there any more. Maybe we should move.”

  “Yes!” I bolted to my feet. “What about one of those condos overlooking the lake. With a doorman!”

  “Doorperson,” she said. “Give me a break, Jess. They cost thousands a month! Thousands!”

  “Just kidding.” I hugged my arms across my chest and lifted my shoulders up to my ears. Then I glanced at the clock. If I was going to work up some sympathy, I had to get started. “Guess what I have to do today?”

  “Not the book report,” she said.

  I nodded. I was miserable. I didn’t hide it.

  “Nervous?” she said.

  “Nervous? Me, nervous? Petrified is more like it.”

  “Oh, Jess!” She looked pained. “You’ve worked so hard on it! You know it’s good.”

  I rolled my eyes back into my head. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Who cares if I make an idiot of myself? It’s a great report.”

  “But you only have to read it to the class!”

  “The nightmare of all nightmares,” I said. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t sleep all night. I’m totally exhausted.”

  “Being overtired isn’t a tragedy.”

  “Messing up because I’m so zonked isn’t a tragedy? Getting a C when I deserve an A isn’t a tragedy?” It was a good argument - top student forced to risk low grade because of unsympathetic parent. But she’d never buy it. Never.

  She didn’t. She shook her head, sort of sadly this time, like she was surprised I’d even bother with such a lousy excuse. I had one last hope. Sickness.

  “What if I get galloping diarrhoea or something?” I put my hand on my gut. “I’ve already …”

  “Jess!” she said. “That’s enough! Get dressed, and get going!”

  Ms. Steely-Voice had spoken. I moved my butt.

  Every piece of clothing I own makes me look like a blimp. My mother says I haven’t lost my baby-fat yet, which is her way of saying I’m not really overweight at all. Baby-fat? At fifteen?

  My green sweater wasn’t too horrible, but it was the wrong length for my jeans. I tried on a skirt, then a different sweater, then some tights. Finally I decided on a black shirt, a vest, jeans and my boots. Then I fixed my hair. One of these days I’ll do something different with it, like dye it red, or maybe black, or even cut it all off. Right now it’s brown, shoulder-length, and boring. I might get rid of the bangs too. I lifted them with my comb and let them fall again. They just brushed the tops of my eyebrows Unexciting, but what else is new?

  I was clumping down the stairs, just coming to Tammi and Ray’s landing, when their door jerked open. Tammi poked her head out into the hall, then pulled back quickly when she saw it was me. She looked terrible; half-dead and wearing yesterday’s makeup. Not her style at all. “Tammi?” I said. She shut the door slowly, as if she hadn’t even seen me. I made a rude comment under my breath, and kept moving. Then I felt bad. She was probably in some kind of trouble again. Not nice, Jess. Not nice at all.

  I was late, and cut across the neighbours’ yard, passing two tall African women in long dresses and headscarves. Three small blackhaired children, holding hands and chattering in a language I didn’t recognize, crossed with me at the corner. A police car, lights flashing, turned down the street and stopped in front of our building. Two cops hurried inside. There weren’t that many possibilities about where they were headed: our apartment; Tammi and Ray’s; or the Orellanas’ on the ground floor. I checked my watch, then turned and headed for school. I had enough on my mind. Other people’s problems I couldn’t handle.

  Parkdale Collegiate is an old, red-brick building with turquoise doors and cement-block designs around the windows. It’s set back from the street, surrounded by paved walkways, small grassy knolls, and trees. The picnic tables and park benches are a nice touch too, and so is the play equipment for the day-care kids. Nine hundred students, from all over the world, come here to get educated. Eight hundred and ninety-nine of them lost their baby-fat years ago.

  English was the last period before lunch. Six of us were giving reports, and the fifth had just finished. I sat on the edge of my seat, waiting for the world to end. When Mr. Bronski called my name, I cracked my knee so hard on my desk that the red plastic Du
o-Tang with my book report inside it fell to the floor and slid under the chair beside me. Evalita, my neighbour, retrieved it with long crimson fingernails and waved it in the air like she just won a prize. The class applauded.

  I limped to the front of the room. My hands shook and my voice, when I got it working, sounded like a crow with strep throat. Thirty-eight faces stared. Thirty-five were glazed over with boredom, two were friendly, and one burned with hate. I blocked out everybody except Mr. Bronski and Jon Bell, my fans. Jon is the smartest kid I know. He’s probably even smarter than me. Tall and skinny, with a crest of white-blond hair, he looks like some rare, long-legged bird. When his nearly invisible eyebrows waved at me, I remembered to smile.

  My book report was on a whodunit. I started out by talking about the main character, a woman detective who used her brains instead of her muscles to solve a crime. What I particularly liked, I said, was how she was smarter and more determined than the bad guys, smarter even than the police.

  As part of my report I was supposed to talk about the type of book I was reviewing. So after I told them about the story, I went into this spiel about mysteries. I told them how the clues build up slowly, and how you have to read really carefully so you don’t miss any of them. I even explained false clues, how mystery writers trick you into wondering if good people are bad, and bad people are good. I talked about endings, how they are both a surprise and not a surprise at all, because everything comes together and makes sense. I finished up by saying that if I had a choice between reading a scary book and seeing the same story made into a movie, I’d choose the book every time. (I’d actually see the movie too, but Mr. Bronski thinks we’re all becoming illiterate TV and movie goons, so I left that part out.) The reason I enjoy reading best, I said, is because I like time to think about a story, to figure out the plot. On the screen, everything happens too quickly for that.

  Mr. Bronski was pleased with me; his smile lit up the room. “Thank you, Jessica,” he said. “An interesting presentation. Very interesting.”

  When he dismissed the class, I scooted out of there, fast. I was never fast enough, but I always tried.

  “Hey, Fatso!”

  I kept moving. Every time I said anything halfway intelligent in that class, this insect came after me. Ronny Roach had hated me for years. Running away didn’t help, but what could I do? Stand around and wait to be insulted?

  “You trying to get away from me, blubber-butt?” In the crush of bodies in the hall, he squirmed in beside me, then whipped a greasy-looking comb out of his back pocket and rearranged his stringy blond hair.

  “An in-ter-rest-ing pre-sent-a-tion,” he said. “Aren’t we hot today! You like reading scary stuff, blubber-butt? Is that how fat girls get their kicks?”

  I knew I had to do something about Ronny Roach and I knew I had to do it soon. To say he scares me isn’t even close to the truth. He terrifies me. So far I hadn’t let him see how much he got to me. Today I just managed to keep my cool; I didn’t look up and I didn’t talk. I just pasted a fake smile on my face and concentrated on getting away.

  After a run-in with the Roach, even my locker looked good, almost like a friend. I grabbed my peanut butter and pickle sandwich and waited for Kelly, my buddy. To kill a little time, I rearranged the top shelf, hoping she’d show up while I was doing it. When she didn’t, I took my lunch outside. The cafeteria was a zoo. There was no way I’d go there alone.

  When I finished eating I checked out a few places Kelly might be, then went back to my locker for my books. I was fiddling with my combination lock when my name screeched out at me from somewhere near the ceiling.

  “Jessica March, please report to the office immediately. Jessica March ...”

  The message was repeated three times, while I stood there with my mouth open, inhaling the smell of old gym shoes. When I finally realized that it was the intercom I was hearing, and it was talking to me, I slammed the door shut, snapped the lock on and started running down the hall. For someone twenty pounds overweight, I’m in really good shape, but by the time I fell through the office door, my heart was bumping painfully in my chest and my imagination was killing me. Something horrible had happened to my mother: a car accident; a drive-by shooting; some terrible thing at the hospital where she worked...

  The woman behind the counter was yakking on the phone. She refused to make eye contact, but I was in no mood to be ignored.

  “I’m Jessica March,” I said. “You called me on the intercom.” Then I said it again, only louder.

  She glared at me like I was ruining her day, and kept on yakking. Mrs. Carelli, the principal, beetled out of the inner office, and escorted me inside. A very large cop stood in front of her desk, looking out the window.

  The principal pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Jessica. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  If this morning was fear, this was terror. “What’s wrong?” I gasped. “My mom?”

  “Your mother is fine, Jessica, just fine.” she said. “In fact I was just speaking to her on the telephone...”

  Of course! Mom was at home today. Probably trying to sleep. Then I panicked. My mother. The principal. The cop. I groaned. I was afraid to ask, but I had to do it. “What have I done?” I said.

  “Nothing, Jessica. Not a thing,” Mrs. Carelli said. “You’re here because the police need your help.”

  I took a deep breath, the first in what seemed like a long time. This was my first one-on-one conversation with this woman. I’d heard she was tough, but she seemed pretty decent to me.

  She smiled. “I must apologize, Jessica,” she said. “I didn’t intend to frighten you. Why don’t you sit down and relax, if you can, and Constable Bowes can explain.”

  I sat where she pointed, in one of the two chairs in front of her desk. The cop took the other. It creaked.

  Mrs. Carelli introduced us. “Constable Bowes, Jessica March.”

  The cop looked at me and grinned. “The name’s Sheena.”

  I slid my eyes to the front of her uniform. She was definitely a woman, a really big woman. Her hair, the colour Mom calls strawberry blond, was shorter than short, and she had a dimple in her chin.

  She pulled out a small notebook, the kind with a little spiral across the top, and wrote down the date, and then my name.

  “Jessica March,” she said. “Age?” When she talked her words shot out of her mouth, like bullets.

  “Uh, fifteen and a half,” I said.

  “You live at 582 Telborne Street, apartment three?”

  “Uh-huh. Yes.”

  “Are you acquainted with the Bird family at that address? Mrs. Tammi Bird, Mr. Raymond Bird and a minor child, Brianna Bird, age four months?”

  “Ray,” I said. “He’s called Ray.”

  “The baby?

  “No, Mr. Bird.”

  She wrote that down. “You were employed by Mr. and Mrs. Bird for the purpose of babysitting Brianna Bird on Thursday evening from approximately 7:00 P.M. to approximately 10:00 P.M.?”

  “That was last night,” I said. “The baby was fine when I left. What’s going on?”

  She sat back, and examined me with bright blue eyes. “Mr. Bird was killed last night.”

  “Killed!” I said. “You mean he’s dead? Ray’s dead?”

  She nodded.

  “How? I mean, I saw him! He was alive at ...”

  “Murdered,” she said. “Some time during the night.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Murdered!” I said. “I can’t believe it. Murdered! How?”

  Constable Bowes closed her notebook and slipped it into her shirt pocket. Her voice was softer now, more ordinary. “Maybe you’d come down to the station and give us a statement? We talked to your mom this morning. She said you often hear ... noises from their apartment?”

  “Uh, sometimes,” I said. What I usually heard was Tammi and Ray doing some pretty intimate stuff, like banging their bed against the wall, and making crazy animal sounds. Either that, or fighting like
two tomcats. I looked at the principal. “Sure,” I said. “If I can get off school.”

  Mrs. Carelli smiled. “No problem,” she said. “Jessica won’t have any difficulty catching up. She’s a very good student.”

  A warm humming feeling zipped through my body, and I grinned all over my face. Mrs. Carelli smiled some more. So did Constable Bowes.

  “This is really great for my reputation,” I said. “Hauled off by a cop in the middle of the afternoon.” I was sitting in the front passenger seat of the cruiser. When I looked back at the school, I didn’t see anyone watching. Darn.

  “I shoulda cuffed you,” Sheena said. “Coulda staged a little tussle there in the hall. I can see the yearbook now. “Top Student Nabbed by Police in Office!”

  My mouth twitched at one corner. “There’s this guy hassling me,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind him knowing. If he thinks I’m tough, maybe he’ll leave me alone.”

  “Somebody saw. A girl,” she said. “She was sneaking a smoke behind the steps. It’ll get around. Is this serious hassling or what?”

  “He’s not trying to touch me or anything. Just insults. Name-calling,” I added.

  “Such as?”

  “Stuff about my body. Blubber butt. Thunder thighs. You know.”

  “Sexual harassment,” she said. “Want me to talk to him? Make him wet his pants?”

  I laughed. “Well, I might. I mean, I haven’t decided what to do yet. He’s been on my case for a long time, but he’s never actually done anything, so ...”

  “Any time, just give me the word. If you want him to think you’re tough, tell him I charged you with assault. Assault with intent to wound. Because of that biker whose nose you broke.” She hooted a great laugh and twinkled her eyes sideways.

  I sat there, grinning from ear to ear, until I remembered why I was there. “What happened to Ray?” I asked.

  “Wife wakes up in the morning, finds him dead.”

  “He was killed in the apartment? Right below me?” I could easily have freaked out over that. Very easily. Mom was at work all night, so I was alone, just one floor above a murder. I shivered. My back felt like somebody dropped an icicle down my shirt.