{"id":1160,"date":"2012-06-05T12:23:19","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T17:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2012-06-29T10:35:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T15:35:30","slug":"clean-plate-club-murder-mystery-chapters-31-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/clean-plate-club-murder-mystery-chapters-31-32\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean Plate Club Murder Mystery: Chapters 31-32"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 31<\/strong><\/p>\n

I picked up the plates to bus them into the kitchen.\u00a0 As I walked in, Ralph waved a fifty dollar bill in my face.\u00a0 \u201cLook at this,\u201d he said, \u201cyour new best friend gave us a tip \u2013 Fanny\u2019s coffee cake is great, but fifty dollars?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that tip might represent a variety of things, Ralph.\u00a0 First coffee cake is truly wonderful, but also remember that you said something nice about her son, and that might be a novel experience for her, and then of course the Clean Plate Club is the symbol of her single success in standing up to her husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m embarrassed to take this,\u201d said Ralph.\u00a0 \u201cBeing nice is not a money making strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRalph, Simba lives in a different world, one where every interaction turns into a money transaction \u2013 with her children and\u00a0her husband she has just gotten into the habit of throwing money at a problem.\u00a0 Her identity is totally based on her charitable endeavors, but of course that just involves writing checks.\u00a0 Simba strikes me as someone who is totally out of touch with the power of a simple thank you, instead she just peels off another bill from her wallet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLiza, you are so perceptive, much more so than your old man, who never thought much beyond just following the money.\u00a0 I wish that you could find the time to finish that psychology major in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRalph, maybe next year, and I do think that psychology and PI work would be a nice fit.\u00a0 I\u2019m all for following the money, and I am glad that my father taught me so well, but often that just defines the problem, and then I don\u2019t like leaving people hanging to work through the issues and find a resolution.\u00a0 I think that I can do more, and that is the most interesting part of the job.\u00a0 Simba wants me to be the family mediator, but I am not sure that I am ready for that high wire act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where are you headed today, back to Cutter City?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I am beginning to think that this Sylvia Wister might be the key to the whole case.\u00a0 You said that there might have been another women with long grey hair in the car with Goddard this morning \u2013 I think that it might have been her.\u00a0 But I need to do some background research before I actually talk to her.\u00a0 Go to the high school, that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh yes, that was your father\u2019s trick, to go to the school library and look through old yearbooks.\u00a0 Did you see that Law and Order episode from last night, when Lenny discovered that a suspect had a second identify based on a yearbook picture?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded and Ralph and I laughed together.\u00a0 Law and Order was our favorite crime procedural and we often would watch it together with my Dad, who would offer a running commentary.\u00a0 We would moan about the betrayal of the occasional private detective, typically a very sleazy character eating donuts in a beat up car doing surveillance on a cheating husband \u2013 a wash out from the police department, who was always willing to sell out his client for access to police records.\u00a0 Last night\u2019s episode always brought back memories \u2013 my father swore that he had invented the yearbook trick, and when he saw that episode with Lenny thumbing through the yearbook, he would get up and yell, \u201cThat was my idea first,\u00a0 I demand credit!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It was all great theatre, even though I was pretty sure that Dad had adopted the yearbook trick from the movie Body Heat, where the William Hurt character orders a high school yearbook from prison and discovers he has been framed for murder by a scheming woman who has switched identities with her high school classmate.\u00a0 The best Law and Order episodes involved some sort of family drama and Dad would say, \u201cLiza, someday they are going to base a reality show on you, a young, pretty private detective with her old grizzled Dad, it can\u2019t miss.\u00a0 They\u2019ve had every other type of partnership \u2013 male\/female, young\/old, black\/white\/hispanic.\u00a0 I would be cast as your mentor, but then the conflict would come when I realize that you\u00a0are much smarter than I.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, I had learned from the best, and\u00a0Dad and I\u00a0would have made a good team, and a good drama.<\/p>\n

As I gathered up my stuff, Fanny appeared in the doorway and handed me a sack lunch.\u00a0 \u201cThere is a fifty dollar piece of coffee cake in there,\u201d she said with a smile, \u201calong with your favorite BLT on sourdough bread.\u00a0 I also put a couple of deviled eggs in there, so be careful that it doesn\u2019t get smooshed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFanny, you and Ralph are the best.\u00a0 When I cruised through Cutter City yesterday, all I saw was fast food places, I doubt if I could get a decent sandwich once I crossed the border.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood luck,\u201d said Fanny, \u201cand you know we love seeing you, for so many reasons, only one of which is that you make our lives interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chapter 31<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cutter High School was a dreary building \u2013 dirty stucco walls with few windows.\u00a0 Unlike Santa Teresa High, there were no expansive playing fields or well-tended lawn.\u00a0 In fact, I didn\u2019t see a patch of green anywhere, and there were no trees, bushes or any kind of landscaping, and I wondered if the prison up the road was designed by the same architect.\u00a0 Any sort of common area was paved with a few weeds straggling up through the cracks.\u00a0 In a courtyard between two buildings there were a bunch of picnic tables, and there were a few students sprawled on top of them.\u00a0 A couple of other students were leaning against the wall smoking cigarettes.\u00a0 I pulled into the last parking space in the visitor\u2019s lot.\u00a0 I was driving a Prius, but it stood out like a sore thumb; the other cars were real beaters, all candidates for a \u201ccash for clunkers\u201d program.\u00a0 At Santa Teresa High, my car would be the clunker amongst BMWs.<\/p>\n

I walked up the steps into the entrance and was immediately confronted by a uniformed guard standing in front of a metal detector.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u00a0 Are you a parent, or do you have an appointment?\u201d<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t prepared to come up with some elaborate pretense, concocting an instant story about how I was the parent of fictitious struggling student named Ace Primo, here for a session with the guidance counselor, so I just fell back on the truth.\u00a0 \u201cI am here doing some research on some of your graduates, and I was planning to spend a little time at the library looking at some of your old yearbooks \u2013 a sort of then and now story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll write you a pass for the library, it is down the hall, turn left at the first corridor, and then left again, and you can\u2019t miss it.\u00a0 Please wear this visitor\u2019s pass, and go only to the library.\u00a0 Can\u2019t say that I have every heard of anyone being interested in our graduates.\u201d\u00a0 He handed me the pass with a disinterested shrug and ushered me through the metal detector.<\/p>\n

The library was actually a pleasant room with windows overlooking the opposite street that was lined with mature oak trees.\u00a0 The librarian was a wizened old woman sitting in front of a haphazard collection of books.\u00a0 She looked like she had probably been here for her entire career, if you considered a school librarian a career.\u00a0 Without looking up, she directed me to the back corner, bottom shelf, and said, \u201cThat\u2019s where they are supposed to be, but there is no guarantee.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have any help in reshelving \u2013 school cuts, you know, don\u2019t even have a cart or a ladder, that disappeared years ago.\u00a0 Do I look like I can lug all these books around \u2013 wish that after school program was still around, but actually I don\u2019t really care, since I am due to retire next year.\u00a0 They just better not cut my pension.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sat on the dusty, grimy floor to access the bottom shelf, and first looked at the most recent yearbooks to find Penny, but found no listing under Knox.\u00a0 It seemed odd, so I flipped through the senior class pictures one by one from the beginning.\u00a0 I was impressed with the number of kids with piercings and tattoos, but Penny Piccinini stood out.\u00a0 I remembered that her relationship with her father was only recent, so perhaps Piccinini was her stepfather\u2019s name, or perhaps her mother never married and Penny shared her mother\u2019s last name.\u00a0 Penny was totally decked out for the class picture with a spiky hair do, black leather jacket over a tight tank top, but surprisingly the yearbook also noted that she was the class representative to the student council.<\/p>\n

I tried to calculate when Goddard was a student here.\u00a0 He had said that he had spent at least one year at a boarding school in Switzerland, so he did not graduate from Cutter City High.\u00a0 He was about 33 or 34 years old, so I plucked out the year book for 1994 and leafed through it until I found the Sophomore class.\u00a0 Bingo, there he was, Goddard Todd.\u00a0 The caption said that was a member of the track team and the photography club.\u00a0 His nick name was apparently \u201cNight Crawler,\u201d perhaps due to his admitted late night carousing.\u00a0 I looked through the list of faculty and there was Sylvia Wister, listed as the art teacher and faculty advisor to the photography club.\u00a0 There was a picture of the club, very small, but there was Goddard standing next to Sylvia, a little bit closer than the other students, and it looked like her hand was on his shoulder.\u00a0 In 1995 she wasn\u2019t listed among the faculty, but she reappeared in 1996, listed as a visiting art teacher, and then in 1998 she was back on full time faculty.\u00a0\u00a0 In 2005, she won the Golden Apple award with this commendation:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe class of 2005 would like to dedicate this yearbook to Ms. Sylvia Wister, who helped us find the artist in all of us, who showed us the way with good cheer and karma, and tolerated even the most inept questions with grace and wit.\u00a0 Her welcoming presence made this school a better place.\u00a0 Most of us will never become artists, but we will never forget you and your confidence in us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She retired in 2010 and had another page dedication.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe senior class and the entire school would like to commend Ms. Sylvia Wister for dedication to the students of Cutter City.\u00a0 She touched the lives of two generations of students, both through her art and photography classes, and through her special projects.\u00a0 The Family Photography Project and the Family History Project brought together not only the students, but helped us feel pride in our community.\u00a0 We will take this pride with us, and think of you often.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Family Photography Project was apparently a special project of the photography club, where students arranged family portraits for the nearby prisoners.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much on the Family History Project, but I thought that I would ask the librarian.\u00a0 I looked for Penny\u2019s picture, and she was listed in the Junior class, so apparently she had moved to Santa Teresa right after she graduated.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t in the photography club picture, so perhaps she had Sylvia for an art course, or perhaps was involved in the Family History Project.<\/p>\n

I carried the book up to the librarian and showed her the open page.\u00a0 \u201cThis Family Photography Project looks very interesting.\u00a0 Can you tell me about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh that is one of Sylvia Wister\u2019s pet projects.\u00a0 What\u2019s it to you?\u201d she said without even looking up.<\/p>\n

This time I had my pretense all ready.\u00a0 \u201cI am a teacher in a school with the same demographic as Cutter City.\u00a0 I was visiting friends here and they mentioned these interesting projects, and I was hoping to learn more about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same demographic as us?\u00a0 You mean your high school is filled with prisoner\u2019s kids and correction officer\u2019s kids mixing it up at recess.\u00a0 There is no place quite like Cutter City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, in fact I am from Coalinga, near Fresno, perhaps you have heard of Pleasant Valley State Prison.\u00a0 That is where Sirhan Sirhan has lived for the past 44 years,\u201d I lied.<\/p>\n

The librarian looked up at me with irritation, \u201cWell okay, maybe you have the same demographic, but from my point of view that Family Photography Project was very disruptive.\u00a0 Who does that Sylvia\u00a0Wister think she is anyway, taking pictures of prisoners, swanning around like she owns the place, and then bragging about how she applied for and won a grant.\u00a0 Like I would have enough time for that.\u00a0 And that Family History Project \u2013 just stirred up a lot of trouble, that\u2019s all that I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was the Family History Project all about anyway?\u00a0 There is nothing specific on it in the yearbook,\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow, she got in her head that she was going to teach the students computer skills, but of course that is the librarian\u2019s job, but she never consulted me.\u00a0 \u00a0She went out and got another grant and helped the kids\u00a0find out about their ancestors on the\u00a0internet .\u00a0 She thought that it would help kids feel pride in their families, to know that their ancestors were hard working, god fearing people.\u00a0 Ha!\u00a0 That really backfired on her \u2013 one of the correction\u2019s officers kids found out that his great, great, great grandfather was Philip Sheridan, who was a notorious Indian killer.\u00a0 Be careful what you ask for, is all that I can say.\u00a0 That should have been enough to get her fired, but it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt says in the yearbook that she retired,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell she was so popular with the kids \u2013 always talking to them and counseling them \u2013 and of course we have well trained school counselors for that, but the kids stopped going to see them, but instead went to Ms. Wister.\u00a0 That should have been enough to get her fired, but it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the naked pictures.\u00a0 Finally, the administration had the stones<\/em> to do what they should have done 15 years ago.\u201d\u00a0 For the first time she looked directly at me and gave a dramatic pause before she said the word \u201cstones.\u201d \u00a0Perhaps she wanted to shock me with what she thought was a dirty word, or perhaps she wanted me to know that she was well versed with contemporary jargon, but it was all I could do to stifle a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I agree, naked pictures will get you fired, even if there is some sort of logical explanation,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs\u00a0Wister said that she was a real hippie \u2013 I could tell that she never wore a bra, you know, and one time I saw her raise her arm to write something on the board and she hadn\u2019t shaved her arms pits – didn’t even try to hide it.\u00a0\u00a0Just disgusting.\u00a0 Well anyway, she always talked \u00a0about how she was at Woodstock in 1969, and even said that if you looked you could find her in the movie.\u00a0 Well finally someone looked \u2013 Robby Torres, a senior spent days going through the movie, and finally found her, or what looked like her and brought in the picture for the photography class to see.\u00a0 The problem was, the picture showed her skinny dipping and that finally did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWoodstock was 43 years ago,\u201d I exclaimed.\u00a0 \u201cSurely the statute of limitations had run out,\u201d I exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had it coming, that know-it-all, and that was the last thing.\u00a0 Good riddance is all that I can say, but I have still seen her hanging around the school, having lunch with the kids.\u00a0 She is not allowed on campus, but her studio is right across the street and at lunch she just spreads her blanket out in front and kids join her for a picnic.\u00a0 The nerve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell thank you for your time,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cI think that I will go on over to see her studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, be my guest,\u201d she said and turned her back to me as she added another book to the lopsided stack behind her.\u00a0 At that moment, the entire stack tipped over with some of the books landing on her lap, and one glanced off her shoulder.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t stop to help that wretched woman.<\/p>\n

I left the car in the visitor\u2019s parking lot and crossed the busy street to Sylvia Wister\u2019s studio. \u00a0The store front windows featured a display of her Family Photography Project with a description of the program.\u00a0 Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the program provided an opportunity for students to take pictures with their incarcerated parents.\u00a0 For those in the minimum security wing, the families were grouped together, kids sitting on the laps of their parents in prison garb.\u00a0 For others, there were more creative pictures of a father\u2019s face reflected in the security glass as a child sat on the other side of the divider looking in. \u00a0The featured picture in the center of the display showed two families together, a correction officer\u2019s and an inmate\u2019s, a bizarre picture of togetherness. But the most striking thing about the display was the style of the pictures \u2013\u00a0they looked uncannily like Goddard Todd\u2019s photography exhibit. \u00a0I wondered if Goddard had even taken his Sib and Self pictures, after all they were decidedly different from his more mundane travel photos. \u00a0Perhaps he had stayed in touch with Sylvia Wister all these years, and came to this studio every year with his sister to have a Christmas card taken. \u00a0My instincts also told me\u00a0that this is where Goddard and Dessa were probably\u00a0hiding out.<\/p>\n

There was a small note on the front door, which indicated that the studio was closed until further notice \u201cfor personal reasons.\u201d \u00a0The note listed a phone number that people could call and leave a message and she would try to return your call, but \u201cdon\u2019t get your hopes up.\u201d \u00a0I thought perhaps the note referred to Penny\u2019s funeral yesterday, so I rang the bell and jiggled the door. \u00a0No luck.\u00a0 I peered in the window and saw a disorganized clutter of lighting equipment and backdrops.\u00a0 There were a couple of ratty couches facing each other.\u00a0 Both had several pillows at one end and a scrunched up blanket at the other end and looked very lived in.\u00a0\u00a0 I walked around to the back \u2013 there was no garage and no cars, just a small apron for parking.\u00a0 Then I did what I hate to do \u2013 started looking through the garbage.\u00a0 There were several bags and cups from different fast food places \u2013 McDonald\u2019s, Arby\u2019s, Taco Bell and a few pizza boxes.\u00a0 Definitely more food than one woman could eat.\u00a0 And then I found a receipt from a Chinese restaurant which showed three entrees. \u00a0Bingo \u2013 it was always nice when piece started falling together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 31 I picked up the plates to bus them into the kitchen.\u00a0 As I walked in, Ralph waved a fifty dollar bill in my face.\u00a0 \u201cLook at this,\u201d he said, \u201cyour new best friend gave us a tip \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-murder-mystery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-iI","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1163,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions\/1163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}