Free One Hot Murder by Lorraine Bartlett Page A

“Criticized everything he did—made him look stupid in front of the whole class. Blake’s folks kicked up a fuss, had a meeting with the principal and got old Woody Wheeler—that’s what everyone called him behind his back—in trouble. Wheeler held a grudge and made life even worse for Blake. He baited him until Blake hauled off and punched him. Everybody was talking lawsuits for a while there.”
    “What happened?” Katie asked.
    “Blake said he can’t talk about it. I hope that means they were suing the bastard.”
    “School was over. If Blake withstood a whole year of harassment, why would he kill Wheeler a month after school ended? Chances are he’d never have to put up with him after that,” Katie suggested.
    “Didn’t Wheeler retire at the end of the school year?” Andy asked.
    Keith nodded. “I don’t think anybody—even the teachers—was sorry to see him go.”
    Katie frowned. Her late husband had been a teacher at the high school. Had any of the students felt the same way about him? She couldn’t imagine him picking on a child in his class. Except for his killer, everybody had loved Chad.
    “What are you thinking, Katie?” Andy asked. “That the kids are wrong and Wheeler was a saint? Believe me, hewasn’t. Wheeler’s been picking on students for years—me included—so I tend to believe what Keith says.”
    Katie nodded. Did Andy realize he might now look like a suspect—especially as he’d just lied to Detective Davenport? Then again, if the body wasn’t Dennis Wheeler…
    She looked down at her calzone and realized it had grown cold.
    “Any chance you can toss this in the oven to warm it up?”
    “Sure thing,” Andy said, taking the box from her. He slid the pie onto a paddle and popped it back in the oven.
    If Andy had looked preoccupied before, now he looked downright worried.
    He shouldn’t have admitted he’d had trouble with Dennis. Davenport was sure to think he held a grudge and maybe
he’d
lie for Blake. Or worse, if he held a grudge against his former teacher, he might be willing to protect his protégé—by any means.
    Was Davenport feeling so chipper because he was about to make an arrest?
    Katie swallowed, realizing she’d lost her appetite.

Six

    Blake never came back to the pizzeria that night. Katie had sat in her hot apartment, watching the parking lot and waiting. Davenport came into the pizzeria a few times, but eventually he left Victoria Square.
    Katie didn’t sleep much that night—and it wasn’t just the heat that kept her awake.
    As always, the first thing Katie did when she woke up in the morning was to gaze out her apartment’s front window to take in the Webster mansion. She never got tired of the view. That wreck of a house would one day be a painted lady once again, but sadly, it wasn’t she who’d pick out the paint palette.
    With a sigh of resignation, she went downstairs, retrieved her newspaper, and then breakfasted on a banana and coffee as she perused the local section. A two-paragraph story on the lower side column confirmed what Detective Davenport had said the night before: The body found in the fire had not been identified.
    It turned out to be a good thing that she’d held off sending flowers to Abby Wheeler.
    She refused to believe that either Blake or Andy had anything to do with the death at Wood U. There had to be another explanation.
    Suppose…just suppose the body in the county morgue wasn’t Dennis Wheeler. Just because facial recognition wasn’t available to them didn’t mean a body had no other recognizable features. Surgery scars, tattoos, bones with old breaks, jewelry, or even clothing could be identifiable. And yet Davenport seemed to be pursuing the idea that Blake Taylor had killed his former teacher.
    So what if the victim at Wood U wasn’t Dennis Wheeler? What if he’d had a motive to disappear? He’d certainly been secretive about selling his business.
    The idea intrigued her. Katie picked up a pen and