Innocent in Death (In Death #24)(2)

“Lucky we drew a couple MTs on the call who knew better than to move the body,” Peabody commented. “Poor bastard.”

“Having lunch at his desk? Place like this probably runs to a staff lounge, cafeteria, whatever.” Remaining at the threshold, Eve cocked her head. “Knocked over a jumbo insulated bottle, the chair.”

“Looks more like a seizure than a struggle.” Peabody skirted the edge of the room, her airboots squishing slightly. She checked the windows. “Locked.” She angled so she could study the desk, the body from that side of the room.

While her body was as sturdy as Arnette Mosebly’s, Peabody’s build would never be statuesque. Her dark hair had grown past the nape of her neck and curved up at the ends in a flirty little flip Eve had yet to resign herself to.

“Working lunch,” Peabody noted. “Lesson plans or grading papers. Allergic reaction to something he ate, maybe.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d say.” Eve crossed to the body, hunkered down. She’d run prints, do the standard gauge for TOD, all the rest, but for a moment she simply studied the dead.

Spider legs of broken vessels ran through the whites of his eyes. There were traces of foam as well as vomit clinging to his lips. “Tried to crawl after it hit him,” she murmured. “Tried to crawl for the door. Get the formal ID, Peabody, verify TOD.”

Rising, Eve moved carefully around the puddles of what Craig’s body had voided, and picked up the insulated cup she saw, which had his name engraved in silver over black. Sniffed.

“You think somebody poisoned this guy?” Peabody asked.

“Hot chocolate. And something else.” Eve bagged the cup into evidence. “Color of the vomit, signs indicating seizure, extreme distress. Yeah, I’m thinking poison. ME will verify. We’ll need to get clearance to access his medicals from the next of kin. Work the scene. I’m going to talk to Mosebly again, and pull in the witnesses.”

Eve stepped out again. Arnette Mosebly paced the hallway with a PPC in her hand. “Principal Mosebly? I’m going to have to ask you not to contact anyone, speak with anyone just yet.”

“Oh…I—actually, I was just—” She turned the PPC around so Eve could see the miniscreen. “Word game. Something to occupy my mind for a bit. Lieutenant, I’m worried about Lissette. Craig’s wife. She needs to be told.”

“She will be. Right now I’d like to speak with you, in private. And I need to interview the students who found the body.”

“Rayleen Straffo and Melodie Branch. The officer who responded said they couldn’t leave the building, and had to be separated.” Her lips thinned now in obvious disapproval. “Those girls were traumatized, Lieutenant. They were hysterical, as one would expect under these kinds of circumstances. I have Rayleen with the grief counselor, and Melodie with our nurse practitioner. Their parents should be with them by now.”

“You notified their parents.”

“You have your procedure, Lieutenant. I have mine.” She gave one of those regal nods Eve imagined were required in Principal Training 101. “My first priority is the health and safety of my students. These girls are ten years old, and they walk intothat .” She nodded toward the door. “God knows what damage it’s done to them, emotionally.”

“Craig Foster isn’t feeling so well himself.”

“I have to do what needs to be done to protect my students. My school—”

“Right now, it’s not your school. It’s my crime scene.”

“Crime scene?” Color drained from Arnette’s face. “What do you mean? What crime?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out. I want the witnesses brought in, one at a time. Your office is probably the best place for the interviews. One parent or guardian per child during the interview.”

“Very well, then. Come with me.”

“Officer?” Eve looked over her shoulder. “Tell Detective Peabody I’m going to the principal’s office.”

His mouth twitched, very slightly. “Yes, sir.”

It was a different kettle altogether, Eve discovered, when you were the honcho instead of the one in the hot seat. Not that she’d particularly been a discipline problem in her day, she remembered. Mostly, she’d tried to be invisible, just get by, just get through and get out of the whole educational prison the day it was legal to do so.

But she hadn’t always managed it. A smart mouth and a bad attitude had surfaced often enough to earn her a few trips down to that hot seat.

She was supposed to be grateful the state was providing her, a ward thereof, with an education, with a home, with enough food to sustain life. She was supposed to be grateful to have clothes on her back, even if someone else had worn them first. She was supposed to want to better herself, which had been tough when she hadn’t remembered, not clearly, where she’d come from in the first place.

What she remembered most were the smug-toned lectures, the disappointed frowns that didn’t quite hide the superiority.

And the endless, the terminal, the all-pervasive boredom.

Of course, it hadn’t been smart and spiffy private schools for her, with state-of-the-art educational equipment, sparkling clean classrooms, stylish uniforms, and a one-teacher-per-six-students ratio.

She’d be willing to bet her next paycheck that the Sarah Child Academy didn’t run to fist fights in the hallways, or homemade boomers in the lockers.