Lessons in Murder by Claire McNab Page B

and strode off towards the car park. Over her shoulder she said, “Why did you come here this morning?”
    They came to a halt beside Sybil’s car. Carol jangled her car keys. “I’ve no idea,” she said with a shrug.
    Sybil watched her as she walked away, but she didn’t look back.
     
     
    “Been trying to get you,” said Bourke as Carol walked into Bellwhether police station.
    “I was out running. What’s up?”
    Bourke gestured to the desk. “Possible weapon. Looks like blood and some hair on it. Thought you’d like to see it before it went to Science.”
    Carol considered the varnished wooden surface. “Baseball or softball bat.”
    “Yes, and government issue. Look at the lettering stamped on the shaft. I’ll bet it comes from Bellwhether High School’s sports supplies. Kid found it on the headland near where Quade fell. Don’t know how we missed it when we searched, but it was on a narrow ledge a couple of meters from the top.”
    “Thrown down there or deliberately hidden?”
    “Don’t know. The kid found it, picked it up, was sharp enough to think it might be important, but he took it home with him before he rang us. He’s in the other room. Do you want to see him?”
    “No. Take him back to the headland after you fingerprint him, Mark. And take a photographer and a couple of officers with you. I want the place searched again in case we’ve missed something else.”
    She sat down at the desk Bourke had been using and checked through the papers until she found a full timetable for the school. Wednesday afternoon was reserved for sport. She leafed through the pages to the supervision schedule. There it was, blankly staring at her: Senior Baseball. Bellwhether Oval. Supervisors: S. Quade and P. McIvor. She had a vivid picture of Sybil clutching a baseball bat—swinging it in a looping arc—the dull whack as it connected with her husband’s skull.
    She pushed the image out of her mind and concentrated on the other name. Pete McIvor? She visualized his open, immature face. He was the sort who would blush with guilt if he evaded a bus fare. She ran the interview with him through her mind. He had constantly smoothed his mustache, shifting in his seat and clearing his throat at every question, however innocuous. But that could be a very sound way to behave if you were hiding something. A high level of anxiety for harmless queries could be used to mask genuine alarm when dangerous questions were asked.
    During the time Pagett had been murdered Pete had no corroboration of his movements until he began teaching in the first period of the day. He claimed to have gone to assembly and then to the book room to collect textbooks for distribution to his first class. He was always very punctual, and that Monday morning had been no exception. Bourke had checked that he had distributed the textbooks at the beginning of the lesson, though of course he could have collected them from the book room at any time.
    The coroner had given Tony Quade’s probable time of death as somewhere between ten and twelve o’clock on Wednesday night, the warm night and the complication of cooler sea breezes making it difficult to be more accurate. Bourke had confirmed that Pete McIvor had been at the pub with friends until about eleven, when he had announced he was going home. Although he shared a flat with two other people, one had been out when he had arrived and the other was very vague about the time, so Pete certainly had the opportunity to dispose of Tony Quade if he had wanted to.
    She turned to the notes on Sybil. At the very beginning of the assembly she had taken the microphone to give details of an excursion to the drama theatre of the Opera House. She said she then went down to stand by the students, but no one remembered her definitely being there. Then, because she didn’t have a roll call or a first lesson, she was free to go to Bill Pagett’s workroom and kill him. She said she was sitting in her empty classroom