was not looking like a triumphant administrator who had stuck it to her bosses. She actually wore an expression of concern. The board president immediately suggested that the issue of Buzbee School discipline be tabled indefinitely, and the board agreed unanimously, with one member absent. No doubt, there would be hell to pay in the morning.
Anne and I walked out together, as the board took up the pressing issue of gum in the school water fountains. She allowed herself a small smile, and looked at me as we stood outside, enjoying the chilly air after the claustrophobia that accompanies any public meeting.
“You certainly are the cavalry, riding over the hill in the nick of time,” she said. “Thank you, Aaron.”
“I got lucky,” I told her. “My children just happened to know what was going on.”
“We like to foster communication between parents and students,” Anne said with the hint of a sly grin. “In any event, I owe you a favor.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You’ve been the best principal I’ve ever dealt with. Ethan isn’t an easy kid to have in your school.”
“No,” she agreed, “but I’ve seen a lot worse. At heart, he’s a very sweet boy. And he’s never boring.”
“Tell me about it. Will you have trouble with Faith and her cronies?”
“A little,” Anne admitted, “but not more than I can handle.”
“Imagine,” I said, “all this over a couple of stink bombs. Imagine if there were real problems to worry about.”
“There are,” said Anne. “But they don’t generally come to the surface until it’s too late, I’m afraid.”
She thanked me again, and we went our separate ways. At least I’d managed to save the day for Anne. Now, all I needed was to solve Legs Gibson’s murder and find out who was threatening me, and I’d chalk this one up as a good week.
I got home a few minutes later, and found Abigail on her knees with a can of carpet cleaner and a roll of paper towels. Warren was sitting on his dog bed in the living room, surveying all that was his.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I ventured.
“What was that all about?”
“I saved Anne Mignano’s job for another year or so,” I informed her. “Based on information I got from our children and Melissa.”
She stood up and assessed the damage. “Warren has been a busy boy,” she said.
“That’s one way of looking at it. You know, the carpet still smells.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” Abby said. I have a notoriously bad sense of smell.
“Crazy Legs Gibson would notice. Are you sure we want a dog?”
“I’m sure. Are you sure you want a carpet in here?” She was already eyeing the threadbare wall-to-wall with the eye she generally reserves for things whose days are numbered. Luckily, she has not yet fixed that gaze on me.
“I’m sure I don’t want to move my desk, the computer, my file cabinets, the bookshelves, and everything else in the room to move the rug,” I said.
“Well, it looks like I need to call Mark Friedman and ask him what takes the smell out of an old, old carpet,” said Abby.
“I’ll call him. He’s seen a picture of you, and may actually pant on the phone.”
“That hasn’t happened to me in weeks,” my wife teased.
“Well, I can’t call your office every day,” I said.
Friedman was home, luckily, so I didn’t have to spend much time talking to his wife Marsha, who doesn’t like me. I don’t know why she doesn’t like me, but she snarls whenever I call, even when she’s saying things like “so, how’s life treatin’ ya?” It’s hard to snarl through a phrase like that, but Marsha manages.
This time, she didn’t even answer the phone, so I could avoid all that and get right to the point. “I have another carpet question for you,” I said.
“More blood?”
“Not this time. It’s not related to a crime, unless you consider rescuing a dog from the shelter to be cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Uh-oh. Dog urine.” Friedman was completely in his professional mode.
“Among other things.”
“The other things you can clean up and forget about,” he said. “The urine is a problem. What kind of carpet?”
I was prepared this time. “Wall-to-wall, shallow pile, looks to have been installed sometime during the Vietnam War. And now it doesn’t smell so good.”
“You’re screwed.”
I waited. “That’s it? I call the carpet maven and I get, ‘you’re screwed?’ What about some magic compound I can cook up in the basement that will take out the smell and make