“Yeah, Gran told me that Liz had told her that Kate Doyle was an excellent teacher for a great many years,” said Harriet. “She retired twenty years ago, but she seems to have forgotten. She’s been very confused lately.”
Mrs. Doyle had reached the door and was about to make a final escape to freedom. Only the door was locked, and no matter how much she pulled, it didn’t budge.
“I’m late for school!” she repeated, getting more and more worked up. “The kids—I need to get there before my kids!”
Desmond must have heard the noise, for he came hurrying to.“Now, now, Mrs. Doyle,” he said, his voice as smooth as silk all of a sudden. “There is no school today, don’t you remember? It’s a holiday.”
“It is?” she said, looking thoroughly discombobulated. “Why didn’t anybody tell me? Principal Martens should have told me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now,” said Desmond. “So let’s get you back to your room, shall we?”
After a final longing glance at the parking lot, Mrs. Doyle allowed Desmond to escort her back to her room.
“I could have sworn it was a school day,” she muttered.
“Don’t you think I’d tell you?” said Desmond. “Trust me, Mrs. Doyle. When it’s time for you to go to school, I’ll tell you, all right?”
“I guess so,” she said dubiously.
“Poor woman,” said Harriet.
“Poor children,” said Dooley. “They won’t get their favorite teacher to teach them today.”
“Didn’t you listen to the man?” said Brutus with a grin. “It’s a holiday, Dooley!”
“I don’t trust Desmond,” said Dooley. “He’s not a nice person.”
“He seemed nice enough with Mrs. Doyle,” I said. He might be a bully and a sex pest, but at least he seemed to be good at his job.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]
The big moment had finally arrived: we were going to retrieve the camera equipment from Brian’s office, and deliver the footage to Odelia, so she could give it to Sara. And that would put to bed the first part of our mission.
Gran and Scarlett had sent us out into the corridor to check if the coast was clear—we didn’t want to run into Desmond or, God forbid, Brian himself—and when we returned to sound the all-clear, the two women ventured out, the four of us in their wake.
“Why do we need that footage?” asked Dooley. “Don’t we have plenty of witnesses who saw what Brian did?”
“Those witnesses consist of a few residents, four cats, and Gran and Desmond,” I said. “A good lawyer won’t have any trouble getting them disqualified or their testimony declared inadmissible. But hard evidence as captured on film is a lot harder to get thrown out. Which is why we need thatfootage.”
“I see,” said Dooley, but I had the impression that he didn’t.
We arrived at the door to Dee’s office, behind which lay Brian’s inner sanctum, and Gran felt the door handle. “Locked,” she said. “As was to be expected.”
She took out a small leather wallet, unzipped it, and showed us its contents.
“What’s that, Gran?” asked Dooley.
“What do you think it is? Lock-picking tools, of course! Got them off the internet.”
“And do you know how to use them?” asked Harriet.
“Of course I do. Watched a YouTube video once, and then practiced a lot.”
“I hope this time you’ll know how to work this stuff,” said Scarlett impatiently.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” said Gran as she stuck a long sharp instrument into the lock, and jiggled it around a bit.
Nothing happened.
She jiggled some more, but still no dice.
“Maybe we should try a credit card,” Scarlett suggested.
“You want to buy your way in?” asked Gran. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this door doesn’t take credit cards!”
“Just slide it along like this,” said Scarlett, as she inserted a credit card into the opening between the door jamb and the door. “And that should do the trick.”
But her method didn’t work either.
“Darn it. She must have locked the door,” said Scarlett. “My credit card method won’t work if she locked it.”
“Of course she locked it. What did you think?” said Gran. “No, I’ve got this. Just you wait and see. The guy on YouTube had it open in seconds.”
She jiggled some more, but I think at this point we’d already lost our faith in Gran’s lock-picking abilities and had started looking for another way in.
“Maybe we could try the next door, and then see if they left a window open,” Harriet suggested.
And so that’s what we did. Or at least we would have, if we’d received some cooperation from our humans. But Gran was so fixated on this particular door that she ignored all other possibilities. Tunnel vision, I think this is commonly called.
And since she was so busy fiddling with her tools, she didn’t even notice that Brian was standing behind her until he cleared his throat.
“And what do you think you’re doing, Mrs. Corr?” he asked.
Gran jumped about a foot into the air, and so did Scarlett, and they both turned a pair of faces with guilt written all over them to the general manager.
“We locked ourselves out of our room,” said Scarlett, thinking on her feet.
“Yeah, so we figured we’d try and pick the lock,” Gran added, also thinking quickly.
“But this isn’t your room,” said Brian. “This is my office.”