Last One to Die: A totally gripping and absolutely unputdownable crime thriller (Detective Nikki Cassidy Book 2) by Dana Perry

Author:Dana Perry [Perry, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-SEVEN

The teacher of the class, Alan Gilmore, appeared to be in as much a state of shock over Carolyn Garms’ murder as Earnshaw said the girl’s parents were.

“I don’t understand… I just don’t understand,” he kept repeating when we met with him in his classroom at the school. “I mean we were all on the bus, at the museum for a few hours, took the trip back here and then… then she was gone. I can’t understand how something like this could ever happen.”

Gilmore was a remarkably unremarkable man. Somewhere in his forties, thin, balding, dressed in drab clothes, no real charisma of any kind when he talked. The kind of bland, boring teacher that I remembered having too many of when I was a student at Huntsdale High years ago. Not exactly an inspiring instructor. If my theory was right that the killer was someone who charmed his young female victims before he killed them, this guy sure had to be ruled out as a suspect.

The classroom was empty except for Gilmore, me and Alex. School hadn’t been officially called off, but most of the students—the ones who showed up after Carolyn Garms’ death—were undergoing grief counseling sessions to deal with the trauma from her murder. Gilmore looked like he could use some of that kind of counseling too, but he was here talking to us right now.

We asked him to recount the day of the field trip as best he could.

“Oh God, I don’t know… it was a field trip. That’s all. We’d planned it for a few weeks, talked about in class, put it on our calendars—there was nothing at all unexpected about it. What happened that day? Nothing. Until the end. The students were really excited about going out of the classroom for the trip. There was a lot of shouting and singing on the bus ride there. Everyone seemed to enjoy the tour of the museum. And we were all talking about the stuff we’d seen there on the bus ride back. Then we came back inside the school, and that’s when someone noticed Carolyn wasn’t with us anymore.”

He was on the verge of tears. “I’ve been going over and over in my mind if there was some sign of trouble or a problem that I missed. But I can’t think of anything. I saw her on the bus, acting just like everyone else. So whatever happened must have been after we disembarked from the bus. But I didn’t notice anything wrong then either. Why would I? Why would I have any fear or concern that something like this might happen right here on the school grounds? I really don’t understand any of it.”

Now he started crying.

It could have been a performance, of course. Covering up guilt on his part—either guilt from killing the girl or guilt over somehow allowing it to happen. But I didn’t think anyone, particularly Alan Gilmore, was capable of an acting performance like that.

No, he was devastated by the tragic death of his student.

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