False Papers

False Papers
a short story
by Austin Mitchell
Clayton Collins looked at his wife and secretary, Opal. She was a small bodied woman whom he had married seven years ago. The union had produced two boys and a girl. Both Clayton and Opal were in a quandary.

Lascelles Ingram, the Mathematics and Woodwork teacher at the school, had suddenly disappeared. Actually Lascelles had announced that his father had died. When Clayton as principal of the school, suggested that the staff would like to attend his father’s funeral, Lascelles had promptly refused.

“I tell you, Opal, I just don’t understand the man. Why wouldn’t he want us to attend his father’s funeral?” Clayton asked in consternation.
“Maybe he just likes his privacy and wanted a private funeral for his dad,” Opal replied. She had never liked Lascelles. Especially after he got fifth former, Nathalie Holmes, pregnant and tried to keep it a secret.
“His room is locked and has been that way for the past three weeks. I’ve tried to contact his wife but to no avail,” Clayton stated.
“Aren’t they divorced, dear and neither of us knows her or for that matter anything about her,” Opal replied.
Lascelles had come to the school as a single man stating on his resume that he was separated from his wife. They had two children and he had told his interviewers that they still got support from him. Of course Clayton and the chairman of the school board, had been his main interviewers. His references had been checked and were found to be outstanding persons in their own fields.
“I’m going to give him one more week to turn up and then I’m going to call in the police. The students are suffering. It’s a good thing that it’s just two weeks to the end of term, “Clayton finished.
The school was a private high school with some three hundred students on roll. Mc Kinley High was ten years old and had a good reputation for turning out excellent students. Clayton Colins had been with the school for six years now and felt that he was doing a good job. He was fearful that Lascelles could damage the school’s reputation. His work at previous schools where he had taught was okay. So what could the matter be that Ingram was hiding?

Detective Inspector Fred Reidle sat opposite Clayton in his office.
“Why would he just disappear like that and it seems strange, after all funerals these days are hardly private affairs. I tell you, Mr. Collins, that it would be better for you to get a search warrant and go through his apartment. There must be some clues there about him,” Reidle advised.
Mc Kinley High had built cottages to accommodate all its teachers at a reasonable rent although no boarding was done. The rent was deducted from a teachers pay before he or she received their pay so that the school had no late payments for that and other utilities. There were some teachers who complained unceasingly about their utilities but never Lascelles.
“Do you know where he is from? At least you could start there, probably check his high school and college as a background check on him. I’ll assign one of my men to it. You never know what we may come up with,” Reidle said.
“I’ll appreciate that very much, Inspector. Any help we can get would be most welcome. It’s quite embarrassing not being able to inform the students as to his whereabouts,” Clayton informed him.
The two men talked briefly some more before Reidle left.
Clayton returned to his own work. The holidays were just around the corner. There would be a two week’s break before summer school would start. Summer school would be for one month and was compulsory for all those students in danger of not moving on to a higher grade in September. Based on the students reports and meetings with teachers about seventy five students would have to attend this year. It wasn’t free and many parents had protested against it but Clayton felt that it was necessary.
Clayton was going through some copies of some school reports that Saturday when he heard loud noises. He went outside and found out that they were coming from the guard post. When he went there he found a removal truck parked outside the gate. The driver was remonstrating with the guard.
“Here is the Principal. Talk to him, maybe he can help you,” the guard, told the truck driver.
The man, a slim six footer turned his attention to Clayton. The school gate was still closed. The guard had moved away to his post.
“Yes sir, what can I do for you?” Clayton asked the man.
“My name is Aston Duffus. Mr. Ingram, he used to teach at this school and he sent me for his things. This guard doesn’t want to open the gates for me to get the man’s things and he desperately needs them,” Duffus begged.
“Where is Mr. Ingram now, Mr. Duffus? I’d like to know that before I let you into his apartment and I don’t think it would be right for me to let you take his things like that. You tell him that if he wants his things he should come for them,” Clayton told an angry and bewildered Aston Duffus.
“I can’t tell you where he is. All he did was give me the address of this school and sent me for his things,” Duffus said.
“Just like that, not even a letter of introduction. How was his father’s funeral?” Clayton asked.
For a moment Duffus seemed to be dumfounded and Clayton knew he was trying to make up something.
“It went okay,” he replied.
“I still feel sad that he didn’t see it fit to invite the staff,” Clayton told him.
“I don’t know why he didn’t invite you and your staff to his father’s funeral. Look, all he did was send me for his things and since you’re in charge here and don’t want to give them to me I thing I’d better leave,” Duffus said and went to his truck.
“Tell him he can come for them anytime he wants them and we have two month’s salary for him too,” Clayton shouted after Duffus as the man jumped into his truck and started reversing it towards the main road. Clayton made sure that he took the license number of Duffus’ truck just in case.
Two weeks later and Clayton was at a seminar in Ocho Rios when he got a call late in the evening. Lascelles had come for his things. He had brought police from Kingston and took his belongings out of his apartment. It was a Friday evening and Opal and the kids had come down to spend the week-end in Ocho Rios. Clayton was caught in a quandary.
He called Inspector Reidle and relayed to him what had happened. The Inspector said he’d try to find out which police station had authorized Ingram to take his possessions.
Clayton drove home his family from Ocho Rios that Monday evening. Opal and the kids said that they were tired and went to bed. Clayton was watching television when his telephone rang. He went and picked it up.
“Is this Mr. Clayton Collins, the Principal of Mc Kinley High. Listen boss, Lascelles came for his things and got them. He doesn’t owe you any money and the two checks you have for him you can keep them. If I were you I would forget about him,” the man at the other end of the phone said before hanging up.
Clayton stood there staring at the receiver in shock. He knew that it was a threat. He didn’t wake up Opal to tell her about it that night.
“A man called me last night telling me to back off the Lascelles’ case,” he told Opal as they breakfasted that morning minus the kids.
“You’ll have to report it to the police, dear,” Opal advised.” Would you be able to identify the voice?”
“It wasn’t Lascelles and it wasn’t that man, Aston Duffus,” he told her.
“Well, report it to the police and we have to be careful. Have the police come up with anything yet?” she asked.
“No, they haven’t but they’re still working on it,” he told her.
The summer school was two weeks on and everything was going on quite well. In the third week a Detective Sergeant Patrick Dennis called on Clayton. It was a Tuesday morning.
“Do you want us to continue the case? After all you haven’t brought any charges against him. For all we know he could be in another part of the country. Once we find out where he is we’ll get one of our men to monitor him,” the young policeman said.
Clayton knew that the policeman was telling him that they were getting nowhere and that he should leave it as is.
“Sergeant, I can’t tell the police how to operate. If you feel that there is nothing more to it then that’s it then,” he told the Sergeant.
“There is just one thing I’d like and that is a photocopy of all his certificates and his recommendations. I guess that’s where we should have started,” Sergeant Dennis remarked.
Clayton called one of the clerks and she got busy on the photocopy machine while he filled in the Sergeant about the school. When the clerk was finished she put the photocopies in an envelope and the policeman took it and left. Clayton thought that maybe that was the last they were seeing of Sergeant Dennis or Inspector Reidle for that matter.
Finally summer school was over and Clayton was glad for the break although he was still at school during the holidays.
Clayton was in his office one Tuesday afternoon when he got a call. It was Opal, she couldn’t find Carl, their eldest son.
“Have you called the police?” he asked and when she replied in the negative he told her to call them and he was on his way. He practically ran from his office, telling Alrick Atland, the school’s Dean of Discipline to lock up for him. He told him that something was wrong with one of his sons.
As he turned a corner he saw a car parked and a minute later he saw it coming behind him and he realized that something was wrong. He turned on an unpaved road and thought maybe he’d made a mistake. Then he remembered that Stanfred Daley lived up here and he was sure to be at home. Stanfred was the Chemistry teacher at Mc Kinley High. The car was following him. Clayton continued driving until he saw Stanfred’s drive-way coming up and he saw that the man’s car was parked on the roadside and he pulled into the drive-way and the car went past him and went up the road and stopped but nobody came out.
Then before Clayton could get out of his car, his cell phone rang.
“Clayton, if you pull the police off the case we’ll return your son to you,” the man said. The car spun around and shot past him and he saw one of the men in the car pointing a gun in his direction and he ducked but the man didn’t fire and soon the car was gone.
Stanfred and his wife, Selma, were at their gate.
“What’s the matter, Clayton?” Stanfred asked.
“Opal just told me that they’ve taken away Carl. I was just on my way home when I saw that car following me. I took this road leading to your home, saw your driveway and pulled into it. Before I could get out of the car they called to warn me to pull the police off Lascelles’ case or else I’ll never see Carl again,” Clayton reported.
“I never trusted that guy, Ingram. I always felt that he was up to something dishonest, especially after he got the Holmes’ girl pregnant,” Stanfred said.
“I have to go and see how Opal and the kids are doing. I told her to call the police. Only hope that she did.”
“We’ll go with you, Clayton. Wait until we lock up the house,” Stanfred told him.
They were on their way in two minutes time. They came off the road to Stanfred’s home and were on the main road now. They turned a corner and there was the car that had been following Clayton’s car. But the men seeing the two cars so closely together didn’t follow. Instead Clayton’s cell phone rang.
“So you’ve got company. Ditch the company because we want to talk to you about your son,” the man said and Clayton realized that this was the same man who had first threatened him.
“What do you want from me?” Clayton asked.
“Get the police to back off Lascelles and drop the case altogether,” the man said.
“I can’t do that,” Clayton said and hung up.
A harried looking Opal greeted him when he reached home.
“He went to the shop to get some sweets and when I didn’t see him return I went in search of him and he wasn’t there. The shopkeeper told me that he got into a blue car.
That was the car that had been following him. He wondered where it was now and if the man had Carl in it with them.
A police car came up and Sergeant Dennis came out. Opal told the Sergeant about Carl’s disappearance and Clayton told him about the car and the man said he had seen a car fitting that description in the area this morning. He made a call to some of his colleagues before hanging up. Stanfred and his wife left for their home.
“Lascelles Ingram’s teacher’s certificate is a fake. It’s not genuine. He had it made somewhere. We had the college check their records and he never graduated from there,” Dennis explained.
Clayton was surprised at what the Sergeant was telling him. From all reports Ingram was a pretty good teacher of all the subjects he taught.
“That’s surprising. I never would have thought of that,” Clayton said.
“I think his wife is the missing link. You said that he had a lot of women friends. Know any of them?” Sergeant Dennis asked.
“I don’t remember any of their names,” Clayton replied as the Sergeant’s phone rang.
The Sergeant answered it before hanging up. He started for his car.
“They sighted the car with your boy in it,” he shouted and got into his car.
Clayton got into his car and started after him. When they reached the place, Clayton saw some policemen holding a young boy. It was Carl. He stopped the car and ran up to them.
“That’s my son,” he shouted.
“We found him wandering on the road. We’ll have to take him to the hospital to ensure that he’s okay. Who are you?” the policeman asked.
Before Clayton could answer Sergeant Dennis rushed over.
“Take the boy down to Doctor Ximines, Orville and let his father go with you. If he’s okay then his father can take him home. We are going after them,” Sergeant Dennis instructed.
Carl had not been hurt and he told the policemen who came to the house that evening everything he knew which wasn’t much. The police said that they would assign a patrol car to the neighborhood.
Clayton went to the office late that morning and was greeted by the presence of a very beautiful and well dressed woman.
“I’m Jeneva Ingram, Lascelles wife. I came to see you after I heard the news about that little boy that was kidnapped,” she said.
Clayton came and shook her hand before offering her a seat in his office.
“I’m pleased to meet you. You know all the while Lascelles was here we’ve been trying to find out about you but he didn’t say anything.”
“We’ve been separated for sometime now.”
“Do you mind if Sergeant Dennis joins us. He’s been working on the case and he came to see me,” he told her.
“Sure let him come in. I have nothing to hide.”
Sergeant Dennis came in and was introduced to Mrs. Ingram.
“Lascelles is running a fraud ring. He took my teacher’s college certificate and refuses to return it. He took it abroad and made copies of it. There are many professionals working in Jamaica and even in other Caribbean Islands on fraudulent certificates and even in other person’s names. He runs a gang that specializes in certificate and identity theft,” she explained.
“Do you know where your husband is right now?” Sergeant Dennis.
“I have no idea where he is and I have to be in hiding after he threatened to kill me after I told him I was going to expose him,” she said.
“It seems that he makes friends with professional women and get to copy their certificates which he then get these forgers abroad to make and sell to people,” Sergeant Dennis said.
They talked some more before both Sergeant Dennis and Mrs. Ingram left.
Just as Clayton was getting into his car that evening his cell-phone rang.
“Clayton, this is Lascelles. I don’t know what my wife came and told you but it’s a pack of lies. I’m in a billion dollar business, Clayton. We want you to join us as a partner. It’s nothing like what Jeneva told you. Can I come to see you this evening before you leave?”
“I’ll only see you with the police present. You had your friends kidnap my son and now you want to appease me and bring me into your scheme. You go to hell, man,” Clayton shouted and hung up.
Nothing happened for sometime. It was now September and school began with a replacement teacher for Lascelles. He didn’t hear from Jeneva but one afternoon he got an urgent call from Inspector Reidle. They had caught Lascelles and wanted him to identify the man. Apparently a man was hired on as a manager at this private sector firm. He had qualifications from prestigious universities in the United States but it didn’t take long for the staff and later the management to realize that had no qualifications or expertise in his chosen field. It took almost a week for him to confess to the police as to how he came by his certificates thus fingering Lascelles as the mastermind behind the fraudulent certificate granting scheme.
Clayton went and sure enough it was the man although he was now growing a large beard. He was defiant that he had done nothing wrong. His house was raided and several fraudulent certificates found. He admitted to the charges and told the police that he had left the school when his wife found out where he was and threatened to expose him. At the moment he is still in jail awaiting trial. The End.Pleae visit my blog at:http://stredwick.blogspot.com