Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  I looked at Viv again, watching her toss her hair over her shoulder and take a dainty sip of soda, like she was afraid to ingest a molecule of that, even though the bottle clearly promised it was zero calories.

  What was I missing?

  Why wasn’t I smart enough to link her to the crime?

  Chapter 88

  It took guts for Chase Albright to admit to his past and still stand tall on a football field Friday night, rifling passes to guys who probably thought murderer every time they looked at him. Or maybe some of them were thinking, That could be me. Maybe I shouldn’t down a gallon of beer at the after-game party. I hoped that was the case.

  And—I gave my father a sidelong glance—it took a lot of courage for former coach and former mayor Jack Ostermeyer to come to a stadium that he practically used to own in a town that he definitely used to dominate and watch a game like the innocent man that he was.

  I was superproud of him and wished I could tell him that. But we were doing our best to pretend we didn’t even notice people giving him suspicious looks. Besides, he had a librarian sitting on his other side, and I thought the way she slipped her hand into his, as if she was proud to be with him, too, was probably all the validation that he really needed.

  Everybody should have a librarian.

  I thought I was also showing some spine by attending that game, because watching Chase in his football uniform barking out orders and looking like a Greek god wasn’t exactly helping my aching heart. Even when he simply walked to the sidelines during a break in the action, while some injured kid got the once-over by medics, I considered him pretty much breathtaking.

  But he’s hardly even talking to me anymore. Has closed himself off again. I got him to open up to the whole world—except me.

  “Millie, do you want something to eat?”

  I dragged my attention away from the field to find my father offering me money, which didn’t happen every day. Still, I shook my head. “Nah. No, thanks.”

  Ms. Parkins leaned forward so she could see me around the bulky down vest Dad was wearing to ward off the late-October chill. Her eyes, behind her glasses, registered concern. “You’re not hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  She and my dad exchanged worried glances, then my father leaned close and said very quietly, because the stands were packed, “Millie, don’t waste away because of a broken heart.”

  I reared back. “What?”

  There was understanding in my father’s eyes—but some of his characteristic flint, too. “Whatever happened with you and Chase, don’t let it devastate you,” he urged. “You’re an Ostermeyer. You’re stronger than that.”

  I’d had no idea my father had thought about me and Chase since the formal. In fact, I’d assumed he was even more distracted than usual and unaware of anything going on in my life. And he’d never talked with me about boys—not that there’d been boys to talk about.

  “Go ahead.” He offered me the cash again. “Get all of us something to eat.” He pointed toward the visitors’ end zone, where I saw a folding table manned by Ms. Beamish, who apparently couldn’t get one of the few Language Club kids to help her with what must’ve been a fundraiser. In truth, my Philosophy Club was almost as popular as that group. “I think they have doughnuts,” Dad observed, craning his neck. “That sounds good.”

  “Okay.” I plucked the cash from his fingers, thinking maybe I should eat something. I was probably losing all of the stomach capacity I’d built up, and while I might not have had true love in my life, I still did want to be on Sir Loin’s Ye Olde Wall of Fame. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Walking down the steps, I scanned the field again, first finding Chase. He stood on the sidelines, helmet off, and even from a distance, I knew he was watching me, too. I almost waved—then stopped myself and made a point of looking at the cheerleaders, who’d taken to the field, entertaining the crowd until the real action started again. They all pretty much looked the same to me, like a string of paper dolls, but I did note that one normally vivacious—if you removed two letters in the very middle of that word—cheer queen was gone.

  Where’s Vicious Viv?

  Missing her moment of glory to pee out a thimbleful of Diet Coke?

  Then I hopped off the bleachers and threaded my way to the Language Club table. But when I got there, Ms. Beamish had also taken off. However, there was a can for money, underneath a sign that read, “Support Our Trip to Düsseldorf and the Black Forest!”

  “Have a nice time,” I muttered, dropping in all the cash I had and taking what I hoped was about six dollars’ worth of doughnuts.

  “Don’t take more than you’ve paid for, Millicent,” a weasely voice interrupted my calculations. “Because that would be a crime, wouldn’t it?”

  Chapter 89

  “What do you want now?” I asked Detective Blaine Lohser, who was cramming money into the can, too, and choosing a chocolate frosted. “Why are you even here?”

  “I’m here to get a doughnut—and watch the game,” he said, helping himself to change, for crying out loud. Cheapskate.

  “Yeah, it’s a likely coincidence, us meeting up,” I grumbled. “I bet you don’t even like football.” Because you couldn’t even cut it as a towel boy in high school. “You’re here to see people stare at my dad—and gloat,” I guessed. “But if you think my father cares, you’re wrong. He’s an Ostermeyer, and we’re tough.”

  “I do have an interest in keeping an eye on your father, because I think he’s a flight risk,” Detective Lohser said. “But I didn’t really think he’d show up here.”

  I had turned out to be a little hungry, and I wiped powdered sugar off my mouth. “Yeah, right. And you just happened to need a snack at the same time I did.”

  All at once, Detective Lohser seemed defensive. Maybe even hurt. “I just came to see the game,” he repeated. “This is my alma mater.”

  I took a few seconds to digest that information and really look at him in this new setting. And although I wouldn’t have thought it possible even moments before, I felt a twinge of sympathy. He was apparently alone at a football game, wearing an old Honeywell High sweatshirt that made his mustache come off as a desperate cry to be judged mature. In fact, without the ’stache, he probably could’ve passed as a student.

  Was it possible that he’d approached me because he considered what we shared—a few dismal, contentious meetings—some kind of a . . . relationship? Was he that desperate for human contact?

  I wasn’t sure, but I found myself mumbling, “Sorry.”

  He seemed to understand how I’d just judged him. I could see it in his eyes—and knew that I’d been right. Then he puffed out his chest, getting officious again, and said, like we were at some school-safety assembly, “Just make sure you knock off the investigating, kid. Because while you might still want to protect your dad, life isn’t a Nancy Drew book.”

  I could hardly believe he’d invoked the novels that I was finally, tentatively, reading again, even though doing that was still painful. I also recalled that—lonely or not—he’d persecuted my father all the way to a future court date. “You should read some Nancy Drew,” I suggested. “Maybe you’d learn how to treat people—and how to solve a crime.” I nodded to the can. “And put the change back, huh? Help some poor kids get to Germany already!”

  Then, without waiting for his reply, I walked away—mentally high-fiving an imaginary Nancy, who I was pretty sure would’ve approved of the way I’d handled the whole situation.

  It wasn’t—unfortunately—until I’d fought my way back to my dad and Ms. Parkins, crawling over about fifty laps while balancing four doughnuts—and continuing to eat one—that something struck me as strange.

  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it or connect the dots, but all at once, standing there, blocking a bunch of Stingers fans’ views, with a mouth full of Bavarian cream, something seemed off—and not just meeting up with a creepy detective, out of the blue, at a football game.


  Viv, still absent, missing a chance to prance in front of hundreds.

  Ms. Beamish abandoning her fundraising post.

  A few words uttered at a locker.

  Düsseldorf.

  “Show Boat.”

  Wrestling.

  Football.

  Chicken clock.

  “Oklahoma!”

  Familiar handwriting . . .

  I was acting on pure instinct, still not sure what connection, exactly, my brain was trying to make. But as I shoved a pile of pastries into my puzzled father’s hands, crashed through a row of people who were getting pretty disgruntled with me, and ran down the steps toward the school, I knew where I was going.

  The Honeywell High library, of course.

  It might not’ve possessed the collected works of Montaigne, but it would have exactly what I needed that evening.

  Chapter 90

  I was normally very respectful of books and librarians’ efforts to keep them filed in orderly fashion, but that evening I yanked copies of the Honeywell Historia—was that even a word?—off the shelf in the special part of the library where they kept yearbooks dating back to about 1950 and tossed them to the floor.

  Dropping to my knees, I began to leaf quickly through the 2009 annual, licking my fingers to get the pages moving and searching for pictures of the Language Club—while my brain did its level best to recall the knickknacks on Mr. Killdare’s bookshelf. And there it was. A photo of smiling kids and chaperones against a backdrop of Greek ruins.

  The Acropolis.

  Ditching 2009, I snatched up 2010 and restarted the process until I found more grinning kids—right in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Bingo!

  Then 2011. A caption that read “. . . tours charming Copenhagen . . .”

  And next 2012. London. Big Ben.

  The pieces were starting to fall into place, and my fingers shook as I snatched up the most recent Historia and flipped through it, practically panting. “Where were they that summer?” I said out loud. “What’s the missing memento?”

  And then I found it. The photo of students, some of whom I knew—including club president Viv, wearing a very trite beret, gag—and Ms. Beamish, all crowded together at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Some of them were hamming it up with souvenirs they’d bought. Replicas of the tower, which they held aloft . . . almost like trophies. Presumably heavy metal copies of a big metal structure.

  All at once, I also recalled an announcement made at the end of my junior year. “Students traveling to Switzerland this summer must have parental permission slips and a deposit filed by Friday . . .”

  Lucerne. A postcard sent while Mr. Killdare was alive, but that arrived postmortem . . .

  “Viv. I gotta find Viv.”

  Promising myself that I’d apologize to the staff later, I scrambled to my feet, jumped over the mess I’d made, and tore out of the library, for the first time ever excited—albeit in a bad way—to get to my French classroom.

  Chapter 91

  “I thought you needed help carrying doughnuts,” I heard Viv complaining loudly as I ran toward the dark classroom. “You ordered me to meet you here before halftime to restock—which is causing me to miss a chance to be midfield for at least fifteen minutes while they work on that stupid linebacker’s messed-up legs. It’s not like there’s a devastating injury every day! So where are the boxes? And let’s turn on a light, huh?”

  “Viv!” I called out to my archrival—to warn her that she might not want to piss off Ms. Beamish right then—then grabbed the door frame and skidded into the room.

  But I was too late.

  As I watched in horror—the whole thing silhouetted against the window in a Hitchcockian touch that I thought Chase would’ve appreciated, in spite of not being a fan—Ms. Beamish moved up behind Vivienne Fitch and clocked her with a big metal Eiffel Tower that I’d seen on my teacher’s desk for weeks—at least since Hollerin’ Hank’s death.

  The murder weapon. In plain sight. Taken from Mr. Killdare’s house—after being used to kill him.

  It was probably a mistake to run forward, instead of away, but I acted on instinct, maybe subconsciously trying to make up for the time I’d tried to peel drowning Kenny Kaluka’s fingers off my arms while we both struggled to shore, nevertheless getting credit for saving him. Or maybe part of me didn’t want to lose a girl I’d enjoyed hating for the better part of two decades. Me and Viv . . . We had something. Something awful, but something. One might call it historia.

  “Viv!” I cried again, shoving aside Ms. Beamish in my effort to save my enemy.

  But, of course, before I could drop down to my knees, I found myself in the grip of a woman who, unlucky for me, not only advised the Language Club and directed off-, off-, off-, off-Broadway productions, but who coached wrestling, too.

  Chapter 92

  “Let Viv alone, at least,” I pleaded, struggling against what I thought was a headlock. “She didn’t know anything!”

  “You said she knew who sent the tip,” Ms. Beamish countered. “I heard you, at her locker. I can’t let her ever reveal that.”

  “I don’t think she knew anything,” I protested, stopping my pointless writhing, which, oddly enough, made Ms. Beamish release me. It was like the Chinese handcuffs principle, only on a grander scale. I might’ve also caught her off-guard by letting her know that she’d possibly just killed—I glanced down at Viv’s inert form . . . Please don’t be dead!—an innocent person.

  But as I stepped away and turned to face my teacher, I realized that I wasn’t exactly free. Her broad body blocked the door, and she still held the Eiffel Tower, her fingers flexing around it. Testing it—as if she hadn’t used that before.

  Instinctively, I raised my hands, but begged on Viv’s behalf again. “Please. Viv probably didn’t know a thing. Chase and I were just guessing.”

  Ms. Beamish hesitated, seeming uncertain. “I did think it odd . . . I used a disposable phone . . .”

  For a second, I thought I’d defused the whole situation. But, of course, that was far from being the case. Her expression was already getting flinty and shrewd again. “You’ve figured out everything, though,” she reminded me. “Or you wouldn’t be here.” Her eyes shifted, too, just for an instant, to look at Viv. Then she locked on me again. “And now you’ve seen too much.”

  Yeah, I definitely had. And I had no idea how to stall, except to bring up a subject that I was pretty sure no girl, not even a tomboy like Ms. Beamish—and, let’s face it, to a lesser degree, me—could resist “dishing” on.

  “You must’ve really loved him,” I said softly, lowering my hands. “I mean, you had sports in common, and Broadway, and . . .” You were both big and loud and not easily likable. I wisely omitted that last part. I didn’t need to say more, though. Ms. “BeeBee” Beamish’s broad shoulders had already slumped, just a little.

  “Yes,” she said, more quietly, too. “But he would never admit we were together, in public. Kept me hidden from everyone.” She frowned, seeming to forget I was there for a second. “It was always like he was ashamed of me, while I loved him, in spite of his flaws.”

  “You . . . you tried to be part of his life, huh?” I ventured, to keep the conversation going and stave off my death. “Gave him a nice chicken clock to brighten up his kitchen, maybe? Kept some stuff at his house?”

  Ms. Beamish gave me a weird look. “How did you . . . ?”

  I somehow thought I’d be worse off if I mentioned that I’d been actively investigating Mr. Killdare’s murder—rooting through his drawers—so I brushed it off, saying, “What girl doesn’t do stuff like that?”

  Ms. Beamish seemed to accept that. I had a feeling she didn’t really care what I knew—because she was going to kill me the second we were done talking.

  “So what happened?” I asked, feigning sympathy. Gosh, maybe I did feel this slight touch of compassion for her. It must have really felt crappy to have a boyfriend—an unmarried boyfriend—who still didn
’t want to parade you in public and kept you a secret from no less than the dog sitter. “What went down in the end?”

  That was obviously not a good question, because even in the dark, I could see that her eyes glittered. I’d made her angry again. “One day,” she said, “I just couldn’t take it. I’d asked him to finally let me sit, as his guest, in the reserved bleachers at the first home game, and he just laughed. Laughed at me!”

  She still sounded incredulous, while I thought, For the last time—what is the big deal with FOOTBALL?

  Then Ms. Beamish took a step closer to me, starting to raise her weapon—to either demonstrate what had happened next or to do me in. Or, more likely, to kill both of those birds—one of them a redheaded Ostermeyer—with one replica tower. “When he did that, something inside of me just snapped,” she growled, as if she’d summoned those overpowering emotions again. “I couldn’t take it anymore, and I . . .”

  “Whoa!” I took a step backward. “No need to show me! I understand!”

  “No, you don’t,” she shot back. I could tell she was ferociously mad, and I started to get incredibly scared. Still, I dared to take my eyes off Ms. Beamish long enough to check on Viv again. She remained lying on the floor, but I saw her twitch, like she was either coming to or playing possum, which wouldn’t have been a bad idea, given the situation. Either way, I was glad she was alive, both for her own sake and because maybe she’d jump up at some point and be helpful. Then I returned my attention to Ms. Beamish, who was still standing there, weapon aloft, like she was starting to savor the process of killing. “Please,” I said, hearing the fear in my voice. “Please, don’t . . .”

  “None of you respect me,” she snarled, stepping closer again, so I moved back, bumping into a desk. “Especially you.”

  How had this become about me?

  “I . . . I respect you!” I promised.

  “No, you don’t,” Ms. Beamish countered. “You never speak French during free dialogue! You sleep in class!”