The man following her had been handsome in his youth, but time had clawed its signature across his features. His Armani suit, although flawlessly tailored, couldn’t hide his thickening middle. His florid complexion spoke of three-martini lunches, wine-drenched dinners, and bedtime brandies.
The chief stood and took a couple of steps toward them. Skye and Homer kept a few feet back.
Allen Ingels spoke. “What’s going on? What are you doing in my house?”
Wally answered, “I’m sorry, folks, but I have some bad news for you.”
Lorna Ingels paled and clutched her husband’s arm. He half turned, almost as if he were ready to make a run for it.
“Bad news? What could you possibly have to say that would concern us?” Allen Ingels brushed off an imaginary speck of lint, his eyes suddenly unable to meet the chief’s.
To Skye, it was almost as if he already felt guilty about something.
“Today at approximately three o’clock your daughter Lorelei was found in the high school gym, dead from unknown causes.”
“My baby?” Mrs. Ingels shrieked and sagged against her husband. “What happened to my baby?”
Before Wally could speak, Mr. Ingels roared, “Nonsense! There must be some mistake. What gross incompetence. She’s never been sick a day in her life. I’ll sue all of you for scaring us like this.”
Skye watched a veil of denial descend on both the Ingels’s faces.
Wally eased the couple down on the sofa. “There’s no mistake. During the last half of eighth period, Ms. Denison here”—he indicated Skye—“was summoned by a student to the gym. Once there, she found your daughter lying on a bed that was part of the stage set for the school play. Lorelei was not breathing, nor was her heart beating. An ambulance was immediately sent for, and arrived within five minutes. The EMTs declared her dead, and called for me and the coroner. We won’t know the cause of death until after the autopsy.”
Mrs. Ingels screamed and buried her head in her arms. “My baby, my baby! She was so beautiful! You can’t cut her up. I won’t let you. I want to see my baby.”
Skye moved forward to comfort Mrs. Ingels, but Wally held her back. She shot him a surprised look, and he gave a slight shake of his head. What was he up to?
Mr. Ingels sat stone-faced. “What are you talking about? How could a perfectly healthy eighteen-year-old go to school and just die?”
“I’m sorry. We don’t know. There’s no physical evidence.”
Skye looked at Wally again. What did he mean? What about the mysterious bottle? What about the piece of tinsel, and the pool of vomit the officers had been talking about?
Allen Ingels turned to Homer, who had been hovering to the banker’s left. “How could you let something like this happen in your school?”
Beads of sweat popped out on Homer’s brow.
Skye stepped forward to rescue the principal. “Mr. and Mrs. Ingels, you have our utmost sympathy for your loss, but there was nothing we could do.” Was their reaction a natural expression of grief? The Ingels weren’t acting like any parents she had dealt with before.
“And you.” Allen Ingels pivoted in Skye’s direction. “Did you do anything to help? Did you try CPR or mouth-to-mouth? Or did you just let her die?”
Skye felt as if she’d been sucker-punched. Could I have done something more?
Wally spoke before she could find an answer. “Your daughter was dead when Ms. Denison found her. She followed the correct procedure.”
Both parents glared at Wally. Lorna Ingels, tears running down her cheeks, said, “Well, we’ll never know now, will we?”
“The autopsy will answer many of your questions,” the chief answered. “And since we have to treat this like a suspicious death, we’ll need to search Lorelei’s room.”
Allen Ingels drew up straighter and glowered. “Over my dead body. No search and no autopsy.” He started to leave the room. “I’m calling our attorney. I want you all out of my house now.”
“That’s not being very cooperative, Al,” a deep voice boomed.
All eyes turned to the huge man who filled the doorway. He wore a white shirt and gray twill pants held up by bright red suspenders. An unlit cigar was clamped between his teeth.
Skye let out an inaudible sigh. For better or worse, Uncle Charlie had arrived. Charlie Patukas was really Skye’s godfather, not her uncle, but more importantly he was president of the school board and had his finger in a lot of Scumble River pies.
Charlie Patukas and Allen Ingels were the two most influential men in the area, and as such, were often at odds. Charlie’s first concern was the welfare of the town, whereas Allen’s interest seemed to lie more in self-advancement.
Homer opened his mouth, then closed it. Clearly, he couldn’t decide if he was happy or upset with Charlie’s arrival. He whispered to Wally, “The superintendent is out of town at a conference, so I had to notify Charlie.”
Wally folded his arms, his face expressionless.
“This is none of your business, Charlie,” Allen Ingels said, his bloodshot blue eyes locked with Charlie’s clear ones.
“Most everything in Scumble River is my business, Al. ’Specially when it happens on school property.” Charlie leaned against the doorframe, which creaked in protest, and crossed his arms. His voice turned deadly serious. “So,” he said, “why don’t you want to cooperate with the police?”
CHAPTER 3
Lend a Tear
Skye sat next to Charlie as he piloted his white Cadillac Seville through the darkness, toward the cottage she rented down by the river. She tried to concentrate, to figure out what she should do next, but her thoughts kept turning to Lorelei Ingels, the Sleeping Beauty who would never wake again. It was difficult to face mortality at any age, but the death of a young woman on the verge of independence just wasn’t right. No words could comfort the family or soothe Skye’s own sense of waste. It was her time. At least she didn’t suffer, certainly didn’t work. And the old standby, Now she’s with God, didn’t cut it when the corpse was an eighteen-year-old.
Charlie interrupted Skye’s thoughts. “She was a beautiful girl.”
“Yes, she was.”
“What do you think happened?” He concentrated on steering the huge car into Skye’s narrow driveway.
“It could be just about anything.” She didn’t want to have this conversation, but she knew she had better get used to it, as everyone in town would be asking the same question. “It could be suicide, heart attack, an overdose. We may never know, if Mr. Ingels squelches the autopsy.”
“Bob Ginardi is both the school and city attorney, and he says Al can’t do that. But he’s not sure if Al can stop the search of Lorelei’s room.”
“So what’ll they do?”
Charlie bit down on his unlit cigar. “Tomorrow they’ll go before a judge and try to get a search warrant, but our lawyer doesn’t think we’ll have a good case until we nail down the cause of death. It’s real touchy, the Ingels being who they are.”
“What do you mean? The rich get different treatment than the poor?”
“Sure. And you know it.” Charlie reached over and pinched her cheek. “Normally, Wally would post a guard at that bedroom door while he tried for a warrant, but he can’t do that with the Ingels.”
“So, we’re all responsible for what we do—unless, of course, we’re rich?”
“That about sums it up. The more money, the better the lawyer and the more rights you have.”
Skye closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Charlie had a point, but no matter what happened now, no matter what any of them did, an eighteen-year-old was dead. Were they all about to fight over her corpse like children over a Barbie doll? Once again Skye felt caught in the middle, and there was nothing she could do to make things better.
She slid over and kissed Charlie’s rough cheek. “Thanks for the ride.” She tried to keep the resignation from her voice.
“You should let me buy you a car,” Charlie said.
“I’m supposed to get money from the insurance company by the end of this week, so I’ll finally be able to buy my own car,” Skye countered.
Ever since Charlie had inherited a fortune, he’d been trying to spend it on Skye, her brother, Vince, and her parents. He claimed they were his only family, and he wanted them to be happy. Skye tried to resist the temptation of his gifts—at least most of the time.
“Can you believe they stopped payment on the check for the Chevy,” Skye said, “just because the Buick was totaled a few months later? Good thing the insurance agent is my cousin. Can you imagine how strangers are treated?”
She’d had bad luck with cars since she’d moved back to Scumble River—two years, two cars, two wrecks ago. Her insurance company was not at all sure they wanted to pay up for either vehicle, and with her bad credit rating and nonexistent savings account, she couldn’t afford to purchase one without that check for a down payment. This meant she’d been borrowing cars and hitching rides for the last eight months.
“You should have let me talk to Kevin,” Charlie said. “Sometimes cousins need to be reminded of their family duties.”
“I can handle him. Time to hit the sack. Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day.”
She slid across to the passenger door, then got out and waved as Charlie pulled out of the driveway. Bingo greeted her at the cottage door. He was a beautiful, nearly solid black cat, and had previously belonged to Skye’s recently deceased grandmother. He twined around Skye’s ankles, meowing and purring simultaneously. She dropped her tote bag and coat on the hall bench and scooped him up, burying her face in his velvetlike fur. He purred louder and kneaded her shoulder with his front paws.
After a moment she carried him to the kitchen and prepared his supper with one hand. As soon as she popped open the can, he began to squirm, insisting on being put down. She placed him on the floor with his bowl of food, sorry to lose the feeling of something alive in her arms. Bingo sniffed delicately.
“Come on, don’t be silly. You’ve been eating the same stuff for over nine months now.”
He looked up at her out of slitted eyes.
“I don’t care if Grandma prepared hand-cooked meals for you. You’re lucky that on my budget I buy you the name-brand cat food and not the generic.”
He took a tentative lick.
“That’s better.”
Skye glanced at the clock in the microwave. Nine-thirty. She should eat something. Her tuna sandwich at lunch had been a long time ago. But she wasn’t hungry. Suddenly she was bone-tired. She dragged herself to the bedroom, undressing as she went. Her flannel nightgown hung from a hook on the back of the bathroom door, and she wearily inched her way into it, then climbed into bed, too exhausted to bother with her usual nightly ritual of facial cleanser and moisturizing cream. She didn’t think missing one night would cause her to wake up looking like a shar-pei.
Skye dreamed she was in college and had forgotten to go to class all semester. Now it was time to take the final exam. A blank blue book stared up at her from the desktop. She couldn’t breathe. She struggled up through layers of unconsciousness. She still couldn’t inhale. Her mouth felt dry and fuzzy. Her eyes flew open. Everything was black. Bingo had settled on the pillow next to her, his rump covering the lower half of her face.
She pushed him away and flung back the covers. She was sweating, and it felt as if she had run the Chicago Marathon. To calm her racing heart she tried one of the deep breathing exercises she taught to kids who suffered from anxiety.
Suddenly Skye bolted upright. Shit, shit, shit! She would bet her next paycheck that the high school had no crisis-intervention strategy. She had read recently that only seventy-eight percent of all schools had such a plan, and since neither a psychologist nor social worker had ever remained in Scumble River for more than a year, it was highly unlikely an emergency procedure had ever been written. And without a plan spelling out who would do what in case of a disaster or a tragedy, nothing would be in place to handle the students’ grief.
She’d bet another week’s salary that Homer would see no need for such an intervention. But whether the principal agreed or not, many of the students would suffer severe emotional trauma once they heard about Lorelei’s death. For the majority of those kids, it would be their first taste of mortality. Most would act as if Lorelei’s death didn’t bother them, but if the situation wasn’t handled properly, they’d be vulnerable to suicide attempts, substance abuse, and other risk-taking behaviors.
Skye pulled the covers over her head. How could she deal with such a crisis alone? She needed help from other mental-health professionals, but there were none in Scumble River.
After a few moments, she forced herself out of bed and into the shower. By five-thirty, she was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of Earl Grey tea, the phone book, and a legal pad.
One bright spot. The superintendent was out of town. Dr. Wraige and Skye had a mutual-avoidance policy going, and she was happy not to have to deal with him. That left the principal as her first call. She hoped he was an early riser.
“Hi. Homer? Skye Denison here. Time? Yes, I know the time. It’s five-thirty-five. I’m sorry I woke you, but we have a problem, one connected with Lorelei’s death.” Skye held the phone away from her ear and let him rant for a few moments. “I’m really sorry, but do we have some sort of policy on how to deal with this type of situation with the other kids?”
Homer’s end went silent. Then he said, “No. Well, we do have something from the special ed co-op, but we never filled in the blanks with names or anything.”
The Scumble River School District belonged to the Stanley County Special Education Cooperative, an entity that, in theory, furnished them with programs and personnel on an intermittent basis, as needed. The cooperative had started out by providing school psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech pathologists, and teachers for such low-incidence handicaps as vision and hearing impairments. Now that most of those professions were needed full-time by school districts, the co-op had become more or less a watchdog to deal with the bureaucratic red tape of special-education funding.
Skye covered the mouthpiece and swore. She tapped an angry tattoo on the kitchen table with her pen, then finally spoke into the phone. “Who do we have available who’s qualified to help deal with the kids who are upset?”
“Besides you?”
“Yes, besides me.” She was glad Homer couldn’t see her expression. Forcing her tone into a pleasant range, she asked, “Who can I have today? Who will have had some training?”
A longer silence fell this time. “Ah, no one I can think of. Maybe we should call off school today and let the parents handle it.”
Skye considered Homer’s suggestion. It was tempting, but it probably wouldn’t be best for the majority of the kids to sit home and brood, or worse yet, get together in groups and egg each other on to do something stupid, to prove who loved Lorelei best.
If Lorelei had been an average student, Skye could have called together the girl’s two or three closest friends and helped them deal with their emotions. But Lorelei was a star—head cheerleader, lead in all the school musicals, majorette in the band, and secretary of the student council—so almost everyone in the school would feel her loss. Even those who were jealous of her would experience some emotion.
“No, we’d better have school today. I’ll call the co-op, and see if they have a crisis team we can borrow. And we need to have a faculty meeting before school. Quite a few teachers will be upset, too.”
“The staff will be fine,” Homer protested.
Skye contemplated crawling back into bed. Instead she continued to sweet-talk him until Homer agreed to hold a teachers’ meeting at seven-thirty. She fed Bingo and got dressed. It was still only six o’clock. She decided to try the co-op anyway and got an answering machine. She left her message and headed out the door.
It was a long walk to the school, and what with y
esterday’s excitement, she had forgotten to arrange for a ride. Skye vowed she would buy a car this weekend even if she had to sell her body to get the cash. Looking down at her generous curves, she hoped the car salesman liked cuddly women.
As Skye pulled the cottage door shut, a white Oldsmobile turned into her driveway. Skye closed her eyes and prayed for strength. Her mother, May Denison, was fifty-seven but had the energy of a twenty-year-old. She kept her house immaculate, exercised four times a week, and worked part-time as a police, fire, and emergency dispatcher. Along with this already-busy schedule, May’s primary cause in life was taking care of her children. This would have been noble had Skye and her brother, Vince, been under sixteen, but both were well over thirty. Skye was finding it tough to keep her independence.
May shot out of the car and yo-yoed Skye, first grabbing her in a tight hug, then pushing her away, then grabbing her again. “Why do I always have to hear about things from Minnie first?” May demanded.
“I thought you were dispatching last night, and would already know more than I did.”
“No, I traded with Thea so she could go to her granddaughter’s dance recital. I worked days yesterday.” May crossed her arms. “Fill me in.”
Skye thought she knew what her mother was referring to, but she was taking no chance in revealing a secret that May might not actually know. “What did Aunt Minnie have to say this morning?”
“Don’t try to act dumb with me, Missy. Lorelei Ingels’s murder, of course.”
“No one has said she was murdered, have they?” Skye wondered if a cause of death had been announced while she was sleeping.
“Everyone in town knows that the police and coroner were at the school. Not that my own daughter would pick up a phone and call me.” The salt-and-pepper waves on May’s head appeared to bristle.
“Sorry, Mom. It was after nine-thirty by the time I got home.” Skye tried to look innocent, fighting a sly grin that was trying to escape. “Besides, I thought for sure Uncle Charlie would have told you.”
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