Murder of a Real Bad Boy
Denise Swanson
One Fell Swoop
“Dude?”
“Just five more minutes,” Skye Denison mumbled, still half asleep.
“Dude, are you okay?”
Skye slowly lifted her head from the desktop and swiped at the damp spot on the blotter. She turned toward the door of her tiny office, wondering if there was a rule somewhere in the cosmos that stated the smallest space in any school building was automatically assigned to the school psychologist.
Granted, she’d only worked in two places — New Orleans, Louisiana, and her present job in Scumble River, Illinois —
but from what she had heard from others in her profession, the fortunate few school psychs who were actually given an office of their own usually described it as being the size of a refrigerator box.
Before she could contemplate this complex issue further, the tall, thin young man standing at her door repeated his question, and it dawned on her that she had just been caught by the custodian not only asleep, but also drooling. She might as well get the L tattooed on her forehead, since she was now officially a Loser.
Skye swept the hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine, Cameron.
I was just resting my eyes. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately because . . .” She heard herself babbling and trailed off.
Cameron nervously fingered the three whiskers on his chin that made up his goatee, and said, “Whoa, dude. TMI.” He backed up, pulled a set of headphones from around his neck, and plunked them on his ears before escaping down the hall.
TMI. Too much information. The story of her life. Skye leaned back against the orange molded-plastic chair and scanned the drab green walls. The bright posters with positive sayings she had hung at the beginning of the year mocked her depressed mood.
She searched her mind for some task that she could accomplish in her present state, something that wouldn’t suf-fer from her distracted condition. Even though it was only the end of September, her to-do list was already several pages long. Already there were reevaluations to arrange, committees to organize, and the never-ending paperwork that was a major part of any school psychologist’s job.
Without a doubt, she had plenty of work waiting to get done — her appointment book should have a warning label on its cover stating DATES ON CALENDAR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR— just nothing she felt able to undertake with everything that was already occupying her thoughts.
Too bad there was no one around to talk to. Discussing her problems would probably make her feel better, but her best friend, Trixie Frayne, had left yesterday for a romantic Lake Tahoe getaway with her husband, and the rest of the staff had poured out of the building a half hour ago when the elementary school’s final bell had rung, eager to get an early start on their weekend.
Skye briefly considered walking over to the high school, but then remembered that Alana Lowe, the art teacher, whom Skye could usually count on for an after-school chat, wasn’t available. Alana’s boyfriend was visiting from New York, and that morning she had mentioned meeting him right after school to go into Chicago for a big night on the town.
Who else would be around that Skye could kill some time talking to? No one. No one hung around on a Friday afternoon who didn’t have to. No one, that is, except Skye, who, unlike her colleagues, didn’t want to go home.
Skye watched another ten minutes tick by on the wall clock before concluding that if she stayed any longer she would probably fall asleep again, and being awakened by the janitor on a second occasion did not bear contemplating.
With her luck, this time she would be snoring.
She reluctantly stood, retrieved her tote bag, and edged from behind her desk — there was just enough room to squeeze past as long as she didn’t add any inches to her already generous curves. It took her less than two full steps to cross the small room. Then after locking the office door behind her, she walked listlessly out to the deserted parking lot and climbed slowly into her car.
The bright aqua Chevy Bel Air had been a gift from her father and godfather. On good days she appreciated the effort they had put into restoring it for her. On bad days she cursed the difficulty she had parking it, and its unquench-able thirst for gasoline.
Today was a bad day. When Skye started the engine, she noticed that the needle on the fuel gauge pointed to E. Curs-ing the Bel Air’s gluttony, she headed to the cheapest place in town to fill up its tank.
The station with the best prices was on the same street as her brother Vince’s hair salon. As Skye drove past his shop, she noticed that his Jeep was in its usual spot, even though the CLOSED sign was in the front window. She considered stopping to say hi, but then remembered that when she had talked to him a couple of days ago, Vince had mentioned a big date he had planned for Friday night.
Sighing in envy of Vince’s uncomplicated love life, Skye pulled up to the pump, hopped out, and unscrewed the Bel Air’s gas cap. As she turned to grab the nozzle, she caught sight of a red Mercedes with a license plate that read CRMPAYS parked by the side of the building.
Skye wrinkled her brow. What was Loretta Steiner doing in Scumble River? Loretta lived in Chicago and claimed the only reason she ever left the city was if someone paid her to do so. And since Loretta was one of the best criminal attorneys in Illinois, when Loretta got paid it was usually because someone was under arrest for murder.
Skye and Loretta had both belonged to Alpha Sigma Alpha at the University of Illinois, but after college they had lost touch. A few years ago when Skye’s brother was charged with killing an ex-girlfriend, Skye had remembered reading about Loretta’s spectacular law career in The Phoenix , their sorority magazine, and called Loretta to represent Vince.
From that time on, they had renewed their friendship, getting together for lunches and girls’ nights out — but only in the city since Loretta claimed she was allergic to small towns.
Had something happened in Scumble River that Skye didn’t know about? Was someone under arrest and Skye hadn’t heard about it? She’d been wrapped up in her own problems, but surely anything big enough to bring Loretta to town would have penetrated her preoccupation.
Skye was still trying to figure out why her friend was there when Loretta came out of the gas station’s mini-mart.
At six feet tall, with coal black hair and mahogany skin, she looked like royalty from some exotic land, a queen wearing Manolo Blahnik suede boots and carrying a Louis Vuitton purse.
As Loretta approached her car, she turned her head and her gaze met Skye’s. For a second, a strange expression seemed to flit across the lawyer’s face, but it smoothed out so quickly, Skye wasn’t sure it had ever been there. Abandoning the gas pump, Skye dashed toward Loretta at the same time Loretta started toward Skye. They met between the building and the fuel area, hugging and talking at the same time.
“What are you doing here? Is someone in trouble?” Skye demanded.
“Girl, how are you doing? It seems like months since I’ve heard from you. Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Silence. Skye chewed her lip, trying to come up with a good explanation.
It appeared Loretta was in no hurry to answer Skye’s question either, but finally she said, “I had to see a client downstate, and I remembered Scrimshaw River had the best gas prices along I-55 .”
“Why didn’t you call me if you were going to be in Scumble River?” Skye asked. Loretta frequently pretended she couldn’t remember the town’s name; it was a familiar game.
“Sorry. I wasn’t planning on stopping.” Loretta’s gaze slipped from Skye’s. “Anyway. What’s up with the silent treatment?”
“Sorry about that. I’ve been pretty depressed lately —
/> hiding out and not wanting to talk to anyone.” Skye hugged her friend. “Hey, let’s get some supper and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Sorry, sweet cheeks, I’m booked for dinner. How about a quick cup of coffee? I need to be back on the road no later than five.”
“Sure.” Abruptly Skye realized that a heart-to-heart with a non–Scumble River friend was exactly what she needed.
She checked her watch. It was already four thirty, so she’d have to talk fast if she wanted Loretta’s perspective on everything that was going on. “But I’m not sure where we can get coffee close by.”
Loretta frowned, then pointed to the mini-mart. “I’ll get us a couple of cups in there and we can sit in my car and talk. You finish filling up.”
When Skye walked out after paying for her gas, Loretta was already settled in her Mercedes.
Skye moved the Bel Air next to the sleek red car, and after sliding into the luxury sedan and thanking Loretta for the coffee, she said, “You won’t believe all that’s happened since the last time I talked to you.”
“So tell me.” Loretta gave Skye her full attention.
“Would you believe I now have to plot my drive home from work every day as if I’m avoiding enemy land mines?”
“Say what?”
“I can no longer simply go the quickest way.” Skye took a sip of coffee, wincing as she burned her tongue.
“Why?”
“Because the best route takes me past the bowling alley.”
“And this is bad why?” Loretta asked. “Have you suddenly developed a phobia about smelly rental shoes or shiny black balls?”
“No, but Simon owns it and his mother Bunny manages it.”
“Simon Reid, the town undertaker and county coroner, owns a bowling alley?”
Skye frowned. “Remember, last December I told you Simon bought the alley for his mother to manage? Bunny needed a steady job in order to fulfill the terms of her probation for using a fake prescription to get pain pills. You helped her when she lost the paperwork, remember?”
“Right. Sorry, I did know that.” Loretta scowled. “So why can’t you drive past the bowling alley your boyfriend owns?”
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”
“What?” Loretta’s scream hurt Skye’s ears. “What happened? Why didn’t you call and tell me this?”
“I didn’t want to talk about it.” Skye took a deep breath.
It still hurt to say it out loud. “He cheated on me. When he went to California in August, he told me he was staying with a college friend. This ‘friend’ turned out to be female.” Skye gazed out the window. “Everyone keeps telling me that staying with her doesn’t mean they were, ah, you know . . .”
“Screwing?” Loretta supplied.
Skye nodded. “But if they weren’t, then why didn’t he tell me his friend was a woman?”
“Good question. What was his answer?”
“He refuses to explain himself. Says that if I trusted him, I wouldn’t need an explanation.”
“That’s just man talk for ‘you caught me with my pants down and I don’t have any reasonable excuse.’ ” Loretta hugged Skye, then said, “I still don’t understand why breaking up with Simon means you can’t drive past the bowling alley.”
“Because Bunny is way too anxious to chat about why Simon and I broke up.”
“And?” Loretta still looked puzzled.
“And, unfortunately, Bunny refuses to believe that I don’t want to talk to her. She’s taken to trying to ambush me by dashing into the road and waving her arms as I approach.
The speed limit in town is only twenty miles per hour, and for a woman in her late fifties wearing stiletto heels, Bunny is a surprisingly fast runner. She nearly caught me the last time I tried going home that way.”
Loretta’s eyebrows had disappeared into her hairline and she was shaking with laughter.
Skye closed her eyes. This was not funny to her. The image of Bunny, long, curly red hair flying behind her and surgically enhanced breasts bouncing up and down as she pursued Skye’s car, made Skye cringe. No way was she driving past the bowling alley until Bunny’s interest had waned.
Loretta got herself under control and asked, “Isn’t there another way home?”
“The next best road is Kinsman, but it’s off-limits, too. It goes past the police station where my mother works.” May, a dispatcher, worked the three-to-eleven shift.
“And May wants to talk to you about your breakup, too, right?” Loretta guessed. “I’ll bet she could almost feel those grandbabies in her arms.”
“She was practically knitting baby booties.”
“Does she chase you down the road, too?”
“No, but Mom watches for me out the station’s big front window. As soon as she sees me going past, she counts to one hundred, then punches in my home number. The phone is ringing when I walk through the front door. If I don’t answer it, she sends a county deputy to make sure I haven’t died or had an accident in the five minutes that’ve passed since she saw me drive by the station.” Loretta snorted. “I’m guessing you’re about as eager to talk to May as you are to talk to Bunny about your love life.”
“Right.” Skye grimaced.
“Speaking of the police station, what about that cute chief? Now that you and Simon are broken up, I’d expect him to step right in. Every time I’ve see you together, the sexual tension between you two could make a virgin swoon.”
“I’m thinking about swearing off men.”
“That’s silly.” Loretta shook her head. “A man is like a hammer. It hasn’t evolved much over the past hundred years, but it’s still handy to have around.”
“Yeah, and if you don’t watch what you’re doing with them every second, you end up hitting your thumb and hurt-ing yourself really badly.” Skye forestalled Loretta’s next comment by returning to her original problem. “Anyway, the last reasonably short route home is the worst by far. It puts me directly in front of Simon’s funeral home. And the last thing I want to do is see that double-dealing jerk.”
“Why? Does Simon run after your car, or send the cops if you don’t answer your telephone?”
“No.” Skye answered grudgingly, deep in her heart a little disappointed that he didn’t. “But even the sight of him ruins my night.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. The hurt of his betrayal was still as sharp as it had been the day she discovered it. “I’ve been hanging up on him since we had it out about his ‘old friend’ being female.”
“So, how do you get home?”
“I have to drive way out of my way, circle the town and come back in from the north.” Skye sighed. “Playing hide-and-seek in order to get home is one of the reasons I dread quitting time, but sadly, it’s not the main one.”
“You mean there’s something worse?”
“Believe it or not, the main reason I don’t want to go home is even more of a headache than my love life. The main reason I don’t want to go home is Beau Hamilton, my building contractor. He’s a thorn in my side bigger than a redwood tree.”
“Why do you have a building contractor?” Loretta asked.
“You live in a rental cottage.”
“Not anymore.” Skye blew out a tired breath. “I guess I haven’t talked to you since I found out I was Alma Griggs’s sole heir.”
“No. I’ve been a little absentminded lately, but I would have remembered that. Who is Mrs. Griggs and why did she leave you her estate?”
“It’s a long story.” Skye leaned back against the Mercedes’s comfy leather seat. “Mrs. Griggs was an elderly woman who was murdered in August during the Route Yard Sale. Earlier in the summer, I helped her when an un-scrupulous antique dealer tried to take advantage of her, and after that we became friends. Since Mrs. Griggs had no relatives, and she sort of decided I was her reincarnated daughter, she changed her will and left everything to me, asking that I fix up her house and live there.”
“Reincarnated daughter?” Lo
retta choked on the coffee she had just sipped. “You’re kidding me.” Skye shook her head and went on. It felt good to finally put it all into words. “I was surprised that the whole business of inheriting Mrs. Griggs’s estate was taken care of so quickly, but now I suspect the attorney rushed it through to get it off his hands. After all, this is Stanley County, and if you know the right people and are part of the good old boy system, anything is possible.”
“So I’ve heard,” Loretta observed.
“To be fair, the lawyer did warn me about the unpaid back taxes, and the lack of liquid assets. But who knew being an heiress would be so complicated?”
“Anyone who has ever been one.”
“I paid off the taxes with the money I earned during the summer as the Route Yard Sale coordinator, and I got a home equity loan for the renovations. With those two problems settled, I thought the rest wouldn’t be too bad.” Skye took a deep breath and shook her head. “Boy, was I wrong.”
“Why did you do everything so fast? You’re not usually so impulsive.”
“Maybe I should have waited before starting to fix up Mrs. Griggs’s house, but since my rental cottage had been sold out from under me, and I only had a month to vacate the premises, it seemed silly to waste time. I had to live somewhere, and after my last experience staying at my parents’
house, I wasn’t going back there again no matter what.”
“I’m with you there. I’d live in my car before I’d move in with my parents.” Loretta took a sip of her now-cold coffee. “So what’s the problem with the contractor?”
“I wish I knew. He came with wonderful recommenda-tions — it seemed like everyone in town had used him to remodel their houses or add rooms. Plus I’m friendly with his sister. She’s the art teacher at my high school.” Skye took a breath. “I checked his references, got an estimate in writing, and made sure he had insurance and was bonded.”
“But?”
“But he rarely finishes anything, and when he does, the work is terrible.” Skye tried to think of where she’d gone wrong, and like always, the problem came back to hiring Beau Hamilton in the first place. “I should have known anyone who looked that good would be trouble.”
Murder of a Real Bad Boy Page 1
