He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he said,
“So, this is it?”
Pain flooded the small room. Waves of hurt and humilia-tion and loss roiled around them.
“Maybe.” They seemed to have backed each other into a corner and Skye couldn’t see any way out of it. She felt her throat closing up. “I just don’t want to trust someone again, then end up feeling like a fool because I did.”
“Human beings are nearly unique in the animal world in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others.” Simon’s expression was bleak. “Too bad we’re also remarkable for our apparent disinclination to do so.” Fierce grief ripped through her. A part of her couldn’t believe he was ending things this way. She bit her lip to control the sobs that threatened to break loose. No way was she letting him see her cry.
Silently, she got up and went into the other room. When he didn’t follow, she stood facing the wall, staring at a safety poster illustrating the Heimlich maneuver, and ignoring both the tiny voice at the back of her mind that urged her to trust him and the tears running down her cheeks.
Sixteen Candles
The next morning Skye parked the Bel Air in the high school lot, then sat staring at the hood of her car, thinking of yesterday’s debacle. Simon had finally figured out a way to get their mothers to unlock the basement door, but it had taken nearly an hour for him to come up with the idea.
The plan was simple — all he and Skye had to do was lie.
They shouted to Bunny and May that they had made up, and after several reassurances their mothers let them out.
Both women took the news of their children’s deception poorly. Bunny wept hysterically, and May gasped for breath, claiming she was about to faint. Simon and Skye had hard-ened their hearts and left them wailing and panting. Their mothers were blatantly out of control, and if May ever pulled another stunt like that, Skye really would have to consider moving away.
With a final shake of her head, Skye pushed the memory away and got out of her car. She trudged across the cracked asphalt, up the shallow steps, and through the door. Mondays were always tough, but she dreaded this one even more than usual.
Although to Skye it seemed to have happened a long time in the past, rather than only three days ago, Beau’s death and her involvement would be fresh news for the school employees. Word would have spread, and everyone would want to hear about it. The fact that Beau was the brother of one of the high school teachers would be the extra marshmallow on the already yummy cup of hot gossip.
That’s why she was there so early. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet — school started for the kids at ten to eight, and the teachers didn’t have to report until seven thirty-five — so Skye hoped to escape into her office before either the staff or the students started to arrive.
There had been only two cars in the parking lot when she pulled in. One belonged to the new PE teacher, the other to the school secretary, Opal Hill.
Skye checked the hallway. It was empty. So far, so good, but she still had to sign in at the counter in the office. This was the riskiest part. Opal would never question her, but the office was a major hub of activity in the mornings. Teachers checked their mailboxes, made copies on the Xerox machine, and chatted; students dropped off notes and bought lunch tickets; and parents lined up to ask questions.
As Skye neared the counter, she blew out a breath of relief; there was no one around. Even Opal wasn’t at her desk.
Skye quickly signed the attendance sheet, scooped the papers out of her mailbox, and turned to leave.
Before she had taken a complete step, a voice boomed,
“Get your rear end into my office immediately!” She was busted. And by the worst possible person. Skye slowly turned back and with dragging steps reported to the principal.
Homer Knapik had been the high school principal for as long as most people could remember, even back when Skye had been a student at Scumble River High. Lately, the last two or three years, Homer had taken to announcing his retirement in June, but so far he was always back come the end of August, much to the disappointment of his staff.
By this point the teachers were convinced that should Homer pass away, the school board would have him stuffed and mounted in the chair behind his desk. The sad part was, no one would be able to tell the difference, at least as far as the running of the school went.
Skye paused on the threshold to his office, hoping she could get away without actually going in. “Good morning, Homer. You wanted to see me?”
“How the hell do you manage to keep finding dead bodies?” Homer slapped down a file on his desktop.
He was short and round, reminding Skye of an extremely hairy Humpty Dumpty.
“Just lucky?” She cringed.
“Don’t be a smart-ass with me. What are you, some kind of magnet for the dead?”
Skye gave up and fully entered the room. “No.” This wouldn’t be a quick chat. “At least I don’t think so.”
“Well, I want you to stop it.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it?” The hair sprouting out of his ears bristled.
“All you have to say is ‘okay’?”
“Okay, sir?”
Homer’s face turned a mottled red. “And I want you to stay out of the police investigation. No sleuthing.”
“What if they ask for my help?”
“They won’t. Buck Peterson had me on the phone for over an hour Saturday morning, chewing out my butt. Believe me, you will not be invited to participate.”
“Sheriff Peterson isn’t the only one involved in this case.”
“Everyone knows about the thing between you and Wally Boyd. This would not be a good time for the police chief to let you interfere with his work.” Homer glared.
“I do not interfere.” Skye refused to let someone who resembled a long-haired gerbil control her private life. “I help.”
“Quit finding dead bodies. Quit finding murderers. End of discussion.” Homer stood, abruptly, knocking over his chair. “Get out of my sight.” Skye turned to escape, but he stopped her. “No, wait. I forgot. I want you to talk to Pru Cormorant.”
Skye cringed. “Why?” The English teacher had been at Scumble River High for as long as Homer, and was a law unto herself.
“She sent this note home to one of the parents.” Homer thrust a piece of paper in Skye’s direction.
She read it out loud: “ ‘Since last year, your son has reached rock bottom and started to dig.’ ” She suppressed a giggle. “How did Mrs. Sage respond to this?”
“Badly.” Homer sat back down, his two oversized front teeth gnawing on his bottom lip. “And Cormorant refuses to apologize.”
“And of course she’s tenured, so you don’t have much to hold over her head, right?”
His nose twitched in agreement. “Which means it’s your job to convince her how psychologically harmful this kind of talk can be to the students in our care.” Skye stared at the principal as if he had started speaking Swahili. She had never thought she’d hear those words from his mouth.
Then he ruined it by adding, “Or whatever gibberish you think will work to keep her in line.” He looked up from the file he had opened and asked pointedly, “Are you still here?” After silently stepping across the threshold and closing the door behind her, she ran Homer’s list of commands through her mind. Stop finding bodies, stop finding murderers, and stop Pru Cormorant from riling up parents. Nope.
There was little chance that she could fulfill any of them.
Skye retreated to the relative safety of her office and sank into the chair behind the desk. She let her tote bag fall to the floor and closed her eyes. She was already tired, and the day hadn’t even officially started yet.
Once again, her thoughts wandered back to yesterday.
After getting home from her lock-in with Simon, she had spent the rest of Sunday trying to block the memory of what had happened between them from her mind.
He
r call to Dulci, and the contractor’s verbal agreement to start work on the roof the next day, had helped make Skye feel somewhat better, but then Wally had phoned and Simon’s accusations had flooded her thoughts.
She struggled to keep focused while Wally told her they had found Alana’s car abandoned at the Recreation Club, not far from where Beau’s truck had been dumped. The interesting thing was that there had been wet patches in the trunk.
Samples had been sent off for testing, but Wally said it smelled like river water.
He had also mentioned questioning Priscilla Van Horn, but she hadn’t told him anything of interest. After agreeing to speak to Vince about Beau’s apparent non–drug use, Wally had asked to come over. Skye had turned him down, her feelings too raw and insecure after her afternoon with Simon.
Instead, Skye had spent the remaining hours of the evening sorting through Mrs. Griggs’s treasures, managing to straighten one corner of a spare bedroom before falling into bed exhausted. She had uncovered mostly junk, but she did find a couple of items that might be worth something.
They were locked safely in her trunk, where they would remain until her house had real windows and a roof.
A tentative knock on her office door brought Skye back to the present, and she called out, “Come in.” Justin and Frannie entered. They made an interesting couple. Frannie was outgoing and friendly, quite a contrast to Justin, who was reserved and suspicious. He was nearly six feet tall and rail thin, while she was five inches shorter and much curvier. They both had brown hair, but his was military-short and hers flowed to her waist.
Frannie hung back, smiling tentatively at Skye. “Hope you’re not mad at me for yesterday, Ms. D.”
“No, Frannie. I’m sure Bunny and May somehow forced you to help them.”
“Well, they said it was the only way you’d ever find true happiness.”
Skye grimaced. “Let’s forget about it.” She turned to Justin. “How was your weekend?”
“I mostly hung out with the kids from the Scoop.” Justin thrust his chin out. “We were waiting for you to call us back about the prize.”
Skye winced. With everything that had happened in the last sixty hours, she had forgotten to call them. Crap! Justin had major trust issues that had been exacerbated during the summer. He was just starting to come around again, but something as minor as an unreturned phone call could set back his progress.
“Oh, I am so sorry.” Skye came around her desk and touched his upper arm, as close to a hug as she dared give in this day and age. “After what happened Friday night with poor Mr. Hamilton, I had to give a statement to the police the next day, and since my house is a total mess, I had to get busy finding a new contractor. And then Sunday, I was all tied up. Right, Frannie?” The girl nodded, and Skye finished up her justification. “So it’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I was overwhelmed with what was happening.” When Justin didn’t answer, Frannie gave him a hard look and said, “It’s no big deal. Ms. D always comes through for us.” She elbowed him in the side. “Doesn’t she?” His expression didn’t change and he remained silent.
“Well, no matter how hectic things were, it was very wrong to break my promise.” Skye looked Justin in the eye.
“And I’m truly sorry.”
He shrugged and muttered, “Whatever.” Skye knew that was as much exoneration as she’d get from him, and changed the subject. “I truly am extremely proud of you and the others for winning the Blevins Award.
We’ll have to have a party.”
“Yeah!” Frannie cheered. “You’ve got a big house now.
Maybe we could have it there.”
“If you all don’t mind the mess from the renovation, we could have it this coming Saturday,” Skye offered, wanting to let the teens know how pleased she was with their success. “I’ll get sub sandwiches, chips, soda, and have my mom’s friend Maggie make one of her famous cakes.”
“Cool.” Justin gave her one of his rare smiles.
Skye smiled back, then asked, “Have you thought about what you want to spend the five thousand dollars on?” She smiled to herself: Trust these two to find one of the few contests with a significant monetary prize.
Justin and Frannie glanced at each other, and he spoke.
“We were thinking of buying computers for the school.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Skye said. This was the beginning of her fourth year at the high school and they still had only one computer in the building available for student use, and it was not connected to the Internet. As far as she knew, Homer had a PC collecting dust in his office, and the secretary had one she used mostly as a word processor, but that was the extent of Scumble River High’s technology.
“The whole newspaper staff agrees,” Frannie con-tributed, bouncing in her chair.
Skye nodded. “We’ll have to really consider how to do this, but off the top of my head, I think we should spend the majority of the money getting as much equipment as we can.
However, we need to save a good chunk to hire someone to teach a computer class.”
“The kids know how to use computers already, Ms. D.” Justin protested. “Most have one at home.”
“That may be true, but I don’t think the teachers are as up-to-date.” Skye held up her hand as Frannie started to interrupt her. “And even the students who have computers probably don’t know everything they can do with them.”
“But we want to spend the money for the kids, not the teachers,” Frannie objected.
“Look at it this way. There is no way on God’s green earth that the school board will approve this idea without trained staff to supervise.”
“That’s not fair,” Justin griped. “It’s our money.”
“Have I ever claimed life is fair?” Skye asked. “If life were fair, would I be driving an aqua Bel Air? No. I’d have a cool black Miata.”
Frannie giggled, and even Justin managed a small grin before saying, “Okay. But we need to find someone cheap to teach computers. Not anyone who expects big bucks.” As the homeroom bell rang, Skye ushered the teens to the door. “Don’t worry, no real teacher ever expects to get paid big bucks.”
After the kids left, Skye pulled a yellow pad from the top desk drawer and started a list of what she had to do. Number one was to find Bingo. Tied for second place was to figure out who Vince was dating, what personal secrets her new contractor was hiding, and if Alana Lowe knew anything she wasn’t telling the police.
Skye wondered if the art teacher was at school today. If, as Alana claimed, Beau’s death wasn’t drug-related, then maybe she could point Skye in a different direction.
Skye chewed the end of her pen. What else did she need to do? Mmm. Maybe she could talk to a few of Beau’s recent clients. If Sheriff Peterson was convinced he had the killer in jail, surely he wouldn’t object to Skye chatting with the dead man’s customers.
Something else was niggling at her. Something she had meant to look at or ask or do. Something she had missed.
What? She couldn’t put her finger on it. Shoot. She hated when that happened. It would bug her all day, like an itchy tag inside the collar of a shirt.
Right now, the first period bell was ringing, and Skye had to get to work on her real job, the one they were paying her to perform. She put the legal pad in her tote bag and flipped open her calendar. What was on her schedule for today?
Her first appointment was at eight thirty, so she had some time to prepare. A mother had called to say she wanted to discuss enrolling her daughter in Scumble River High. Skye ran her finger over the student’s name, Xenia Craughwell, then practiced saying it out loud. “Zeenia, Zenia, Zeena?” She’d have to check with the mother to see how to say it correctly. If the girl was going to attend school here, Skye wanted to make sure they got the pronunciation right. There were few things as unwelcoming as having the teacher screw up your name when she introduced you on your first day of class.
As Skye smoothed her hair and reapplied her
lipstick, she wondered why Mrs. Craughwell had wanted a meeting before enrolling her daughter. Usually parents simply came by, signed the papers, and paid the fees on the same day their kids started classes.
Adding to Skye’s unease, Mrs. Craughwell had refused to bring in her daughter’s past school records, and specifically requested seeing either the psychologist or social worker. This behavior immediately set off warning bells in Skye’s head, making her think the woman and her daughter had had prior experience with the special education system.
Normally, unless they arrived with an Individual Education Plan in hand or there were very unusual circumstances, the guidance counselor would take care of students who moved into the district. Xenia was already looking like an exception to the rule.
Skye finished freshening up, grabbed a yellow pad, pen, and her appointment book from the desk, and walked down the hall to Homer’s office. So far, she’d been able to avoid the staff and their questions. Her luck held out as she entered the main office. Since it was between bells, the teachers were all in class and only Opal was present.
Skye paused, and asked the secretary, “Is Mrs. Craughwell here yet?”
“No, but I just reminded Homer she was coming.” Opal continued her rapid-fire typing.
Since Skye had no desire to spend any time alone with Homer after his behavior that morning, she stalled. “Opal, do you get much use out of the computer, besides as a type-writer replacement, I mean?”
“No, uh, I’m not sure, I mean, yes,” the secretary stam-mered.
Opal was a slight woman with a pouf of prematurely white hair. Today her eyes were pink-rimmed and her nose was twitching. She reminded Skye of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, except that Opal was never, ever late for anything, let alone an important date.
Skye decided to rephrase her question. “Do you think a computer class would help improve the computer’s useful-ness to you?”
“Homer says there’s no money for that sort of thing, and I can’t afford to pay for a class myself.”
Murder of a Real Bad Boy Page 14
