by Morgana Best
He smiled. “Why don’t you come out and see it? I’m excited to own a cold weather winery. Bring your friends.”
“I don’t really have any friends, apart from Carl,” I admitted. “Can I bring Carl?”
“Of course!” Wayne said. “Come tomorrow, if you can, for lunch. I’ve closed it for the day.”
“Isn’t the weekend your best time?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Yes, but it’s newly opened and it’s been so much work that I thought I could do with a break. Plus I was expecting to have a hangover after tonight.”
The dance music came back on, and it was obvious that Mandy had lost interest in her whole King and Queen of the Prom idea. She was clearly most disappointed to have lost the opportunity to humiliate two people.
I couldn’t find Carl, so I went back to the bar and waited there for him.
“You deserve a drink after that,” he said, when he finally appeared.
“What did you say?” I yelled. “The music is so loud.”
“What was that?” Carl yelled at me.
“What?” I yelled back.
Carl leaned close to my ear. “You deserve a drink!”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” I said loudly. “What’s with the music being so loud? It’s not as if we’re all teenagers again.” Just as I reached for my drink, Lucinda’s voice screeched over the microphone again. “Mandy and I have another surprise for you.”
Carl and I exchanged glances. “Who’s the poor victim this time, I wonder?” I said.
“Who knows. At least the music has stopped again, although I don’t know what’s worse—the music or Lucinda’s voice.”
I had a bad feeling about this. I wondered what the two nasty women had planned this time.
“So you will probably remember,” Lucinda said proudly, “that Mandy and I were the school hockey champions. If we hadn’t had to stop playing hockey and go into our own highly successful careers, who knows what could’ve happened? We could’ve even ended up on the Australian team at the Olympics.”
I rolled my eyes.
Lucinda continued. “So Mandy and I have a surprise for you all. We have had an ice sculpture made of the two of us playing hockey. We didn’t play ice hockey, though.” She laughed raucously in a horrible nasal tone. She was the only one who laughed at her joke, if you could even call it a joke. “And a surprise for you all is behind this curtain. All gather around the stage so you can see this amazing ice sculpture!”
Carl looked at me. “Do you want to see it?”
“Not especially,” I said. “But on the upside, at least this doesn’t appear to be humiliating anyone. We might as well go.”
Carl and I walked over to stand at the back of the crowd. Lucinda had her hands clasped together with what I assume was excitement. “Surprise!” she said dramatically. She tugged the cord to open the curtains.
Everyone gasped. Some people screamed.
Mandy was draped over the ice sculpture. A shard of ice protruded from her back.
Chapter 13
It all happened at once. Commotion broke out everywhere. I once looked at Lucinda. She was frozen to the spot, immobilized, her hands clutching her throat and her eyes bugging out of her head. The first thought that occurred to me was that she couldn’t be the murderer; surely she was far too shocked.
I didn’t know what to do or think. Carl took my arm. “Quick, Narel! Look at the crowd now while everyone else is looking at the victim. See what you can see. The murderer is here right now, or at least was only moments ago.”
On the one hand, I was grateful for Carl’s quick thinking, but on the other hand I was too shaken to react. Carl must have seen this, as he took my arm and led me away to a chair. I sat down and put my head between my hands.
Carl patted me on the shoulder, but when I looked up, he was looking around the room. “Has somebody called the police?” I asked him.
“Yes, about twenty people have, I’d say,” he said. “This is another murder of one of The Populars. We’ll have to keep an eye on Lucinda. She could be next.”
“What, you mean now?” I asked. I stood up and clutched Carl.
“I don’t mean today,” Carl said, but I could tell he was lying.
“I couldn’t take another murder, Carl!” I said.
Carl for once seemed to be at a loss for words, because he just looked at me and nodded slowly. “Did you see anything? Before it happened, I mean?” he asked me after an interval.
I shook my head. “No. I can’t even remember what we were doing. We were sitting at the bar talking and then Lucinda made the announcement.”
“It could’ve been her,” Carl said.
“No, I don’t think so. I saw her face and she was just shocked as we were. And we don’t know when it actually happened to Mandy. It might have been just before the curtains opened, but really, it could’ve been anything for up to half an hour before.”
Carl nodded. “That’s a good point. I suppose the detectives will find out when Mandy was last seen.”
“I last saw her when they did the King and the Queen of the Prom thing,” I said. “I didn’t see her after that. Anyone here had the opportunity to murder her.”
I was going to say more, but the two detectives burst into the room in rather a dramatic fashion. They were accompanied by two uniformed officers. The four of them walked briskly to the stage, and ordered everyone away from the area. The two uniformed officers immediately put up crime scene tape. One of the detectives pulled the curtain closed, and then the four of them, as well as the ice sculpture and the victim, all disappeared from view.
“I feel faint,” I said to Carl.
“You probably need something to eat,” he said. “I don’t think another drink would do you any good, and besides it seems that everyone here feels they need a drink.”
I followed his gaze to the bar, where everyone else was standing. “It’s got to be someone who was bullied. Four of The Populars have now been murdered. Surely they can’t have been connected in any other way, other than the fact that they bullied people at school.”
“Did you see where Wayne Sidebottom was just before it happened?” Carl asked me.
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t notice.”
“And what about Frederick Flowers?”
I rubbed my head. “Who?”
“Don’t you remember Frederick Flowers? He’s here tonight. They showed a photo of him not long after they showed the photo with you.”
I tried to remember. It was so frustrating having memory problems. “Oh yes. How could I forget? They showed a photo of him in a toilet. The poor kid.”
“Well, he’s not a skinny little kid any more,” Carl said. “He looks like a bodybuilder. In fact, he looks like a hitman on steroids.”
I giggled, and then was unable to stop laughing.
Carl shook me gently by the shoulders. “Narel, don’t make me have to slap you across the face. Take a deep breath.”
Thankfully, the deep breaths did stop the rising hysteria. “Yes, I remember Frederick. But I don’t remember where he was minutes before Mandy was killed, either.”
“He’s hard to miss,” Carl said.
I looked at the bar, and Frederick was towering head and shoulders above everyone else.
Carl gasped.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“It’s Royston Jackson. I didn’t think he’d be here.”
Carl must have caught Royston’s eye, because the guy walked over to us.
“Hi, Royston. I thought you were still at Game Jam. I’m glad you could come.”
“Hi, guys,” Royston said in a quiet voice. “You look amazing, Narel. I was so sorry to hear about your accident.”
“I’m surprised you recognize me,” I said.
Royston shrugged. “Of course I recognize you, Narel. I’m not one of those bullies, who look only at the outside of the person.”
“Carl tells me you’re doing very well for yoursel
f.”
Royston looked at Carl. “Thanks, Carl.” He turned to me. “Carl is doing well, too.”
Carl smiled. “Not as well as you, Royston. You’re doing so well!”
Royston looked embarrassed, and turned a bright shade of red.
“Sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances,” I said to Royston.
Royston snorted rudely. “If you mean what happened to that bully, Mandy Makim, then all I can say is that she got what’s coming to her.”
Carl looked shocked. “I’m sure you don’t mean that, Royston.”
Royston looked angry. “If you ask me, they all got what was coming to them.”
I couldn’t blame Royston for being angry. After all, he had been bullied badly. Sure we had all been bullied, and least he was only being honest about his feelings. I’m sure several of the other victims wished The Populars dead, and one had wished them dead enough to kill them.
“Did you hear what they did to my car?” Royston said.
Carl shook his head. “They did something to your car?”
Royston looked so angry that I thought he would explode. “You know how I have that beautiful BMW sports?”
“Yes, I saw it when I was in Melbourne for that last convention,” Carl said. “It’s stunning.”
“When I arrived in town the other day, for the reunion,” Royston said, “I stopped in town to buy a bottle of bubbly for my brother and sister-in-law, because I’m staying with them. I came out of the store, and caught Hamilton red-handed defacing my car.”
I gasped. “What? Hamilton Howes did something to your car?”
Royston was seething. “Yes. I couldn’t believe they’d go so far! It was Hamilton, Lucinda, Mandy, Guy, and Ridgewell, all standing around laughing at me. Hamilton scratched the word ‘Loser’ into the side of my car with his key.”
“You’re kidding!” I said. “Did you go to the police?”
“Yes, of course I did,” Royston said angrily. “I made an official complaint. They got back to me over it and said Hamilton had denied it. The other Populars had given him an alibi. They said they were all out of town at the time and I must’ve been mistaken.”
Carl uttered some angry words. I was in disbelief. I knew The Populars were all nasty, but I didn’t think they’d actually go so far as to cause damage to someone’s property.
Royston was still speaking. “And now we can’t even leave, because those detectives are going to put us through rounds of endless questioning.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
He pointed to the door, where one of the uniformed officers was blocking the way. “We’ll have to stay here until we’re questioned,” Royston said. “It’s obvious the murderer is one of us, someone we went to school with.”
“I hope we’re not in any danger,” I said.
Royston shook his head. “He only seems to be after The Populars,” he said.
“Careful, Royston. Narel will say you’re being sexist,” Carl said with a laugh.
I shook my head. “I was the only girl they bullied as far as I know, apart from that younger girl whose name escapes me, so I suppose the murderer is a man.”
“Whoever it is should be praised,” Royston said, before leaving us and walking over to the bar.
“Well, he sure doesn’t mince words about his true feelings,” I said to Carl.
Carl crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s going straight to the top of our suspects list.”
The detectives appeared to be taking people into a side room to question them one by one. I sighed loudly. “It looks like we going to be here for hours.”
“This might sound a self-absorbed thing to say,” Carl said, “but it’s clear that we’re not in any danger now. The murderer must be someone who was victimized by The Populars, and they were getting revenge.”
“But why now, after all these years?” I asked him. “That’s the only piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. I’m sure we all harbored murderous feelings toward The Populars back in high school, so why would someone just do something to them now? That really doesn’t make any sense to me.”
I had no chance to say anything else because Lucinda ran over to me. She flung her hands around my neck. “Narel, Narel! I just want to apologize to you for all the terrible things those others did to you in High School. I know you think I was involved, but I wasn’t. They made me do it!”
I was taken by surprise. Clearly she had taken leave of her senses over her grief for Mandy. I tried to dislodge her arms from around my neck, but she clung like a limpet.
“You do believe me, don’t you, Narel? I didn’t do all those things to you and Carl! It was Mandy! Mandy put me up to it. She made me do it, I tell you! I never wanted to do anything horrible to either of you guys. Mandy made me do it. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Could you please let go of my neck, Lucinda?” I asked.
Before she could answer, Detective Rieker appeared. “Miss Myers, it’s your turn to be questioned now.”
I managed to get Lucinda off me with the help of Carl, and followed Rieker into the kitchen. The room was filled with stainless steel appliances. It seemed strange to be questioned in these surroundings. Rieker pulled out a black plastic chair. “Sit here, Miss Myers.” He sat opposite me and pulled out a pen and notepad. “Tell us what happened after the crowning of the King and Queen of the Prom.” He grimaced as he said it.
“Well, I was crowned Queen, and Wayne Sidebottom was crowned King, and then I went back to the bar and sat there and spoke to Carl.”
Detective Rieker looked up from scribbling furiously. “Was Carl at the bar when you got back?”
“No,” I said. “I had to wait a while for him.”
“Where was he?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I assumed he was in the bathroom.”
“Go on please, Miss Myers.”
“That’s about it really. Carl and I were speaking when Lucinda made the announcement that there was a big surprise. She opened the curtains, and then we all saw Mandy.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Nothing really. Carl and I just waited for the police to come.”
Rieker stopped scribbling and looked at me. “Lucinda Shaw-Smythe told me that you’re the murderer.”
“Why that…” I caught myself just in time. I have been about to call her some fancy names. “Why would she say a thing like that?”
“Perhaps Miss Shaw-Smythe believes it,” Rieker said. He was watching me carefully. I thought about it. Perhaps he was right; perhaps she did think I was the murderer. That would explain why she ran up to me and pleaded her innocence for all the horrible things The Populars did to me in high school.
“I don’t know what you want me to say about that,” I said. “Except that I didn’t do it. I can’t help what Lucinda’s opinions are.”
Rieker nodded. “All right, Miss Myers, you can go. You may leave the building now.”
I was surprised that the interview was over so quickly. As I walked out the door, I passed Detective Clyde and Carl on their way into the room. I raised my eyebrows at Carl, but had to keep on going.
I found a seat and waited for Carl to come out. Thankfully, his interview was over quickly, too. He walked straight up to me, took me by the arm, and said, “Come on Narel. Come back to my place. We need to go over the evidence.”
We didn’t speak again until I was in his car. “What aren’t you telling me, Carl?”
Carl gripped the steering wheel. “You know me too well, Narel.” He hesitated a while before speaking. “The detectives know you were an archery champion in high school. They asked me if I thought you did it.”
I was furious. “It’s that awful Lucinda. Detective Rieker told me that she said that I’m the murderer!”
“That explains why she was all over you then,” Carl said.
I nodded. “I don’t think she was being malicious that time. I think she actually thinks I did it.”
“She’s obviously next,” Carl said. “She’s the last surviving member of The Populars.”
Chapter 14
Wayne’s winery wasn’t far out of town. I was glad for the distraction after what had happened to Mandy the night before. I simply couldn’t believe the way my life had been lately. I hoped that the visit to the winery would give me some respite from all this craziness.
Of course, Carl was looking forward to the visit for an entirely different reason. He wanted to see whether Wayne could be considered a prime suspect. I for one wanted to leave that to the police, but I assumed Carl’s reason was that he thought the police saw me the main suspect.
“It’s good to be friends with someone who owns a winery,” Carl said as he stopped his car in the parking area. “We should be able to get discounted wine.”
I laughed. “I really need to relax,” I said. “I still haven’t recovered yet. I do feel I’m getting better each day, but these murders sure haven’t helped. Of course, I feel sorry for the victims, too,” I added hastily.
Carl got out of the car, and turned to look at me over it. “To be honest, I find it hard to have sympathy for the murder victims. Sure, it’s a terrible thing when anyone is murdered, but The Populars had to be the nastiest people ever. And while I have some sort of sympathy for them as murder victims, I don’t really feel I have too much, if I’m to be honest. I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a psychopath.”
“It does a little,” I teased him. I knew what he meant, though. If it had been anyone else murdered, I would have a lot more sympathy than I did for The Populars. They had made my life hell all through high school, and not just my life, but other kids’ lives as well. And clearly, they had impacted someone so severely that they had turned him into a murderer. That is, if our theory about the murderer being one of the victims was correct. At this point, I didn’t see what else it could be.
I turned my attention to the landscape. It looked pretty good for a new winery. The garden was obviously new, with young plantings, but it would look magnificent when it grew. The building was flanked by pretty large white flowers on bushes. I had no idea what they were, but they were eye-catching. Young trees had been planted in protective planter boxes. The building was made from corrugated iron, but it looked decorative.
