Murder of a Bookstore Babe srm-13

by Denise Swanson

  “Did you go looking for her?” Skye had a sinking feeling. “Xenia, did you go to Tales and Treats trying to find her?”

  “Yes,” Xenia whispered, then sobbed, “It’s my fault. Kayla’s dead because of me.”

  “Shh.” Skye put her arms around the girl. “Tell me all about it.” Ay-yi-yi! What had Xenia done? Had her anger issues finally resulted in her killing someone?

  “If only I had gone inside.” Xenia leaned into Skye and whimpered, “Why did I just drive away? Why do I always do the wrong thing?”

  Phew! That was a relief. Xenia’s crime was one of omission, not commission. “When were you there?” Skye asked, pulling out a chair from the table and easing the girl into it. She didn’t know whether the ME had been able to pinpoint the time of death, but Xenia’s information might help narrow it down if he hadn’t.

  “Around eleven.”

  “Did you see anything or anyone?”

  “No. The window was dark and no one was around, so I figured they were closed and Kayla had already left. So I did, too.” Xenia drew an unsteady breath. “What if she was still alive and if I had gone in I could have saved her?”

  “You mustn’t beat yourself up for acting in a reasonable manner.” Skye felt her heart break for the girl. When she’d moved to Scumble River, Xenia had had difficulty fitting in, and Kayla was the first real friend she had made. “It was after hours, the lights were off, and there was no sign of trouble. Why would you try to go in?”

  “Because Kayla was missing.” Xenia’s voice cracked. “I should have done a better job looking out for her.”

  “In those circumstances, there was no reason to have gone inside.” Skye scooted her chair closer to Xenia and took her hand in both of hers. “Was Kayla really missing? Did she tell you that she was coming to your house for sure?” Chase had made it seem like Kayla often decided at the last minute where she was spending the night.

  “Not exactly.” Xenia brushed a long black pigtail back over her shoulder. “I just figured she’d be over since she had a big project due Monday and I have better equipment than she does.”

  “And did she always answer her cell phone?” Skye probed, determined to alleviate the girl’s guilt.

  “Well . . .” It was clear from Xenia’s expression that she wasn’t sure whether to tell the truth. “No, not always.” She added grudgingly, “Especially when she was with Chase. Kayla liked to keep her love life separate from her school life.”

  “So there’s no way you really could have known she was in trouble.”

  “I guess not.” Xenia looked relieved for a moment, then stiffened. “But with Chase calling and calling, I should have known.”

  “He’d never done that before?”

  “Not in a long time.” Xenia stubbornly held on to her feelings of culpability. “He knows I don’t like him, so I should have realized that he’d only call me if he’d tried every other way to find Kayla.”

  “I respect the fact that you’re taking responsibility for your actions, but in this instance, there is no way you could have guessed Kayla was in trouble unless you’re clairvoyant.” Skye stood. “The only guilty one in this case is the person who committed the crime.”

  “I suppose.” Xenia slumped further in her seat and picked at a hole in her fishnet gloves.

  The good hostess in Skye kicked in. “Would you like some tea or hot chocolate?”

  “I’d rather have coffee.”

  “Okay.” Skye shrugged mentally. Xenia was eighteen, and it wasn’t as if she was asking for a shot of bourbon. “I have some wonderful pumpkin cake. My mother made it. Would you like a piece?”

  “Sure.” Xenia reached down to stroke Bingo, who was sniffing her Doc Martens. “I’m sorry to burst in on you like that, but I didn’t know who else to go to.”

  “I’m happy to talk to you anytime, but”—Skye finished preparing the coffee maker and toggled the switch to the ON position—“how about your mom?”

  Xenia thrust out her jaw. “You’ve met my mother. She can barely manage to focus on me long enough to order takeout for dinner. She usually just gives me a twenty and tells me to get what I want.”

  Skye nodded reluctantly. Raette Craughwell was extremely young and, from what Skye had heard, maintained an active social life. Xenia was left pretty much on her own. The only time Raette paid attention was when Xenia got into trouble, which was one of the reasons Xenia got into trouble so often.

  There was a moment of silence while Skye tried to think of something comforting to say, but Xenia was too sharp for platitudes, so after a second, Skye put a slice of cake and a cup in front of the girl and asked her, “Do you take cream or sugar?”

  “I drink it black, one sugar.”

  Which said a lot about Xenia, Skye thought as she took a sip of her heavily sweetened and lightened coffee. “Would you mind going over your experience at Tales and Treats? There might be a clue as to who attacked Kayla.”

  “You mean killed her.” Xenia took a gulp of her coffee and stared coolly at Skye. Apparently, Xenia’s hard shell was back in place. “You don’t have to mince words with me.”

  “Understood.” Skye picked up the pen and paper she had taken from a drawer. “Can you be any more exact about the time you arrived at the store?”

  “Let me think.” Xenia dipped a finger in the cream cheese frosting and licked it clean. “The clock on the bank sign read eleven eleven when I drove past. I remember thinking my grandma used to say that seeing a number like that was good luck and telling me to make a wish.”

  “Good.” Skye made a note. “I take it you drove there in your Beetle?” When Xenia nodded, she went on. “Did you pass anyone on your way, either walking or driving?”

  “Not after I went through the stoplight at Basin and Maryland.” Xenia forked a bite of cake into her mouth, then mumbled, “That end of the street was deserted.”

  “Were there any vehicles parked along there that you recognized?”

  “There were all those used cars from the Better Than New dealership.”

  “Hmm.” Skye chewed the end of her pen. A memory was tickling at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite scratch the itch yet.

  “I stopped my VW in front of the store, saw the lights were off, and drove away.”

  “You didn’t get out and try the door?”

  “No.” Xenia’s voice was bitter. “For once I was worried about getting in trouble, and I didn’t want to leave my car double-parked.”

  “Was there a police cruiser anywhere in sight?” Skye was happy the girl was becoming more law-abiding but curious as to why.

  “No. But those security cameras Risé installed Saturday morning were aimed right at me.”

  Eureka! Skye shot out of her chair. The security cameras. That was what she had been trying to remember. Had Wally noticed them? It wasn’t as if it was common for Scumble River businesses to have them.

  “Chief Boyd is going to want to talk to you about all this. I’d be happy to come with you to the police station.”

  “That sucks!” Xenia jumped up and headed for the door.

  Skye blocked her exit and said with a straight face, “Gravity sucks, too, but we’d be in trouble without it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The Sun Also Rises

  Grateful to be finally alone, Skye slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and crawled into bed. Wally had still been at the station when she’d called to share Xenia’s information, and he’d asked her to accompany the girl to the PD.

  While Skye and Xenia were driving into town, Wally had contacted Risé and Orlando and asked about the security cameras. Risé told him that they were hooked up to a recording device in the store’s back room. She claimed that she had forgotten about them in all the shock and confusion.

  While Wally was interviewing Xenia, he sent an officer to retrieve the security recordings. Once Wally had finished questioning Xenia, he and Skye viewed the footage. Someone had d
ouble-parked outside the store at eight thirty Saturday night. Unfortunately, the image was fuzzy, and the vehicle was an unrecognizable dark blur. Wally had had to send the recording to the crime lab in Laurel to see whether the techs there could enhance the image.

  By the time all the loose ends had been tied up and Wally had driven Skye home, it was past midnight and she was exhausted. Not only had it been a long, stressful day, but it was way past her usual ten o’clock bedtime.

  So why wasn’t she in dreamland? Skye lay on her side, watching the red digital numbers of her clock radio change as the minutes went by. Maybe she should have gone home with Wally. At least missing sleep while in his bed had other benefits. But he had been even more worn-out than she was, and since she had an early meeting at school the next day, she hadn’t wanted to disturb him at five a.m. when she got up.

  Sighing, she flipped over onto her back, laced her fingers behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. The problem with this case was that they weren’t sure what the intended crime had been. Was it a burglary gone bad, or had the criminal been intent on murder? And if that was the case, who was the intended victim? Charlie seemed certain that if anyone had given someone a motive for murder, it had been Risé.

  Monday, as Skye pulled into the high school parking lot, a red Hummer roared past her and squealed to a stop in the no-parking zone at the front entrance. The driver hopped out of the vehicle and hurried to the door, where he repeatedly jabbed the intercom button. All schools were kept tightly locked down since 9/11. Too bad the only people inconvenienced were the staff and the parents, as evidenced by the unending spate of school violence. The bad guys got inside no matter what precautions were taken.

  The Hummer driver looked somewhat familiar. Who would be there more than an hour before classes started? Oh, yeah. Now she remembered. He was the magazine sales rep. Scumble River High had decided to sell magazines for its annual December fund-raiser. She wondered how many subscriptions the kids would talk her into buying.

  As she got out of the car, a warm breeze blew across her face, and she smiled. It had been a nice fall so far. The temps had been in the high seventies, with lots of sunshine and no sign of an early winter. She crossed her fingers that the weather would continue to be warmer than usual and that it would snow only a couple of inches on Christmas Eve and melt completely away by New Year’s Day.

  After pushing her windblown hair out of her eyes, she grabbed her purse and tote bag, then strode across the asphalt and used her key to get inside. Homer Knapik, the high school principal, was standing in the school’s foyer, his gaze fastened on the door. He was squarely built with an excess of body hair and a permanent frown. He reminded Skye of Bigfoot with a bunion.

  As soon as he caught sight of Skye, he boomed, “You. In my office immediately!”

  Yikes! What did Homer want? Skye followed the principal past the front counter, down a dark narrow hall, and into his lair.

  He shut the door and marched over to the coffee machine on the credenza beneath the window. Homer had been the principal at the high school for as long as most people could remember. In fact, he’d been there when Skye was a student, which made the whole colleague/ equal-footing relationship a bit hard to pull off.

  For the last couple of years Homer had been threatening to retire, but much to the disappointment of his staff, those had been empty promises. The teachers were convinced that even if Homer died, the board would just stuff and mount him in the chair behind his desk. If that happened, Skye was pretty sure no one would be able to tell the difference, at least as far as the running of the school went.

  Without turning around, Homer barked, “I heard you found another stiff.”

  “That stiff, as you so eloquently put it, was one of our students not too long ago”—Skye’s voice was rebuking—“so I’d appreciate it if you referred to her in a respectful manner.” Skye wasn’t good at standing up for herself, but she didn’t let anyone denigrate the kids, even after they were dead.

  “Don’t take that holier-than-thou tone with me.” Homer faced her, holding a steaming cup. “When you’ve been around here as long as I have, see if you’re still so protective of the little brats.”

  Skye paused. Changing Homer’s mind was probably impossible, but she’d keep after him about how he treated the students.

  Her lack of response seemed to irritate him, and he moved on to another complaint. “What are you, some kind of pied piper for the dead? When you walk through a cemetery, do the corpses rise up and follow you?”

  “Are you nuts?” Skye was beginning to worry about Homer’s sanity. “No one outside of a horror novel can do that.”

  “Everything I say can be entirely validated by my own opinion.”

  Skye kept her expression neutral. There was no way to respond to a statement like that. Heck, she wasn’t even sure what he’d actually said.

  “What do they call your affliction, anyway?” the principal jabbed at Skye.

  “I’d tell you, Homer, but it’s too hard for you to pronounce. And you don’t have to worry. Someone like you certainly can’t catch it.”

  “Are you being smart with me?” He slammed his cup down on the desktop, hot liquid sloshing over the sides.

  “Of course not.” Skye barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

  “I’ve told you before”—Homer’s tone was that of a salesman speaking to an unreasonable customer—“I want you to quit finding corpses.”

  “Okay.” They’d had this conversation before, and it never ended well. It was hard to defend yourself against an accusation you were afraid might be true. “I’ll put that on my to-do list.”

  “That’s what you said last time.” The hair growing out of his nose bristled. “But you did it again.”

  “And how do you suggest I carry out your order?” Skye was trying to remain calm, but he was starting to seriously tick her off. Did he think she got a bounty for every victim she found?

  “Staying out of police investigations would be a good start.” Homer’s face turned a mottled red. “Quit poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “You are aware that I was hired to consult for the police department?” Skye knew he was, because although her school contract allowed her to moonlight, it stipulated that she inform the principals and the school board, which she’d done.

  “Everyone knows the only reason you got that gig was because the chief was hot for you.” Homer plunked into his chair, which groaned in protest. “Now that you’re engaged to him, give the man a break and stop interfering.”

  “I do not interfere.” Skye refused to let someone who resembled a Yeti disparage the assistance she provided the police. “I help.”

  Homer snorted. “Quit finding dead bodies. Quit finding murderers. Quit bugging the crap out of me.” Homer pointed a hairy finger at her. “Do what we pay you for.”

  “What are you talking about?” Skye always got her work finished, even when it meant staying late and taking reports home to finish. “What haven’t I done?”

  “Straightened out Pru Cormorant.” Homer pretended to search for something in a drawer, not looking at Skye when he muttered, “She’s gone a little off.”

  “So, what’s new?” Skye retorted. “She’s been past her sell-by date for years.”

  The English teacher had been at Scumble River High for as long as Homer had and was a law unto herself. Every once in a while she did something so atrocious that Homer was forced to take some action, like the time she wrote on a report card, Since our last conference, your child has reached rock bottom and started to dig.

  Unfortunately, Homer usually delegated the task of doing something about Pru to Skye. This was the beginning of Skye’s sixth year at Scumble River High and at least the third time Homer had ordered her to “fix” Pru.

  “She’s got her panties in a bunch over that new bookshop.” Homer pushed a clipboard across his desktop to Skye. “She wants the whole school to sign this petition and boycott
the store.” He turned his back. “You’ve got to get her under control.”

  Skye cringed. “That isn’t my job. It’s yours.”

  Homer ignored Skye and continued, “Worse yet, she’s already sent petitions home to some parents. I’ve been getting calls all weekend asking if what Corny is saying is true and wanting to know what the school is doing about this matter.”

  “I discussed this with her last Friday.” Skye pushed the clipboard back toward Homer. “There’s absolutely no merit to her accusation that the bookstore is selling porn or books advocating devil worship.”

  “And this was all before that girl was killed in the break-in.” Homer’s two oversize front teeth gnawed on his bottom lip. “I hear now Corny is claiming the wild animals they keep as pets are really the reason for the murder. Which doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Holy moly.” And Skye had thought nothing Pru did could surprise her. “That’s ridiculous. The ‘wild animals’ are chinchillas, and they didn’t get loose. She, or one of her minions, let them loose.”

  Oops! She had forgotten to tell Wally about that episode, as well as what Charlie had said about Risé. She’d have to call him as soon as she was out of her meeting.

  “I don’t give a damn.” Homer swept his desktop with his arm, sending the offending clipboard along with various other items, flying to the floor. “Just make Corny stop, so the parents quit calling me about this shit.”

  “Why don’t you order her to stop?” Skye made a scornful noise and answered her own question. “Oh, yeah, she’s tenured, so you can’t, because you don’t have much to hold over her head, right?”

  “So what?” he snapped. “It’s your job to convince her to quit being a pain in my crack. You’re the shrink. Counsel her about her evil ways.”

  “Right.” He’d tried using that tack before. “The fact that you blatantly don’t believe in all that ‘psychobabble,’ as you put it, makes it pretty obvious your real motive is to pass the buck.”