Skye settled at the kitchen table with a glass of Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, a pad of paper, and a pen. She pressed the play button and listened to the first message.
“This is your mother.” May didn’t believe in answering machines and had only recently been persuaded to speak into them; she drew the line at leaving any actual information.
The next few missives were from parents who had somehow gotten Skye’s unlisted number. Not a truly difficult feat in a small town, where everyone knew someone who knew the person you wanted to track down.
Skye decided to return their calls from school. They weren’t emergencies, and if she started talking to parents from home, she’d end up working twenty-four seven.
The next three messages were from May again. On the last one she actually said something besides her name. “Skye, call me at the police station. I’m working three to eleven tonight.”
Skye turned to the wall unit and dialed. Her mother hadn’t sounded like herself on the tape. She hoped another relative wasn’t under arrest, as had happened more than once before.
The phone didn’t ring even once before it was answered. “Scumble River Police Department, May speaking.”
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“Where have you been?”
“I was at school until after five, and then I grabbed a bite to eat with Kent.”
“You’re not really interested in that boy, are you?”
“Ma, he’s nearly forty. I think he qualifies as a man.” Skye wondered how they had gotten so far down this road when she didn’t even remember making the turn.
“He acts about fifteen. You need to get back together with Simon.” May paused. “Heck, now that Wally’s divorce is almost final, I’d rather see you with him than Kent ‘my shit doesn’t stink’ Walker.”
“What in heaven’s name did Kent say to you at Christmas to tick you off so badly?”
“I’m not saying. Just stop seeing him.”
Skye considered telling her mother that she was about to quit dating the English teacher, but decided it was only fair to Kent to let him be the first to know. It was highly unusual for May to take such an intense dislike to an eligible bachelor. Ordinarily she was happy with any male Skye dated, as long as he was single and breathing. She just wanted to see her daughter married with children.
“Let’s change the subject,” Skye suggested. “Why were you trying to find me?”
“I figured you’d want to know the latest on the Ingels case.”
“Why would I want to know that?” Skye hedged.
“Charlie told me he wants you to investigate, on behalf of the school. And since you’ve upset Wally and broken it off with Simon, I figured your list of informants is getting mighty short.”
Her mom had a point. This time Wally would not sit down and tell her what was going on. And even when they were dating, Simon had never revealed much. May might be the only source she had left.
“You’re right, Mom. As usual, I need your help.” Skye reached down and scratched behind Bingo’s ears as he twined around her ankles.
Skye could almost hear May purr over the phone as she said, “Did you know that Kent Walker was the last person to see her alive—if you believe his story? You see why I want you to dump him? He’s probably the killer.”
Skye took a sip of soda pop and considered how to answer that statement. Ignoring it was always a good option. “Interesting. Anything about cause of death? Time-wise there was a pretty small window of opportunity. Kent left her at the beginning of seventh period, and I found her about fifteen minutes before the end of eighth period. That leaves nearly an hour and fifteen minutes for whatever happened to take place.”
“They found fragments of pills in the bottom of a bottle that was near her body,” May answered. “The pills and bottle have been sent to the lab for analysis. No clear fingerprints, except Lorelei’s, and the label was peeled off.”
“I saw that bottle. It looked sort of familiar—it had an unusual shape.” The connection Skye was searching for wouldn’t surface.
“Wally sent officers to check both grocery stores, the liquor store, and the gas stations. They didn’t find anything like it.”
“So, they’re pretty sure it’s murder?”
“Like you pointed out with your Aunt Minnie last year, how many people crush tablets and put them in a drink if they’re going to commit suicide? I imagine the same is true for an accidental overdose, and Lorelei’s father claimed she didn’t have any trouble swallowing pills.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope. Wally plans to talk to some more kids tomorrow and check out where everyone was during seventh and eighth periods.”
“Are you working tomorrow?”
“No, not until Monday.”
“I’ll call this time Monday night, and you can update me.”
“Oh, before I forget, I promised Gillian you’d call her tonight, no matter how late I spoke to you.”
“What does she want?” Since this was the cousin who had abducted Skye last summer, they weren’t on casual chatting terms.
Skye could almost hear her mother’s shrug. “She didn’t say, just told me it was vital she talked to you. Maybe it’s something about the Ingelses. They’re in that beauty-pageant circuit together. Linette is in the eight-to-ten-year-old age range, same as Kristin and Ginger’s daughter, Iris.”
Ginger, Gillian’s twin, had been in on the kidnapping scheme, too.
“Okay, let me hang up and call Gillian. Bye.”
“Dad has to pick up a part tomorrow in Brooklyn, so if you can be ready by seven, he’ll give you a ride to school.”
“I’ll be ready. Bye.”
“Bye, honey.”
Skye smiled. She could tell her mother was thrilled that they were on a “case” together. May hardly ever used endearments.
After listening to the rest of her messages, Skye punched in her cousin’s number. It rang several times, and she was about to hang up when a little girl answered. “Hello. Who is this?”
“This is Skye. Can I talk to your mother?”
“She’s in the bathroom.”
“Oh. Could you tell her I—?”
Before Skye could finish her sentence, she heard the phone thunk down and a high-pitched voice scream, “Mom, it’s Aunt Skye.”
The minutes ticked by, and Skye was considering hanging up when her cousin finally said, “Skye, glad you called. Ginger and I need a huge favor. Don’t say no until you hear the whole deal.”
“I’d be glad to help you if I can,” Skye forced herself to respond. Her New Year’s resolution was to be nicer to her aunts, uncles, and cousins.
“Here’s the thing. Both Kristin and Iris are signed up for the Junior Miss Stanley County pageant this weekend. Ginger and I can take them Friday, but we need you for Saturday. We were supposed to be off work, but since the bank was turned over to its new owner last week, all vacation days have been canceled for the first month, and anyone who doesn’t show up is fired.”
“Didn’t you know this was going to happen? The bank was bought out last year sometime.”
“No, they didn’t tell us slaves when the change was going to be made. Only the big shots knew.”
“Oh.” Skye thought fast. “How about their grandmas?”
“Mom’s going back down to Carle Clinic to get her meds adjusted and you know our husbands’ mothers don’t live in town.”
“I don’t have a car and wouldn’t have any idea what I was supposed to do at the pageant.”
“You can drive our minivan. The thing is, the entry fee is nearly three hundred dollars, and we can’t afford to just flush that down the toilet. Especially since the new owners at the bank cut everyone’s salary last year.”
“I see.” Skye considered what May had told her earlier. “Is Linette Ingels in this pageant?”
“Yes, although she’ll probably have to miss because of her sister. That’s another reason I’d hate for Kristin and
Iris to have to drop out. Without Linette, they both have a decent chance of winning, or at least finishing in the money.”
“Sure, I’ll take them.” Skye doodled a tiara on her yellow legal pad. “Anything special I should know?”
“We’ll drop the TransSport and the girls off at your place at seven on Saturday. You have to be at Laurel High School by eight, and ready to go on by nine. Kristin and Iris pretty much know what to do, but I’ll jot down some instructions for you.”
“Seven a.m.?” Skye squeaked. She was not a morning person.
“Sorry about that.” Gillian didn’t sound sorry. “Anyway, I’ve got to run. Thanks a million for helping out. Bye.”
Friday morning Skye walked through the deserted high school. Although she had arrived nearly half an hour before anyone else was due, she wouldn’t have time for a swim this morning. She headed directly to the guidance office and unlocked the door. Once inside she thumbed on the desk light, opened her appointment book, and put her purse into the right-hand drawer. Settling into the butt-softened leather chair, Skye reached for a pad of passes and started filling them out. She would give these to Opal, who would hand them out to the kids during homeroom.
The old wooden desk was big enough to spread out files and sort through forms. Skye had managed to keep her tiny office in the junior high, even though she was supposed to have had it for only one year. This year, the elementary school had given her a space to work, but she had to share it with the speech pathologist. The high school was the only holdout in providing her with a room, but she was still working on Homer.
Skye had just finished writing the passes when Charlie entered her office. “Wally’s going to talk to the parents at three-thirty. He was busy this morning.”
She noticed today that Charlie looked every one of his seventy-plus years. His normally fluffy white hair lay flat, and his usual vigorous gait was slow and plodding. She had to find the murderer before the stress killed her godfather.
“Should be okay if the parents were notified.” Skye reached for her appointment book and made a note.
“The PTO phone tree got the message out.”
Skye nodded. She knew that the PTO phone tree was a better communication device than anything in the Department of Defense. Once the president made the first call, it would take the end of the world to stop the rest of the ladies from calling their designated list of names, who would then call their lists, and so on, until every parent in Scumble River had received the message.
Charlie paused at the door. “I’ll be back after school. Give me a jingle if you need me any sooner.”
A few minutes later, at precisely seven-thirty-five, starting time for teachers, Coach poked his head into the guidance office and groaned. “You here again?”
“Yes. Do you need something?”
“My office back,” he grumbled.
“Sorry. How about using your office in the gym?”
“Have to share it with the other PE teacher,” he complained.
“I certainly know how hard it is to have to share space.” The barrel-shaped man backed out, muttering.
“Let’s chat again,” Skye trilled to the slammed door.
She hurriedly delivered the passes to the school secretary and grabbed a cup of coffee, sliding back behind her desk just as the first bell rang.
A few minutes later Elvira Doozier, her first appointment, erupted into the room. “Yeah, what do you want?”
The girl looked almost exactly as she had the day she ran into Skye’s office and announced that Sleeping Beauty was dead. Same type of low-riding pants and belly shirt. Same pierced navel. And same long, straight, two-toned hair.
“Have a seat, Elvira. When you weren’t at school yesterday, I was concerned that maybe finding Lorelei like you did might have upset you.”
“Nope, just didn’t want to talk to the cops.” The teen glared at Skye. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I can understand that.” Skye paused and changed her direction. “So, are you related to Earl and Junior Doozier?”
“Earl’s my brother and Junior’s my nephew. You know them from the time they pulled you from the river, right?”
“Right.” Skye smiled. “Junior helped me out a couple of times.”
“Yeah, by helping you out last year, he got my other brother, Hap, thrown in jail.”
“Are you saying that was a bad thing?”
“Well, it kept him off of hitting on his boy,” Elvira admitted. “Earl takes care of my nephew Cletus now.”
“Sounds like maybe things turned out for the best.” Skye leaned forward. “So, tell me about finding Lorelei.”
“Like I told you that day, I cut class to sneak a smoke in the gym, saw her laying there, and grabbed you.”
“How close did you get to Lorelei?” Skye was sure Elvira would have gone up for a close-up look.
“I never stepped much past the door.”
“How could you tell she was dead?”
Elvira’s smile was that of a very old woman. “I’ve seen dead people before. Dead people is easy to spot.”
Skye didn’t particularly want to know why the teen had such an intimate knowledge of corpses. “Did you see anyone in the hall when you were going in and out of the gym?”
“No one was around.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Just me and the dead cheerleader.” Elvira fingered the ring in her navel.
“Why, out of all the adults, did you come get me?”
“Remembered seeing you here on my way to the gym.” Elvira spoke to her lap. “And Junior thinks you’re okay.”
“Did you know any of Lorelei’s friends?”
“No way, man.” Elvira shook her head so hard that her long hair formed a cloak. “Those girls are brutal.”
Frannie Ryan marched into the guidance office and sat down facing Skye. “I didn’t kill her.”
Skye fought for a neutral expression. “Do you mean Lorelei?”
“How many dead bodies have you found around here?”
“Should we be looking for others?” The hair on the back of Skye’s neck rose. She could feel this girl’s anger from across her desk.
“None that I know of, but I wouldn’t be unhappy to see a few more princesses added to the list.” Frannie’s long lashes veiled her expression.
“They’ve hurt you?” Skye had seen firsthand the devious, self-esteem-destroying tactics commonly used on some teenage girls by the more popular girls.
Frannie snorted. “Their brand of social fascism is so galactically brutal, you end up bleeding to death before you even feel the knife go in.”
“Was Lorelei like that?” Skye asked. Talk about a motive for murder.
“She was more subtle. Most kids think she was so nice, but they didn’t realize that anything her posse did, she approved beforehand.” Frannie sat rigidly, waves of hostility pouring off of her.
“That sounds like a lot of power.”
“Lorelei Ingels was the sun, and the student body of Scumble River High revolved around her.”
“And she didn’t like you?” Skye asked.
“In her world, I didn’t even deserve that much respect. I’ve been taking dance since I was six, and I’m good. Despite my size, I’m also good at gymnastics. Obviously with these boobs, I’ll never make the Olympic team, but I have talent. Mrs. Frayne noticed me at a dance recital, and asked me to try out for the cheerleading squad. I was so up.”
“You thought this was your chance to fit in,” Skye ventured.
Frannie nodded, color rising in her cheeks. “I’ve never seen my dad so proud of me. I practiced and practiced until I knew the routines cold. I was great at the tryout.”
“What happened?” Skye was afraid she could guess the answer.
“The next day Mrs. Frayne took me aside and said she was sorry, I didn’t make the squad.” Frannie looked at Skye with tears shining in her eyes.
“That must have been painful.”
“I couldn’t figure what I had done wrong until the other cheerleaders surrounded me after school. Zoë was the one who talked, but they were all there. She said if I ever told anyone that they had even let me try out, she’d make my pathetic life even more miserable.” Frannie bit back a sob.
Skye handed her a tissue. “What did you do?”
“I asked why.” Frannie shot Skye a look. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
“It’s hard to make good decisions when you’re experiencing that kind of hurt.”
“Zoë said it would be too humiliating for the school to have it known that a fat girl was even considered for cheerleader.” Frannie sat back. “She said she didn’t know what Mrs. Frayne was thinking when she asked me to try out. That it was a good thing all the cheerleaders got to vote, or Mrs. Frayne would load the squad with fat girls.”
“How devastating.”
“I’m just so tired of always being on the outside looking in,” Frannie whispered. “Your destiny is determined by the color of your hair, the shape of your body, and the label on your clothes. Despite all the crap you endure, they always pick someone else.”
There was little Skye could say to that, but she gave it a try. “I know this sounds bogus, but things usually get a lot better once you’re out of high school. In college you have a much wider choice of friends and can find other kids who think like you do. A lot of times the princes and princesses of high school find the rest of life a lot different. For them the best time is their teenage years, but the rest of us are happier as adults.”
The girl looked at her skeptically. “I sure hope you’re right.”
“Me too.” After a moment, Skye gently asked, “Frannie, where were you seventh and eighth period Wednesday?”
The girl sat up. “Art and math, with about forty other kids. Hard to say if anyone would remember me or not.”
“The bell is going to ring any second. If you ever want to talk again, just leave me a note, and we’ll set something up.”
Frannie got up from the chair and gathered her things. “They say you should never say anything about the dead unless it’s good.” She waited for Skye’s nod. “Lorelei’s dead. Good!”
Murder of a Sleeping Beauty Page 8
