“That would be a great plot twist.” Trixie licked peanut butter from her fingers, picked up her pen, and made a note on a piece of paper. “I think the eighty-year-old twins did it. Alone they’d be too frail, but together they could pull it off and no one would ever suspect such sweet old ladies.” Trixie tilted her head. “Hey, that would be a great title, The Sweet Old Lady Murderers.”
“I think there’s already a book out by that name.” Skye shook her head. “Although my understanding is that you can’t copyright a title. Still, you wouldn’t want to use it and have people think they’d already read your book. Although if it’s an old—”
“So…” Trixie cut her off, clearly losing interest in titles and getting back to a topic she found more interesting. “If you don’t think the ex-doctor did it, who do you think is the killer?”
“So far my money is on the photographer, but we’re going to talk to the rich business guy tonight, so he may move up on my list.”
“Cool.” Trixie widened her brown eyes and pleaded, “Any chance I can come along? It would be great research for my novel.”
“No.” Skye held up her hand at her friend’s protests. “Sorry, but if I can distract you from homicide for a second, I do have some other exciting news, and an important question to ask you.”
“What?” Trixie perked up.
“Wally’s annulment will be finalized in the next month or two, and we’ve set the date for our wedding. It’s December thirtieth.” Skye grinned. “And I’d like you to be my matron of honor.”
“No!” Trixie let out a howl of anguish.
Skye watched, speechless, as tears rolled down her friend’s face.
CHAPTER 18
Playing Cat and Mouse
It took Skye a couple of seconds to process Trixie’s refusal and subsequent waterworks. As soon as she could move, Skye hopped off her stool, put her arms around her friend, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I. Can’t. Be. In. Your. Wedding.” Trixie sobbed out the words.
“Why not?” Skye tilted her head. “If it’s the cost, we can pick out an inexpensive dress, or you can even wear something you already own.”
Skye thought that maybe Trixie and her husband might be having a rough time financially. Although Trixie made an okay salary as school librarian, Owen was a farmer, and the crops hadn’t been good the last couple of years. He had recently begun to breed exotic animals, but she wasn’t sure if that endeavor was making a profit yet.
“It’s not that.” Trixie hiccuped. “Actually, for once we’re doing pretty well.” She made a face. “Who knew there was actually money to be made raising llamas and emus?”
“Then what?” Now Skye was really confused. “I thought you liked Wally and wanted me to marry him. Did Simon get to you or something?”
When Skye had first broken up with Simon, he had tried various outlandish ways to win her back, but that had stopped six months ago, and she thought he had given up. Had he taken his efforts to a new level, a sneakier one?
“No.” Trixie pulled a tissue from her pocket. “How could you think I’d take Simon’s side? Haven’t I always said Wally was the man for you?”
“Yes.” Skye was stumped. “So why can’t you be my matron of honor?”
Trixie blew her nose. “Last night Owen surprised me with tickets for a seven-day Caribbean cruise.” She threw away the used Kleenex and stared dejectedly at Skye. “We leave December twenty-fourth and don’t get back until the day after your wedding.”
“Shit!” Skye put her hand to her mouth. She’d given up swearing for Lent. Great! Now she’d have to go to confession before Mass.
“My feelings exactly.” Trixie started crying again. “I’m always after Owen to be more romantic. To take vacations. And winter break is the perfect time for a farmer to be away.” She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. “How can I tell him I don’t want to go?”
“You can’t.” Skye sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t change my wedding, either. Negotiating that date was harder than getting the House and the Senate to agree on the national debt.”
“How come?” Trixie sniffed, searching her pocket for another tissue and coming up empty. “Was Wally really that difficult?”
“Not Wally.” Skye handed Trixie the box of Puffs from the shelves behind them. “Mom.” Skye explained May’s amazing change of heart, ending with, “So, since my mother is finally on board with me marrying Wally, I don’t want to derail her by insisting on a summer wedding when she claims there isn’t enough planning time.”
“How about next summer?” Trixie suggested. “That would give her over a year.”
“Wally doesn’t want to wait that long. And truthfully, neither do I.”
“Which is totally understandable.” Trixie exhaled noisily. “Crap! Crap! Crap! I guess that means I’m going to miss your wedding.”
“Wait a minute.” Skye narrowed her eyes. “What if I talk to Owen?”
“What good would that do?” Trixie asked, her expression hopeful.
Skye counted on her fingers. “December is nine months away.”
“Right.”
“So, maybe Owen can switch the cruise for one that leaves December thirty-first,” Skye suggested. “You’d have to rush a little, but I’m pretty sure I read that most ships leave in the late afternoon. So you’d have all day Sunday to get to the port.”
“That might work.” Trixie brightened. “We leave from Fort Lauderdale, and that’s only a two-and-a-half- or three-hour flight from here.”
“Which means you could catch a morning plane out of O’Hare on Sunday.” Skye grinned. “You’ll just have to behave yourself at the reception so you can get up early enough to make it to the airport.”
“Darn!” Trixie grinned back. “Guess that means only one glass of champagne.”
Promising to follow Trixie home after school so she could speak with Owen right away, Skye gave her friend a final hug, grabbed her can of soda and the half-eaten packet of crackers, and headed toward the door. She had three hours until she saw the Pass Out game girls. If she worked straight through, she could score the tests from the psych evaluation she’d completed on a third grader who had somehow fooled everyone into believing he could read. Heck, she might even get a couple of reports written before the girls showed up for their session.
At two forty-five, feeling satisfied with having accomplished so much on her to-do list, Skye greeted the eleven girls with a smile as they trooped into her office. None looked happy to be there, but only a couple seemed out-and-out resentful.
Skye knew the ringleader, Bitsy Kessler, from her cosponsorship of the school newspaper. Bitsy had been a freshman when the Scoop was formed, and had been on its staff for the past four years.
Although Bitsy came across as an airhead, and was by no means the sharpest eyeliner in the makeup case, she had shown a real talent for writing on-target satirical humor. Her contributions had been a consistent hit among both students and staff.
Knowing that she would have such a big group at this counseling session, Skye had had the custodian bring in folding chairs. She was just thankful that her office at the high school could actually accommodate such a large number.
Once the girls were seated in a circle, Skye introduced herself and had them all identify themselves. Regrettably, she knew she probably wouldn’t remember all of them, because so many looked alike. Although they claimed to want individuality, they usually adopted similar clothing styles, hair, and makeup. Too bad it would be considered unprofessional and less than therapeutic to ask them to wear name tags.
After the preliminaries, Skye said, “I’m sure you all know we’re here to talk about the game you played Saturday night.” The girls all nodded. “Can anyone tell me why we’re talking about that subject?”
“Like, because our parents are freaked out,” a bubbly redhead offered.
“True.” Skye’s voice was neutral. “Any other reason you might find yourself in the psychologist�
��s office because of that activity?” She looked around.
“It’s dangerous and someone could have gotten hurt,” a bored-looking blonde recited in a monotone, her voice holding all the sincerity of a padded bra. “Now that we cleared up that little matter, can we go back to study hall? Some of us have homework to do.”
Skye ignored the blonde’s request. “I’m glad you realize that it’s an extremely risky game. Do you understand that one of you could have died?”
The blonde continued to gaze sullenly at Skye, although when Skye emphasized the word died, a flicker of comprehension caused the girl’s pupils to dilate.
“No senior trip. No prom. No graduation. No college. No career.” She checked out the girls’ reactions, then stressed, “No life.”
Their expressions ranged from indifference to skepticism to surprise. One or two drew in a sharp breath and whispered to their neighbors.
“But that’s the stuff I figured your folks would have already discussed with you.” She leaned forward and made eye contact with each of the girls, one after another. “What I’d like to hear about is your feelings. What were you after when you decided to play the game, and what’s been your reaction to what has happened since your actions have become public?”
“We weren’t trying to kill ourselves, if that’s what you mean,” Bitsy protested. “We were just bored. We didn’t have a suicide pact or anything. ’Cause that’s only for pathetic losers.”
“Totally, dude.” Murmurs of agreement sounded from the others.
The redhead said, “Like, there’s never anything to do around here.” She pouted. “And, like, none of our parents will let us drive into Joliet or Kankakee by ourselves, which is, like, so bogus.”
Skye held her tongue. The redhead really needed likeosuction to suck that word like out of her vocabulary for good, but vocabulary was a matter for her English teacher to handle.
“Heidi read about it on the Internet.” Bitsy gestured to a quiet brunette. “So when we got sick of doing each other’s hair and nails, she told us about it. We looked it up and it seemed fun.”
Skye recognized Heidi from the book discussion group she had led last September, and remembered that the teen had mentioned moving to Scumble River when her dad married a local woman. As Skye recalled, the girl hadn’t been very happy with the home situation.
“And was it fun?” Skye asked, trying to inject interest rather than censure into her tone.
“Not really.” Bitsy seemed to have appointed herself spokesperson of the group. “If my mom hadn’t had a heart attack and gotten all uptight and called everyone’s parents, none of this would have happened.” Bitsy frowned. “It was, you know, awkward.”
“You feel your mother overreacted?” Skye asked. “And all the other parents as well? That you could have handled the situation on your own?”
“Definitely.” Bitsy nodded emphatically, her copper ringlets bouncing. “We would have learned a lesson from our experience.”
“I see.” Skye raised a brow. “Well, experience is an excellent teacher.” She paused, then added, “Too bad the homework she gives is so rough.”
“Truthfully”—Bitsy sighed— “we couldn’t quite figure out how to do it.”
“It’s my fault.” Heidi spoke up. “The others were ready to forget about it when I found a video on the Web. It showed someone using a belt and hanging themselves from the top of their closet door.”
“Is that what you used?” Skye asked, wondering how anyone thought something like that would be fun.
“Uh-huh.” The blonde still sounded like she would rather be doing calculus than talking to Skye. “I’m the lightest, so I said I’d try it.”
“Yeah.” Bitsy poked the other girl in the shoulder. “But you panicked when you started to lose consciousness. And when Ashley tried to help you, you kicked her in the stomach.”
“Then Ashley screamed,” Heidi said, “and Mrs. Kessler came running in. Once she saw what was going on, she went ballistic and yelled for Mr. Kessler.”
“And once Dad got involved”—Bitsy shook her head, a look of disgust on her face—“the whole thing became a freaking nightmare.”
Bitsy’s statement seemed to open the floodgates for the others, and all the girls began to chime in. Skye sat back, allowing the teenagers to talk, processing the events for themselves. She occasionally clarified or refereed, but mostly observed for the rest of the time.
There were three minutes left in the period when Bitsy whined, “I still say none of this is our fault and we shouldn’t be the ones in trouble.”
Skye hid her smile. “Why is that?” She’d been watching Bitsy, and it had taken her nearly forty-five minutes, but the girl had finally come up with an excuse. Skye couldn’t wait to hear it.
“If that guy at the door to the bowling alley would have let us in to hear the music, we wouldn’t have gotten so bored,” Bitsy explained.
“The bowler disco party didn’t start until ten, though, right?” Skye asked. “What time did you girls decide to play the game?”
“Like, an hour or so after we went back to Bitsy’s house,” the redhead volunteered. “But, like, I heard that the music sucked. Someone said it was like the guy had never, like, deejayed before. So, like, no loss.”
“Totally,” the blonde agreed. “The real problem was that Bitsy’s mom and dad didn’t keep their promise to take us to Bolingbrook to play miniature golf and stuff at Wilderness Falls.”
“Yeah.” Bitsy shrugged. “They had some lame excuse about it being too cold and rainy, but they just didn’t want to have to do it.”
Before Skye could respond, the final bell rang. As the teenagers filed out of her office, she made sure the girls knew that she was available for an individual counseling session if they felt the need. None of them appeared eager to take her up on her offer.
Once she was alone, Skye closed her door, pulled her chair back around behind her desk, and called Homer. While she was assuring the principal that she was satisfied that the girls appeared to understand the consequences of such an unsafe game, and that their actions had arisen from boredom, not self-destructive tendencies, she quickly typed up a short note to that same effect to be sent to the girls’ parents.
Hanging up the phone, she clicked on the PRINT button. As she watched the printer spit out a dozen copies of her letter, it hit her. That was why her dad’s miniature-golfing adventure had been bugging her. She sagged back in her seat. Was it possible? Could she really have figured out where Elijah Jacobsen was hiding?
CHAPTER 19
Scaredy-cat
As Skye followed Trixie’s Civic out of town and into the countryside, she assessed her conclusion regarding Elijah’s whereabouts. Her first inclination had been to phone Wally with her idea, but she had hesitated. What if she was wrong? She hated to look stupid, or even worse, to waste everyone’s time.
She needed to start at the beginning and carefully think through her conclusion to see if it was logical. Elijah’s note had said he was going into the Wilderness—with a capital W—for forty days. At the time, she didn’t think the uppercase letter was important, but now she speculated that it might be extremely significant. Going into the wilderness was certainly a biblical reference, but going into the Wilderness could mean something else, as well.
A week or so ago, Skye had received a Valpak envelope in the mail. Even though the majority of the coupons were usually for businesses miles from Scumble River, she always flipped through them to see if any were local. Like her father, she loved a bargain.
In the packet, she remembered seeing a voucher for Wilderness Falls Family Fun Center. Had Elijah’s household gotten the same coupons? And if so, had the name stuck in his mind?
Before Skye could decide if the notion was brilliant or ridiculous, she turned into the Fraynes’ driveway. By the time Skye stopped the Bel Air, Trixie was already out of her Honda and waiting impatiently by the Chevy’s door. The decision whether to tell Wally her idea o
r not would have to wait until after her talk with Owen.
Trixie pulled Skye from the car’s front seat. “Owen doesn’t usually come inside until five for supper.” She nodded at the white two-story home to her left. “You don’t want to wait in the house, do you?”
“Not really.” Skye tucked the car keys in her tote. “I’m in a little bit of a hurry. I have something to discuss with Wally, and—” She interrupted herself. “Did I mention Wally got called away on an emergency last night?”
Trixie shook her head.
“The bank alarm went off,” Skye explained. “And when he phoned to let me know that the problem turned out to be a bird that had flown into the window, he said we’d go talk to Ivan Quigley tonight.”
“That rich geezer from Brooklyn?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Skye wrinkled her forehead. “But he’s not that old.”
“Geezerhood is bestowed on any guy who is somewhere between not young and not dead.” Trixie waved her hand in the direction of the garage, equipment shed, and barn. “Anyway, Owen’s probably somewhere around here. Let’s find him so you can get going.”
“Great.” Skye hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “Which way?”
“We’ll start with the barn.” Trixie linked arms with Skye and they started walking.
Bales of hay were stacked along one end of the barn and stalls lined either side. Although the odor of the llamas and emus lingered in the air, neither they nor their owner was present.
“If Owen isn’t with his precious livestock, he’s probably tinkering with his tractors.” Trixie led the way to the machine shed.
The shed’s only entrance was a towering door that opened by rolling it to the side. Together Trixie and Skye managed to shove the heavy panel open wide enough for them to squeeze through. The interior was a single cavernous room with corrugated-steel walls and a packed-dirt floor. Arranged in irregular rows were tractors, combines, threshers, and a variety of other equipment that Skye didn’t recognize, even though she was a farmer’s daughter.
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