Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry

by Denise Swanson

  Skye explained her dilemma and asked them to go back and get a crime scene tech. After a bit of an argument as to whether it would be faster to call the Scumble River PD and wait for the message to be conveyed to Wally, or just to drive back the quarter mile, driving back won.

  That decision led to a discussion about who should do what. In the end Brandon and JJ got out of the car to stay with Skye while Jared and his mother were driven back for the tech.

  While they waited Skye tried to make conversation. “Do you both work for the family business?”

  JJ, the pudgy, blue-eyed blond, ducked his head shyly. “I’m Grandma’s assistant.”

  “Where’d you go to school?”

  “I graduated from Loyola a year ago with a degree in business.”

  “Good school.” Skye turned to the dark-haired one. “How about you, Brandon?”

  “I’m the head of the company’s legal department.”

  “Does that mean you do all the legal work for the company?”

  “No.” Brandon smirked. “I supervise the people who do it.”

  “My, you seem so young for such a responsible position.”

  “Yes. Pays to have family connections. Right, JJ?”

  The young man nodded.

  Skye nodded too, having benefited from nepotism herself when Uncle Charlie got her the school psych job in Scumble River. Still, she’d bet JJ was making five times what she did, and Brandon probably made ten times her salary.

  Skye was uncomfortably aware that they were standing in silence. Neither young man seemed able—or willing—to chat.

  She searched for something more to say, wishing the tech would arrive. “Sounds like you’re both tried-and-true Chicagoans. Do you get out to the Scumble River factory very often?”

  “We work mostly out of the Chicago building.” JJ stared at his shoes. “Grandma comes out here a lot, and she insists we maintain duplicate offices for all the departments here, but they’re rarely used.”

  “Why does she do it, then?” Skye asked, intrigued at the way big business was run compared to the school, where she was lucky to have a single cramped office, let alone a spare one.

  “Grandma says she feels closer to Grandpa here than anywhere else,” JJ answered.

  Brandon rolled his eyes. “She gets to be the queen bee out here. That’s why she likes it.”

  Skye sighed with relief as the unmarked county car pulled up, followed closely by the Fines’ limo. Skye showed the tech what she had found. She was about to explain that someone wearing a factory jumpsuit had been running past the warehouse that morning, but something stopped her and she decided to tell Wally first.

  The Fines offered her a ride home, and she gratefully accepted. As she sat cradled in the soft leather seat of the luxury car, she wondered what it would be like to know that you were going to inherit millions and millions of dollars. Of course, everyone said that money couldn’t buy happiness. Still, she might enjoy the chance to see for herself.

  CHAPTER 9

  Slowly Add Dry Mixture to Creamed

  Skye wasn’t surprised to find several messages on her answering machine when she got home. Most of the callers wanted to know what had happened, and a couple asked how Dante was, but the one she returned immediately was from Frannie, who had called to ask if Ashley had been found.

  Skye cradled the receiver between her shoulder and ear so she could change into jeans and a sweatshirt as she phoned the teen. There was no answer at Frannie’s house, and Skye was in the process of looking up Justin’s cell number when her doorbell rang.

  She hurried down the stairs, looked out the peephole, and opened the door. “I was just calling you.”

  Frannie and Justin stood on her welcome mat. Frannie looked upset, and Justin’s expression said that he was itching to punch something really, really hard really, really soon.

  “What’s up?” Skye ushered them inside and steered them toward the kitchen.

  Frannie flung herself in the chair Skye offered, but Justin ignored the proffered seat and paced.

  Skye raised an eyebrow, then ducked her head into the refrigerator to hide her expression. As she gathered meat, cheese, and condiments she asked, “Are you hungry? I’m starving. That’s the problem with getting up at five a.m.— you’re ready for lunch by ten.”

  Frannie giggled politely, but then drooped back into her original dejected posture.

  Justin sneered and kept pacing.

  Skye knew from past experience that Justin wanted her to beg him to talk. She also knew that if she did, he would close up tighter than a shrink-wrapped CD case.

  Instead she asked, “So, who wants a snack?”

  Frannie’s well-mannered, “No, thank you,” was a sharp contrast to Justin’s negative growl.

  Skye shrugged and assembled a sandwich. She was just cutting it on the diagonal, because even TV chef Alton Brown said sandwiches tasted better that way, when Bingo sauntered into the kitchen.

  The cat had an uncanny ability to appear when food was being prepared or eaten. He could be anywhere in the house, from the attic to the basement, and still manage to arrive before Skye could take the first bite.

  This time Bingo ignored Skye and her sandwich, walked over to where Justin was pacing, and started doing figure eights between his ankles.

  Skye watched carefully while pretending to be engrossed with shaking potato chips into a bowl. Justin had come a long way from the angry and depressed eighth grader she had originally seen for counseling, but she still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t lash out, given the right circumstances.

  At first the teen snarled at the feline, but Bingo ignored him and revved up his purrs to jet-engine volume. Finally Justin stopped moving, and the cat immediately sat down on his feet, looking up at him with a questioning meow.

  Skye took a quick peek at Frannie, who had straightened and was staring with her mouth slightly open.

  The scraping of a chair on linoleum brought Skye’s attention back to the boy and the cat. Justin was sitting with Bingo on his lap. The teen’s expression was still angry, but his shoulders had relaxed and his hand rested lightly on the cat’s soft black fur.

  Skye nonchalantly made her way to the table, putting the bowl of chips in the center and sitting down with her plate. Just before taking a bite she asked again, “What’s up?”

  Frannie glanced at Justin, who shrugged and kept petting the cat.

  Slumping once again, Frannie sighed and said, “It’s Xenia.”

  Skye’s throat tightened, but she forced herself to say lightly, “What about her?”

  “She’s being a real bitch,” Justin blurted out.

  “In what way?” Skye wanted to ask how being a bitch was new behavior for the girl, but controlled the urge. She couldn’t say that about one student to another, no matter how great the temptation or accurate the observation.

  Frannie took a chip and crumbled it in front of her. “She’s claiming that she didn’t write that blog, and is acting like we betrayed her by even thinking she had kidnapped Ashley. She’s turned a bunch of the kids on the newspaper staff against us.”

  Ah. Skye nodded her understanding. Both Frannie and Justin had had friendship issues in the past. Neither had been accepted by the “in” crowd, and they had gotten to the point of forming their own circle of friends only within the last couple of years. Add to this that their group consisted of the other newspaper kids, and Xenia’s duplicity took on a whole new meaning.

  Before Xenia’s arrival in the fall, Frannie and Justin had been the undisputed leaders of that crowd, but Xenia had challenged them at every turn for that position.

  Justin broke off a piece of potato chip and offered it to Bingo, who sniffed, took a delicate lick, then regally accepted the offering.

  Skye took the opportunity to swallow before saying, “When the truth comes out the kids will see who their real friends are. Xenia has a lot of charisma, but it isn’t something that can sustain a relationship for long.”


  Frannie nodded. “That’s true. Remember, she tried to get everyone on her side when she first came here, but it didn’t last long. This is just another lame attempt to be elected editor next year.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Justin shook his head. “You’ll be away at college next year. I’ll be the one stuck with her.”

  Skye’s internal warning bell went off. This was the first time either Frannie or Justin had acknowledged that Frannie would be leaving next fall, and the pair would be separated.

  She stole a peek at Frannie, who swallowed a couple of times before saying, “Maybe you and Xenia will team up and not miss me at all.”

  Justin scowled but didn’t verbalize his reply.

  Finishing the last bite of her sandwich, Skye pushed the plate away. “You do realize that Mrs. Frayne and I have to approve whoever is elected student editor?”

  “You wouldn’t say someone couldn’t if he or she was elected, would you?” Justin asked.

  “In a flash, if we thought they’d cause trouble.” Skye poured three glasses of Diet Coke and put one in front of each teen, keeping the third for herself. “But that’s next year, and a lot can happen between now and then. So, any idea where we can look for Ashley? Or did you both forget she’s still missing?”

  “I didn’t forget, but there’s nothing I can do about her, and it’s not as if we were her pals or anything.” Frannie shook her head. “When she came into the newspaper office to complain about Xenia’s article, she looked right through me. Then, when she thought she could use me, she tried to pretend we were best friends. So I asked her my name, and she didn’t have a clue. Heck. We’ve been in classes together since third grade.”

  “Yeah.” Justin nodded his agreement. “Ashley thinks she’s such hot shit, but she only stinks.”

  In a sympathetic but firm tone, Skye said, “Be that as it may, we can’t let Ashley get hurt just because we don’t like her. It’s our duty as decent people to help find her if we can.”

  Justin shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Frannie snorted.

  Skye took that as agreement. “Let’s start with the blog message you showed me. Maybe I’m not reading it correctly. Let’s see if your interpretation is any different from mine.” She grabbed a couple of legal pads and a few pens from the junk drawer and reseated herself at the table. “The message read: ‘Crybabies should be careful. If you can’t stand the heat, you need to be cooled off. Kept on ice. Get my drift?’ Right?”

  Both teens nodded.

  “Okay. Is there any other meaning to the word crybabies, beside whiner or complainer?”

  “The kids use it to mean tattletale, but that’s sort of the same thing,” Justin offered.

  “Has anyone told on someone lately?”

  “No.” Frannie frowned. “No one I can think of.” She looked at Justin, who shook his head.

  “Any ideas on what the blogger meant by the next section?” Skye underlined it with her pen.

  “Just, if you can’t stand the problems you’ve caused, you should fix things.” On her scratch pad, Frannie doodled monsters with huge open mouths and pointy fangs.

  “How about the ‘cooled off and kept on ice’ part?”

  Justin looked away, then muttered, “Some of the wannabe gang kids use that term to mean kill and get rid of the body, but I think Xenia might mean it more like keeping Ashley away from her friends until she cools off and stops her parents and their lawyer from harassing the paper.”

  Skye’s breath had gone out with a whoosh when Justin mentioned murder, but she was able to inhale by the time he finished his thought. “And the last bit? Anything with the word drift?”

  Both kids shook their heads.

  “Have you had any ideas since yesterday about where Xenia might be keeping Ashley?”

  More head shakes; then Frannie added, “We’ve looked in all the places we knew that either of them hang out.”

  “We even checked the school—you know, like the cafeteria’s freezer and the pantry, and the closets and lockers—in case she was hiding her in plain sight.” Justin leaned forward, and Bingo jumped off his lap with an annoyed yowl.

  “Ashley pretty much hung out with the cheerleaders, and they pretty much hung out at each other’s houses during the winter and at the rec club beach during the summer.” Frannie put her hand down to pet the cat, but he stalked away.

  “Where would one teenager hide another?” Skye muttered almost to herself. “It would have to be either completely isolated, like a hunting cabin, or a place with so many people going back and forth that no one would notice a couple more.”

  “Xenia is new in town. She doesn’t have any uncles or cousins around here with shacks in the woods,” Frannie pointed out.

  “Right, so it’s got to be the other choice.” Skye and the teens were silent, thinking. Finally she said, “I’ll call Officer Quirk and see if he’s had any luck.”

  It took her a while to track Quirk down, but she finally got through to him. “Roy, this is Skye. I’m calling about Ashley Yates. Is she still missing?”

  “Ten-four. Parents have not reported her return.”

  “I’ve been going over the blog message with a couple of my students, and we wondered if Xenia had access to any hunting cabins or fishing shacks.” Skye wanted to double-check before crossing that possibility off her list.

  “That’s a negative. And we’ve searched the school and both the vic’s and the suspect’s garages.”

  “Any other ideas?”

  “No, we put out an AMBER Alert right away, but there haven’t been any legitimate tips.”

  “Thanks, Roy.” Skye didn’t want to keep him any longer, knowing how busy he’d be with the morning’s murder.

  She relayed her conversation to Frannie and Justin, who remained quiet.

  Finally she stood up and said, “Sorry, guys, but I have to get ready for an appointment, so you’ll need to be going.”

  The teens shuffled to their feet and headed toward the front door. Skye heard Justin whisper the word date to Frannie, who giggled.

  Once the kids were gone, Skye phoned the hospital to see how her uncle was faring.

  Her mother was put on the phone “Uncle Dante is fine. He lost some blood and is a little shocky, but the wound was superficial.”

  “That’s a relief.” Skye hadn’t realized until just then how worried she’d been about her uncle. “Did he say how it happened?”

  “No. Wally’s been trying to get him to make sense, but no luck. The doctors say Dante should be back to normal in a couple of hours.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mom.” Skye looked at her watch as she hung up. It wasn’t even noon yet. She had seven hours before Wally was supposed to show up. She could probably finish painting the sunroom. And maybe as she painted, an idea about Ashley’s whereabouts might pop into her head.

  By the time she spread the drop cloths, taped the windows, and picked up a brush, she was feeling calmer. Skye loved the delicate moss green color she had chosen for the walls. She couldn’t wait until the painting was finished and she could have the new hardwood flooring laid and the floral window treatments hung.

  She painted in contented silence, not even putting on a radio, letting her mind wander from mystery to mystery. Who had killed Cherry Alexander and why? Where had Xenia hidden Ashley, and how had she managed to subdue the cheerleader? What did Wally have to tell her, and why at her house instead of his, their usual meeting place?

  Hmm. If the body had been Grandma Sal, after that argument that went out over the PA system last night, Skye would have thought her son did her in. But there was no way Cherry could have been mistaken for Grandma Sal.

  What did she know about Cherry? She was self-centered, annoying, and married to a surfer dude who was boinking Mary Poppins. All of that certainly gave the husband and the nanny motive.

  Skye got down from the ladder, balanced the brush across the open paint can, and grabbed a pen and paper from the end table. She made a
note of her thoughts about Kyle and Larissa.

  While she was at it, she added the guy in the soiled jumpsuit who had helped May that morning. Who was he, and what was on his clothes?

  This time when Skye got back to painting, Xenia and Ashley popped into her mind. Had Xenia drugged Ashley? But surely someone would notice one teenage girl hauling an unconscious friend around. Especially since Xenia’s preferred mode of attire was gothic-punk sex kitten.

  Was there any way Xenia could have persuaded or tricked Ashley into going with her? But what did Xenia have that Ashley would want? Certainly not her spiked dog collar or stiletto granny boots.

  Okay, forget how; concentrate on where. Skye paused to move the ladder, then picked up where she had left off. Where? It took several minutes, but suddenly an idea came to her mind. Could “kept on ice” equate to ice cream?

  The local soft-serve drive-in, the Dairy Kastle, closed at the end of September and didn’t unbolt its wooden shutters until the beginning of May. Surely they would have a freezer, even if it wasn’t running.

  As Skye finished the last wall and put away her equipment, the idea of Xenia keeping Ashley at the Dairy Kastle grew stronger and stronger. Xenia wouldn’t hesitate to break into a locked building. The drive-in was on the edge of town, and the gas station that was next to it was out of business, so Ashley could scream her head off and no one would hear. Yes, Xenia could be hiding Ashley at the Dairy Kastle.

  Skye hurried to the parlor and grabbed the phone, dialing as she ran upstairs. Shit! Quirk was still at the warehouse questioning suspects, Wally was in Laurel informing Cherry’s husband of her death, and the dispatcher couldn’t help her contact either one. Thea said that there was no officer at the police station at that moment, and asked whether it was an emergency, or if Skye would like to leave a message.

  Skye wanted to declare it an emergency, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to do so. After asking Thea to tell Quirk to call her, she tried to let the idea go, but couldn’t.

  She looked at the clock. It had taken her a little over five hours to finish the sunroom and talk to Thea at the PD, so she still had two hours until Wally was due. She’d check out the Dairy Kastle herself.