Out of Tune

by Norah McClintock

  More cop cars arrived. So did the media. As for the volunteers, nobody wanted to leave without knowing exactly what was going on. We milled around search headquarters for a good thirty minutes before Detective Martin finally called us together, thanked us all for our hard work and told us we would be escorted from the site by uniformed officers so as to minimize any further contamination of what was now a death-investigation scene. Ashleigh announced she was starving and wanted to go to the Sip ’n’ Bite for something to eat. I still felt queasy from what I had seen, and Charlie’s face was still chalky. He had no appetite. We walked him home, asked him a dozen times if he was okay, heard him say he was, even though he didn’t look it, and left him on his porch. I went to the Sip ’n’ Bite for a mug of ginger tea and turned away when Ashleigh doused her fries in blood-red ketchup.

  It was nearly two in the morning when Aunt Ginny flung her keys into the enameled brass bowl on the little table in the front hall and kicked her boots halfway across the floor, where the thunk-thunk they made when they hit the wall roused me from sleep. I went downstairs to greet her. And to see what I could find out about Alicia.

  “She was murdered, right?” I asked. That’s what it had looked like to me. Judging from the amount of blood matted into her hair and congealed around her head, and the absence of any indication of something having, say, fallen on her accidentally, it looked as if someone had bludgeoned her. Or shot her. The thought of either made me queasy all over again.

  “It’s a homicide, yes,” Aunt Ginny said. “And I’m on the case.”

  “Lead?” I asked. Being lead detective on a homicide case was everything Aunt Ginny had ever wanted. She had been working toward that goal for her entire adult life.

  “Well, no.” She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it onto the couch in the living room before heading for the fridge and pulling out a tub of caramel ice cream. She grabbed a spoon from the utensil drawer and sat down at the kitchen table to dig in.

  “Did you know this girl, Riley?”

  “I knew of her.” I told her everything I knew.

  “Josh says you were the one to call him.”

  “Charlie was the one who found her.”

  “I know.” She looked me over. “What I mean is, are you okay? Finding…something like that, it can be pretty traumatic.”

  “I’m okay, Aunt Ginny,” I said. But if I had it to do over again, knowing what I now knew, I never would have left that line.

  “Is Charlie okay?”

  “He was pretty shaky when Ashleigh and I left him at home. I hope he’s okay.”

  Aunt Ginny nodded and dug her spoon into the ice cream to extract a particularly rich vein of caramel. “Josh says there was another girl with you. Carrie Denison.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What was she doing there?”

  “I don’t know. I guess she noticed Charlie and me and got curious. I think she regrets it. She was shaking harder than Charlie.”

  “Did anyone else come and look at the body before Josh showed up?”

  “No.”

  Aunt Ginny nodded, and I knew she had committed to memory everything I’d told her about Alicia and how we’d found her. Before she did anything else, she would take out her notebook and write it all down. She put the lid on the ice cream and put it back in the freezer.

  “Go to bed,” Aunt Ginny said. “It’ll be time for school before you know it.”

  Moorebridge woke up Monday morning to the news that Alicia Allen had been bludgeoned on the head and left for dead. The weapon, something consistent with a tree branch, most likely a piece of windfall, had so far not been located. According to the pathologist, the blows had caused bleeding in her brain. It had taken Alicia several hours to die. The police chief assured the public that everything possible was being done to locate and bring Alicia’s killer to justice. In the meantime, parents were warned to keep an eye on their children, and everyone, especially young females, was warned to exercise extreme caution and, as much as possible, avoid walking alone. Everyone was advised to stay clear of the woods until further notice.

  School was chaotic. A lot of kids had volunteered to search for Alicia, and they all spun stories for the kids who hadn’t volunteered. It didn’t matter what they had actually seen or even if they had seen anything at all. They had been there, and therefore they had something to report. My homeroom teacher broached the topic of Alicia’s death, and as part of the announcements that morning we were told (a) that grief counselors would be available, should anyone feel the need to talk to one, and (b) the police would be at school gathering information as part of their investigation into Alicia’s murder. Anyone who knew Alicia and/or had any information relevant to her death should cooperate with police.

  Sure enough, I caught glimpses of both Aunt Ginny and Detective Martin as I went through the day. Once they were out in the schoolyard talking to kids, mostly older kids. Another time I saw them in the school office, where they were talking to the principal.

  “I don’t know what the big mystery is,” Ashleigh grumbled at lunch. “If you ask me, Carrie did it.”

  “Carrie Denison?” I stared at her. “What makes you think that?”

  “Well, first of all, Carrie hated Alicia’s guts. I know. I saw them in a catfight the day before Alicia disappeared. Carrie threatened to kill Alicia.”

  “What? No way. It was probably just a figure of speech.”

  “Uh-uh. This was the real deal,” Ashleigh said. “I heard her. And saw her. She meant what she said. She shoved Alicia around. She was getting really physical.”

  “Over what?”

  “Over the announcement about the youth orchestra.”

  “Huh?”

  “Seriously?” Ashleigh shook her head, incredulous. “How do you not know this? Everyone was talking about it.”

  “You weren’t,” I said. “Not until now.”

  Ashleigh ignored the comment. “Alicia and Carrie both play violin.”

  “I know.”

  “They were both in the school orchestra, both in the regional orchestra, and they both tried out for the national youth orchestra.”

  That I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t even know there was a national youth orchestra. Ashleigh had to enlighten me about that as well.

  “You have to audition for it, and it’s really competitive,” she continued. “To be in it at their age is a big deal, because they’re the youngest players. And you have to be better than good to get in, Riley. You’re up against kids from the city whose parents send them to private lessons and conservatories, kids who are obsessive about practising. But if you get in, and if you’re good and you work hard, you’re practically guaranteed to get accepted into the music program of your choice when you graduate high school. And the national youth orchestra is supposedly one of the best anywhere. It tours. It’s even done some recordings.”

  “And both Carrie and Alicia are—or were—good enough to try out for it?” I asked. Everyone knew Alicia was a natural. But Carrie? I’d seen Carrie goofing around at school with her buddies Tina and Desiree. She struck me as a total lightweight, more interested in shopping and gossiping than anything else. I had trouble picturing her being serious enough about anything, let alone the violin, to actually excel at it.

  “Both of their mothers boast about them to my mother every time they come into the store.” Ashleigh’s parents were pharmacists and operated a drugstore on Moorebridge’s main street.

  “So they were fighting about playing violin?”

  Ashleigh rolled her eyes. “They were fighting over a spot in the youth orchestra. They both auditioned for it. They both wanted it. Alicia got it. It was announced on Monday.”

  “And?”

  Ashleigh shook her head in exasperation. “Really? Are you really not getting this?”

  “Are you telling me that Alicia got picked, and Carrie was—what?—so insanely jealous that she killed her?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m t
elling you. Carrie claims that Alicia got the position because Mr. Todd pressured the head of the youth orchestra to give it to her. And because Mr. Todd is such a big deal—”

  “Okay, wait a minute.” I stopped her right there. “Mr. Todd is a big deal?” He was the music teacher at our school, a middle-aged, slightly hunched man with an intense stare. I wasn’t in any of his classes. I didn’t take music. But I had heard about him and his high standards, which meant a lot of practicing for kids in the school orchestra.

  Ashleigh rolled her eyes again. “Mr. Todd has a lot of pull. That’s what everyone says.”

  “What?” I demanded. “No offense to anyone, I’m sure, but he teaches music at a regional high school pretty much in the middle of nowhere. If he was such a big deal, at a bare minimum he’d be teaching at some private school somewhere. More likely, he wouldn’t be teaching school at all. He’d be teaching at some prestigious conservatory somewhere.”

  “Riley, Riley, Riley.” She shook her head. “Mr. Todd came highly recommended. He’s supposed to be one of the best music teachers in the country. A lot of his previous students are successful professional musicians now.”

  “Then what’s he doing up here?”

  “He got sick. I don’t know all the details, but he had to give up conducting.”

  “He was a conductor?”

  “Yes. But it was too much pressure for him. And then his sister died, and he was named guardian for her son. That’s why he moved up here. To take care of Simon.”

  “Simon?”

  “Simon Phillips.”

  “The piano player?”

  The Simon Phillips who went to our school was eighteen and in his last year of school. I knew who he was because during the second or third week of the semester, I made what turned out to be the huge mistake of dropping a textbook in the hallway outside the music room. The book—biology—was one of those brick-like tomes that tugs you backward after you put it in your backpack. The book hit the ground with an explosive bang that echoed in the hallway, which up until that very minute had been filled with the sweet strains of piano music. I don’t know the name of the piece, but it was classical, and it sounded beautiful.

  The instant I dropped the book—accidentally, as I was forced to explain over and over again—the music stopped. I heard footsteps. The door to the music room flew open and a tall, skinny, red-faced boy appeared. He ripped into me for ruining his practice. Didn’t I know better than to make noise in the hallway when someone was quite obviously practising? Was I trying to destroy his concentration? What was I doing up there, anyway? There were no lockers in the hall outside the music room. Who did I think I was? Et cetera, et cetera.

  To say he was angry would be an understatement. He was enraged. He was still yelling at me after I had apologized, after I had explained for the fifth time that it was an accident, and after I had slunk down the hall to the stairs. I found out later from Charlie that his name was Simon and that, yes, he was weird and kind of anal. But that he was also a musical prodigy, which was supposed to explain his weirdness, although, in Charlie’s opinion, Simon was just full of himself. All the praise had gone to his head and made him stuck up and holier than thou. It also explained why he looked down his long nose at everyone else, not only in school but also in town, and probably in the whole county—at least according to Charlie.

  “Yes, the piano player,” Ashleigh said in answer to my question. “And listen to this. I heard that Simon only became as good as he is after Uncle Richard—Mr. Todd—took over his care. I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard he practices six or eight hours a day. I don’t even know how that’s possible unless he doesn’t sleep.”

  All of which I had to admit was interesting, but… “What does Simon have to do with Alicia?” I asked.

  Ashleigh sighed. “I wasn’t talking about Simon. I was talking about his uncle. And I wasn’t really talking about him either except to say that, according to Carrie, he got the first violin position for Alicia. Carrie accused her of being teacher’s pet.”

  I shook my head. I like music as much as the next person. Maybe more. After all, I more or less grew up on my Grandpa Jimmy’s tour bus. Jimmy was a rock star back in the sixties and had a loyal following up until the day he died suddenly of a heart attack. Jimmy and the guys put on a great show, and it wasn’t unusual for old fans to drag their kids to see them and for those kids to become big fans too. Jimmy’s love of music was infectious. But I doubt it would ever have crossed his mind to get even with a competitor by literally knocking him off.

  “It doesn’t seem like much of a motive for murder, Ashleigh.”

  She studied the doubt on my face. “You have to understand Carrie,” she said. “She has a temper. A serious temper. When she gets mad, she throws things. I heard there are dents all over the walls of her bedroom from where she punched them. She slapped a girl once, so hard that the girl had a hand-print on her cheek for two days. She’s exactly the kind of person who would get so angry about losing out to Alicia that she’d turn violent.” She reflected for a few seconds. “If you ask me, she definitely did it.”

  FOUR

  I was on my way to school the next morning when someone called my name. I braked and looked around.

  “Over here.”

  Carrie Denison waved at me from the alley between the hardware store and the real estate office next to it. I backed up and got off my bike.

  She looked different than she usually did. Grayer somehow. Maybe it was the complete lack of makeup—no mascara, eye shadow, blusher or lipstick to brighten her face. Maybe it was the insipid yellow sweater she was wearing. It made her skin look sallow. Her hair, which was usually thick and glossy, lay limp and flat around her head. She was pale and drawn, as if she’d been having trouble sleeping. Maybe she was reliving what she had seen in the woods on Sunday morning.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. “But not here.”

  “Talk to me? About what?”

  “The cops questioned me yesterday. They think I did it. They think I killed Alicia.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t even know why she was telling me this.

  She glanced around nervously. “You know the little park next to the Legion?”

  I nodded.

  “Meet me there in five minutes.”

  “I have school.”

  “Please? I need your help.”

  I’m pretty sure my mouth was open as I stared at her. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Five minutes. Please,” she said. She disappeared down the alley before I could reply.

  I debated whether to follow her. For sure it would mean being late for school, and that would mean a trip to Mr. Chen’s office to offer an explanation and get a late slip. It took all of two seconds for curiosity to get the better of me. I jumped on my bike and was at the park before she was. We sat on a bench as far from the road as possible.

  “I know you don’t know me,” Carrie said. “But I’ve heard about you. Everybody has. You solved Ethan Crawford’s murder. And you figured out what happened to Mr. Goran. I need help to prove I didn’t kill Alicia.”

  “If you really are a suspect, Carrie, then you’re going to need a good lawyer,” I said. “This is serious.”

  “I know it’s serious.” She looked evenly at me, and I saw a steeliness in her eyes that surprised me. She looked hard somehow, not like the usual ditz I sometimes glimpsed around school. “That’s why I’m talking to you. I don’t think the cops are the only ones who think I did it.”

  “What do you mean? What about your parents?”

  “What about them?” Her tone was dismissive.

  “They believe you.”

  “Do they?”

  “I’m sure they do. They’re your parents.” They had to believe her. That’s what parents did, right? They believed in their kids, and they stuck by them, no matter what.

  She hesitated and looked down at her feet. It was a full minute before
her eyes met mine again. Her whole body was stiff, and her knuckles white where she clasped her hands on her lap. “Not many people know this, but they’re not really my parents.”

  “You’re adopted?”

  “Marion, my mom—well, I refer to her as my mom, but I always call her Marion. Some of my friends can’t believe I call my parents by their first names, but she’s not my mom. She was my real mom’s best friend. My real mom and dad were both only children. And their parents were also only children. Weird, huh?”

  “Families are a lot smaller than they used to be.”

  “Yeah, well mine was so small that when my parents were killed in a car accident when I was two, there were no relatives to take me. My grandparents were dead. There were no uncles or aunts. No cousins. Just good old Marion, who became my legal guardian. Marion always wanted kids, but she couldn’t have any no matter what she tried. Then my parents died, and she got me. She called me her daughter right from the start.”

  “Right. Like I said. So you’re adopted.”

  “Sort of, I guess. But not really. Marion and Edward never legally adopted me.”

  “How come?” Adoption seemed like the natural next step when a woman was already calling an orphan her daughter.

  “I don’t know. I think it has something to do with Edward, but I don’t know what.” She didn’t sound happy. “Things were pretty good until I got to be about twelve. Then…I don’t know. All of a sudden everything I did got on Marion’s nerves. She’s never come right out and said it, but I think she regrets taking me in.”

  “What about your dad…I mean, Edward?”

  “He’s okay. He’s kind of sweet. But he’s never gotten too involved with me. He leaves everything to Marion. I think he’s a little afraid of me. Of me being a girl, you know? When the cops showed up at the house, he let her do all the talking. When he looked at me, which I think he did maybe once the whole time the cops were there, it was like the sight of me made his eyes hurt. And Marion—all she cares about is how horrible this whole thing is for her. She’s mortified that the police seem to think I killed someone, and she’s convinced that everyone thinks she’s a terrible mother because otherwise how did she end up with a murderer living under her roof? She says she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to hold her head up when she goes into town. She’ll probably pray that people will forgive her for raising something like me.”