Murder of a Royal Pain (14 page)

“Like what?”

“They try to either bribe or blackmail us into voting for their kids, and if that doesn’t work they go after our parents. Jobs have been lost and loans turned down.”

“You’re kidding.” Skye was shocked.

“It would help if it was a secret ballot, instead of a show of hands.”

Skye was silent. She’d had no idea. But now that she did, she’d make sure the upcoming vote was confidential.

“You watch, this year is going to be a bloodbath.” Frannie shook her head. “Mrs. Paine will do anything to have Linnea crowned queen. And Mrs. Harrison feels the same way about getting Cheyenne the title.”

“But why?”

“Why do people want Prada purses and Corvettes?” Frannie rolled her eyes. “They want everyone to envy them. Their self-image is at stake.”

Hmm.
Could that be the motive behind Annette’s murder? Heck, it would fit as a motive to murder Nina Miles, as well. They both had daughters in the running for prom queen. There was something wrong with that logic, but Skye was too tired to figure out what. It was getting late. Time to ask the hard question.

“So, much as I miss you and am happy to see you, why are you here?”

“Because my father’s going to kill me.”

“Do I want to know why?” One advantage to Frannie’s being out of high school was that Skye didn’t have to worry about doing the right thing as Frannie’s school psychologist. Instead, she could be the girl’s friend.

“Probably not, but since I need you to tell Dad for me, you have no choice.”

“What do you need me to tell him?” Warning bells were sounding in Skye’s head. “And why can’t you tell him yourself?”

“Because he won’t yell at you, and by the time he sees me, he’ll have calmed down.”

“Your father is about the calmest man I know.” Sometimes Skye wondered if Xavier had a pulse. If she hadn’t seen him out in the sunlight, she would have sworn he was a vampire.

“That’s the problem.” Frannie leaned forward. “He never gets mad, so when he does, it’s worse than if he did it all the time.”

Skye could understand that—she hated dealing with people who stuffed all their emotions down deep inside them, then blew like Mount Saint Helens once they finally let go—but she still wasn’t going be the one to tell Xavier Frannie’s bad news.

“Your dad loves you more than life itself,” Skye reassured Frannie. “It must be something pretty terrible if you think he’ll go nuts.”

She tried to imagine all the things an eighteen-year-old girl could say to her dad that would cause him to have a meltdown. Pregnancy?
Eek!
That would be bad in so many ways. What else? Had she wrecked the car? No, Frannie didn’t have a vehicle at school. That left only one possibility.

“Tell me you’re not quitting college,” Skye pleaded. “You’ve only been there a month.”

“But I hate it.” Frannie’s bottom lip quivered. “I don’t have any friends, and the classes are a lot harder than high school. I’ve never gotten lower than an A-minus in my life, but I got a D on my first biology test.”

“Give it time. Now that you realize it’s harder, you’ll study more and bring up that grade. And, once you find the right group, you’ll make friends. Remember, it took you a while in high school, too.” Skye scooted her chair closer to Frannie’s. “Hey, I just thought of something. My sorority, Alpha Sigma Alpha, has a chapter at Loyola. Maybe you could go through rush and—”

“Get real,” Frannie cut her off. “No sorority will invite me to pledge. Those peroxide monsters don’t want someone my size in their house. I’m guessing you looked different in college than you do now.”

“Yeah,” Skye joked, “I looked about a hundred years younger.” At Frannie’s disappointed expression she quickly added, “Okay. Yes, I was thinner, but ASA isn’t like that. We’re more concerned about personality and values and a good fit with the other sisters.”

Frannie grunted, then exhaled in a long whoosh of air. Her expression clearly stated that she thought Skye was hopelessly out of touch with reality.

“Really.” Skye tried to convince the girl. “And I could put in a good word for you.”

Frannie bit her lip. “It’s not only the grades and the friends. . . .”

“Then what?”

“I miss it here. I hate the city. I thought I’d love it, but I’m scared all the time. We’ve been told not to even walk to the library by ourselves. Besides, I miss my dad and Justin and you.”

“Oh. But your scholarship . . .” Skye wasn’t sure how to respond. She wasn’t all that fond of the city either, but she’d lived in one for more than a month before making that judgment. And if Frannie dropped out of Loyola, she’d be giving up a full ride. Could Xavier afford tuition somewhere else? “It’s just that opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.”

Frannie shrugged.

Skye tried again. “I guess all I’m saying is, you might want to give it a little more time before you make such a big decision.”

Frannie shrugged again, then said, “Could you just call my dad?”

I
t took forever to track down Xavier. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning before he arrived to pick up Frannie, and after two when the father and daughter finally drove off together. Then, before going to bed, Skye made the mistake of checking her answering machine.

The first message was from Wally, a terse, “There’s still no word on why my father collapsed.” A pause. “You need to check your cell. I keep getting a busy signal. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Shoot! A busy signal?
What was wrong with her cell phone?

The second call was from Vince. His voice sounded funny, but all he said was, “I need to talk to you. I’ll stop by when I get done with work tomorrow.”

Afterward, Skye lay in bed staring at the ceiling. She took turns picking at the various worries in her life as if they were scabs. First, there was Wally’s father. Was he okay? How would Wally handle it if he wasn’t?

Next, her thoughts turned to the murder. Was Annette really the target, and would Quirk be able to solve the case? What if the killer had really been after Skye or one of the other witches? Would he try again?

Then there was Frannie’s decision to quit college. Would she truly drop out? Did she plan to go somewhere else? And if she didn’t, would she end up working dead-end jobs for the rest of her life?

Last, there was Vince’s mysterious message. What could be wrong with her brother?

It was nearly dawn before Skye fell asleep, and she didn’t wake up until after one thirty in the afternoon. As she sipped a cup of Earl Grey tea, she turned the radio on to WSRE—the voice of Scumble River. Annette’s mysterious death dominated the local news.

Shit!
She wasn’t surprised the information was out so quickly, but Kurt had better not have been the one to leak the story. Now the murderer knew the identity of his victim. If Annette hadn’t been his intended target, his real quarry was now in danger.

Skye ate a handful of dry cereal. She really had to go to the grocery store. She’d better call Trixie to see if her friend could give her a ride to the old American Legion hall to pick up her car. But first she needed to talk to Wally.

While she got dressed, she punched in his number. It immediately went to voice mail, and she left a message for him to get in touch with her as soon as he could.

Next she dialed Trixie, whose first words were, “Why do I always miss all the excitement?”

“Yeah. Right.” Skye snorted. “It’s oh, so much fun wandering around a haunted house tripping over dead bodies.”

Trixie ignored Skye’s statement and peppered her with questions.

Skye finally managed to say, “Give me a ride to my car, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Once Skye explained why her car was at the American Legion hall, Trixie said, “I’ll be right over.”

Fifteen minutes later, Skye met Trixie in the driveway, and as she hopped into her friend’s Civic, Trixie demanded, “Spill.”

“You really had to be there.” Skye buckled her seat belt. “Last night was one of the worst, the longest, and the most bizarre nights of my life.”

Clearly unsatisfied with Skye’s answer, Trixie said, “That’s the point. I wasn’t there. So tell me already.”

“I guess it all started when Justin told me about the ghosts.”

“Oh, my God!” Trixie squealed. “This is even better than I thought.”

Skye filled her friend in, concluding with, “Anyway, after the police let us go, guess who was waiting in the parking lot for me?”

“Simon.”

“No. He had to go with the body. The new reporter in town, Kurt Michaels.”

“Oh, he’s a hunk. I hope you were nice to him.”

Skye described their conversation and drive home. “Don’t you think that was odd?”

“He’s definitely hiding something. Maybe he’s an FBI agent.”

“Investigating what?” Skye snickered. “Illegal haunted houses?”

They both laughed.

Skye finished up with, “Oh, yeah. Frannie was waiting for me on my porch when I got home,
and
she’s decided to quit college. And to add icing to the cake, there was a mysterious message from Vince on my answering machine. He said he needs to talk to me and is coming by after work.”

“What do you think that’s about?”

“My optimistic side hopes he’s going to tell me he and Loretta are getting married.”

Trixie frowned. “And your pessimistic side?”

“Hopes that whatever the problem is, it’s something I can fix before Mom and Dad get home from Vegas.”

Trixie was silent for a moment, then brought the conversation back to the murder. “Do you think Annette was the intended victim, or do you think it was supposed to be one of the three women everyone thought would be dressed as witches?”

“I don’t know.” Skye shrugged. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill me—other than a crazed parent.”

“Could one of the parents you’ve worked with be that angry?”

Skye considered Mrs. Idell and nodded reluctantly. “I guess it’s possible. I’m pretty sure a disgruntled parent slashed my tire.”

After Skye explained about the note she had found on her car, Trixie said, “We need to find out if anyone had a reason to want either Hope Kennedy or Nina Miles dead.”

“That’s a good idea.” Skye bit her lip. “I’ll try to find out if Quirk is concentrating on Annette, or if he’s looking into the other witches’ enemies, as well. But he told me to stay out of it—”

“Men are like horoscopes,” Trixie cut Skye off. “They always tell you what to do and are usually wrong.”

Skye giggled, then completed her interrupted sentence. “So, I’m not sure how to get that information.”

“You need to call Simon. With both your mom and Wally gone, he’s your only contact at the police department.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why?”

“What if he thinks I’m trying to get back together with him?”

“Then maybe your reporter friend has dug something up. Call him.”

“That’s not a good idea either.”

“Again, why?”

“Because I don’t want him to get the wrong idea either.” Skye felt her cheeks color, and quickly added, “Besides, he’d probably end up getting more info from me than I would from him.”

“Then I guess it’s you and me, Sherlock.” Trixie stomped on the brake pedal, threw the little car into reverse, turned it around, and headed in the opposite direction. “Let’s go talk to Nina and Hope.”

No one was home at Hope Kennedy’s house, so Trixie and Skye drove over to Nina Miles’s. Nina lived in the expensive part of Scumble River, where each of the houses was situated on several acres of land. It was ironic that they all backed up to an old graveyard. The homeowners had fought long and hard to have the bodies moved, but had lost the battle. At the time, Skye had wondered why they had built their houses there to begin with, if they didn’t like living next to a cemetery. It wasn’t as if the tombstones had popped up overnight.

Trixie parked in the circular driveway, and she and Skye climbed up the steps leading to the impressive double doors. The house had an ultramodern design with lots of angles, and as Skye rang the bell she craned her neck at the window that jutted overhead.

When Bree answered the door, she asked, “Ms. Frayne, what are you doing here? Did I miss a cheerleading practice?”

As well as being the school librarian and cosponsor of the student newsletter, Trixie was also the cheerleading coach.

“No, Bree.” Trixie shook her head. “We need to talk to your mom about something.”

The girl looked apprehensive. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not at all,” Skye reassured the teenager. “Is your mom home?”

“Yes, she’s watching TV.”

“May we talk to her?” Trixie asked.

“Sure, come on in.”

Bree pointed them down a hallway and disappeared. As Skye and Trixie rounded the corner, Skye could see Nina sitting on a couch in the family room.

Nina tried to gather up the used tissues surrounding her when she spotted Skye and Trixie, saying, “Please excuse the mess; I can’t seem to shake this bug.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Skye waved away the woman’s apology. “We’re sorry to bother you when you’re not feeling well, but we have something important to discuss with you.”

“Of course, please have a seat.” Nina motioned to the overstuffed chairs facing the sofa.

Skye wasn’t sure how to start, but Trixie said, “We’re here about Annette Paine’s murder.”

“Murder?” Nina coughed. “I thought the police didn’t know how she died yet.”

“From what I saw, I’m pretty sure it was murder.” Skye said.

“What did you see?” Nina demanded.

“Sorry, I can’t say,” Skye answered. “But I’m not sure she was the intended victim.”

“Why?” Nina sneezed and blew her nose.