Buzz Kill (6 page)

Over the years, I'd blurted out a lot of surprising things to Ms. Parkins, from my plan, at age ten, to walk a tightrope I'd strung between my second-story bedroom window and an oak tree in my backyard to my confession that I was starting to grow hair in unusual places. Inevitably, she responded with a book recommendation, be it a biography of the Wallenda family, which had probably saved me a broken leg by convincing me that I didn't know squat about “tension” and “slack,” or the classic
What's Happening to Me? A Guide to Puberty,
which had spared me a talk with my father that would've been more painful than shattered limbs. Never once, though, had she looked startled the way she did when I mentioned my dad being connected to a murder.

That's odd.

Or maybe I was imagining things, because she quickly recovered and said, “I'm sure that even Vivienne”—Ms. Parkins was well versed on Viv's capabilities, as she was a subject of frequent discussion—“can't really cause trouble for your father. Especially since the
Gazette,
while definitely a quality paper, is the voice of a high school, not the whole community.”

“Oh, don't underestimate Viv—or the reach of the
Gazette,
” I said. “The print version might only be read by a bunch of students and teachers. But the online edition gets about thirty thousand hits a week during football season.” I shrugged, not getting the whole fascination with football, but explaining, “You know how Stingers fans are. They can't get enough of the team, even after they move away from Honeywell. We get comments and e-mail from people in, like, Sri Lanka who still follow the Stingers.”

“Yes,” Ms. Parkins said quietly. “Football is king around here, for better or for worse . . .”

She seemed to drift off, biting her bright-pink lower lip. She was one of those women who could successfully wear fuchsia lipstick, a lime-green cardigan, and three cocktail rings, each with a huge faux jewel. If I'd worn that outfit,
I
would've been judged psychotic and probably carted away. But Ms. Parkins could carry it off.

“Umm . . . Ms. Parkins?” I finally said, to bring her back from what was obviously a mental vacation from the library. And not a relaxing one, judging from the look on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes . . . Yes,” she reassured me, pulling herself together and smiling. “And I'm sure your father will be fine.”

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed, not certain why we were talking about Dad again. Then, because I needed to get going, I placed the books I'd been withholding on the counter, trying not to seem embarrassed. “This is all for today, I guess.”

It was to Ms. Parkins's credit that she didn't mock me. “Classic Nancy Drew!” she said, with genuine appreciation in her voice. “Now,
she'll
teach you how to solve a mystery.”

I told Ms. Parkins a lot of stuff, but I didn't tell her that I wasn't really checking out a bunch of dated, corny books about a teen sleuth to learn how to solve a crime. I had a deeper, secret reason for wanting to revisit those old novels. A motive that I'd never confide to anybody because it was something I'd shared only with my mom.

“While he or she may be socially adept, the true psychopath has no genuine concern for the welfare of strangers, friends or family.”

“Jeez,” I muttered out loud, tossing aside
The Psycho Killer Next Door
after reading only five paragraphs. The author had already described Vivienne Fitch to a “t,” so why bother with the remaining three hundred pages?

Then I fumbled blindly around on my bed for my Double Deluxe, extra Bungee sauce, from my favorite restaurant, Bungee Burger, while I used the other hand to grab
Do-It-Yourself Detective.
Opening to a random page, I took a bite of my sandwich and read,
“Methodical legwork is still the best way to solve a crime.”

Unfortunately, I wasn't a methodical person—wasn't even reading the book in order—and I ditched the detecting guide on the floor, too, in favor of
The Hidden Staircase,
the first Nancy Drew I'd read with my mother, when she'd gotten sick. That had been our thing. Curling up together and me reading the stories to her.

I hadn't thought about those books much since her death—until I'd decided to dabble in “sleuthing” myself and impulsively grabbed a bunch at the library, thinking it might be fun to refresh my memory about how a teenager went about solving a crime. But as I held that old novel by its iconic yellow spine, all of a sudden I lost my appetite.

Everything about this book reminds me of Mom.

Forcing myself to choke down what felt like a hunk of lead on my tongue, I pushed away my dinner and set
The Hidden Staircase
on my messy desk, next to my cell phone.

I guess I'll have to do this my way, without help from experts—or Nancy Drew.

I didn't really have a plan, but I found myself picking up my phone and, on impulse—maybe because I felt restless and claustrophobic in my room—texting Laura and Ryan:

 

Meet me corner Arch & Maple in 15.

 

Then, while I waited for their replies, I started searching a pile of clothes on my floor for a black shirt suitable for a break-in.

“Millie, you know I want you to win another one of those Peacemaker thingies—and show up Viv,” Laura said nervously. “But do you really think this is a good idea? I mean,
Ryan
wouldn't do it.”

“Ryan has a chem test tomorrow, or he'd be here.” I kind of fibbed because while the part about the exam was true, he'd also texted “RU NUTS??” when I'd revealed my plan to search Coach Killdare's house. Locating a promising dark window on the back of Hollerin' Hank's property, I led us in that direction, explaining, “If I'm going to solve this case, I need to understand Mr. Killdare. See how he lived, who he was.” I could tell she wasn't convinced, so I added, “It's in all the detecting how-to books.”

Well, it probably was.

“Millie?” Laura grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You don't really think Viv and Mike could've, you know . . .”

After swearing Laura to secrecy—because even if I didn't like Viv or Mike, I didn't want to spread unfounded, hideous rumors about them—I'd filled my best friend in on the conversation I'd overheard at the theater. “I honestly don't know,” I said. “But I can't just sit around while Viv either steals the biggest story of the decade from me or gets away with murder—or both.” I resumed leading us across the yard. “I need to start investigating.”

Laura trotted behind me. “Why don't we just Google Mr. Killdare?”

Okay, maybe I
had
skipped a logical step or two. “We'll do that later, of course,” I said, like that had been my plan all along. “But first I need to see the milieu of his life.”

“The
mildew
of his life?” Laura cried. “I don't want to see that! How would
that
help?”

“No offense, but if you're worried about getting caught, you should lower your voice,” I suggested, pressing my shoulder against the window I'd selected. “And why didn't you wear black, like I told you to? Did you really have to promote breast cancer awareness
tonight?
” Inexplicably, Laura was wearing a pink T-shirt to a felony. “You know I'm committed to curing every kind of cancer, but seriously . . . tonight?”

“I didn't really think we'd do this!” She sounded close to panicked as I gave the window a shove—and it rose a few inches, like I'd expected. Nobody in Honeywell locked windows during the warm months. “I thought you'd chicken out. You don't generally do things that require moving around, or even standing up, you know. I see you in gym class!”

“Well, that's all changing.” I rammed my shoulder against the old wooden frame again. Just a few more inches, and I'd be able to push Laura—who was even smaller than me—through the gap. “You are in the presence of a new Millicent . . .”

I'd intended to say my full name—Millicent Marie Ostermeyer—but all at once, the window yielded about six inches, so I nearly lost my footing on the slippery grass, and the next thing I knew . . .

We could actually
get
in.

“You don't think there's a body in here, too, do you?” Laura asked, sounding even more worried than before. “It really smells in here!”

At least, I thought she sounded worried. It was difficult to hear her, since her head was in Coach Killdare's kitchen and her butt was facing me.

“I doubt Mr. Killdare was much for potpourri,” I pointed out, although I had to admit that I was also a little put off by the strange stink coming out of our teacher's house. An odor that was definitely not the stench of death, yet somehow familiar. “Just wriggle in,” I urged. “Then unlock the door, okay?”

Laura continued to delay. “I don't understand why you get to just walk in, while I have to do this . . .”

She was starting to complain, but was cut short as she dropped all the way into the kitchen, hitting the floor with a thud. At which point she screamed at the top of her lungs, then cried, way too loudly for a covert operation, “Millie . . . Something is
licking me!
”

“It's creepy in here,” Laura whined, sticking too close to me in the dark kitchen. She looked down at her feet, where a long shadow loomed. “And that
thing
keeps following us.”

“I knew I recognized that stench,” I said, bending down to pet the ugliest basset hound I'd ever seen. It was so hideous that it crossed the line into being
awesome,
and I wanted to take it home, name it something like Chumley, feed it Slim Jims, and make it my permanent trademark sidekick who went with me everywhere. I rumpled Chum's already wrinkled head. “My Aunt Inez had a dog just like you, and her house always stank, too.” I realized that was insulting and added, “Don't feel bad. It's not your fault. It's a hound thing.”

“Can we get on with this?” Laura urged. “Before we get caught?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” I started to move around the room, appraising everything with the beam of a flashlight I'd actually had the foresight to bring.

“What are we even looking for?” Laura asked. “And don't say mildew. Or clues.”

Darn it.
I had been about to utter that second word, because I still wasn't sure what I'd expected to find in Mr. Killdare's house.

Certainly not the greatest dog ever . 
.
 . Yes, you are, Chumley! Yes, you are!

“Will you leave that smelly mutt alone?” Laura begged as I tugged a pair of wonderfully droopy ears. “Please? Because if I get arrested, I'm pretty sure I get kicked out of Key Club.”

“Oh, fine.” I again swept the light around the kitchen, which was surprisingly tidy for a bachelor's place. In fact, it was almost
un-bachelor-y.
I held the beam on a wall clock.
A guy like Mr. Killdare—a blustery, nonwhimsical football coach—bought a clock shaped like a chicken? Really?
Then I continued to move the light around the room, noting a matching poultry-themed key holder by the door, with all but one peg filled, as if Mr. Killdare had been organized, in spite of his sloppy appearance. And finally . . .

Jackpot.
Well, maybe.

“You check the refrigerator,” I suggested, moving to the kitchen table, which was covered with envelopes, magazines, and the freebie shopper paper that nobody wanted but everybody got anyway, twice a week.

All at once, looking at that pile, I realized that something seemed . . . off.

I walked by Mr. Killdare's house all the time on my way to the theater, and I hadn't noticed mail piling up on his porch while he'd been missing. And he apparently got a ton of stuff, including big items, like
Sports Illustrated
and . . . I shuffled through the magazines.
Ugh.
Something called
XXtreme Sports,
which featured a woman in a football jersey that didn't exactly fit her right. Meaning it was about seven sizes too small.

Trying to pretend I hadn't seen that, I looked down at Chumley, who was staring up at me expectantly and wagging his tail, like he hoped for a snack. But he obviously wasn't starving, even two weeks after Mr. Killdare's death. Nor was the floor covered in pee and poop.

What's not adding up here?

I was starting to think I might be onto something important when Laura broke my concentration with an inane observation that really made me wish I'd come alone. “Hey, it looks like Mr. Killdare ate a lot of Buffalo wings—and pickles. He's got kosher dill and two jars of sweet gherkins.”

I turned to find Laura bathed in the dim glow of the refrigerator. “I don't know if the gherkins are really crucial.”

“You're the one who told me to check the fridge.” She closed the door, adding, “There's a picture of Mr. Killdare here, too. Under a magnet advertising Willie's Wing Hut.”

I shone the flashlight across the room and saw Coach Killdare scowling at me, as if he wasn't exactly enjoying his time—apparently alone—in a place that looked like Florida. Sunny and beachy. Or maybe it was the palm trees on his shirt that made me think the setting was tropical. “I don't really see it as a clue,” I said. “No more than the pickles.”

Laura crossed her arms defensively. “Well, I don't see you doing any stellar detecting!”

“Actually, I was thinking about how Mr. Killdare's house is clean and the dog is fed.” She gave me a dubious look, so I reached for some envelopes. “I'm checking the mail, too.”

Training the light on a bunch of return addresses, I read a few.

Doctor's office. Hospital. Doctor's office.