Murder of a Pink Elephant (3 page)

Skye shook her head and retreated to her own office. After hanging up her coat, she took out the psychological report she was currently writing. Friday after lunch was a bad time to try and see kids for either evaluations or counseling, so she used those hours to whittle away at the stack of never-ending paperwork that was one of the more irritating parts of her job as a school psychologist.

She was trying to figure out a professional way to state that the boy she had tested did not have a serious emotional problem, and in fact was just a brat, when the dismissal bell rang.

Skye had been roped into being one of the Valentine’s Day Ball sponsors, and the student committee was meeting in the gym after school to put up the decorations. It was time to go supervise.

After locking the folders she had been working on in the file cabinet, Skye grabbed her purse and coat. She was on a tight schedule and needed to get home as soon as they finished decorating. She didn’t want to have to return to her
office and take the chance of being waylaid by an “emergency.”

It was three-fifteen by the time Skye reached the gym. Trixie Frayne—Skye’s best friend, the high school librarian, and another of the dance sponsors—had already gotten the students organized and working.

The kids represented the full range of the high school social strata or, as the kids called it, the food chain. The female Ultras stood around giggling and tossing their long, straight blond hair, avoiding any activity that might break a nail. Their male counterparts flexed their muscles and flashed blindingly white grins. The Student Body Leaders tried to talk to the Ultras, and when they were ignored, snapped orders at the Brains, who along with the Geeks—those in the band and choir—did all the actual work.

“How’s it going?” Skye asked.

Trixie slumped on the bottom bleacher. Her short brown hair, usually a smooth cap, was ruffled as if she had been running her fingers through it, and her normally cheerful brown eyes held a worried expression. She let out a loud sigh.

Skye frowned. This wasn’t at all like Trixie, who usually bounced around like a super ball and saw the silver lining even in a tornado cloud. “What’s wrong?”

The other woman played with the heart-shaped buttons on her red cardigan. “Everything.”

“Could we narrow it down just a little?” Skye leaned forward. “Home, school, the world situation?”

“All of the above.” Trixie crossed her legs and dangled a red high-heeled slide from her toe. “The kids have been really hyped up lately.”

“Do you think the false fire alarm this afternoon had anything to do with their behavior?”

“No. The grapevine says it really was an accident.” Trixie
was one of the few adults the kids felt comfortable confiding in.

“Then they’re probably just excited about the ball.” Since there was little else to do in Scumble River, a school dance was a big deal to the teens.

Trixie shrugged. “It could be. My gut feeling is that something’s going on that the adults don’t know about.”

“And how is that any different from our standard operating procedure?” Skye joked. Trixie didn’t smile and Skye hastily continued in a more serious mode. “I’d be glad to call a couple of the kids in on Monday and try to get them to tell me what’s happening, but odds are all I’ll get are blank stares and denials. Trying to find out that kind of information from teenagers is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.”

Trixie’s expression became stubborn. “Something’s happening, and I want to know what it is.”

Skye twisted a curl around her finger. “Well, we’ve got a meeting with the student newspaper staff scheduled after school Monday. Let’s see if they have any ideas.”

Trixie nodded. “That’s a good plan. If anyone will tell us, it’ll be Frannie and Justin and their friends. They have a strong sense of right and wrong.”

Skye smiled at Trixie’s mention of their two star student reporters, Frannie Ryan and Justin Boward. “And they have an excellent nose for news.”

Trixie nodded again, then lapsed into silence.

Skye could hardly believe how down in the dumps her friend seemed. Something else was obviously bothering her.

She opened her mouth to ask, but before she could formulate a question, Trixie said, “What do you think of the mayoral race?”

Skye shook her head. “I can’t believe Wally’s running.” Walter Boyd was the Scumble River police chief, and it had been quite a surprise when he tossed his hat into the ring for
mayor. “But then, I’ve noticed some changes in his personality lately.”

“Don’t you think he’d do a good job? What changes?”

“I’m sure he’d be an excellent mayor, but I’m surprised he wants the hassle.” Skye considered the last couple of months and tried to explain. “Wally seems to have lost his zest.”

Trixie shrugged, clearly not understanding. “I’m more surprised that Ace Cramer is running against him.” He was the younger of the two male gym teachers and coached the basketball and baseball teams at Scumble High.

Skye jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Speak of the devil.” Ace had just walked into the gym and stopped to talk to the crowd of Ultras. “He seems like a nice enough guy and appears to be pretty smart, which is more than I can say about Coach.” Skye had a running feud going with the older P.E. teacher, who was also the part-time guidance counselor.

“Maybe, but he strikes me as mostly glibido.”

“Huh?” Skye had never heard that expression.

“All talk and no action.”

“Oh.” Skye didn’t really know him well enough to comment.

“And it seems sort of funny for someone employed by the school district to run for public office.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

“The kids sure seem to like him,” Skye said. “He has a group of them surrounding him whenever I see him.”

“True.” Trixie abruptly changed the subject. “We got a call from Owen’s mother’s attorney last night.” Trixie’s mother-in-law had passed away a few months ago.

“What did he have to say?” Skye figured they were finally getting to the main reason for Trixie’s misery.

“That between the hospital, the doctors, and the funeral,
it looks like we’re going to owe about twenty-five thousand bucks.”

Skye let out a low whistle. “There’s no insurance?”

“That’s what’s left
after
her health insurance paid its 80 percent.” Trixie grabbed a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “She only had two thousand in life insurance, and her funeral cost nearly seven. It would be even more if we hadn’t bought the double burial plot when Owen’s dad died last year.”

“What about her house?”

“Between the second mortgage and back taxes, there’s no equity left.” Trixie hunched over. “We’re just barely making the payments on the farm as it is. Last season’s crops were damaged by high winds, and the price of corn and soybeans is way down. The only way we could get twenty-five thousand dollars would be to sell off some acreage, and Owen would rather sell me than an inch of land.”

“Yeah. My dad and uncles are like that, too.” Skye patted her friend’s shoulder. She knew only too well what it was like to have money problems. She had crawled back home a few years ago after maxing out her credit cards and was still struggling to pay off her debts. She didn’t see any easy solution to Trixie’s financial woes and couldn’t think of anything to say that would make her friend feel better.

The two women sat in silence until Skye reached into her purse and pulled out a Cadbury bar. She handed it to Trixie. “You win the emergency chocolate for today.”

Trixie smiled for the first time since Skye’s arrival. Just before she bit into the bar she said, “Damn right I do.”

Trixie polished off the candy and licked her fingers. “Any more?”

Skye stifled the urge to smack her friend. It wasn’t Trixie’s fault she could eat her own weight in sugar and never add an inch to her size four figure, while Skye could
gain pounds by reading a Godiva ad. “Sorry. That’s all I have.”

“Oh, well.” Trixie glanced at the wall clock. “It’s nearly four. We’d better see how the kids are progressing if we want to get out of here by five.”

Trixie and Skye went in separate directions. Using tulle and quilt batting, the students had created a cloud scene that could be used for the backdrop of the couples’ portraits. Streamers and garlands were draped over the ceiling beams, and murals that the art classes had painted hung along the walls. The only thing left to do was set up the tables.

Skye grabbed a pink linen square from a stack sitting on a chair and had just flicked it open when a scream echoed through the gym. Her head snapped toward the sound, and she saw Bitsy Kessler with her mouth open for another shriek. Bitsy was standing by the storage area under the stage and pointing.

Skye dropped the tablecloth and ran toward the girl.

Bitsy was screaming over and over again, “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

Skye pulled her out of the doorway. She didn’t see a body. She took one wary step into the storage area and pulled the string that turned on the overhead light. A little to the left was a dummy draped over a sawhorse, wearing nothing but a Scumble River athletic jacket. The straw stuffed legs and Raggedy Ann-type head made it obvious that it was only a mannequin. By no stretch of the imagination did it look real.

When Skye emerged from the storage area, Trixie was sitting on the bleachers comforting Bitsy, who was still sobbing. The other kids surrounded them.

Skye loudly cleared her throat. They all looked in her direction and she announced, “Everything’s fine. No one is dead. Bitsy must have mistaken an old stage dummy for a
real person, but everything is okay. Please go back to what you were doing.”

The teens drifted back to their tasks.

Skye sat beside Bitsy and asked, “Are you alright now?”

The girl hiccupped and giggled. “My bad.” Her laugh had a hysterical edge to it.

It took Skye a moment to understand that in teenspeak Bitsy had just said she had made a mistake. Skye examined the teen carefully. Something was off-kilter. “Maybe you’d better go home. Is your mother picking you up?”

“Not till five.” Bitsy stood up, suddenly all smiles. “Don’t worry. I’m cool.”

The girl was bewilderingly changeable, and Skye resolved to stick close to her until her ride arrived.

They finished decorating the gym a little before five, and after turning Bitsy over to her mother, Skye got into her own car. She patted the wide leather bench seat fondly. No question, the vehicle was growing on her. When her dad and her godfather, Charlie Patukas, had first presented her with the aqua 1957 Chevy Bel Air, Skye had been none too pleased. She’d had plans to buy a sleek little Miata, and the bargelike Bel Air was the last vehicle she would have selected, given a choice. But the love that the two men had invested in the car made it impossible for her to turn it down.

Now as the engine purred to life, she accepted that this car was probably a better option for her than one that would only seat two people and had a trunk that was smaller than the Bel Air’s glove compartment.

As she drove home, her thoughts played tag between Bitsy’s odd behavior and Trixie’s money problems. What was wrong with the girl? And what would happen to Trixie and Owen if they couldn’t pay off his mother’s bills?

  
CHAPTER 3
  

S
kye was smiling as she pulled into her driveway. The sight of her riverside cottage always soothed away the stresses of the day. She loved everything about the house, from its unusual octagonal shape to the small cupola rising out of the center, like a periscope on a submarine.

In the winter the snow and the frozen river created the illusion of a silent world where time stood still. Spring and summer brought rebirth with water trickling along the shore and trees in bud.

Before going inside, Skye walked back out to the road and retrieved her daily dose of bills and advertisements from the mailbox. She started to flip through the stack as she opened her front door and stepped inside but was interrupted by the meowing of her black cat, Bingo. He sat on her foot and leaned his entire fourteen pounds against her shins, demanding his supper.

Skye threw the mail onto the hall bench, scooped him up, and walked into the kitchen. As she tunneled her fingers through his soft fur, scratching behind his ears and underneath his chin, his purring intensified and his eyes closed in
ecstasy. She continued petting him until he wiggled out of her arms and went to sit by the cupboard containing his food.

She grabbed a can of Fancy Feast from the bottom shelf and popped the lid, wrinkling her nose at the strong fish smell as she spooned the food into Bingo’s dish. She put the bowl on the floor and asked, “How can you eat this stuff? It reeks.”

Bingo ignored her question and buried his face in the blob of salmon mush.

Skye shrugged. It was time to get a move on. She had to do a few chores and change her clothes before Simon picked her up at six. Since they both had to work the next evening, they were celebrating Valentine’s Day tonight.

She returned to the foyer and hung up her coat, then headed toward her bedroom. After stripping down to her underwear, she slipped on her robe, gathered her checkbook, stamps, return address labels, and a pile of bills, and headed for the great room. She had gotten paid earlier that week and had immediately deposited her check, so the money should be in her account by now.

She settled on the couch and looked through the monthly statements. Mmm, which Peter would she rob this month to pay which Paul? Or would this be one of the rare times when her income and expenses came out even?

Scumble River was among the worst-paying school districts in the state, possibly the country. Most of the staff worked there because it was too far to drive to a better-paying school district and family situations prevented them from moving anywhere else.

Skye’s story was a little different. After being fired for insubordination from her first full-time job as a school psychologist, she hadn’t been able to find any other position. It seemed that no one wanted a school psychologist who was willing to oppose an influential adult to stick up for a child.
It was only due to her Uncle Charlie’s influence as president of the school board that Scumble River had hired her.