Murder Of A Snake In The Grass (2 page)

It was obvious that something was going on, but what? With each passing minute, the committee was getting more and more agitated. While other committee members appeared merely irritated, Charlie looked apoplectic. At seventy-three, with high blood pressure and a Type A personality, he was a stroke waiting to happen. And that was what worried Skye.

She swatted another bug and chewed on her bottom lip. Should she go up there and try to calm him down, or would that just annoy him more? There was a fine line between helping and making the situation worse. As a school psychologist, she often had to figure out when to cross that boundary. Too bad practice didn’t make perfect.

While she continued to monitor the shade of red Charlie’s face was turning, she dug into the pocket of her black shorts for a scrunchie to pull back her humidity-frizzed chestnut curls. The freshly-ironed white T-shirt she had put on when school got out at one o’clock now had all the crispness of a used dishtowel and stuck to her ample curves like a damp spiderweb. She felt as if she had never dried off from her morning swim.

What was she doing standing in ninety-degree heat on a Friday afternoon, waiting to hear some yahoo talk about the founding of Scumble River? She hadn’t come with the intent to look out for Charlie’s health. That was a bonus. Her real reason was simple. When you lived in the small town where you grew up, you were obligated to show your face at certain social events, whether you wanted to attend or not.

Even after two and a half years, Skye sometimes wondered if moving back to Scumble River had been such a good idea—not that she’d had much choice back then. But now that she’d saved a little money and could count on a decent job reference, maybe it was time to think about leaving. True, the last time she left hadn’t worked out too well, but this time would be different. Wouldn’t it?

She’d have to think about that later. Charlie’s face had just gone from hot pink to purple. It was time to intervene. She moved closer to the platform, stepping through the dried grass, sand, and rocks that had been spread over the asphalt in an attempt to make the area look as it had two hundred years ago. Luckily, the river running alongside the motor court’s parking lot had not changed, or else the committee would probably have tried to re-create it, too.

Eldon Clapp’s high, whiny voice assailed her ears as she neared the grandstand. “Where is he, Fayanne? You said he’d be here a half hour before the start of the opening ceremony. For twenty years, I’ve done a good job as
mayor of Scumble River, and now the only thing people will remember is that I ruined the bicentennial.”

Fayanne Emerick, owner of the Brown Bag Liquor Store, stabbed the mayor in the chest with a dagger-like magenta fingernail, which matched the fuchsia polyester pants and shirt she had practically spray-painted on her pudgy body. “Don’t you go blaming me, Eldon Clapp. I called Gabriel Scumble yesterday, just like I was supposed to. And don’t think I’m eating the long-distance charges either. Why in heaven’s name the great-great-grandnephew of the guy who founded Scumble River lives in Montreal is beyond me.”

Obviously at least one member of the newly formed Scumble River Historical Society—or, as Skye liked to call it, the Hysterical Society—didn’t know the town’s past very well. Even she knew that the founder, Pierre Scumble, had been a French Canadian, a fact which might give Fayanne a hint as to why his descendant lived in Montreal.

“He’s more than thirty minutes late.” Mayor Clapp wrung his hands.

Miss Letitia, the only real historian on the committee, hit the mayor on his shoulder with her handbag and said, “I warned you about the Scumble family. Pierre was a rogue. It stands to reason his progeny would be untrustworthy too.”

Clapp ignored the older woman—it was obvious he had tuned her out long ago—and continued to speak to the liquor store owner. “You have to do something, Fayanne.”

“Me?” she screeched. “Why me?”

“Your committee was responsible for the speaker. After all, I found him for you and made the initial call. All you had to do was follow up.”

“All? That man is harder to get on the telephone than the president, and his number kept changing.” Fayanne bit off each word as if tearing into a strip of beef jerky.

“Don’t give me excuses. We each had one thing to do.
My committee had to build the platform. Charlie’s had the reenactment of the landing, Kevin’s had the decorations. And Miss Letitia’s prepared the historical reading.”

Fayanne’s small, hoglike eyes were turning from their usual muddy brown to an ox-blood red. Skye was afraid she would start punching the mayor any second. If that happened, it was a certainty that Charlie would join in the fight.

Skye had one foot on the grandstand’s bottom step when a voice stopped her. “Ms. Denison, they’re going to kill those kids this time.”

“What?” Skye swung around, nearly losing her balance. “Where?”

Standing a little to the right of the stairs was a high school student she had seen hanging out on the fringes of several cliques. She couldn’t remember the girl’s name. “Who is going to kill who?”

The teen ignored Skye’s question, fear evident in her eyes. “They’re over behind the parked cars. You need to do something right now!”

Skye hesitated and looked back to the platform. The fracas seemed to be momentarily over. Fayanne had moved into a neutral corner and was brooding. The rest of the group was standing around at the other end of the stage. Charlie’s color had faded to its normal florid state. Skye turned back to the girl, but she had disappeared.

Great. What should she do? There were hundreds of people in the parking lot; maybe she could ask one of them to go see what was wrong. No, the girl had come to her. She’d spent the last two years getting the kids at her schools to trust her, so this was not the time to ignore a plea for help.

Skye prayed Charlie would be okay and took off in the direction of the parking lot.

The sun burned down on her as she ran. Normally the seasons are very distinctive in Illinois, although occasionally
spring and fall are cut a little short. This year it seemed as if summer was refusing to give way, causing the middle of September to reach a record high of ninety-five degrees.

Prolonged and intense heat often caused tempers to flare, and Skye was afraid of what she might find when she reached the parking area. She skidded around the fender of a huge black pickup, and saw that half a dozen high school bullies had cornered a group of more timid teens and were pelting them with rocks, rotten food, and verbal abuse. Skye wondered briefly which hurt the most.

She debated going for help, but leaving the trapped kids to the mercy of their tormentors was not an option. Surveying the various vehicles, she spotted one with its windows rolled down. It was an old Pinto that the owner was confident no one would steal. Skye hoped its horn worked. It would be her only way of summoning help if things went badly.

One of the bullies looked familiar. Although not as tall as many of his cohorts, he was well muscled with reddish-blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. As she got closer, she realized he was a sophomore she had just completed a psychological assessment on the week before. In fact, she had a meeting scheduled with his parents on Tuesday. This was both good and bad news. On the one hand she had a name; on the other hand her evaluation had indicated a high likelihood that this kid had little in the way of a social conscience, despite his boyish good looks.

Skye stepped to the side of the Pinto, stood up straight, and said in a steel-edged voice, “Grady Nelson, stop that immediately!”

All action paused as the teens turned toward her. She held her ground but made sure she was in reach of the Ford’s open window.

“Go away, Ms. Denison, this isn’t any of your business,” Grady drawled.

“I’m afraid it is, Grady. I can’t let you hurt other kids.”

“We aren’t hurting them. We’re just messing around—playing.”

“But they don’t seem to be having a good time.”

“You just don’t understand. Life’s got to be fun. If it isn’t fun, it has to move. If it’s not moving, maybe we need to poke it a little. If we poke it, maybe we can make it mad and it’ll move. I can’t handle it when everything is standing still.”

“How about if they come with me and you find another way to entertain yourself.” She risked a peek at the kids being picked on. They seemed okay.

“Nah, that doesn’t sound fun.” He selected a glass bottle from a pile of debris at his feet. From his pocket he dug out a small can of lighter fluid and poured some into the container. Next, he grabbed the handkerchief from around his forehead and stuck it into the neck of the bottle.

Skye swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. What in the world could she say to stop him from lighting that Molotov cocktail and flinging it among the teens? She glanced at Grady’s gang. They seemed uneasy, too.

Hoping she had gauged their mood correctly, Skye said, “Hey, why waste your time and energy on those kids?” The words stuck in her throat. She hoped the kids she was trying to save didn’t think she really felt that way about them. “How about you guys coming with me, and I’ll buy you each an ice cold soda and a hot dog.”

Grady glanced over his shoulder, smirking in a way that would have provoked any right-thinking adult to slap him. “Anyone want to go get a pop with the nice lady?”

The surprise on his face was priceless when most of his gang nodded, and one said, “Sure, this is getting whack.”

Grady scowled, but it was clear he had lost them. Either they weren’t up for setting other kids on fire, or the idea of free food and drink had won them over. Skye wished it was the former, but guessed the latter might have influenced their decision. Or at least given them a way to save face.

A small boy who looked about ten years old hung back. He scampered around Grady like a Chihuahua, begging for the bigger boy’s attention, but Grady pushed him aside and stomped away. His last words trailed over his shoulder. “Hope you fags don’t choke on your sody pop.”

The teens hesitated, and for a moment Skye thought they’d run after Grady, but she dug a twenty out of her pocket and waved it in their direction. With much jostling and elbowing, they followed her to the refreshment stand that had been set up across the street from the reenactment area. Her last glance back revealed that the kids who had been harassed were scattering in the opposite direction.

While the boys were ordering, Skye took a look at the grandstand to see if Charlie was okay. He and the other committee members, minus Fayanne, were sitting on chairs, drinking from cans of beer. They seemed to have calmed down, at least temporarily.

As soon as the teens had wandered off, swigging from bottles of Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper, Skye went looking for one of the Scumble River police officers patrolling the event.

She spotted Roy Quirk by the Porta Potties. “Roy, I need to talk to you a minute.”

He took off his uniform hat, wiping the sweat from his brow. “What’s up?”

Skye quickly described her encounter with the bullies and their victims. “Is there anything we can do? Grady did have an explosive.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for him, but unless I catch him lighting the wick, he can claim that’s the way he stores his lighter fluid.”

“That’s what I figured. Thanks anyway.”

After Officer Quirk left, Skye collapsed under a shade tree. She was pretty sure that what she had done was not in the Illinois School Psychologists’ Best Practice manual, but at least no one had gotten hurt… this time.

“Where have you been?” asked Simon Reid, Skye’s sometimes boyfriend and the town coroner, sitting down on the ground beside her. They had gone out when she first moved back to Scumble River, but unresolved issues from her previous shattered engagement had kept them from becoming serious, and they had broken up. Then, working together on the church’s youth committee during the summer had persuaded them to give it one more try. They were taking it slow and easy—no intimacy, no commitment.

She turned toward him. “Here and there. You said you had to talk to a few people, so I mingled, too.”

A faint light twinkled in the depths of his golden-hazel eyes, as if to say he knew that wasn’t the whole story. But instead of pursuing it, he changed the subject. Fanning himself with his hat, he said, “It’s got to be close to a hundred degrees out in that sun. Tell me again why we’re here.”

His short auburn hair formed a fiery nimbus, and his features hinted at an elegance and refinement that were hard to find in Scumble River. Dressed in khaki shorts and a copper-colored polo shirt, he could have been on a country club patio rather than in the Up A Lazy River Motor Court parking lot.

“I could give you a bunch of reasons,” Skye answered. “But the only important one is that Uncle Charlie told us to come. He wanted a big crowd to welcome Gabriel Scumble when he arrived.”

“
If
he arrives. He’s nearly an hour late. People will start to leave.”

“No one will leave.” Skye waved to her parents, who were sitting on lawn chairs in the shade of an enormous oak tree near the river’s edge, her brother with them. Earlier she had chatted with her best friend, the Scumble River High School librarian, Trixie Frayne. Trixie and her husband, Owen, lived on a farm at the edge of town. “Most people are here because Uncle Charlie asked them to be.”

“You make Charlie sound like a Mafia don.”

“No, he’s just very … charismatic, and he does a lot of favors for people.” Skye owed her own position as school psychologist to him.

“Well, I guess it’s a moot point.” Simon stood and held a hand out to Skye to help her up. “It looks as if Gabriel Scumble has finally arrived.”

A shiny black sedan pulled to a stop near the motor court’s office. They watched as the mayor and Fayanne bolted over and flung open the door, nearly pulling the driver from the vehicle’s interior. He was a compact man with curly black hair and dark eyes who seemed surprised by all the attention. Fayanne kissed him on the cheek, and the mayor pumped his hand. Talking a mile a minute, they led him up onto the platform.

People slowly resumed their seats, and voices quieted as the mayor started his speech. “In 1802, Pierre Scumble, a French Canadian fur trader, was voyaging down an unmapped waterway when he stopped for the night. In the morning he looked around, found evidence of a rich vein of coal running through the area, and decided to establish the town of Scumble River. In a few years the population had grown to over nine hundred, a hotel and general store had been opened, and mining operations had begun.”