Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry (14 page)

“Yeah.” Justin nodded his agreement. “Ashley thinks she’s such hot shit, but she only stinks.”

In a sympathetic but firm tone, Skye said, “Be that as it may, we can’t let Ashley get hurt just because we don’t like her. It’s our duty as decent people to help find her if we can.”

Justin shrugged. “Whatever.”

Frannie snorted.

Skye took that as agreement. “Let’s start with the blog message you showed me. Maybe I’m not reading it correctly.
Let’s see if your interpretation is any different from mine.” She grabbed a couple of legal pads and a few pens from the junk drawer and reseated herself at the table. “The message read: ‘Crybabies should be careful. If you can’t stand the heat, you need to be cooled off. Kept on ice. Get my drift?’ Right?”

Both teens nodded.

“Okay. Is there any other meaning to the word
crybabies
, beside whiner or complainer?”

“The kids use it to mean tattletale, but that’s sort of the same thing,” Justin offered.

“Has anyone told on someone lately?”

“No.” Frannie frowned. “No one I can think of.” She looked at Justin, who shook his head.

“Any ideas on what the blogger meant by the next section?” Skye underlined it with her pen.

“Just, if you can’t stand the problems you’ve caused, you should fix things.” On her scratch pad, Frannie doodled monsters with huge open mouths and pointy fangs.

“How about the ‘cooled off and kept on ice’ part?”

Justin looked away, then muttered, “Some of the wannabe gang kids use that term to mean kill and get rid of the body, but I think Xenia might mean it more like keeping Ashley away from her friends until she cools off and stops her parents and their lawyer from harassing the paper.”

Skye’s breath had gone out with a whoosh when Justin mentioned murder, but she was able to inhale by the time he finished his thought. “And the last bit? Anything with the word
drift
?”

Both kids shook their heads.

“Have you had any ideas since yesterday about where Xenia might be keeping Ashley?”

More head shakes; then Frannie added, “We’ve looked in all the places we knew that either of them hang out.”

“We even checked the school—you know, like the cafeteria’s freezer and the pantry, and the closets and lockers—in case she was hiding her in plain sight.” Justin leaned forward, and Bingo jumped off his lap with an annoyed yowl.

“Ashley pretty much hung out with the cheerleaders, and
they pretty much hung out at each other’s houses during the winter and at the rec club beach during the summer.” Frannie put her hand down to pet the cat, but he stalked away.

“Where would one teenager hide another?” Skye muttered almost to herself. “It would have to be either completely isolated, like a hunting cabin, or a place with so many people going back and forth that no one would notice a couple more.”

“Xenia is new in town. She doesn’t have any uncles or cousins around here with shacks in the woods,” Frannie pointed out.

“Right, so it’s got to be the other choice.” Skye and the teens were silent, thinking. Finally she said, “I’ll call Officer Quirk and see if he’s had any luck.”

It took her a while to track Quirk down, but she finally got through to him. “Roy, this is Skye. I’m calling about Ashley Yates. Is she still missing?”

“Ten-four. Parents have not reported her return.”

“I’ve been going over the blog message with a couple of my students, and we wondered if Xenia had access to any hunting cabins or fishing shacks.” Skye wanted to double-check before crossing that possibility off her list.

“That’s a negative. And we’ve searched the school and both the vic’s and the suspect’s garages.”

“Any other ideas?”

“No, we put out an AMBER Alert right away, but there haven’t been any legitimate tips.”

“Thanks, Roy.” Skye didn’t want to keep him any longer, knowing how busy he’d be with the morning’s murder.

She relayed her conversation to Frannie and Justin, who remained quiet.

Finally she stood up and said, “Sorry, guys, but I have to get ready for an appointment, so you’ll need to be going.”

The teens shuffled to their feet and headed toward the front door. Skye heard Justin whisper the word
date
to Frannie, who giggled.

Once the kids were gone, Skye phoned the hospital to see how her uncle was faring.

Her mother was put on the phone “Uncle Dante is fine.
He lost some blood and is a little shocky, but the wound was superficial.”

“That’s a relief.” Skye hadn’t realized until just then how worried she’d been about her uncle. “Did he say how it happened?”

“No. Wally’s been trying to get him to make sense, but no luck. The doctors say Dante should be back to normal in a couple of hours.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom.” Skye looked at her watch as she hung up. It wasn’t even noon yet. She had seven hours before Wally was supposed to show up. She could probably finish painting the sunroom. And maybe as she painted, an idea about Ashley’s whereabouts might pop into her head.

By the time she spread the drop cloths, taped the windows, and picked up a brush, she was feeling calmer. Skye loved the delicate moss green color she had chosen for the walls. She couldn’t wait until the painting was finished and she could have the new hardwood flooring laid and the floral window treatments hung.

She painted in contented silence, not even putting on a radio, letting her mind wander from mystery to mystery. Who had killed Cherry Alexander and why? Where had Xenia hidden Ashley, and how had she managed to subdue the cheerleader? What did Wally have to tell her, and why at her house instead of his, their usual meeting place?

Hmm
. If the body had been Grandma Sal, after that argument that went out over the PA system last night, Skye would have thought her son did her in. But there was no way Cherry could have been mistaken for Grandma Sal.

What did she know about Cherry? She was self-centered, annoying, and married to a surfer dude who was boinking Mary Poppins. All of that certainly gave the husband and the nanny motive.

Skye got down from the ladder, balanced the brush across the open paint can, and grabbed a pen and paper from the end table. She made a note of her thoughts about Kyle and Larissa.

While she was at it, she added the guy in the soiled
jumpsuit who had helped May that morning. Who was he, and what was on his clothes?

This time when Skye got back to painting, Xenia and Ashley popped into her mind. Had Xenia drugged Ashley? But surely someone would notice one teenage girl hauling an unconscious friend around. Especially since Xenia’s preferred mode of attire was gothic-punk sex kitten.

Was there any way Xenia could have persuaded or tricked Ashley into going with her? But what did Xenia have that Ashley would want? Certainly not her spiked dog collar or stiletto granny boots.

Okay, forget how; concentrate on where.
Skye paused to move the ladder, then picked up where she had left off. Where? It took several minutes, but suddenly an idea came to her mind. Could “kept on ice” equate to ice cream?

The local soft-serve drive-in, the Dairy Kastle, closed at the end of September and didn’t unbolt its wooden shutters until the beginning of May. Surely they would have a freezer, even if it wasn’t running.

As Skye finished the last wall and put away her equipment, the idea of Xenia keeping Ashley at the Dairy Kastle grew stronger and stronger. Xenia wouldn’t hesitate to break into a locked building. The drive-in was on the edge of town, and the gas station that was next to it was out of business, so Ashley could scream her head off and no one would hear. Yes, Xenia could be hiding Ashley at the Dairy Kastle.

Skye hurried to the parlor and grabbed the phone, dialing as she ran upstairs.
Shit!
Quirk was still at the warehouse questioning suspects, Wally was in Laurel informing Cherry’s husband of her death, and the dispatcher couldn’t help her contact either one. Thea said that there was no officer at the police station at that moment, and asked whether it was an emergency, or if Skye would like to leave a message.

Skye wanted to declare it an emergency, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to do so. After asking Thea to tell Quirk to call her, she tried to let the idea go, but couldn’t.

She looked at the clock. It had taken her a little over five hours to finish the sunroom and talk to Thea at the PD, so
she still had two hours until Wally was due. She’d check out the Dairy Kastle herself.

Should she get ready for their date first or go look first? Look first. If Ashley was there it wasn’t fair to keep the girl locked up any longer than necessary. Besides, Skye might get dirty if she had to smash down a door or something. Good thing she hadn’t gotten paint all over herself.

Considering that she might have to break through a lock, she gathered a hammer, screwdriver, and flashlight from her basement workbench, then grabbed her keys and coat and took off.

At the edge of town most of the businesses were closed, and not just for the winter. Many buildings had been razed, but there were enough deserted relics left intact to make the area creepy.

Skye parked nearest the back entrance of the drive-in and got out of the car. She shivered despite the warmth of her wool pea jacket. The door was locked, not that she had expected anything else. Still, it would have seemed silly not to try.

She used the handle of the screwdriver to knock, calling, “Ashley, are you in there?”

Silence.

Skye knocked harder and yelled again.

Maybe the teen was gagged. “Ashley, if you can hear me, make some noise.”

Nothing.

Skye listened intently; still no sound. Okay, what if she couldn’t move? What if she was unconscious? But breaking down a door based on nothing but a hunch was not a good thing. She’d better wait and talk to Wally or Quirk.

Turning, she took a step toward her car. Suddenly she heard a rattle and dashed back to the building. She put her ear to the cold metal. Nothing. Nothing. Then she heard it again: a distinctive rattling sound. If that was Ashley, it would be unconscionable to leave her locked up for one more minute.

The lock was a dead bolt—nothing a credit card would open. There had to be another way in. She circled the
building and discovered that the front serving windows were covered with wooden shutters nailed on in four places.

Moments later, using the claw end of her hammer and working patiently, Skye lifted off one of the wooden rectangles. The darkness inside was too deep to penetrate even with her flashlight, so she hoisted herself up on the metal counter and swung her legs over the other side.

She slid down to the floor and called reassuringly, “Ashley, it’s Ms. Denison. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to rescue you.”

The only response to her announcement was another rattle. She thumbed on her flashlight and aimed it toward the sound. There in the back of the twclve-by-twelve space, between cans of strawberry sauce and buckets of peanuts, two glowing yellow eyes stared at Skye.

She screamed, scrambled back over the counter, and ran for her life.

S
kye checked her watch as she tore up the stairs. Less than a half hour before Wally was due to arrive. Shedding her clothes in the middle of her bedroom floor, she dashed into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Even with the new plumbing it took forever for the water to get hot, and as she waited the humiliating memory of her latest escapade nagged at her. What would Wally say when she told him she had broken into the Dairy Kastle to save Ashley, who wasn’t there, then had been frightened away by a rat?

She knew exactly what Simon would say. His lecture would begin with the consequences of breaking and entering, segue to the fact that she had not found Ashley, and end with a scientific explanation as to why she couldn’t possibly have seen a rat. He would have coolly pointed out that the rodent she’d had eye-to-eye contact with was merely a harmless field mouse. All of which made her glad she wasn’t dating him anymore.

But the million-dollar question: Would Wally react any better? A couple of months ago she would have said yes, but lately he’d been behaving oddly.

Skye hurried through her shower, debating whether she really even had to tell him about her little adventure. She had
returned to the drive-in and nailed back the shutter, so she doubted anyone would know the building had been broken into. Maybe she could “forget” to mention how she had spent the latter part of her afternoon.

As she blew her hair dry, a little voice nagged at her, insisting that if this was the man she might want to spend the rest of her life with, keeping secrets from him was not a good idea. Even though the voice sounded a lot like her mother’s, she listened anyway.

This meant she had to figure out the best way of imparting the news, and time was running out. As she applied bronzer and mascara, she rehearsed how she would tell Wally about her afternoon activities.

She finished polishing her speech as she wiggled into a pair of black jeans, then chose a baby pink off-the-shoulder knit top that displayed her cleavage to its full advantage. She hoped her décolletage would sweeten her words, or at least take the sting out of them.