“Hello.” Loretta’s voice was lifeless.
“Hi. It’s Skye.”
“I wondered if you would call or not. Are you mad at me?”
“Of course not. There’s just been a lot happening around here, and Wally was out of town for most of it, which made everything worse.” Skye finished telling Loretta about the two murders, then said, “So, that’s what’s been going on with me. How about you?”
“Let’s put it this way. Being the possible target of a deranged killer would be the high point of
my
week.” There was a hysterical giggle, then a sob. “I think I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Breaking up with Vince?”
“Yes. I never should have done it. I’m so miserable.”
“Why exactly did you break up with him?” Skye was confused. “Vince said you told him you two have different goals and dreams. Is that what you said?”
“Yes.” Loretta hiccuped. “But that wasn’t the real reason.”
“What was?”
“I knew he wasn’t the settling-down type, and time is running out. I want to have children while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.”
Skye giggled. Even when Loretta was upset, her dry humor was a hoot. “But you didn’t tell him that?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to sound needy.” Loretta’s tone was stubborn. “Besides, I said we had different goals and dreams. He should have known I meant I wanted to get serious and he didn’t.”
Skye blew out an exasperated breath. “What he thought you meant was that you’re an important attorney and he’s a hairdresser. He figures your family is rich and powerful and ours is poor, and the only place we have any influence is in a town of three thousand people.”
“I hope you told him that was stupid.” Loretta was starting to sound like her old, confident self. “Do you think Vince could get serious? Settle down?”
“I think that’s something you two should discuss.”
“But he probably hates me now.”
“Talk to him and find out,” Skye prodded. “You’re a tough criminal lawyer; surely you’re not afraid of my brother.”
“He might not even want to speak to me.”
“You’ll never know until you try,” Skye encouraged.
“So you think I should call him?”
“I think you should get naked, put on your fur coat, and show up on his doorstep.” Skye smirked. “It’s hard for a man to stay angry when he’s hard.”
Loretta giggled. “That’s not a bad idea.” Her voice was hopeful. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Not the play-by-play.” Skye so did not want to know the details of her brother’s sex life. “Just the final outcome.”
She and Loretta said good-bye, and Skye put the phone in its cradle, but before she could walk away, it rang again. Thinking it might be Loretta needing another pep talk, Skye scooped up the receiver and heard, “We’re home. How come you never returned any of my calls? What in the world have you gotten yourself into this time?”
She cringed. May was back, and there would be hell to pay.
Skye dreaded entering her office on Monday. The body had been removed Friday night before Skye had arrived, so at least she didn’t have a picture in her mind of poor Gloria dead. But the guilt of knowing that the woman had died from poison that was probably meant for Skye was hard for her to shake. Still, it wasn’t as if Homer would give her another space to use. She was pleasantly surprised he was springing for a new chair.
She checked the schedule on the office door; Jackie was at the junior high, so Skye had the office to herself. That reminded her—however much Homer and the other principals sang Jackie’s praises, Skye had yet to see her produce much in the way of results. The woman did a lot of talking, but hadn’t written one social history or Individual Educational Plan goal. It seemed to Skye that when all was said and done concerning Jackie, far more was said than done.
Skye shrugged, then dragged a folding chair from the closet to sit on. Jackie wasn’t her problem. Figuring out who wanted her dead was what she needed to focus on. But, when Simon called at ten, she still hadn’t made any progress toward that goal.
He said, “I got the results from the lab. Your cookies were dosed with atropine.”
“What’s that?”
“The scientific name is dl-hyoscyamine. It’s from the belladonna plant. The type that was put in your cookies is a medication found in prescription eyedrops.”
“Oh.” Skye tried to remember if she had seen anyone using eyedrops lately.
“The funny thing is that an atropine overdose is not considered life threatening.”
“Then why did Gloria die?”
“The ME concluded that because she was taking digoxin for her heart condition, the atropine intensified the effect of that drug to a fatal level.”
“So her death was an accident,” Skye speculated. “Whoever injected my Oreos wanted me sick, not dead.”
“Or they didn’t know an atropine overdose isn’t usually fatal.”
Skye thanked Simon and hung up, then called Wally. Simon had already reported his findings to him, and Wally told Skye there hadn’t been any hits on the fingerprints yet. Disappointed, Skye closed her office and left for the elementary school. She and the team were meeting with Vassily’s parents at eleven to draw up an IEP for the little boy.
Although Skye was distracted, the conference went well. Mr. and Mrs. Warner agreed to the proposed IEP, and Vassily was set to start school on Wednesday. They were finished before noon, and Skye decided to return to the high school to talk to Elvira Doozier.
Normally Skye avoided taking students out of gym, since most of the kids enjoyed the class, or at least hated it less than the academic subjects, but Elvira was a different story. When Elvira arrived in the psych office, she said, “Thanks for getting me away from those Twinkies.”
“Twinkies?” Skye hadn’t heard that expression before.
“Overly processed, too sweet to be real, and leave a bad aftertaste.” When Skye still look puzzled, Elvira explained, “Most of the Pops are in my class.”
“You meant the popular girls?” Skye studied the adolescent, who nodded, then flung herself into a chair and began examining her belly-button ring. She was dressed in low-riding wide-legged denims and a hooded crop top. Her dyed black hair fell to the middle of her back, and her face was eerily pale.
Elvira hung out with the Rebels. Of Scumble River High’s cliques, it was by far the roughest. And unlike the teacher-pleasing groups, they did not volunteer information to adults. Skye was counting on the fact that over the past four years she had built a relationship with Elvira and her family, odd as that bond might be.
Skye started to offer Elvira a piece of candy before she remembered that Wally had suggested she not keep any food in her office for the time being. Without a bribe, how could she loosen up the teen?
Hmm, giving her an opportunity to show how smart she is might work.
“Hey, do you know anything about cell phones?”
“If someone said I had one at school, they were lying.” Elvira peered suspiciously out from under her hair. “Mine’s out of minutes and I have to wait until I get my Social Security check the first of the month before I can pay the bill.”
“No one said anything. I was just wondering if you could help with mine.” Skye dug in her tote bag and handed the small silver device to the girl. “I can’t figure out how to get into my voice mail.”
“You’re supposed to be so smart, and you can’t figure out how to use your own cell phone.” Disdain dripped from Elvira’s words.
Skye stopped herself from rolling her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “No one can be good at everything.” Teenagers had attitudes rivaled only by French waiters, and required similar treatment: Never let them see that they got under your skin. “So, can
you
figure it out?”
“I’ll take a look.” Elvira flipped open the phone and pressed the ON button.
While the girl studied the keypad, Skye said as casually as she could, “Hey, I saw your brother Friday night. Interesting business he’s starting.”
Elvira snorted, but didn’t shift her attention from the phone.
“He mentioned he decided to become a Ghostflusher when you told him how badly I’d been frightened during the first haunted-house dress rehearsal.”
Elvira’s fingers were flying over the tiny buttons, but she paused to smirk. “Yeah. She said you were practically peeing your pants.”
“Really? Who said that?” Skye watched the girl closely, but she still seemed engrossed in the electronic device. “I thought I was alone when I was that panicked.”
“The social worker. Last Monday I stopped by the
Scoop
office to talk to Xenia, and Ms. Jennings was telling all the kids there the story about how you kicked in the doors of the bathroom stalls and were afraid of a toy ax and screamed when you ran into a rubber hand in the hall.” Elvira passed Skye the phone. “Anyway, you press this little triangle on the left, scroll down to voice mail, and type in your PIN number.”
“Thanks.” Skye wondered what her PIN number was. “I figured you could help.”
“Yeah.” Elvira got up and sauntered toward the door. “And you figured if you gave me something to do, I’d tell you what you wanted to know.”
“Uh. I didn’t . . .” Skye’s cheeks flushed. “Well, I mean—”
“I can read you like a comic book.” Elvira shook her head. “Just ask next time. I really hate it when adults try to manipulate me.”
“Sorry,” Skye called as the girl walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Shoot.
She’d have to make things up to her somehow, but right now she had to consider what Elvira had said.
Why would Jackie ridicule Skye to the students? What did she gain? Skye had had a bad feeling about Jackie from the beginning, but she’d written it off as jealousy. Except now that she thought about it, it seemed that all the trouble had started when the social worker was hired.
Since Jackie’s arrival, both Skye and the school had been having nothing but problems. The social worker had been the one to find the chemical bombs, insist on talking to the wannabe mommies at the junior high, and magically speak Russian—not that Vassily had responded to one word of it.
Jackie had also changed the office locks and failed to give Skye the new key, which resulted in her being late for an important meeting. Skye had a slashed tire, a rope strung at her height in her assigned spot at A Ghoul’s Night Out, almost been run over, and had poison added to her cookies.
Not to mention the tricks that had been played on her in the haunted-house bathroom. Come to think of it, Jackie had been acting the part of Lizzie Borden, so it was probably her ax that had been strategically staged in the handicapped stall.
Could Jackie be behind all of it? And if so, why? Skye needed proof. A good place to start was Jackie’s background. And in order to look into her history, all Skye had to do was persuade her godfather, Charlie, aka the school board president, to get her Jackie’s personnel file. Piece of cake. Or not.
CHAPTER 23
Worlds Collide
“
P
lease, please, please, Uncle Charlie,” Skye pleaded into the phone.
“No. I can’t let you see Jackie’s personnel file.” Charlie’s voice was firm.
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Now, Skye, you don’t really think that nice lady is trying to kill you.”
“Yes, I do!” Skye yelled, her patience wearing thin. “I told you, Simon found evidence my cookies were poisoned.”
“But not that she poisoned them. You admitted that anyone could have gotten into your office.”
“Please, Uncle Charlie, you’re the only one who can help me.”
“Well . . .”
“You’d do it for Vince,” Skye whined.
“No . . .”
“What do you think Mom will say when I’m murdered, and she finds out you could have saved me?” Skye played her trump card—Charlie thought of May as the daughter he’d never had, and he would do anything for her.
“What exactly in the file do you want to see?”
Skye thought fast. Charlie was weakening. She wanted to see the whole thing, but if she couldn’t, what was the most important part? “Did anyone check her references?”
“No.”
“You’re kidding.” Skye knew that the Scumble River School District didn’t set high standards, but still . . . “How could the board not check her references?”
“You have no idea what hiring is like nowadays.” Charlie’s voice bristled. “Say we do call the people she’s listed as references; no one will say anything negative because they’re all too afraid of being sued. The only thing we can find out is if she was fired or if she quit. And look at you; you were fired for doing your job—not because you did anything wrong. So calling is just a big waste of time. Jackie had a graduate school diploma and a school social worker certificate from the state of Illinois. That was enough.”
“I can see your point, but I still want to try to talk to the people she listed as references.”
There was a long pause before Charlie caved. “Okay. Give me half an hour. I’ve got to go over and get the file from Wraige’s secretary. Any suggestion as to why I might want it?”
“You’re the board president; order her to hand it over.”
After hanging up, Skye straightened her desk, packed her tote bag, and told Opal she wasn’t feeling well, so she was taking half a sick day.
When Skye arrived at the Up A Lazy River Motor Court office, Charlie handed her the list. “Here. I hope you’re happy,” he complained. “I had to agree to take Karolyn to the lodge dinner in order to get this without an explanation.”
“Thank you, Uncle Charlie.” Skye smiled to herself. So Karolyn wanted to go out with Charlie. That was extremely interesting, considering it was common knowledge that she was already boffing her boss. Maybe Dr. Wraige and his secretary had had a tiff.
Charlie shook his head. “I’m leaving for a doctor’s appointment. Lock up when you’re finished.”