Murder of a Barbie and Ken (21 page)

He didn’t quite snort, but said, “I need to get going. Was there anything else you wanted to discuss with me?” He moved toward her.

This time she refused to let his actions alarm her. “One last thing. Do you think, with Ken gone, you’ll win back some of the patients who have taken their business over to those two women doctors in Clay Center?”

His chest heaved, but that was the only sign he gave that she had hit another nerve. “Some might come back, but it’s no big deal. There are invariably more sick people than our practice can handle. Doctors never have to worry about job security.”

Skye wasn’t sure she believed that, but she let it go. “I’ve always found it sort of scary that doctors call what they do
practice
.” She opened the door and stepped aside to let him through.

At first she didn’t think he would respond to her verbal jab, but as he passed her, he stopped and said, “The more I think about it, the more you may be right. Maybe the murderer was some disgruntled patient, or one of their family.” Zello made a show of scratching his chin and narrowing his eyes as if deep in thought. “I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Relatives come in and want to talk to you about the loss of their loved one, but we have a whole roomful of live patients to take care of and we can’t drop everything to listen to them. Besides, how do you bill an insurance company for the time you wasted listening to them whine?” Tony shook his head, clearly disgusted with anyone who would stand in the way of his making money.

Skye stared at him, thinking how nice it must be to be the center of the universe—or believe you are.

He shook his head again and went on, “Most people need to learn that no matter how bad they feel, the world doesn’t stop for their grief. At least not my world.”

Skye tried to quell the slow boil rising inside her. She could feel her hands curling into fists and the blood rushing to her head. If she didn’t gain control within the next few seconds, she would punch this coldhearted, unsympathetic son of an ATM machine in the nose.

He must have sensed the danger because he said, “Well, just something for you to think about while investigating poor Ken’s murder.” He took off at a trot, adding over his shoulder, “Got to run.”

Skye found that Vince had finished with his last customer and was getting ready to lock up.

“So, what’s going on between you and Zello?” he asked.

“He and his buddy Ginardi asked me to look into the Addisons’ murders. They want the killer found before GUMB secrets get out.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” Vince took the money drawer out of the cash register and started to stack the bills. “Both of them have egos bigger than a beauty queen’s hair.”

“Have you heard anything new about the murders?”

“No. Everyone’s talking about them, but no one is saying much, if you get my drift.”

Skye nodded. “Are you bringing anyone to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow?”

“Nope. Can’t single out one lady. It makes the others jealous.”

Skye knew her brother rarely dated more than one woman at a time. She tilted her head and looked at him. What, or better yet who, was he hiding from the family?

Vince secured the cash with a rubber band and put it into a small vinyl bag with a zipper. Stamped on the front of the pouch was SCUMBLE RIVER FIRST NATIONAL BANK and the bank’s hours. “You bringing Simon?”

“Yes.”

Vince put his coat on and helped Skye with hers. As they walked out to their separate cars, he asked, “How about Simon’s mother? Are you bringing her, too?”

“Shoot. I forgot about her. I guess we can’t leave her sitting all by herself at the motor court on Thanksgiving.” Skye felt a headache start to form. Neither Simon nor May would be happy with the idea of Bunny joining them.

  
CHAPTER 17
  

There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

—Napoleon

A
fter saying good-bye to Vince, Skye drove to her cottage. It was nice coming home to an empty house. Bingo was all the company she wanted at the moment. He rubbed against her ankles and purred as she put food into his bowl, then promptly forgot her existence as he got down to the serious business of eating. She briefly wondered if Bingo missed Bunny and vice versa. The redhead truly loved him and had spent a lot of time petting and grooming him.

Skye pushed that thought away. Bunny’s move to the motor court was for the best, and Skye had three current problems to solve, each with its own degree of urgency and concern. The most pressing one was figuring out what to bring as her contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. Breaking the news to her mom and Simon that Bunny would be joining them came next. But, by far, the sex party Frannie and Justin had told her about was the most worrisome. What if
the kids decided to investigate even though she had told them not to?

First things first. The aunts could bring all the good stuff for family dinners—the pies, the pork sausage dressing, the scalloped corn, and the Parker House rolls. Skye’s generation was restricted to the boring things like salads and vegetables. This was a challenge to Skye and her cousins. Each holiday they tried to come up with something new, a dish that would become the next family favorite.

As Skye flipped through her cookbooks, looking for the right recipe, the phone rang. “Hello, sweetheart.” Simon’s warm voice sent a tingle to her stomach.

“Hi. I was just thinking about you.”

“Good. I thought of you all day.”

“Ah.” Obviously, he was in a good mood. Skye hated to be the one to change it, but it was better to jump in and get it over with. “Before I forget, we’ll need to take Bunny with us tomorrow to dinner at Mom’s.” Silence greeted that statement and Skye hurried to explain. “We can’t leave her alone on Thanksgiving.”

“She never seemed to mind leaving Dad and me alone on the holidays.”

“But that’s different. You had each other. You weren’t really alone.”

Another silence, then Simon said, “You’re right. Just don’t expect me to talk to her.”

“Well, I could ask Uncle Charlie to bring her. That way you wouldn’t have to be in the same car with her.”

“That’s a good idea.” Simon sounded happier. “Considering the huge size of your family, I might not even see her there.”

One down, one to go
. “That’s right. The women and the men don’t even sit together for the meal.”

“True. Maybe it won’t be too bad.” Simon said good-bye after telling her he had a wake that evening and he had to go
set up the viewing area. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eleven-forty-five.”

Without even bothering to hang up the receiver, Skye dialed her mother. May wasn’t any more thrilled than Simon had been, but admitted that Bunny couldn’t be left by herself on a holiday.

Charlie was Skye’s next call, and the only one who was happy to hear her suggestion. He said he’d invite Bunny and drive her to Skye’s folks’.

Skye picked up a cookbook and resumed her search. Nothing appealed to her. Where was that recipe her friend Sally had sent her for that wonderful chicken liver pâté? It would be a risk. Many of her relatives would turn their noses up at the thought of eating something foreign, but she hoped at least a few of the younger ones would try it. And Simon loved it.

On the down side, she didn’t have all the ingredients, which meant a run to the grocery store. The good news was the delivery trucks had finally made it into town, so food would be available. The bad news was every Thomasina, Dixie, and Harriet would be at Walter’s picking up last-minute items for tomorrow’s big feast. The place would be a madhouse.

As Skye drove to the supermarket, she thought about Frannie and Justin and the sex party that was supposedly scheduled for that night. How could she stop them if they decided to investigate?

The grocery store was as crowded as Skye had been afraid it would be, but at least this time there were carts and no one was fighting in the aisles over food. She grabbed a cart and headed toward the meat department to get the chicken livers.

As Skye rounded the corner, she caught a glimpse of a woman with long blond hair. She was slender, and at her throat she wore an apricot scarf tied in a big bow.

Skye froze and flashed to an image of Barbie Addison
lying in the freezer with the peach ribbon knotted around her neck. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead and the waxed linoleum squeaked underfoot.

Suddenly, Skye felt removed from her surroundings, almost as if she were shrouded in cling wrap. She could see the people around her, but they seemed blurry, as if she were looking through a lens smeared with Vaseline. Too much had happened in too short a time. A sense of dread enveloped her. She couldn’t seem to break through the plastic.

Finally, someone brushed against her and everything came back into focus. Skye leaned against her cart and closed her eyes until her head stopped spinning. She looked around. No one seemed to have noticed.

That had been weird. Had she just had a panic attack? Was she experiencing the first signs of post-traumatic stress disorder? No, she refused to believe that. It was just low blood sugar—she’d had only a small salad from the cafeteria for lunch. Or exhaustion—she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. A candy bar and a nap would fix her right up.

Still, she needed to get home. Skye made a hasty circuit of the store, grabbing the ingredients for the pâté and a baguette of French bread to serve it on, then heading toward the checkout.

She joined the ten-items-or-less line and scanned the nearby shoppers. Joy Kessler stood in the next lane, her cart full of chips, dips, and other party munchies. When Skye waved, Joy flushed and turned her head away. That was odd. They had parted on good terms yesterday. Something was up.

Skye felt her heart sink. Frannie and Justin were probably right about the Kesslers hosting a sex party. Now she really would have to do something about the teens’ plan to investigate.

It was nearly seven by the time Skye got back to the cottage. After a quick supper, she started making the pâté. Her
first challenge was finding a small saucepan. Bunny hadn’t put things back where they belonged.

While Skye worked, she considered what to do about the Kesslers’ alleged party. An idea came to her as she was putting the completed dish in the refrigerator. At nine o’clock she would call Justin and Frannie. If they were home, she would make up some question about the school newspaper. If not … well, then it looked like she might be attending her first orgy.

Neither teenager was home. Justin’s mother said he was over at Frannie’s studying. Frannie’s father said she was over at Justin’s watching a video. Skye didn’t mention to either parent that the only thing their kids were likely to be looking at was X-rated.

Skye slammed the telephone receiver onto the hook. Crap! There were four aspects of investigating a murder that Skye hated, and now it looked like Frannie and Justin would force her to do most, if not all, of them in one night.

She disliked sneaking around, she detested spying on people’s private lives, and she despised having to lie. And more than anything, she hated getting caught. She hoped she could at least avoid the last one.

No matter how many times she told herself that a girl had to do what a girl had to do, whenever she was compelled to sneak, spy, or lie, she felt ashamed.

Fortunately, like most other people, Skye was good at rationalization, and her justification for tonight’s foray into the wild side was twofold—she had to make sure Frannie and Justin were safe, and it might help her find out who killed the Addisons.

She pushed the consequences of her last illegal search out of her mind. Getting trapped in a coffin months ago hadn’t really been
that
scary. At least that’s what she told herself as she put on her black jeans, sweatshirt, and rubber boots. After tucking her hair underneath a dark ski cap, she rummaged
in the kitchen junk drawer for her heavy-duty flash-light, a pair of latex gloves, and her Swiss Army knife.

In her car, she headed south of town. As Skye passed the Addisons’ driveway, she could see both the Zello and Ginardi houses, and the Kesslers’ was just around the corner. They all lived within walking distance of one another.

This was the expensive part of Scumble River, where each of the houses was situated on several acres of land. It was ironic that they all backed up to an old graveyard. The homeowners had fought long and hard to have the bodies moved, but had lost the fight.

At the time, Skye had wondered why they had built their houses there to begin with, if they didn’t like living next to a cemetery. It wasn’t as if the tombstones had popped up overnight and surprised them.

Tonight Skye was glad of the cemetery’s location. Previously the Bel Air’s distinctiveness had proved to be a problem in her sleuthing, but the graveyard was the perfect place to stash the Chevy while she was on her spy mission. No one would notice her car parked there at nine-thirty at night.

Skye turned into the cemetery’s entrance and stopped. She hadn’t considered all the snow they’d had in the past week. Only a narrow pathway was plowed, and none of the normal parking pull-offs were open. Now what should she do?

To her right was a maintenance shed, the area in front of it cleared of snow. Skye pulled in and cut the motor. Surely no one would be doing yard work in the dead of night.

Unfortunately, this put her at the opposite end of the cemetery from where the Kesslers’ house was situated, which meant a brisk hike among the gravestones. She wrapped a wool scarf around her throat, tugged her hat down over her ears, and pulled on her mittens before getting out of the car.

Yikes! It was freezing out. Skye much preferred her environment to have a controlled temperature of seventy-six
degrees with low humidity. Tromping through a winter wonderland was not her idea of a good time.

She was nearing her destination when she heard rustling. It wasn’t the wind—there was no wind—so what or who was in the cemetery with her? As she broke into a jog, she tried to pinpoint where the noise was coming from, and whether it was getting any closer.