Murder of a Smart Cookie: A Scumble River Mystery (14 page)

Skye nodded distractedly. Frannie would be destroyed.

“
N
o, don’t fly back.” Skye was once again lying across her childhood bed, petting Bingo and talking to Simon in California. “There’s no reason for you to come home.”

His smooth tenor was edged with concern. “I should be there for you. You sound pretty stressed out.”

“I’m fine. Sheriff Peterson is being a jerk, so I doubt I’ll be involved in the murder investigation.” Simon didn’t comment, but Skye could feel the disbelief radiating from two thousand miles away, so she reiterated, “I’ll just carry on with the yard sale and let the sheriff take care of the murder.”

“Okay. But if you change your mind, just call and I’ll be on the next plane back.”

“I will.” Skye tried to change the subject. “What have you been doing?”

“The usual—attending lectures and having business dinners. Oh, I did get to play the Funeral Director Feud game.”

“What’s that?”

It’s like
Family Feud
on TV, but the questions are all related to the funeral home business. Like, ‘Name a stupid question the bereaved always asks.’ And, ‘Which hymn will make you gag if you have to hear it again?”’

“That’s awful.” Skye snickered. “Did you win?”

“No, the other team buried us.”

“Ew. That one’s older than dirt.” Skye giggled. “What else have you been doing?”

“Missing you.”

“That’s so sweet. I miss you, too.” After Skye said the words she wondered if they were true. In a way, it had been nice not to worry about fitting Simon into her busy schedule. She quickly suppressed that thought and asked, “Have you given your talk yet?”

“No, my panel is tomorrow.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Nah. Panels are easy. If you have something to say, you can talk. If you don’t, you can let someone else talk.”

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Skye said, before changing the subject again. “It looks like there will definitely be a problem between Frannie and Justin.” She described Bitsy and Justin’s behavior during the concert.

“That’s too bad.” Simon’s tone was somber. “It’s a shame when you can’t appreciate what you already have.”

“True.” Skye felt a twinge, and an image of Wally flickered through her mind. She pushed it away. Simon was a terrific man, and she wasn’t going to throw her relationship with him away just because she had some chemistry with the police chief—okay, not just
some
, a
lot.
Still …

Simon’s next question drew her attention back to the conversation. “Any news about Bunny?”

Skye had been putting off telling Simon about his mother. “Sort of. I saw her tonight at the park.”

“And?”

“And she was with one of Faith Easton’s TV crew.”

“Was it a date?” It was no secret that Bunny liked men and they liked her.

“He’s in his twenties, but knowing Bunny, maybe …” Skye trailed off. “Look. Come hell or high water, I’ll definitely speak with her tomorrow.”

“Good.” Simon sighed. “I just have a really bad feeling about this. Bunny and show biz are not a good combination. That lifestyle offers way too much temptation for her.”

Bunny had arrived in Scumble River a few months ago, addicted to the painkillers she had been given when she hurt her back and on probation for trying to forge prescriptions to get more of them. To keep out of jail, she’d had to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings, find work, and establish a permanent address. Simon had helped her with the last two.

Skye agreed to speak with Bunny tomorrow, without fail, and she and Simon their good-byes.

After hanging up the phone, she yawned. Time to go to bed. But first she needed a cold drink. She padded into the dark kitchen, careful not to wake her parents, who had gone to sleep at least two hours ago, although not together. Her mother was in their bedroom, but her father was sleeping on the couch in the living room.

Skye frowned. She had better find out what was going on with them and do something before the situation got worse. Neither of her folks was very good at apologizing. May was able to pout longer than it took the state to repair a pothole, and Jed figured it would all go away if no one talked about it.

As Skye was taking a glass from the cupboard, she heard a noise from the utility room and stiffened. She stuck her head around the swinging doors. Nothing but the washing machine, dryer, and furnace lined up on one side and the bench and coatrack on the other. She was about to turn back to the kitchen when she heard the sound again. Her gaze flew to the back door. Peering through the glass was a triangular white face. Alongside it was a finger tapping the windowpane.

Skye flipped on the yard light and stared. Trixie stood on the back patio, dressed only in lime green baby doll pajamas and flamingo pink flip-flops.

Skye threw open the door, and Trixie said, “All men are idiots, and I married their king.”

Without answering, Skye hustled her friend inside, through the kitchen, down the hall, and into her bedroom, closing the door behind them. The last thing she needed was to wake up her mother, who would make things worse by agreeing with Trixie’s assessment of men.

Trixie threw herself across Skye’s bed.

“Okay, what happened?” Skye asked.

“I told Owen to do one thing to help out before I left for the concert tonight.” Trixie wiped away a tear edging its way down her cheek. “One thing! And did he do it? No!”

Skye was amazed that Trixie was able to shout at the volume of a whisper. “What did you ask him to do?”

“I’m making these special muffins and coffee cakes for breakfast tomorrow, and you have to add this liquid ‘starter’ to the batter every four hours for twenty-four hours before you make them. I asked him to add the seven o’clock portion.” Trixie sat up and hugged her knees. “When I got home at nine, I went to check, and he hadn’t done it. The whole batch is ruined!”

“Oh, no.”

“And I have nothing else to give the people for breakfast unless I toast some Wonder Bread.”

“Mom probably has something in the freezer you could use,” Skye offered.

“No, thanks.” Trixie stretched Out, her head pillowed on her arms. “It’s not my problem anymore.”

“Really?”

“Really. When I confronted Owen, he shrugged it off like it was too trivial to bother with. Said he couldn’t leave a sick cow because of a recipe.”

Skye winced. What had that man been thinking? “What did you do?”

“At first I just walked out of the barn and went to bed. But then I kept thinking how everyone would be looking at me tomorrow during breakfast. Like I was a failure. So, I got up, wrote Owen a note saying he could be the one to face our hungry guests in the morning, and left.”

“Wow.” Skye wondered how long it would take Owen to A—find the note, B—figure out where Trixie had gone, and C—come banging on Skye’s parents’ door asking for her. “So, you want to stay here with me?”

Trixie nodded like a little girl. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. There’s one empty sofa left.” It was actually a love seat, but Trixie was short.

“Point me to it. I’m exhausted.” Trixie trailed Skye to the den.

Skye gave her a fresh set of bed linens and a pillow, hugged her good night, and went back to her room. After she had slid between the sheets, Bingo edged his way out of the closet, where he had been hiding since Trixie’s emotional entrance, and jumped up on the bed.

Skye scratched him behind the ears, making a mental list of her chores for Monday with each stroke of her fingernails. Talk to Bunny. Find out why her parents were fighting. Work her shift at the family’s stand. And check on Mrs. Griggs. She’d been okay Saturday when Skye had phoned, even though she had called Skye Sterling, but Skye hadn’t had a chance to
phone the older woman on Sunday and she was worried about Mrs. Griggs’s reaction to Cookie’s death.

But the best-laid plans of cats and women rarely work out. As Skye fell asleep, she never dreamed what she’d really be doing the next morning, or that she would only accomplish only one of the tasks on her list.

“No comment,” Skye repeated for the hundredth time as she fought her way from the parking lot to the entrance of the city hall. Another microphone was shoved in her face, and she batted it away, snarling, “Put that thing in my face again, and you’ll draw back a bloody stump.”

One of her larger second or third cousins on the Leofanti side of the family was guarding the front door, which he opened a crack for her to slip inside. She leaned against the glass for a moment to get her breathing back to normal. The media people were relentless.

The morning had already started out on a bad note when Skye’s parents had decided to use her as an interpreter, since they were now officially not speaking to each other.

To add to her woes, Trixie had refused to go home, and sent Skye there to pick up some clothes for her to wear that day. Owen had greeted her with a stoic expression and hadn’t asked about Trixie’s whereabouts. Skye had peeked in the dining room and found the guests eating coffee cake, muffins, and donuts that looked suspiciously like the ones sold in the grocery store’s freezer section.

The two couples seemed happy enough with the food, chatting about what they were hoping to find at the sale and commenting on the concert the night before, but the man sitting alone at the other end of the table was clearly displeased with the situation and sat crumbling the pastries on his plate rather than eating them.

When he spotted Skye, he raised his voice and said, “We were promised homemade country cuisine, not grocery store rejects. Everybody
does not
like Sara Lee.”

Skye had pretended not to hear him and backed out of the room, thinking that he must be Montgomery Lapp. She wondered how he would handle the predicted ninety-degree heat dressed in a long-sleeve fuchsia silk shirt, black jeans, and an elaborately embroidered vest.

Skye’s morning had gone further downhill when she dropped off Trixie’s suitcase and reported that Owen had managed to feed their guests. Trixie’s reaction had not been pretty. Comments concerning Lorena Bobbitt’s handling of a badly behaved husband had filled the air, and Skye wondered if she should call Owen and warn him to hide the butcher knives and protect his privates should his wife show up looking for him.

Now the media were howling at Skye’s door, but not as loudly as Dante was screaming from behind his. Skye escaped into her office before her uncle spotted her, stowed her purse in the desk drawer, and checked her watch. Hard to believe it was only five to eight. It felt more like high noon.

Her phone rang. She warily picked it up. “Route 66 Yard Sale. May I help you?” She listened for a moment and said, “No comment.”

After she hung up on the reporter from the
Chicago Sun-Times
, she noticed that her message light was blinking like a Christmas tree bulb about to burn out. Pulling up the desk chair, she sank into it and pushed
PLAY
. Only two communications were from someone other than a newspaper reporter or TV station. One was from Frannie, her voice shaky, saying not to bother to call back, she’d catch up to Skye later. The other was from the sheriff, wanting to talk to her immediately.

Skye sat back and contemplated the ceiling. There really was no contest. She dialed. On the fourth ring a machine picked up and a male voice said, “The Ryans are not available to take your call at this moment. Please leave a message after the tone.”

She left the required information and added a sketchy idea of where she could be found throughout the day. Skye was worried. Where could Frannie be at eight a.m. on a summer morning?

Just as Skye picked up the receiver to phone the sheriff, Dante bellowed, “I can hear you in there. Get your ass in here right now.”

Skye contemplated ignoring her uncle, but knew he would get worse until she took the thorn out of whichever paw was hurting him.

Dante didn’t look up as she entered his office. He finished shouting into the telephone and banged down the handset. “Where the hell have you been?”

Skye considered a smart retort, since her day didn’t officially begin until eight, but instead listed her morning’s itinerary, concluding with “Then I risked life and limb to fight my way through the media mob to come here.”

“We have to stop this.” Dante abruptly stood up, knocking his chair over. “Between those stupid reporters and the idiot cops, they’ll ruin my yard sale.”

For once her uncle had a point, but Skye wasn’t sure what he expected her to do about it.

“You know, if my sale is ruined, you don’t get your bonus.”

“But this isn’t my fault,” Skye protested. She had worked hard for that money, and she needed it or she’d lose her chance to buy the cottage.

“I didn’t say it was your fault. I said I was going to
blame
you for it.”

Skye didn’t normally react well to coercion, but as she watched Dante pace, an idea started to form. She grabbed a legal pad and pen from his desk and plopped down on a nearby chair.

What seemed like only minutes later, she noticed a shadow looming over her and looked up.

Dante was straining to see what she was writing. Finally, he demanded, “What? What? You got an idea?”