“I stopped my VW in front of the store, saw the lights were off, and drove away.”
“You didn’t get out and try the door?”
“No.” Xenia’s voice was bitter. “For once I was worried about getting in trouble, and I didn’t want to leave my car double-parked.”
“Was there a police cruiser anywhere in sight?” Skye was happy the girl was becoming more law-abiding but curious as to why.
“No. But those security cameras Risé installed Saturday morning were aimed right at me.”
Eureka! Skye shot out of her chair. The security cameras. That was what she had been trying to remember. Had Wally noticed them? It wasn’t as if it was common for Scumble River businesses to have them.
“Chief Boyd is going to want to talk to you about all this. I’d be happy to come with you to the police station.”
“That sucks!” Xenia jumped up and headed for the door.
Skye blocked her exit and said with a straight face, “Gravity sucks, too, but we’d be in trouble without it.”
CHAPTER 11
The Sun Also Rises
Grateful to be finally alone, Skye slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and crawled into bed. Wally had still been at the station when she’d called to share Xenia’s information, and he’d asked her to accompany the girl to the PD.
While Skye and Xenia were driving into town, Wally had contacted Risé and Orlando and asked about the security cameras. Risé told him that they were hooked up to a recording device in the store’s back room. She claimed that she had forgotten about them in all the shock and confusion.
While Wally was interviewing Xenia, he sent an officer to retrieve the security recordings. Once Wally had finished questioning Xenia, he and Skye viewed the footage. Someone had double-parked outside the store at eight thirty Saturday night. Unfortunately, the image was fuzzy, and the vehicle was an unrecognizable dark blur. Wally had had to send the recording to the crime lab in Laurel to see whether the techs there could enhance the image.
By the time all the loose ends had been tied up and Wally had driven Skye home, it was past midnight and she was exhausted. Not only had it been a long, stressful day, but it was way past her usual ten o’clock bedtime.
So why wasn’t she in dreamland? Skye lay on her side, watching the red digital numbers of her clock radio change as the minutes went by. Maybe she should have gone home with Wally. At least missing sleep while in his bed had other benefits. But he had been even more worn-out than she was, and since she had an early meeting at school the next day, she hadn’t wanted to disturb him at five a.m. when she got up.
Sighing, she flipped over onto her back, laced her fingers behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. The problem with this case was that they weren’t sure what the intended crime had been. Was it a burglary gone bad, or had the criminal been intent on murder? And if that was the case, who was the intended victim? Charlie seemed certain that if anyone had given someone a motive for murder, it had been Risé.
Monday, as Skye pulled into the high school parking lot, a red Hummer roared past her and squealed to a stop in the no-parking zone at the front entrance. The driver hopped out of the vehicle and hurried to the door, where he repeatedly jabbed the intercom button. All schools were kept tightly locked down since 9/11. Too bad the only people inconvenienced were the staff and the parents, as evidenced by the unending spate of school violence. The bad guys got inside no matter what precautions were taken.
The Hummer driver looked somewhat familiar. Who would be there more than an hour before classes started? Oh, yeah. Now she remembered. He was the magazine sales rep. Scumble River High had decided to sell magazines for its annual December fund-raiser. She wondered how many subscriptions the kids would talk her into buying.
As she got out of the car, a warm breeze blew across her face, and she smiled. It had been a nice fall so far. The temps had been in the high seventies, with lots of sunshine and no sign of an early winter. She crossed her fingers that the weather would continue to be warmer than usual and that it would snow only a couple of inches on Christmas Eve and melt completely away by New Year’s Day.
After pushing her windblown hair out of her eyes, she grabbed her purse and tote bag, then strode across the asphalt and used her key to get inside. Homer Knapik, the high school principal, was standing in the school’s foyer, his gaze fastened on the door. He was squarely built with an excess of body hair and a permanent frown. He reminded Skye of Bigfoot with a bunion.
As soon as he caught sight of Skye, he boomed, “You. In my office immediately!”
Yikes! What did Homer want? Skye followed the principal past the front counter, down a dark narrow hall, and into his lair.
He shut the door and marched over to the coffee machine on the credenza beneath the window. Homer had been the principal at the high school for as long as most people could remember. In fact, he’d been there when Skye was a student, which made the whole colleague/ equal-footing relationship a bit hard to pull off.
For the last couple of years Homer had been threatening to retire, but much to the disappointment of his staff, those had been empty promises. The teachers were convinced that even if Homer died, the board would just stuff and mount him in the chair behind his desk. If that happened, Skye was pretty sure no one would be able to tell the difference, at least as far as the running of the school went.
Without turning around, Homer barked, “I heard you found another stiff.”
“That stiff, as you so eloquently put it, was one of our students not too long ago”—Skye’s voice was rebuking—“so I’d appreciate it if you referred to her in a respectful manner.” Skye wasn’t good at standing up for herself, but she didn’t let anyone denigrate the kids, even after they were dead.
“Don’t take that holier-than-thou tone with me.” Homer faced her, holding a steaming cup. “When you’ve been around here as long as I have, see if you’re still so protective of the little brats.”
Skye paused. Changing Homer’s mind was probably impossible, but she’d keep after him about how he treated the students.
Her lack of response seemed to irritate him, and he moved on to another complaint. “What are you, some kind of pied piper for the dead? When you walk through a cemetery, do the corpses rise up and follow you?”
“Are you nuts?” Skye was beginning to worry about Homer’s sanity. “No one outside of a horror novel can do that.”
“Everything I say can be entirely validated by my own opinion.”
Skye kept her expression neutral. There was no way to respond to a statement like that. Heck, she wasn’t even sure what he’d actually said.
“What do they call your affliction, anyway?” the principal jabbed at Skye.
“I’d tell you, Homer, but it’s too hard for you to pronounce. And you don’t have to worry. Someone like you certainly can’t catch it.”
“Are you being smart with me?” He slammed his cup down on the desktop, hot liquid sloshing over the sides.
“Of course not.” Skye barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
“I’ve told you before”—Homer’s tone was that of a salesman speaking to an unreasonable customer—“I want you to quit finding corpses.”
“Okay.” They’d had this conversation before, and it never ended well. It was hard to defend yourself against an accusation you were afraid might be true. “I’ll put that on my to-do list.”
“That’s what you said last time.” The hair growing out of his nose bristled. “But you did it again.”
“And how do you suggest I carry out your order?” Skye was trying to remain calm, but he was starting to seriously tick her off. Did he think she got a bounty for every victim she found?