Adventures in Funeral Crashing (10 page)

“Yeah,” Suzie said.

I felt suddenly excited, “You weren’t by any
chance at the animal adoption for the Palos Animal Shelter at the
park on the corner of 135
^th
street and Moorpark a week
ago Sunday, were you?”

Suzie thought about it for a moment, “Yeah, I
was there.”

This was huge. Suzie Whitsett was one of the
last people to see Liz alive. Not that I thought Suzie had killed
her, but she might have seen something. That last hour or so of
Liz’s life held the key to the whole mystery.

“Do you remember Liz being there?” I asked
and held my breath.

Suzie nodded, “Yeah, I do. We talked between
showing people our dogs.”

I tried to contain my excitement, “What did
you talk about?”

“Just stuff. Kind of about guys. She was
telling me about her boyfriend Troy,” Suzie said.

“What did she say about him?” I asked.

“Just that he had seemed so great and she
still really liked him, but she thought that he might be dating
someone else too,” Suzie said. “Liz was really upset about it and
not sure what to do. She really liked him.”

“Did she say who she thought he was dating?”
I asked.

“No,” Suzie shook her head and then added,
“She was asking me about Mary Shelly and the book
Frankenstein
, though.”

“Oh?” I asked, my interest piqued.

“Yeah, I had been reading it like a month ago
at the animal shelter and she wanted to know about it,” Suzie
said.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I told her about it,” Suzie said.

That was a dead end. I took a different
direction, “Did you see her leave that night?”

Suzie frowned, “Are you asking me if I’m the
last person who saw her alive?”

I thought for a moment, “I don’t think you
are, but you’re one of them. I’m just trying to help Ethan piece
together the last day of his sister’s life.”

Suzie seemed to accept that, “Yeah, I saw her
leave. We loaded our dogs back into the shelter’s vans and walked
to the parking lot together. I said bye and we got in our cars and
drove away.”

“And, she seemed totally fine?” I asked
again.

“Yeah,” Suzie said.

“And, there was nobody in the car with her?”
I asked.

“No,” Suzie said. “Why would there have
been?”

“Just asking,” I said, not wanting to tell
Suzie that I was looking for a murderer and that she might have
seen something important. Suzie seemed like the easily scared type,
but maybe that was just because she was shy and known as the quiet
girl.

“How about Olivia Reynolds? Did Liz know her
too?” I asked, trying to connect any sort of dots between the
victims.

“No, Jenna knew her,” Suzie said.

“Who’s Jenna?” I asked.

“Jenna volunteers at the animal shelter too,
but only once a week. She introduced me to Olivia because I had
mentioned wanting to learn how to sew. Olivia was teaching a sewing
class from her apartment on Tuesday nights. She was a good
teacher,” Suzie smiled, sadly.

“Was it a big class?” I asked, since that
would give a large group of people easy access to Olivia’s
apartment.

Suzie thought for a moment, “About ten of us.
Not super big.”

“Any guys in the class?” I asked.

“No. It was all girls,” Suzie said.

I tried again, “Anybody talk about Mary
Shelley or Frankenstein?”

Suzie looked at me quizzically, “No.”

I changed topics, “Random question, but would
you say Olivia was the drug addict type either?”

“Not at all,” Suzie said.

There was an obvious question that I had to
ask, “So, were you in Olivia’s class the week she died?”

Suzie seemed uncomfortable again,
“Maybe.”

“Suzie,” I said.

Suzie gave in, “Fine. Yes, I was. Now that
you’re pointing this stuff out it just makes me feel like you think
I had something to do with Liz’s and Olivia’s deaths. I mean, I was
at those places, but so were a lot of other people.”

“I don’t think you had anything to do with
their deaths. I promise,” I offered. “I’m just trying to piece
things together. Was there anything at all weird that happened in
Olivia’s class that week?”

Suzie thought about it. “It was awhile ago,
but I don’t remember any fights or anything if you’re asking. As to
weird, well, there were definitely a wide mix of people in the
class, but that’s about it.”

“So, nobody with a grudge or anything against
Olivia, though?” I asked.

Suzie shrugged, “Not that I know of. Then
again, if they hated her, why would they pay to take her class, you
know? Still, I didn’t know Olivia super well. I’d only taken a few
classes with her.”

“Okay,” I contemplated all this. There
weren’t really any new leads from Suzie. I was disappointed.

“Wait,” Suzie said, “There is one other thing
I remember Liz saying.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, it was right at the end of the day,
but she said that she was going to meet up with Troy to talk,”
Suzie looked suddenly worried.

I felt a sudden surge of energy. Bingo! Troy
was very easily the last person to see Liz alive. Now, that was
finally a lead.

“She said that?” I asked, wanting to make
sure.

“Yeah, I guess she changed her mind and
didn’t think he was cheating anymore. She said things had changed.
I don’t know how, but they texted a few times while we were at the
park,” Suzie said.

If only Liz had saved those texts! It was
frustrating. They could have proved Troy was the murderer or at
least placed him with Liz at the time of her death.

Kyle interrupted us. I would have been mad at
him, except that he looked so happy. His cheeks were flushed and he
only had eyes for Suzie, “Hi Suzie.”

Suzie looked up at him, smiling shyly. “Hi
Kyle. I’m sorry, I’m in your seat.”

I just looked between them, unsure what to
do. I wanted to keep questioning Suzie, but the awkwardness of
potential romance was getting in the way. Plus, I was kind of
rooting for the romance. Kyle and Suzie seemed like they’d make a
pretty cute couple.

Suzie started to get up and scramble for her
things, as Kyle tried to keep her from running away, “It’s okay.
The bell hasn’t rung yet.”

They looked at each other awkwardly, each not
knowing what to say next. I decided to save them from themselves.
Suzie and I were pretty much done talking anyway. Maybe I was
feeling brave for Kyle, being on speaking terms with Ethan Ripley
now and everything, so I said, “Hey Suzie, going to the Homecoming
Dance?”

Kyle turned pale. Suzie turned red, but
answered looking straight at Kyle, “Not yet. I don’t have a
date.”

I could have
kicked Kyle. Suzie gave him the best lead in ever and he blew it by
saying the following words, “Oh, that’s nice.”

I mean, dude, the girl you have a massive
crush on tells you she doesn’t have a date to the dance, well,
maybe you should take that as a lead in and ask her. Poor Suzie, I
actually think she was hoping he’d ask her too, the way her smile
faded after that. Then they just stared at each other in silence. I
didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness the bell rang and saved us
all from more horrendous teenage awkwardness.

I managed to chew Kyle out in whispers while
working on our Chemistry experiment. He was just quiet about it. I
know Kyle totally knew he had messed up. I did notice poor Suzie
looking over at us all during class, so maybe all hope wasn’t lost.
He just needed a swift kick in the ass.

“So, what were you and Suzie talking about
anyway?” Kyle asked as we started to set up for our latest
Chemistry experiment.

“Just girl stuff,” I said vaguely, not
wanting to get into details about Ethan Ripley.

“Oh, okay,” Kyle went back to concentrating
on the experiment, not even trying to get more details out of
me.

We were quiet for a little while as we each
measured liquids for our experiment. I was thinking about what
Suzie had said, the murders, and heroin overdoses.

“Hey, Kyle,” I said after a few moments.

“Yeah?” He was carefully pouring into a
beaker.

“What do you know about heroin?” I asked.

He almost dropped the beaker.

“What?” he whispered, looking around for the
teacher.

I repeated my question and added, so that he
didn’t think I was trying to buy some, “I know one of the girls who
died at Laurel Community College and you’re a science guy and all,
so I thought you might know. It is a chemical substance.”

“Well,” Kyle started, “It was originally an
over the counter drug by Bayer that they claimed was a non
addictive substitute for morphine.”

Kyle knew everything science related. He was
my own personal Wikipedia. Still, I didn’t need to know everything
about heroin as a drug. I shook my head, “Well, actually what I
wanted to know is could you murder someone with it? I mean is that
possible?”

“You mean injecting someone, like those
girls?” Kyle thought for a moment. “Sure, you’d just need to have a
needle ready and then inject them. Supposedly you don’t even need
to heat the stuff anymore, just add water and go. That’s easy
enough if you have a supply. After that, it would be quickest to
inject a vein, but even intramuscular injection would only take
about 5 minutes for the effects to happen.”

“Then what happens?” I didn’t want to ask,
but I had to know.

“From what I’ve read, you feel a sense of
euphoria and then your system slows down, particularly your
respiratory system, your heart stops, then you die,” Kyle looked
somber.

“Okay,” I said, feeling a wave of sadness as
I thought about Liz and the other girls. It was so sad. My eye
caught Suzie’s, across the room. She was looking at us. It was time
to change the topic anyway. If I thought about it, really thought
about it all, I’d just feel depressed and I needed to be
productive.

“She’s looking over here again,” I mentioned,
as we were getting ready to start mixing liquids.

Kyle looked over at Suzie and I thought I saw
that “it” as his and Suzie’s eyes met. I felt a pang. I wanted
that. And, they were both too shy to get it. Life could be so
unfair.

I had lunch, finally, fifth period. I usually
sat alone at a long lunch table. Sometimes a few people sat down a
few seats away from me because there was nowhere else to sit. I
didn’t hang out with anyone in high school being the social pariah
that I am, so I was used to eating lunch alone. I looked toward
Ethan’s table, but he wasn’t there yet.

That’s why I was shocked when Ethan sat down
across from me. I didn’t think he even knew we had the same lunch
hour. I hadn’t brought it up last night, because let’s face it, I
was meeting him after school. I didn’t want to push my luck by
asking him to have lunch with me too, in front of the entire,
extremely judgmental, and peer pressure ruled student body. Not to
mention his friends, Dave and Mike.

I was minding my own business, eating cheese
fries and a soda for lunch. I know it wasn’t healthy, but I was in
the mood for grease after the long weekend and barely any sleep.
Besides, there’s nothing like high school cafeteria cheese fries.
Mmm, mmm, good. Although, nothing compares to the goodness of the
peanut butter banana milkshakes from Wired. Have I mentioned
that?

Anyway, I was working on creating an
investigation notebook, so that Ethan and I would have a list of
details about the murders in case we needed to look back on it.
From all of the murder mystery movies I’ve seen on TV or read in
books, there were usually a lot of interrelated details and
sometimes it was just about finding something or really anything in
common. I was trying to record exactly what Suzie Whitsett had said
when I noticed that Ethan had sat down in front of me.

“Hey, Kait,” Ethan said grinning at me. “I
haven’t seen you all day.”

For a moment I thought I had somehow gotten
myself into an alternate universe, like the
Twilight Zone
.
It was surreal. First, there was Ethan sitting with me at lunch,
like it was no big deal and then there was the phrase, “I haven’t
seen you all day” like he really was sorry we hadn’t run into each
other this morning between classes.

I wasn’t the only one who wondered if we had
entered an alternate dimension either. I could feel the looks and
whispers of the tables around me, but for once I didn’t let myself
care what everyone was saying. Ethan having lunch with me
rocked!

So, I curbed myself from saying the words,
where is the real Ethan and what have you done with him and instead
said, “I talked to Suzie in Chemistry.”

“What did she say?” Ethan pulled a turkey
sandwich out of the paper bag that was lying on top of his books,
along with a bottle of water.

If I weren’t trying to be all cool about
hanging out with Ethan, I would have flipped out about how normal
he was acting. Like he sat with me every day at lunch or something.
Like it was no big deal that we were having lunch together. But,
then again, I was acting normal. Normal, normal, normal. At least I
hope I was.

So, I read back to him from what I had
already written down in my notebook about what Suzie had said and
elaborated on the rest from memory. He listened as he devoured his
sandwich.

“Well, now we have proof that Liz was going
to see Troy. He’s there. We have him within the hour of her death,”
Ethan said excitedly.

“Well, I’m not sure,” I said, sorry to
disappoint him.

“What?” Ethan asked.

“Isn’t it hearsay? I mean, Suzie says that
Liz said that and that they texted, but nobody actually saw Liz and
Troy together in that hour. And, her texts are gone. And, I doubt
Troy is going to admit to being with her that night,” I said.