Buzz Kill (10 page)

But how could I research a guy who wouldn't talk and didn't seem to
exist?

Chase's car pulled away, and I watched until it was out of sight. And when the street was quiet again, I also wondered why in the world my father couldn't account for his whereabouts on September first—especially since, in retrospect, I was pretty sure he hadn't been home watching
60 Minutes.

“So, Millie, how is your investigation going?” Ms. Parkins inquired, accepting the books about psychos and detecting that I was returning. “Have you cracked the case—and written that award-winning story yet?”

“Umm . . . It's only been a few days,” I reminded her. “And no—I haven't gotten anywhere. So far all I've done is break into Mr. Killdare's house—”

This news caused her to stop scanning my books just long enough to give me a curious look over her cat eyes, but then she resumed the intake process and let me continue.

“—where I took some envelopes that seem to indicate he was sick, and a postcard from a woman named BeeBee.” I hesitated, thinking. “I also asked this guy in my class—a football player who takes care of Mr. Killdare's dog—if he knows anything. But he's a bigger mystery than the murder.”

Anybody other than Ms. Parkins—any other adults, at least—probably would've given me a lecture about my sleuthing methods, but my librarian merely asked, “How so? What makes your classmate so mysterious? Because—no offense to them—but most teenage boys are far from enigmas.”

“Oh, this guy's a total puzzle,” I said. “He's incredibly good-looking, and obviously smart, not to mention the Stingers' quarterback—”

“Chase Albright?”

Ms. Parkins's interruption surprised me. I'd never considered her a sports fan.

“How do you know him?

For the first time since I'd met her, Isabel Parkins seemed uncertain. Maybe even . . . cagey? She didn't quite meet my eyes as she said, “He's in the newspapers, of course. Quite the star, from what I understand.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, not entirely buying her explanation. I skimmed the local paper every day, too—but never bothered with the sports section. Was she a closet Stingers follower? “Anyhow,” I continued, “he doesn't ever talk about himself—and he doesn't have any presence on the Internet. When you Google him—nothing, except football articles.”

“Interesting,” Ms. Parkins conceded. Then she changed the subject, asking, “Where are the Nancy Drew books?”

Why did I keep them when I'd nearly choked just to read one sentence?

“I guess I forgot them.” I fibbed for some reason. Then I frowned. “Do you think Nancy ever verbally attacked a detective?”

Ms. Parkins's bright red lips twitched with amusement. “I don't think she had that much spunk.” She leaned on the counter. “So what's next? What's your plan?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “I'm sort of winging it here.”

“Maybe I can help.” Ms. Parkins was reaching under the counter, and I was pretty sure she was going to offer me some investigating how-to book I'd missed. But to my surprise, she pulled out a newspaper, spreading it open and pointing to an article.

I looked closer.

Well, not an article, exactly, but an obituary.

“If you want to unearth Mr. Killdare's secrets, they might just surface here,” she advised me. “At least, that's been my experience.”

I thought she was telling me to read Coach Killdare's obit, and I was about to remind her that those things were sanitized to cover both overt flaws and hidden faults. But when I bent closer, I realized that she wasn't pointing to the brief account of his life. Rather, she was directing me to the announcement for his memorial service, since apparently his body had finally been autopsied long enough and yielded all the clues it was going to yield.

“Oh, gosh . . .” I straightened. “I don't know . . .”

I hadn't been to a funeral since my mother's and wasn't incredibly eager to get back in the swing of things. I wasn't much for standing graveside.

I knew that Ms. Parkins understood my hesitation—she'd been right there with me, all through my mom's illness—and she gave me a sympathetic look. “I'll admit, Millie. I don't think Nancy Drew ever had to face a funeral.” She smiled. “Then again, she never chewed out a detective, and she never won a national award for journalism.”

I didn't make any promises, but I did take the paper and tuck it under my arm. Just in case I got the guts to go—which, of course, I did.

And boy, was I glad about that. Because, as usual, Ms. Parkins was right.

People's secrets did get revealed at funerals.

And not just those of the person getting buried.

“Don't you think it's going to be weird, us showing up at a teacher's funeral?” Laura asked as she, Ryan, and I trudged through Wildacre Cemetery on a day that was awful for a graveside memorial—or maybe just right. It was chilly and rainy, the dirt path through the graves filled with puddles that we had to navigate on our way toward a distant white tent.

I could vividly recall the tent at my mother's funeral and was glad that she was buried in a different cemetery. One that I didn't visit as often as I should.

Okay, one that I hadn't visited in five years, in spite of my dad urging me to do it. I just . . . couldn't.

“What if we're the only students?” Laura's voice broke into my guilty thoughts. “The only mourners at all?”

“We might be,” Ryan noted, ducking his umbrella under some low branches. “I don't know if any other guys from the team are going, even.”

Although I'd known that most players hadn't exactly liked Mr. Killdare, I was surprised by that. At the very least, he'd won them championships. “Really?”

Ryan bent down again because this part of the cemetery didn't seem very well maintained. “Yeah. Mike told—more like
warned
—everybody to stay away. He's still so pissed about losing his quarterback spot that he wants the whole team to boycott the service.”

I stopped walking for a second.
Interesting. Mike is furious enough to threaten his teammates. Was he perhaps angry enough to KILL?

“Somebody'll show up,” I said with confidence. But in truth, I hadn't heard anybody talk about attending, even though you could miss half a day of school without any penalty. What did
that
say about Mr. Killdare? “And I have to go,” I reminded my friends. “Ms. Parkins says secrets come out at funerals. I don't want to miss anything.”

Laura jumped over a puddle. “Do you think BeeBee will show up?”

I tried to jump, too—and fell short, so my right foot got soaked. “I hope so. Not that we'll necessarily know who she is.”

All at once, I felt Ryan's hand clasp my arm, and I looked up from under my umbrella to see the funeral tent just a few yards away.

My first thought was,
Okay, maybe Laura is right. It is weird for us to be here.
Because not only was the service already underway, but only about thirty people had turned out.

I took a moment to scan the mourners—or the obligated, as seemed more likely in Mr. Killdare's case—searching for familiar faces or someone who might call herself BeeBee. And there was a woman in a plainly cut maroon suit who looked to be about Mr. Killdare's age, and who stood alone with her head bowed.

Does she look like a world traveler? Somebody who'd . 
.
 . er, “be with” Mr. Killdare? Send him postcards signed “Love”?

It was hard to tell, so I kept searching the gathering, identifying Principal Woolsey, who stood next to my father, and Ms. Beamish, and a few other teachers. And at the very edge of the tent was another person from school. Chase Albright, who'd ignored Mike's “warning” and stood alone, looking very mature in a dark suit that somehow came across as more expensive than my, Laura's, and Ryan's cobbled-together outfits, all combined.

Feeling eyes on me, I found that Detective Lohser was, of course, there, too—and staring in my direction.

Pretending to ignore him, I resumed surveying the crowd—only to stop short at the sight of long blond hair cascading from under a very chic funereal black hat. Although her face was partly obscured, I would've recognized my archnemesis anywhere. Especially since, unlike me, she'd had the presence of mind to bring a reporter's notebook, which she held discreetly in her left hand.

Darn you, Vivienne Fitch!

I'd mentally prepped to face the memorial service, but standing at the edge of Coach Killdare's grave, my chest tightened as a minister in a black suit intoned a prayer and memories came flooding back.

My mother's casket being lowered . 
.
 .

I glanced at my father, who also seemed unnerved—but mainly by my presence. He kept giving me curious looks, as if to ask, “Why are
you
here?”

I averted my gaze, hardly able to bear seeing my dad in a sober suit beside an open grave. The scene was too familiar, almost like Mom had died yesterday, instead of about eight years in the past.

Both Ryan and Laura seemed to understand what was happening to me, and Ry clasped my arm, whispering, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” I said softly as the minister wrapped up the world's longest prayer. Then I shrugged free, knowing I had to pull myself together, if only because I couldn't let Viv see me looking weak. She kept peeking at me from under the brim of that little hat, no doubt sensing I was struggling and hoping I'd fall apart.

I glanced over at Chase and found that he was watching me, too, but with something that looked like sympathy. For a moment, I was not only surprised to see that expression in his eyes, but unsure how he'd have any clue as to what I was going through.

Then I realized that even if I didn't know much about Chase, my story was common knowledge. For a long time, I'd been poor, motherless Millie Ostermeyer—a label that still sort of stuck.

Don't be that pathetic kid, Millie. You're on an investigative mission, not throwing a pity party.

Squaring my shoulders, I forced myself to face the casket—just as the minister addressed all of us, asking, as if he'd run out of stuff to say, “Would anyone like to come forward and offer a few words about the man whose life we celebrate today?”

Funerals are pretty quiet to begin with, but that invitation caused a phenomenally profound hush to descend upon that cemetery. The kind of silence that I imagined existed in outer space. Even the birds seemed to shut up, and while I could see that Principal Woolsey was clearing his throat in his nervous way, he was managing to do it soundlessly, like he didn't want to be singled out to speak on behalf of a man who—let's face it—he'd probably loathed.

I sneaked a hopeful look at the woman in the maroon suit, but she was hanging back, too.

And although my dad certainly wasn't shy, he didn't jump into the spotlight, either—though for once I wished he would.
Go up there and say great stuff about Mr. Killdare, because Detective Lohser's listening and Viv is taking notes!

I was pretty sure Dad waited because he was a stickler for protocol and would let family—or at least somebody
not
best known for fighting with Hollerin' Hank—go first. Still, I tried to psychically will him to step up to the plate—until somebody finally broke that horrible, awkward silence by saying, in a calm, cool baritone, “I'd like to say a few words.”

It probably wasn't appropriate behavior, but it seemed like Laura couldn't keep herself from hopping up and down. “Chase!” she kind of gasped. “Chase is going to talk!”

It wasn't anything Chase said during his brief tribute to Coach Killdare that served as the key to unlock a big door to my puzzling, ultraprivate classmate's past.

No, it was something that passed between Chase and the woman I'd potentially—and, I was pretty sure, mistakenly—identified as BeeBee, as he stepped away from the grave and she stepped forward to speak, that caused a light bulb to go on over my head.

It was just a simple gesture—a woman resting her matronly hand on a boy's shoulder and giving it a squeeze, as if to say, “Well done, son.” But once I found out exactly who that woman was—when she gave
her
eulogy—that touch, and the way they'd locked eyes, spoke volumes.

I fully intended to confront Chase with my suspicions—huge as they were—but first I had an even bigger fish to fry.

“You guys go on back to school,” I told Laura and Ryan after the minister officially dismissed us all. “I've gotta talk to Vivienne.”

Though not too many people had turned out for Mr. Killdare's funeral, those who did were, unlike me, obviously not squeamish about sticking around a wet cemetery, chewing the fat during a break in the rain. Even Chase was talking for a change, with the woman who'd patted his shoulder, while my dad—after finally stepping up to laud his former colleague—was in politician mode, glad-handing everybody, with the exception of Detective Lohser, who hovered alone near a grave, like a ghost that had slithered up to ruin what was quickly becoming a pretty decent party. Viv, meanwhile, had Principal Woolsey cornered, interviewing him in a way that I knew was too aggressive to get results.

Psychopath!
I thought, watching Viv jab her pen at our poor, flinching principal, practically stabbing him. Honestly, it was like I was witnessing the shower scene out of—well,
Psycho.
He'll never talk if you threaten him!

And, sure enough, when I got within earshot, I heard Mr. Woolsey say, hands raised to ward off the near blows, “I don't know what more to tell you, Vivienne. When I said, in my eulogy, that he was an effective coach, that's what I meant!”