Buzz Kill (15 page)

Talk about adjectives that could cut both ways. “Anyhow . . . I'm still trying to pursue the BeeBee angle, too,” I said. “Just in case Mike is innocent, and Viv hasn't killed anyone, either . . . yet.”

It seemed that we'd reached the end of our adventure, because Chase didn't say anything more. But before I could hop out of the car, he surprised me by yanking the keys out of the ignition and dangling them in front of my face.

“What are you doing?”

“Inviting you to look through Mr. Killdare's house again,” he said. “And this time, you won't have to go in through a window. Which you left wide open.”

I finally got that he was reminding me that he still had a key to the back door. But before I could take him up on that offer, I was distracted by a movement I saw over his shoulder, out the driver's side window. Someone was darting out of my house and going quickly—furtively, I thought—to a vehicle I hadn't noticed, parked around the corner. A moment later, I saw red taillights, and the car was gone.

Dad, what are you up to?

“Dad, who was just here?” I demanded, entering our house to find him watching CNN, his feet on the coffee table and the tie that he was still wearing askew. “Who just ran off?”

“Oh, hey, Millie,” he greeted me—too innocently, I thought. Reaching for the remote, he turned off the set, but didn't answer my question. “Where were you?”

“I was hanging out with Chase Albright. We took a ride. Got a snack. Sniffed some manure.”

I knew in my gut that it wasn't the part about the poop that put the look of disbelief on my father's face. I was pretty sure he'd tuned out everything after “I” and “Chase.”

Seriously, did everybody—even my own father—have to seem so shocked by the prospect of me spending time with a hot quarterback? Was Laura the only human being who found the pairing plausible in any way, shape, or form?

“I didn't know you two were friends,” Dad said when he'd recovered enough to speak.

Are Chase and I becoming friends?

“We're French dialogue buddies,” I fibbed, rather than try to explain whatever was developing between me and my dad's star player. Maybe I was also worried that my father would forbid me from hanging out with Chase again—on the grounds that
I
might corrupt
him.
Lure Chase into my vaguely antiestablishment, antiauthoritarian ways and ruin him as a “team player.” “We just
parler-
ed together. It was no big deal.” I plopped down on the couch, too. “So . . . Who was here?”

My father, who had a mind like a steel trap, suddenly exhibited classic signs of dementia. It was as if this simple question didn't even register with him. “What? What do you mean?”

I nudged a bowl of Chex Mix across the coffee table with the toe of my sneaker. “Our go-to, ‘company' snack is in the ‘nice' bowl.
Somebody
was here.”

“Oh, yes.” Dad seemed to regain his faculties. “Municipal business. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Who said I was worried?”

All at once, my father and I locked eyes, really looking at each other for the first time in a long time. And the weird thing was, I saw that he was the worried one. My dad never looked worried. Not even when my mother had been sick. He'd just “soldiered on,” to the degree that sometimes I'd wanted to slug him and tell him that he should cry or something, if only to let Mom know that he was upset. But part of me suspected that he did that, in private, and that if I made him do it in public, he'd never stop.

That hidden, tiny, vulnerable part of Dad that I was pretty sure existed—that's what I was glimpsing in his eyes right then. And as we sat there studying each other, I also knew that he'd just lied to me.

Whoever'd gotten the Chex Mix treatment hadn't just been some municipal crony.

Something important had gone down, like maybe Detective Lohser had come around with a search warrant, looking for a weapon or evidence that would answer the question about where Dad had been a few Sundays ago.

I was still certain that my father'd had nothing to do with Mr. Killdare's murder. Would never doubt that. Yet he wasn't telling me everything, either.

“Dad,” I said softly, still searching his face. “What's going on with you? Are you really in trouble about Mr. Killdare? Because Detective Lohser asked me where you were on September first—and told me
you
didn't know.”

In the last few days, I'd gotten Chase Albright to open up to me. But I had the opposite effect on my father. He snapped shut, repeating, “There's nothing to worry about, Millie. Except your grades in French. I hope Chase can help you.” Then, although I was pretty sure my father knew about Chase's delinquent background—Mr. Killdare must've said
something
when he'd recruited a new quarterback—Dad basically confirmed my suspicions that he considered me a potentially bad influence. “And don't you fill Chase's head with ideas about how structured education is a bad thing, because if he starts skipping classes, he'll be ineligible to play. And we're facing the Bulldogs next week.”

“Too late.” I stood up, grabbing the bowl. “I've already convinced Chase that not only is public education a diabolical plot to shackle young minds, so we all become unthinking grist for the military-industrial complex, but that organized sports are the modern equivalent of gladiator tournaments. He now understands that you're exploiting his body to entertain the masses, and he'll be quitting tomorrow.”

“Millicent Ostermeyer, you had better be joking,” I heard my father growling as I went up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Seriously, if you've said anything to Chase . . .”

I closed my bedroom door, shutting him out, because while I might've honestly believed, to a large degree, that stuff about structured curricula stifling the mind, I had an article due for my school's paper. A story about Coach Killdare's memorial service—and a sidebar about a mysterious football player who couldn't expect to fly completely under the radar forever.

But before I powered up my laptop, I reached for those envelopes I'd swiped from Mr. Killdare's house. I'd sort of forgotten about them, as I'd started to believe that BeeBee and her postcard were bigger keys to the mystery, but it seemed like I should at least follow Laura's hunch about the medical letters being clues, too. Tearing open three at once, I scanned the contents, which consisted of incredibly dull stuff about insurance and deductibles. However, before I gave up and tossed them on the floor with my other trash, I ripped into the one with the return address “Cavenaugh-Beecham Clinic.”

And when I read the letter inside—a private message from a doctor—I sucked in a sharp breath and felt my heart sort of stop. Seriously, for a second, I thought
I
might need medical attention, and when I could finally breathe again, I muttered out loud, hearing confusion in my voice.

“Dad, did you keep
this
a secret from me, too? Did you know Coach Killdare had
cancer?
”

“Nice articles,” Ryan said, joining me and Laura at my locker. He held up the latest copy of the
Gazette
so I could see my byline atop two stories: “Hollerin' Hank Honored at Memorial Service” and “Former Stinger Resurfaces on Manure Farm: Boyles Related to Deceased Coach.” “I always wondered what happened to Roy.”

“Yeah, he's not gonna like the way manure got played up in the headline.” I grabbed my books for the morning. “But I think he's glad to have kids know he's alive.”

At least Roy hadn't balked when I'd called him about revealing his whereabouts. Maybe because he'd been distracted by a video game. I'd heard stuff blowing up as he'd agreed, with a grunt, “Whatever, Ostermeyer. What do I care anymore?”

“You actually made it seem like people really miss Mr. Killdare,” Laura noted. “Those quotes from his eulogies . . . He seemed almost
popular.
”

Taking the paper from Ryan, I tossed it into my locker. “Yeah, well, it's all stuff I remembered people saying. I mean, Hollerin' Hank did have
some
good points.”

It struck me that I was developing a soft spot for Mr. Killdare, postmortem. He'd helped Chase, secured Roy Boyles's father solid, if hideous, employment, and nurtured my destined dog to maturity.

“At least I was able to make my dad look like he didn't want to kill Mr. Killdare,” I added, slipping my backpack over my shoulder. “I'm sure if Viv had written the article, it would've been headlined ‘Assistant Coach Hesitates at Service, Offers Lukewarm Tribute.' With the subhead ‘Ostermeyer Still under Investigation.'”

All of a sudden, I got a pang of guilt because if I'd been a truly unbiased reporter, I'd have been digging deeper into Mr. Killdare's cancer diagnosis. Even if that meant reopening an old, potentially mayoral-career-killing rumor about Honeywell High being located on tainted ground.

And if Detective Lohser finds out, will it be another black mark against my father, who definitely wouldn't like to see that gossip start up again?

“So, how was it, hanging out with Chase?” Laura interrupted my thoughts. She dropped her voice, even though Chase was about forty feet down the crowded hallway, opening his own locker. “Did you guys have fun?”

“Yeah, we did,” I said, shaking off concerns about my dad—and perhaps answering with too much enthusiasm. Maybe, just maybe, I'd relived aspects of that evening a few times. Such as the way Chase had put his hand on the small of my back and pulled out my chair. Then I glanced down the corridor and saw something taped to the inside of Chase's locker door. The photo Laura'd told me about. It was too small to make out the face, but it looked like a formal school portrait, stuck right in the middle of the otherwise gray, empty space. It was hard for me to imagine Chase Albright doing something as frivolous as adorning his locker in any way, which almost certainly meant whoever was in that picture really meant something to him. I turned back to Laura and Ryan, changing my tune just slightly. “It was okay. No big deal.”

“If you're talking about your stupid stories, you're right—they're no big deal. The article I'm going to write, based on my
exclusive interview
with Detective
Loser,
is going to blow them away.”

I hadn't even heard Vivienne Fitch slither up behind me like a cobra in a tight sweater, and apparently Ryan and Laura were caught off-guard, too. We all spun around in unison, clunking into each other like the Three Stooges. Viv wasn't laughing at our routine, though—and I wasn't amused, either. Just confused.

“What exclusive interview?”

Viv smiled smugly. “The one I got by just visiting his office, after school, and persuading him to give an
earnest, ambitious
student journalist information that I don't think any other reporter has yet.”

I knew what Viv meant by “visiting” and “persuading.” They were code for “barging in” and “bullying.” Well, bullying no doubt combined with intermittent hair tossing, eye batting, and pouts that said,
Poor helpless me, just trying to get a story from big, strong you!

All at once, I started to get nervous, because a guy like Detective Lohser wouldn't be able to handle those one-two punches, which would have exploited his incompetence
and
preyed upon his obvious, if completely unwarranted, vanity.

“What did you learn?” I asked, trying to act as if I hardly cared. “Nothing, probably.”

“Wrong, as usual, Ostermeyer,” Viv said. “I got him to admit that he thinks that alibi your father concocted out of the blue is going to crack and stink like a rotten egg.”

I swallowed thickly because, while my armpits were getting damp, my throat was suddenly bone-dry. “What did you just say?”

“That Detective Lohser doesn't believe your dad's alibi for a minute—and neither do I.” She snorted, deigning to appear unattractive, if only to demonstrate her disgust for a man we apparently mutually disliked. “What a wuss that cop is, though, and if he blows this case—”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. I looked at Ryan and Laura, but they seemed as baffled as I was, and I turned back to Viv. “What the . . . ?”

My nemesis rolled her eyes. “I'm talking about your dad suddenly ‘remembering' that he was alone with his
girlfriend
when Mr. Killdare got murdered. Like
that
holds water. Like his
lover
wouldn't lie for him!”

All of a sudden, the hallway seemed to constrict. Or maybe that was my chest. I definitely had trouble breathing, and barely got out, “Umm . . .
girlfriend?
”

“Jeez Louise!” Viv seemed to realize—much to her obvious delight—that I really had no idea what she was talking about. Her lips curled into a vile smile as she said, finally really sticking it to me, the way she'd wanted to do for years, “Please don't tell me that you had no idea your father is seeing some dweeby librarian named Isabel Parkins!”

“I will not be needing this anymore,” I told my
former
librarian, keeping my chin high and defiant, so it wouldn't quiver as I handed in my library card for good. “You can cut it up, or run it through a shredder . . . whatever you do with cards that
won't be used again.
”

“Millie . . .” Ms. Parkins didn't accept the plastic rectangle that had represented the bond between us, and she sounded incredibly sorry—which was not going to soften me up—when she said, “Your father told me how upset you are, and I understand. But believe me, we kept our relationship a secret—even when it cast suspicion on your dad—for you. Until it became
impossible
not to tell Detective Lohser, we stayed quiet for
you
—”