Buzz Kill (7 page)

“Jeez, for a guy who was always yelling at me about ‘developing some muscle tone,' Mr. Killdare went to the doctor a lot,” I mused. For the first time, I became aware of the paradox—or hypocrisy—of a gluttonous coach. “I wonder if
he
could've run a lap!”

“Millie . . . maybe that really is important.” Laura came over to the table and picked up an envelope with the return address “Cavenaugh-Beecham Clinic.” “Maybe he was sick.” I saw, even in the dark, that she had an idea brewing. “Maybe he knew he was dying and killed himself—like Hemingway. He
was
a ‘man's man,' like Hemingway.”

I appreciated that literary-themed theory, but shook my head, trying to get Laura to focus. “Nah . . . Mr. Killdare was sitting on a lawn tractor with
his skull caved in.
” I made an awkward motion with the flashlight, miming hitting the back of my head. “I don't think so.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.” Laura seemed crestfallen. “But I do think there might be something to all the medical bills—or appointment reminders . . . Whatever's in these envelopes. They strike me as sort of strange.”

She was right, and I felt bad for wishing I hadn't brought her along. Laura Bugbee might've been a goody two-shoes who didn't like creeping through windows or—I glanced down at Chumley—the planet's most incredible dog, but she was also insightful. “If you really think these might be valuable, I'll check them out,” I said, swiping some letters and stuffing them into the back pocket of my
suitable-for-a-crime
dark-wash jeans. “Later. At home.”

“What?” Laura grabbed my wrist. “You can't take stuff. That wasn't part of the deal!”

“Nobody's collecting on Mr. Killdare's medical bills or expecting him to keep an appointment,” I reminded her. “He's dead. And dead men don't pay bills—or go to doctors.”

Actually, I wasn't sure about the payment part. But Mr. Killdare definitely couldn't get in trouble for falling behind on some debts. What would they do? Put him in prison?

“The police probably want everything left just the way it was,” Laura said, pointing out something I hadn't thought about. “This might all be evidence.”

Well, it was disturbed evidence at that point, and I couldn't undisturb it. Besides, the police had probably come and gone already.
But they wouldn't clean up piles of dog poop, even if they'd found that. Meanwhile, somebody was collecting Mr. Killdare's mail
before
most of us even knew he was dead, because there was never anything on his porch. So who's been taking care of the place? A housekeeper—or someone else?

I was about to mention that something about the mail situation and Chumley's being fat, happy, and relatively clean seemed weird to me when I realized that Laura was staring at the table.

Following her gaze, I saw it, too.

Then Laura and I looked at each other and said, simultaneously and with no small measure of surprise, “You don't think Mr. Killdare
had a friend,
do you?”

It was just a postcard—a flimsy piece of cardboard with a foreign stamp and a pretty picture of a town called Lucerne, in Switzerland—but it was almost heartbreaking to find it among all the other impersonal mail on Coach Killdare's kitchen table.

“This makes him seem almost . . . human,” Laura said softly. “Somebody actually thought about him while they were on vacation.”

“Yeah, really . . .” I kept turning the card back and forth, not sure whether I should read the message. Breaking and entering was invasive. And stealing mail, like I was doing, might technically be a federal offense. But something about reading a very personal, if small, note was finally making me feel surprisingly squeamish and guilty.

Mr. Killdare wasn't just a mean, loud ogre. Somebody cared about him.

Then again, I'd heard that most murders were committed by people who supposedly loved one another, and given that the pool of individuals who'd been fond of Mr. Killdare was pretty small, it seemed foolish to overlook what might be genuinely important information.

Making my decision, I read out loud: “Having a great time but missing you. Love, BeeBee.” I glanced at Laura, not sure why I'd hesitated. “Not very original, huh?”

But my co-investigator had her eyebrows in a knot. “Who the heck is BeeBee? What kind of name is
that?
” She frowned. “Do you think it's a nod to Mr. Killdare coaching the Stingers? Like, she'd call him Big Stinger, and she was his little BeeBee?”

Just the thought of that triggered my gag reflex, and I forced the image of Mr. Killdare getting “cutesy” out of my brain. “I don't know about the pet-name thing—in fact, hope to never think about it again,” I said. “But I agree that it's definitely a woman's name. And the writing looks girlish to me.” Moreover, the script looked somehow familiar. I couldn't place it, though, and added, “Anyway, since there's no return address, it's impossible to tell who she is.”

“Not unless she's recently called Mr. Killdare, too,” Laura noted, so we both turned toward a phone hanging on the wall. But the message light wasn't blinking, which might've been yet another indication that Coach Killdare had been phenomenally unpopular—or, equally likely, that Detective Blaine Lohser had gotten to any messages first.

Was there anything from my dad on there? One of his disgruntled calls?

Then Laura raised another possibility. “Nobody uses a landline. His messages are probably on his cell.”

I swept the counter with the light. “I wonder if that's around here.”

“I'm sure the police have it,” Laura reasoned. “It was probably on him when he got murdered.”

When Laura said that word—“murdered”—we met each other's eyes in the dark kitchen, both of us creeped out. “We should get moving,” she urged.

“Yeah.” Ignoring another look of disapproval, I crammed the postcard into my pocket, because I really wanted to study that writing when I had more time. “We'll check the rest of the house fast,” I promised. “But first . . .” I bent down and shook Chumley, who'd dozed off. He grunted awake in a way that I was going to find endlessly endearing when he slept at the foot of my bed. “I want to give Chum a snack.”

Laura seemed confused. “Chum?”

“Yeah, Chumley.” I began to hunt among the low cabinets, assuming that's where you'd keep pet food, while the dog followed me, his toenails clicking on the linoleum floor and his tongue lolling out. “That's his name.”

“According to . . . ?”

“Me. Who is going to adopt him.” Locating the correct cabinet, I hauled out a big bag. “He's going to need a new home.”

It was Laura's turn to make me think straight. “Your father will never let you have a dog, Millie. Especially one that reeks and that you'll dump on him as soon as you graduate and head to Europe.”

I paused, sack in my arms.
Yeah, what was I thinking?

And what had I been thinking, breaking into a brutally murdered teacher's house, because all at once we heard a car pull into the driveway, a slamming door, and footsteps on the porch, all of which happened before we even seemed able to react. The most I could do was drop the bag, so discount kibble scattered everywhere, then fumble to turn off the flashlight as a key was turned in the lock. Grabbing Laura's arm, I dragged my wide-eyed, panicked friend deeper into the house, both of us whispering in terrified, hushed tones a name that had at first sounded anything but ominous—until she'd come to kill us, in cold blood, for investigating her heinous crime of passion.

“BeeBee!”

Laura and I were on all fours, hiding in Coach Killdare's den—there was a La-Z-Boy, a big-screen TV, and a hideous plaid couch, so I guessed that constituted a den—and breathing way too hard for people desperate to go unnoticed.

Fortunately, whoever had entered the kitchen was making a fair amount of noise, too, first tossing what must've been that day's mail onto the table, then calling
my
dog by the wrong name, scolding him mildly. “Baxter . . . How did you get the food out?” I heard happy whining and the thump of a hand against a dog's substantial side, along with, “You are a real glutton, mutt.” There was a pause, then “Wow . . . And I have got to give you a bath
tonight.
”

I didn't want to get caught, but I couldn't help turning on the flashlight and pointing it up between me and Laura's faces, so we could see each other's confused, surprised expressions as we both mouthed silently, “Chase Albright?”

“Easy there, Bax,” Chase said, sweeping up the dog food I'd spilled and dumping it into a bowl.

At least, that's how it sounded from where Laura and I were still crouched, only half hidden by the recliner and a small bookcase. Shifting my weight, I bumped into the shelves and nearly knocked over a replica of London's Big Ben clock and a plaster Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“Shoot!” I muttered, earning a wide-eyed “shushing” look from Laura.

But Chase was still oblivious, telling the snuffling dog, “Slow down. Chew!”

I knew Laura and I should start backing toward the front door, which I could see over my shoulder, through a small foyer. But something kept me there, on all fours. A question I'd asked about a year before and that was actually getting harder to answer:

Who
are
you, Chase Albright?

As Chase moved around the kitchen, finally turning on a light, so Laura and I jumped, I ran down the few things I knew for certain about him.

Quarterback. Semifluent speaker of French. Fan of pretentious, gloomy movies. And now . 
.
 . Dog watcher for dead coaches?

“Let's get out of here,” Laura whispered, when it sounded like Chase sat down on the floor to keep Chumley . . . er,
Baxter
company while he ate.

But I still didn't move. I was listening to Chase talk to the dog again, more softly and with obvious affection. “Sorry you're stuck here alone, buddy. Maybe somebody'll come claim you soon?”

For a second, I forgot about how Dad would object and got excited, thinking I might actually have a shot at adopting Baxter. Then I started wondering how long Chase had been dog sitting—and bringing in the mail. Was there a chance he'd known about Hollerin' Hank's demise before the rest of us? Maybe even
played a part
in the crime?

No. That's even more far-fetched than thinking Viv and Mike might be guilty.

And yet, shouldn't Chase have been more eager to talk with Detective Lohser? At least admitted that he had a key to the victim's house?

Yes.
But he'd acted as if he'd barely known Mr. Killdare—

Chase's voice broke into my thoughts again. “That's enough food.” It sounded like he was standing up. “Let's go upstairs and clean you up.”

I glanced at the staircase—too close to us—and nudged Laura. “Come on. Let's go before he comes in here.”

She nodded, clearly eager to bolt. “Yeah.”

We started backtracking, then, like demented toddlers on our hands and knees. It seemed impossible that Chase wouldn't hear us. But once we got going, there was no turning back.

Fortunately for us, Baxter did not want a bath. There was a pretty big struggle going on in the kitchen as a football player wrestled a dog that had to weigh at least eighty pounds.

“Settle down,” I heard Chase urge just as I turned and scrambled the last few feet to the door. Laura was hot on my heels, her frantic breath hitting my neck while I fumbled with the knob. Then we thudded across the porch and tore into the night.

I looked back only once, but I was pretty sure I saw a shadowy figure on the porch, watching us sprint away.

“You . . . think . . . he . . . saw us?” Laura panted when we finally slowed down after about four blocks.

It was the farthest I'd run in years, so I could barely talk, either. I bent over and clutched my side. “Jeez . . . What . . . do . . . you . . . think, Miss . . . Pink Shirt?”

We got quiet then, except for some wheezing, until we were within sight of my house, at which point Laura asked something that I'd been musing on, too. “Why didn't we just admit to being there?” She could speak normally by then, while I was still struggling a little. “Chase is just a kid, like us. I don't think he would've called the police or anything.” She sounded sort of disappointed. “Maybe we could've hung out even.”

“I don't think Chase hangs out with anybody—except my dog,” I reminded her, forcing myself to talk as if my breath was coming easily, too. “And
something
told us both to hide. Some instinct we were probably smart to follow.”

Because Chase might be keeping some big secrets?

Laura seemed to consider that, and we stopped talking again, me distracted by other thoughts. Memories of things I'd noticed as we'd crouched in a room cluttered with remnants of Mr. Killdare's “glory days” as a player and coach. I hadn't been able to make out details of the countless framed clippings, but many had featured images of guys in football uniforms. And there'd been a shiny plaque, too, the gist of which had been fairly clear, thanks to the moonlight streaming through the curtainless windows. I'd been able to read “Volunteer,” “Appreciation,” “Coaching Excellence,” and “Mason Treadwell Academy.”

Had there been more to Coach Killdare than I'd thought?

I ran down a mental list for my teacher, the way I'd just done with Chase, enumerating everything I knew about Hollerin' Hank.

Loud yeller. Friendless—except for the mysterious BeeBee. Former owner of world's greatest dog. Apparently, volunteer.
Sticking my hand in my pocket, I checked to make sure I hadn't lost the envelopes and postcard I'd taken during what I considered an increasingly embarrassing retreat.
Man plagued by health problems? Guy with bachelor tastes—yet chicken-themed kitchen accessories . 
.
 .