Murder for Choir (16 page)

Knowing backup was on the way made me feel better,
but my legs were still wobbly as I fetched a bowl of water for my patient. The minutes dragged by as I waited for help to arrive. Finally, I heard footsteps downstairs and my aunt yell, “Paige? Where are you?”

Killer perked up at the sound of Millie’s voice and tried to stand. I held him down and yelled, “We’re in my bedroom.”

Feet pounded up the stairs and down the hall. I heard Millie gasp from the doorway as she saw me on the floor holding Killer’s head in my lap. Dr. Wilson from next door was right behind her. Millie must have called him from the car. I wished I had thought of that. The man wasn’t a vet, but he knew how to treat open wounds.

Killer’s tail thumped against the carpet, and he tried to get to his feet. Millie knelt on the floor and gently pushed Killer down as he licked her face and whined. My aunt sniffled and wrapped her arms around me in a death-grip hug.

“Thank God you’re not hurt,” she said as she squeezed even tighter. I felt like I was going to pop. After another hard hug, she turned and gave the doctor a pleading look. “Is Killer going to be okay?”

I stood up and sat on the bed so Dr. Wilson had room to examine Killer. The apple pie I’d eaten rolled in my stomach. If Dr. Wilson gave Killer a bad prognosis, I was going to hurl.

The short, balding doctor looked at Millie and said, “Your boy took a knock to the head. The cut isn’t deep, which is good. I’d recommend taking him into an emergency clinic to get some X-rays. Head wounds can be tricky.”

Millie wrapped Killer in a blanket, and the three of us awkwardly carried the dog down the hall. When I was a kid, I thought poodles were always cute and little. Killer weighed a ton. It took everything I had not to drop him as I felt my
way step by step down the stairs. Once we got him out the door and onto the stoop, Millie hurried over to her pink convertible and pulled it up to the door. Dr. Wilson settled Killer in the backseat just as Detective Mike’s Mustang pulled into the driveway.

Millie revved her engine. “I’ll call you from the clinic. We’ll probably be there a while before I know anything. Lock all the doors and don’t wait up.” And she zoomed off.

“Rough night?” Detective Mike slammed his car door and walked over to where I was standing on the front step.

The kindness and concern in the detective’s tone made my eyes start to burn and my throat itch. I didn’t want to cry, but the stress of the evening combined with genuine caring was making that hard.

Through a constricting throat, I said, “Coming home to an intruder and an injured dog isn’t part of my normal Friday-night ritual.”

“Can’t imagine it is.” The detective pulled out his cop book and nodded toward the house. “Let’s go inside so you can tell me about it.”

Dr. Wilson gave Mike his contact information and went home. Mike and I went inside. I was going to sit in the living room until I remembered the lack of furniture. Instead, I made a beeline for the kitchen because that’s where the caffeine was. Heading for the fridge, I took one look at the empty space in front of it where Killer typically stood guard, and my lip started to tremble. I reached for the fridge door and a tear escaped down my cheek. Then another.

I walked to the kitchen table, took a seat, and buried my head in my hands as I started to cry. Killer was in the doggie hospital fighting for his life. Aunt Millie would be heartbroken if he died. Hell, I’d be heartbroken.

A hand touched my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. That
made me cry even harder. Finally, after a lot of tears and hiccups, I took a shuttering breath and raised my head.

Mike looked down at me with a small smile. “Feel better?”

Not particularly. Now instead of just sad and freaked, I could add embarrassed to the list. Yippee.

“Sorry about that,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. My breathing was still high and uneven, and my hand was streaked with mascara from wiping the tears off my face. It was hard to have dignity when you looked like a zebra.

Mike sat across from me. “Why don’t you tell me what happened tonight.”

So, I did just that. I started with walking up to the front door and ended with Killer riding off in Millie’s hot pink makeshift ambulance.

When I was done, Mike looked down at his notes and frowned. “Did you forget to lock the front door when you left this evening?”

I chewed my bottom lip. “No. I’m sure I locked it.”

Mike pushed his chair back, walked over to the back door, and turned the handle. Locked. “The front door didn’t show signs of forced entry. Are there any other exits besides this one?”

I walked him into the Spartan living room where the French doors were currently allowing bugs and any other critters to move right in. Bonnie and Clyde sat in the middle of the room ready to greet them. “These doors were closed when I left the house.”

“Were they locked?”

Good question. “I didn’t check before I left. Aunt Millie normally leaves them locked, but she had some furniture
removed today. The pieces might have been taken out through those doors.”

Mike examined both doors, took a couple pictures with his phone, and then closed the doors to keep the marauding mosquitoes out. “No forced entry. I’m guessing they were unlocked, but I’ll double-check with your aunt.”

I gave Mike a lot of credit for not mentioning the two lifeless pugs sitting in the middle of the living room floor. The man had focus. We went upstairs to my bedroom, and I let Mike go in first. I’d already seen my quota of blood for the day.

“Yours?” Mike pointed toward the bed, where I’d ditched the knife I’d been packing.

I nodded. He laughed. Then Mike looked down at the floor and stopped laughing. Putting on a glove, he leaned down to pick up something off the floor. In his hand was an ornate, cast-iron bookend of a wolf hound that looked suspiciously like an oversized rat. It was also the weapon used to put Killer out of commission.

Mike bagged the bookend and walked around the rest of the room taking pictures. “Is anything missing in here?”

“I don’t know.” I hadn’t even thought to look. Walking around the bloodstain on the white carpeting, I took inventory of the room. Shoes were in the closet. What little jewelry I had was still in its box on the dresser. Everything looked in its place.

Wait. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it looked like my laptop had been moved. And hadn’t there been more paper in the wicker garbage can when I left?

I flipped open the laptop. Nothing looked broken. Leaning over, I rummaged through the garbage. Earlier, while waiting for the Internet to kick out dirt on my suspects, I’d
doodled the list of suspect names on a piece of paper along with a bunch of hearts, flowers, and other shapes. I’d pitched the paper on my way out the door. The paper was now gone.

“What’s wrong?”

If I told Mike about the missing paper, he’d want to know what was on it. He wasn’t going to be happy with the answer. But not telling him would limit his ability to find the person who almost killed Killer.

“There’s a piece of paper missing from the garbage.” I felt stupid saying it. I mean, only wackos monitor their garbage.

Mike raised an eyebrow. Yep, now he thought I was an OCD nut. “How do you know that?”

I explained my doodling earlier and tried to ignore the way the vein in his neck started to throb. “Look at it this way, whoever broke in here and took the piece of paper must be worried about my looking into the murder,” I said, trying to direct his attention toward solving the crime instead of throttling me.

“And that’s a good thing?”

Only if it distracted him from yelling at me. “Maybe. This could help you track down the real killer. That’s got to be better than scaring the crap out of a teenager who didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms over his chest. The movement shifted his sports coat, and I could see his gun peeping out from underneath the gray fabric. Gulp. The man had been so nice to me that I had forgotten he even had a gun.

He stared me down, and I decided to backpedal. “I know you have to question Eric. It’s your job.”

“You’re right.”

“And there are a few pieces of evidence that point toward Eric.”

“Right again.” He smiled.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “You also know he isn’t the only one out there with a motive. Dana and Larry are acting suspicious, and Coach Bennett has a huge temper when he drinks. You should have seen him tonight when—”

Oops. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. Mike unfurled his arms and slowly walked toward me. “You saw Coach Bennett tonight?”

Not trusting myself to speak ever again, I nodded.

“Where?”

“Outside his house.”

The vein in Mike’s neck looked like it was going to burst. “What the hell were you doing outside of the North Shore High School football coach’s house?”

Sighing, I admitted, “I was pretending to look for real estate. The house two doors down is for sale. Mrs. Bennett was really helpful answering questions about the place.”

Mike’s cheek twitched. “You talked to the coach’s wife?”

Nodding, I said, “The coach showed up while we were talking.” When Mike didn’t explode, I walked him through the coach’s drunken discussion of the murder and his violent reaction before I left.

To his credit, Mike didn’t yell. He just shook his head and said, “You might want to rethink accusing someone of murder the next time you try something like this.”

“Next time?”

“The way I see it, the only way to stop you is to arrest you.”

Eeek.

“Which I’m not ready to do.”

Phew.

“Yet.” He gave me a grim smile. “Just promise me you’ll stay inside tonight with the doors locked. We’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes.”

Mike walked around the house one last time making sure doors and windows were locked as he went. He gave me a warning to stay indoors, and then folded himself in his car and drove off.

I turned the lock on the front door and went into the kitchen for a snack. Halfway through my second bag of microwave popcorn, Millie called. Killer was in X-ray. The vet thought he was going to be okay, but they’d know more after the pictures were taken. Regardless, Killer would be staying at the clinic overnight and so would Millie. That left me alone in the house.

On a normal day, alone was good. Alone meant I could sing at the top of my lungs, hog the remote, and run around in my underwear. Well, I never did the last one, but I liked knowing it was an option. Today, alone felt scary. I didn’t want the remote or a
Risky Business
moment. I wanted company.

It was almost ten o’clock. Most of my friends wouldn’t get home from their performances until close to midnight. I pulled the faculty contact list out of my bag and scanned it. Devlyn was my first choice, but calling a guy, even a gay one, and asking him to sleep over felt wrong. Asking Larry to keep me company fell into the Hell No category. That left Felicia. She said she was on a date tonight, but it couldn’t hurt to give her a jingle. Just in case.

Felicia picked up on the first ring. I explained that an intruder had broken into the house and that my aunt had gone to the emergency vet with the dog, leaving me alone. Biting the edge of my nail, I asked if she would be willing to stay the night.

“I would be happy to. Just give me a few minutes to throw some things in an overnight bag and I’ll be right there.”

Yippee. For the first time since I was fifteen years old, I was having a slumber party. Only, this one was designed so I could actually sleep. How strange was that?

I went into the living room to wait for Felicia. The pugs looked up at me as if excited about the party. Too bad they weren’t going to be participating. Hoisting an immobile dog under each arm, I tromped up the stairs and deposited them next to the border collie in my aunt’s bedroom. I then snagged the poodle from my bathroom and added it to the doggie eternal-slumber party. Only one more poodle to go. I looked in the two guest bedrooms and baths. Nope. Not in the living room, dining room, or in the kitchen. I was about to check Millie’s office when the doorbell rang. Felicia was here, and she was dressed to kill in a tight black miniskirt, a shiny fitted red tank, and matching red stilettos.

The minute she walked in the door, she dumped her very large overnight bag on the floor, wrapped her arms around me, and squeezed. “You poor thing. First you walked in on Greg, and now this. I’m just glad you called me.”

“Thanks for coming.” I extricated myself from her arms
and took a step back. “Are you sure you don’t mind staying over?”

“Not at all.” She grinned. “This gives us a real chance to get to know each other before school starts. Things have been so crazy with…well, everything this week. A girls’ night is just what the doctor ordered.” She picked up her purple overnight bag. “Where do you want me to sleep? I can change out of these clothes, and the two of us can order a pizza. Do you like hot peppers and pepperoni?”

My stomach did a happy dance. Felicia was a girl after my own heart.

I showed Felicia to one of the guest rooms and called the pizza place. Having the pizza delivery on speed dial was the one good thing that came out of Aunt Millie’s cooking adventures. Twenty minutes later, Felicia strolled into the kitchen wearing gray shorts, a white T-shirt, and no makeup. She had lost the heels and was now sporting fuzzy black sequined slippers.