Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery (15 page)

Once Skye had settled in the seat behind her desk and the boy was sitting across from her, she demanded, “Junior Doozier, what in the world were you thinking of?”

“About what?” He folded his arms, tipped his metal chair onto its two back legs, and stared at the brown marks on the white ceiling tiles.

Skye considered asking what he saw in those blots. Would his responses tell her anything about his personality? Or did he just see stains?

It took longer than with most kids—usually students couldn’t stand the silence and hurried to fill it—but finally Junior said, “It weren’t only a cherry bomb, Miz Denison.” He wrinkled his heavily freckled nose. “Nothing but flash powder inside a paper cup. No reason at all for you to get so worked up.”

“You could have blown off a finger.” Skye narrowed her eyes. “Not to mention injured me or one of the others in the room.”

“I didn’t know you was going to be there.” Junior’s milk white complexion became paler. “Honest. I’d never hurt you. Pa would kill me.”

Junior’s father, Earl Doozier, was the king of the infamous Red Ragger clan, which made Junior the crown prince. The Red Raggers were difficult to explain to anyone who hadn’t grown up in, or at least lived many, many years in, Scumble River. Their version of reality rarely matched other people’s. And their sense of right and wrong never did.

Like feral cats, the Red Raggers were untamed predators who stalked anyone more vulnerable than themselves. And they survived despite local law enforcement’s attempts to either domesticate or eradicate them.

For some reason Earl considered Skye a part of his family. Perhaps he thought of her as his liaison between the kingdom of Doozierland and the rest of the world. She certainly hoped it wasn’t anything more personal than that. The last thing Skye needed was Earl’s wife getting jealous and plotting her demise.

“Fireworks are dangerous.” She lectured Junior,
knowing she was wasting her breath but unable to stop herself. “What if you’d blinded yourself?”

“Look, Miz Denison.” Junior ran grubby fingers through his unevenly cut red hair. “From the time you light the fuse, youse have about three, four seconds afore the cherry bomb goes off. Evens a girl can throw it by then.”

“Let’s put the safety issue aside.” Skye blew out a frustrated breath. “Why did you throw an explosive into the art room?”

“She disrespected me.” Junior’s large ears vibrated with indignation.

“Who?”

“Miz Wormwood.”

“The art teacher?” Skye wondered what the woman had done. She was new this year, straight out of college and still learning how to control her class. “She wasn’t even there.”

“Well, how was I suppose to know that?” Junior huffed. “It’s her golldurn room, ain’t it?” He crossed his arms. “I heard someone that sounded like her talkin’ and figured, hey, here’s my chance.”

“I see.” Skye hadn’t realized that Neva and the art teacher had similar-sounding voices, but now that she thought about it, both
were
originally from Boston. “So what did Ms. Wormwood do to you, anyway?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Junior frowned. “You’ll take her side.”

“Look, we have maybe ten more minutes before your folks get here.” Skye decided to lay it on the line. Counseling techniques didn’t seem to work with the Doozier family. “And our school district has a strict policy about weapons. You could be expelled.”

“It weren’t no weapon.” Junior bristled. “An AK-47 is a weapon.”

“Junior!”

“Fine.” He slumped back in his chair. “Our assignment was to draw a comic strip. And I’m good at drawin’ so’s I did it. And it was on time and everything.”

Skye nodded. Turning in homework when it was due was a major accomplishment for Junior.

“But she says, ‘This is unacceptable, young man.’” His voice sound eerily like the teacher’s.

“Why?”

“My comic hero was a dude called Moonshine Man.” Junior grinned. “He can outrun any police car, handle hot copper tubing with his bare hands, and is stronger than a liquored-up redneck.”

“Ah.” Skye was beginning to understand. “So what happened?”

“She scrunched it up right in front of everyone and told me not to try to be smart.”

Oh, oh.
Skye was willing to bet her engagement ring that Junior had not taken that comment the way the art teacher had meant it.

“I knows I ain’t the smartest one in the class, but she don’t have no call to say I’m stupid.” Junior blinked his muddy brown eyes.

Skye nodded again, more sympathetically. Junior had a severe learning disability, which made reading extremely difficult for him, but his IQ was above average. Skye knew this for a fact since she had tested him twice in the past six years.

“That was a good drawin’.” Junior sat forward, his expression earnest. “So I says to her, ‘I ain’t the dumbass. You is.’”

“And?”

“And she sent me to the principal’s office.” Junior slumped back in his chair, clearly defeated by a system he didn’t understand. “But Miz Llewellyn weren’t there, so’s Mrs. Nelson told me to come back after lunch.”

“And on your way to the cafeteria you thought you
heard Ms. Wormwood, who had insulted you, so you retaliated by throwing a cherry bomb,” Skye recapped, wanting to make sure she was clear on the sequence of events. “Do you always carry one around in your pocket?”

“Yep.” Junior nodded. “Ya never know when a fella might need a little distraction.”

“Okay.” Skye stood up and motioned Junior out of his seat. “Let’s go see if your folks have arrived, and what we can do about this mess.”

As she and Junior walked toward the principal’s office, Skye tried to formulate an argument that would dissuade Neva from kicking the boy out of school. She had a bad feeling that if Junior was expelled, they’d have a hard time getting him to come back.

Neva surprised Skye. The principal was sympathetic to Junior’s plight, and promised to speak to the art teacher about how she had handled the situation. And because of the extenuating circumstance, Neva suspended Junior for only three days rather than expelling him for the rest of the year or longer.

Once Earl and his wife had taken their son home, promising the boy wouldn’t sit in front of the TV or play video games all day, Skye headed to the high school. She was running more than an hour late, but still hoped to see the Pass Out game girls before the end of the day.

While she crossed the expanse of grass separating the schools, Skye mentally thanked Neva for not making her bring up Junior’s disability in order to save him from expulsion. She definitely didn’t want to have to go through the Manifestation Determination process.

The procedure to determine if a student’s behavior was or was not due to the student’s handicapping condition involved a long, drawn-out, often excruciating course
of meetings, paperwork, and more meetings, requiring time that everyone involved could put to better use.

Skye sprinted into the high school. Seventh period started in ten minutes, so she grabbed the stack of papers from her mailbox and dashed to her office. As she raced down the hallway, she shuffled through the pages, counting the consent forms.

Shoot!
Only eight of the girls’ documents were present. Now she’d have to call the other parents and ask why their daughters’ permission slips were missing. Which meant she’d have to put off talking to the girls until tomorrow. Homer would not be happy.

What with the crisis at the junior high and having to track down the moms and dads of the last three Pass Out game girls, Skye didn’t have a chance to call Wally. By the time she got off work, she was dying to know what had happened with the Kyle O’Brien situation.

As she slid into her car, she was already digging through her tote bag for her phone. While she waited for it to power up—cell phones had to be switched off while in the school building—she fastened her seat belt, started the Bel Air, and turned on the heat. The temperature had dropped again and her new spring trench coat, while cute, wasn’t lined.

Wally didn’t answer his private line and his cell went straight to voice mail. Frustrated, Skye dialed the PD’s nonemergency number.

After several rings, Thea Jones, the daytime dispatcher, answered, “Scumble River police, fire, and emergency. How can I help you?”

Skye identified herself, then spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries with Thea before asking, “Is the chief around?”

“No.” The dispatcher paused, and Skye heard her say to someone else, “Hold your horses. I’ll be with you in a
minute.” Thea turned her attention back to Skye. “Sorry, hon. People just don’t have any manners nowadays. They see you’re busy and think it’s still okay to butt in.”

“Well, I don’t want to keep you.” Skye didn’t want to get involved in whatever squabbling was going on at the police station. “I just wondered if you knew why Wally isn’t answering his cell.”

“He’s probably in a dead zone.” Thea dropped her voice. “About half an hour ago, we got a tip regarding Elijah Jacobsen’s whereabouts. The chief and Quirk and Martinez lit out of here quicker than a squirrel crossing a road in front of a semi.”

“Oh.” Skye’s chest tightened. She hoped that Elijah would come in peacefully and no one would get hurt. “Thanks for your help.”

Now what? Surely, she had better things to do with her time than hanging around the PD waiting for Wally and the others to return. She’d already left him two messages, so she knew he would call when he had a chance. She certainly didn’t want to seem like a pathetic loser who had no life or interests outside of her fiancé.

She could go visit someone. But who? Just before the final bell had rung, Trixie had stopped by Skye’s office for a quick chat and had mentioned that she and her husband, Owen, were going out to dinner and then to a movie in Joliet. So Skye’s best friend was out.

Too bad her mom would be reporting for her four o’clock shift in a few minutes. Now that it seemed as if May was okay with the idea of Wally and Skye getting married, Skye really needed to talk to her about the wedding plans before May rented Buckingham Palace for the reception and hired the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to play at the church.

There was her brother, Vince. They used to hang out together a lot, and even though his new bride was Skye’s
friend and sorority sister, dropping in on the newlyweds unannounced seemed tacky.

Oh, well. Skye shrugged and put the Bel Air in reverse. Bingo would be glad to see her, if only because he’d get an early supper.

Five minutes later Skye pulled into her driveway and skidded to a stop behind a shiny red antique pickup that was blocking the way to her garage. As she got out of her car, Sonia and Sandy Sechrest climbed down from the truck’s cab and headed toward her.

Today the twins were dressed in identical jeans, blue plaid blouses, and denim jackets. Skye could tell them apart only by their cowboy boots. As she had previously noticed, Sandy’s had a higher heel than her sister’s.

“See, I told you if we waited a little bit, she’d come home,” Sonia scolded her sister. “But you’re always so impatient.”

“And I told you we should have called first,” Sandy admonished. “But you always think everyone will be at your beck and call.”

“Ladies.” Skye raised her voice. “Ladies.” Clearly, the twins had spent a lifetime quarreling with each other, so she talked over them. “What a cool classic truck. Who restored it for you?”

“No one.” Sonia’s expression was puzzled. “Horatio’s never been in a wreck.”

“We’re very careful drivers,” Sandy added, patting the pickup’s side as if it were a pony. “We’ve kept Horatio in tiptop condition ever since Papa gave him to us on our sixteenth birthday.”

“Wow.” Skye was momentarily speechless at the idea of a vehicle that still looked brand-new after sixty-four years of use. Finally, she realized the twins were staring at her, and she asked quickly, “What brings you out to my neck of the woods today?”

“We’re delivering the cat condo you ordered,” Sonia announced, pointing to the back of the pickup. “Don’t you remember me telling you it would be ready today?” She added in a concerned tone, “I hope we haven’t ruined the surprise for Bingo.”

“No.” Skye shook her head. “I told him about it.” She noticed Sandy’s mouth form a pout. “When I gave him the toy on Saturday, I mentioned that he had another present coming on Tuesday.”

“Good. Let’s get the condo in the house.” Sonia lowered the truck’s tailgate. “I can’t wait to meet Bingo and show him his new kingdom.”

“Here.” Skye hurried over. “Let me get that.” She lifted the four-foot-high cat tree from the pickup’s bed, wrestled the multilevel shag-carpeted object into her arms, and wheezed, “Follow me.”

Once they were inside, and the sisters had been properly introduced to Bingo, Skye seated them and offered them something to drink. Sandy asked for wine and Sonia wanted a beer. Skye was glad she hadn’t offered them tea. Clearly, they weren’t anything like stereotypical old ladies.

After pouring the sisters’ preferred refreshments into glasses, Skye put them along with her own Caffeine Free Diet Coke on a tray and carried it into the front parlor. She expected the conversation to focus on the murder, but instead Sonia explained in detail how she had constructed the condo, the best way to take care of the structure, and how to lure Bingo onto the tree if he was reluctant. It seemed a sprinkling of catnip on each level usually did the trick.

When Sonia paused to take a breath, Sandy leaped in and talked about next season’s cat toys. Skye kept her expression interested while she listened to Sandy describe her entire summer catalog.

Finally the sisters wound down, and Skye stood. “Would you like another drink?”

The twins shook their heads.

“I don’t want to keep you ladies.” Skye stepped toward the parlor’s archway. “If you have other deliveries, I completely understand.”

“Uh, well…” Sandy hesitated. “You work with the police. Right?”

“Yes.” Skye sat back down, realizing the sisters were about to tell her the real reason for their visit. “I’m the psychological consultant.”

“The thing is—,” Sandy started.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Sonia broke in. “Just tell her, for heaven’s sake.”