Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery (26 page)

After signing in with the correct time, Skye retrieved the papers from her mailbox and headed toward her office. She greeted several teachers on her way down the hall, then settled in behind her desk and flipped open her appointment book. There was only one entry—a reminder about the Doozier homework transport. No PPS meetings, parent consultations, or multidisciplinary committees.
Wow!
She might actually be able to work with some kids today. Easing back in her chair, Skye took the bag Wally had handed her out of her tote and opened it. Inside, he had packed her both a breakfast—Diet Coke and a package of brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts—and a lunch—a ham sandwich and a Raspberry Zinger.
Shoot!
Another day when she wouldn’t make her healthy-eating goal. And when had he found her stash of Hostess snack cakes?

After opening her soda, she tore off the top of the pastry’s foil pouch, and enjoyed her delayed breakfast. As she ate, she planned her schedule.

Late morning, after finishing the academic assessment of a student going through a re-eval, Skye phoned the junior high to see if Junior’s assignments were ready for her to pick up and deliver.

Ursula Nelson, the school secretary, answered with a brusque, “Yes.” She was a gruff woman who didn’t seem
to like anyone, and who, when spoken to, always appeared annoyed at the interruption.

After Skye made her inquiry, Ursula said with a snort, “Mr. Doozier called a few minutes ago. Apparently he is too busy to deal with his son’s missing work and feels the teacher can catch him up on Monday.”

Before Skye could inquire about Earl’s hectic calendar, Ursula hung up. As per her usual habit, the secretary did not say good-bye.

Although Skye was happy not to have to interrupt her day with a trip to Doozierland, she was a bit concerned. The Dooziers were famous for being bone-lazy, so a busy Earl was almost certainly up to no good. He was probably knee-deep in another get-rich-quick scheme, like the petting zoo from which the lion he had rented escaped, or the paintball adventure that had resulted in Skye’s resembling an Oompa-Loompa.

Still, not having to make the trip saved her at least a couple of hours, which meant she could complete another portion of the psychological evaluation, and then perhaps even get a start on scoring the tests.

When Skye took a breather at noon, she realized that Homer hadn’t come looking for her regarding her late arrival and she had wasted all that angst for nothing. Either Homer had bigger faculty to fry, or he was taking the day off. She’d noticed that lately he was rarely at school on Fridays. Did she dare to hope he was using up his sick days and this was a sign that he might be retiring soon?

Deciding to have lunch with Trixie, Skye took her brown bag to the library workroom. Ever since Trixie had made up her mind to write a book, she almost always spent her breaks there. As they ate, Skye told her friend about Elijah’s arrest and confession; then for the next twenty minutes the women discussed the case and Skye’s wedding.

As Skye got up to go back to work, she mused, “I wonder why Mrs. Griggs will let Wally and me sleep together in the same bed, but not make love? She seems fine if we cuddle, but not much more.”

Trixie ate the last bit of her Suzy Q, then said, “Maybe she doesn’t believe in premarital sex, and once you’re legally wed she’ll be okay.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Skye threw away their trash. “Hmm. If your theory is true, maybe it wasn’t Mrs. Griggs who turned off my alarm this morning. I suppose Bingo could have stepped on the
OFF
button.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a smart cat.” Trixie wiped the worktable down with a napkin, then said, “On a completely different subject, how do you feel about Elijah pleading guilty?”

“I just don’t understand how he did it.” Skye wrinkled her brow. “With his brain injury, I would have sworn he was incapable of pulling off that kind of crime.” She paused. “Guess I was wrong.”

After saying good-bye to Trixie, Skye headed back to her office, her mind on Elijah. Even though he had confessed, she still felt sorry for him. The poor man had been through so much in his life—losing both his profession and his fiancée. The only scenario Skye could come up with was that he had killed Alexis in an impulsive act of rage brought on by the woman’s continual bullying. But then, how the victim’s car had ended up in front of Kyle’s house remained a mystery.

Certainly Alexis’s harassing behavior didn’t justify Elijah’s murdering her. No one deserved that. Nevertheless, Skye hoped his sister would find him a good attorney.

When Skye arrived at the police station at a little after four, Wally greeted her at the door. Instead of his uniform, he was dressed in black jeans, a black long-sleeve
T-shirt, and a leather jacket. While explaining where they were going, he hustled her out of the building, across the parking lot, and into his personal vehicle, a sky blue Thunderbird.

“Uncle Dante wants you to do what?” Skye asked. “And you agreed?”

Wally slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”

As Skye buckled up, she demanded, “But why did you agree to be Uncle Dante’s security guard at his self-storage facility auction?”

“Because the mayor requested a police presence.” Wally put the T-Bird in reverse.

They had only found out five months ago that Dante owned a self-storage business, when he admitted that some of the police files—the ones that were over ten years old—were warehoused there. Without informing Wally, Dante had had the city hall custodians move everything from the PD’s basement to his place and was charging the city rent.

If Skye didn’t know how small-town government worked, she might have wondered how the chief of police could be unaware of where all the records were kept, even documents that were stored long before he became the boss. But in a good-old-boy regime, unless you knew the right question to ask, no one would volunteer the information.

“So you’re the police presence?” Skye twisted to look at Wally.

“Yes.” Wally’s gritted his teeth. “Since his facility is in Laurel, it’s out of my jurisdiction, and more important, I refused to have my men do Dante’s private work while on the public’s dime.”

“So, instead of compromising your officers, you’re doing it on your own time for free. Right?” Skye asked with a sidelong glance.

“It seemed the lesser of two evils.” Wally turned onto the road that would take them toward Laurel. “Dante’s request was more like an order, and I thought it was best to pick my battles.”

“But why am I coming along?” Skye asked. “Surely, my uncle didn’t ask for the psych consultant.” Her uncle had often voiced his opinion that the Scumble River PD didn’t need any blankety-blank shrink on staff.

“Not exactly.” Wally grinned. “But he did demand two security guards.”

“Really?” She giggled. “I’m the other security guard? He won’t be happy.”

“I’m not sure why he thinks he needs guards anyway.” Wally scowled.

“Probably because he’s as much of a jerk to his customers as he is to everyone else. He’s afraid someone will object to his selling their possessions when they’re only a couple of days overdue with the rent—or whatever the legal limit is. You do realize I’m more likely to throw the first tomato at my uncle than save him.”

“Good.” Wally decelerated for a dump truck turning into the local landfill. “If there’s trouble, which I doubt, I’ll handle it. You head for the car and call the Laurel police.”

Skye hid a smile. Wally had to know she would never leave him alone in that kind of situation, but instead of pointing that out she demanded, “Tell me about Elijah’s confession. How could you drop a bomb like that, then fall asleep before giving me the details?”

“I knew you’d be upset.” Wally’s expression was sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Fine.” Skye crossed her arms. “Now, how did you make him confess?”

“Believe me, I wish I could take the credit, but it wasn’t any great interrogation skill on my part.” Wally’s
expression was rueful. “We handcuffed him, read him his rights, and he said he did it.”

“Son of a gun!” Skye wiggled in her seat. “Did he say why?”

“Because God told him to.” Wally tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Supposedly, sometime toward the end of the bowler disco party, Jacobsen received a heavenly message to go to the basement and kill the vic because she was an unrepentant sinner.”

“So how did he get Alexis to go down there with him?” Skye asked.

“Jacobsen claims he doesn’t recall that part.” Wally concentrated on navigating the T-Bird around a curve. “He says his memory’s bad.”

“Did he bring the cat toy with him?” Skye asked. “And why did he use it instead of something more lethal?”

“He also claims he doesn’t recollect committing the actual homicide.” Wally blew out an irritated sigh, then muttered almost under his breath, “In fact, when we asked him to describe how he killed her, he said he stabbed her with his pocketknife.”

“That’s odd.” Skye knew the details of the homicide hadn’t been released, but the murderer should know how he had done it.

“I think he’s just setting himself up for an insanity plea.” Wally’s lips formed a thin white line. “Despite his so-called brain damage, he seems to have some flashes of intelligence and cunning. Unfortunately, Zuchowski made a rookie mistake and blurted out that Alexis was strangled with a cat toy, and then Jacobsen quickly changed his tune.”

“Oh. Anything else from Elijah’s confession that struck you as strange?” Skye didn’t bother to explain the nature of a head injury again. It was fairly clear that
Wally didn’t believe that the ex-doc’s issues were real. “Did he remember leaving the bowling alley?”

“He says he woke up, saw the body, and just went home.” Wally twitched his shoulders as if his neck was stiff. “It seems God didn’t tell him to stick around or tell anyone that he killed her.”

After a few minutes of contemplation, Skye asked, “When did God tell him to go into the wilderness?”

“The next morning.” Wally passed a slow-moving Grand Am with its windows down. The weather had warmed up into the seventies and the Pontiac’s driver was clearly enjoying the pleasant temperature.

Skye let her thoughts wander; then as Wally guided the T-Bird into the self-storage lot, she said, “So that’s that. Case closed?”

“Yep.” Wally parked the T-Bird beside an extended-cab pickup. “Jacobsen confessed and we don’t have any other leads to follow, so unless something new turns up…” He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders.

“And you really, really think that Elijah is the guilty party?”

“Not entirely, but as I said, he confessed, so without new evidence, it’s out of my hands.” Wally’s tone held a hint of impatience. “I went over everything with the county prosecutor today and he’s satisfied. Unless something comes up in the pretrial motions, the police department’s role is officially over.”

Skye let the matter drop even though she was far from happy with Wally’s explanation, and she was silent as he opened her door. Exiting from the low-slung sports car, she examined the storage facility. She’d been here once before while searching for a missing police file, and she still thought it looked like a fifties-style motel, although the fact that it was windowless and surrounded by a six-foot-high chain-link fence with razor wire strung across the top tended to spoil that illusion.

There were two types of lockers available. The smaller size had a regular pedestrian entrance, but the larger units had a heavy metal panel that rolled up into the ceiling like a garage door. The siding was a dirty tan, and the place reeked of bad luck and desperation.

While Skye was pursuing that thought, Dante waddled up to them and bellowed, “It’s about time you got here.” Short, squat, and with an enormous beer belly, the Scumble River mayor could have been a stand-in for the Penguin on the old
Batman
TV show. “The auction starts in ten minutes. Where’s the second guard at?”

“Right here, Uncle Dante.” Skye waved from beside Wally, then hid her grin behind her hand when the older man’s face turned red.

“What the hell?” Dante sputtered, rounding on Wally. “I told you I wanted two of your people here to protect my property.”

“And you have two.” Wally’s face was expressionless, but his fists were clenched. “Skye works for the police department and so do I.”

While Dante ranted about insubordination, Skye observed the throng gathered near the office. The parking lot was almost full. Most of the spaces were occupied by pickups, but there were a few SUVs, a snazzy sports car, and an expensive sedan. But the vehicle that caught her attention was a beat-up Buick Regal.

The Buick’s exhaust pipe was sticking out from under the passenger door and suspended by a seat belt. Shifting her gaze, Skye saw that the windshield had a spider-web crack and the side mirror was duct-taped to the body. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

It couldn’t be. She quickly scanned the crowd, waiting for the auction to start. Was that a familiar badly dyed blond hairdo near the front?
Oh, oh!
She couldn’t see with all the people milling around.

Skye glanced over her shoulder. Wally and Dante
were still arguing, or rather Dante was throwing a fit like a little kid who didn’t get what he wanted for his birthday. His pointy, beaklike nose was twitching and he was stamping his foot on the asphalt.

Skye edged closer to the horde of potential bidders, but before she could get a good look, she heard, “Whoo-ee! If it ain’t Miz Skye.”

In front of her, waving his arms as if he was directing a 757 to a gate at O’Hare, was Earl Doozier. The pint-size man was wearing red, green, and yellow print Zubaz pants, a white sleeveless T-shirt, and a purple gimme cap with a Copenhagen can embroidered on the front and his ponytail sticking out the back. He patted his little round belly and beamed a toothless smile.

Skye cringed. This was not going to end well. A Doozier’s presence at an emotionally overcharged event like an auction guaranteed a disaster.