Murder of a Royal Pain

CHAPTER 19

Walk This Way

Should she keep her appointment with Dr. Paine or not? Skye vacillated as she unlocked the Bel Air and slid behind the wheel. On the one hand, Wally had said not to do anything that would make Quirk think that she was still investigating, and if Annette was not the intended victim, there was no reason to talk to her husband.

Then again, maybe Quirk was innocent, and Dr. Paine had set up his wife’s “accidental” death. If that were the case, he might let something slip to Skye—they usually carried on a friendly banter during her appointments. Now that she thought about it, he was rather flirtatious.

Besides, Dr. Paine was her regular dentist. Even if he or Roy Quirk was the killer, neither man would have cause to think she was going to the dentist for any reason other than a toothache. Having justified the visit to herself, Skye turned right on Basin Street, and a few minutes later pulled into the dentist’s parking lot.

As she walked across the blacktop, she noticed the vehicle parked in the spot marked RESERVED FOR DR. PAINE. The older sedan looked very much like the car that had nearly run her down after church. It was the same color and general shape. Too bad she hadn’t noticed the license last Sunday, because Dr. Paine’s plates read 2THDOX.

Skye paused outside the front door. Was it foolish to put herself in the hands of a man who might have tried to run her over? No, it would look more suspicious if she didn’t show up after making an appointment.

Once inside, Skye turned right and went through another door that led into a small waiting room. She stepped over to the window to check in with the receptionist, but there was no one at the desk, so she wrote her name on the sign-in sheet and took a seat.

Skye glanced at her watch. It was exactly four o’clock. Where was everyone? There was no bell or buzzer. After a few minutes she picked up a copy of Good Housekeeping and paged through it. When she checked the time again, fifteen minutes had passed.

Uncertain what to do, she stood, pushed open the inner door, and called, “Anybody here?”

No one answered, even after she repeated her question in a louder voice. Surely the staff wouldn’t have left the office unlocked. Maybe, since she was the last appointment of the day, Dr. Paine had let the receptionist leave and Skye was supposed to go straight in. You would think, though, that someone would have left a note to that effect.

Annoyed, Skye eased through the door. The moment she was inside the hallway, anxiety spurted through her. It wasn’t the pain that made her hate to go to the dentist; it was the noise and the smell. Today the office was as silent as a tomb; unfortunately, the odor of antiseptic and fear remained.

The first two alcoves on her right were empty, as was the small office to her left, but now that she had moved farther down the short corridor, she could hear groans coming from the treatment room at the end of the hall—the only one with a door.

Skye hesitated. It sounded as if Dr. Paine was working on a patient. Should she go back and sit in the waiting area? But with the receptionist gone, how would he know she was there? Maybe she should leave. No. She had come this far. She’d let the dentist know she had arrived.

“Dr. Paine.” She knocked on the door, opened it a fraction, and said, “It’s Skye Denison. I have a four-o’clock appointment.”

No answer. She raised her voice, “Uh, Dr. Paine.” She inched the door a little wider, stuck her head around the edge, and whispered, “Holy crap!”

Blond hair flowed over the headrest of the dental chair, and long pink nails clawed at a white butt going up and down like an oil derrick. The dentist wasn’t filling a tooth; he was filling a much lower cavity.

Skye eased the door shut. Obviously Dylan Paine wouldn’t be very cooperative if she interrupted him in the middle of his crowning achievement. But this, along with the incident at the grocery store, confirmed that Dr. Paine was indeed the Romeo of the rinse sink, and thus had a motive for doing away with his wife.

During her short ride home, Skye figured out who the dentist had been drilling that afternoon. The hair and nails had looked familiar, and she connected the dots. Dr. Paine’s little afternoon delight was none other than Evie Harrison. Hmm. That gave Evie an even stronger motive for killing Annette.

Skye smirked. Clearly Evie had found some spare time in her busy schedule as Promfest chair. A talk with the blonde was way overdue, and now that Skye knew about Evie and Dr. Paine, no way could the woman get Skye fired or complain to Quirk about Skye harassing her.

Bingo met Skye as she stepped into the foyer, rubbing against her ankles and purring. She scooped him up and nuzzled his soft fur. “Were you a good boy today?” He bumped her hand with his head, demanding that she scratch under his chin. “Of course you were. Unlike some males in this town, you’ve been fixed.”

Skye continued petting the cat until he tired of the attention, wiggled out of her arms, and herded her into the kitchen, where he stood looking meaningfully at his empty food bowl. She fetched the open can of Fancy Feast and gave him another third of the contents—he’d gotten the first third that morning.

She found herself smiling. Was she in a good mood because she was finally making some progress on the murder, or because she seemed to be over whatever bug had been causing her to feel sick the past few days? Or maybe her illness wasn’t a virus. Come to think of it, because of her dentist appointment, she hadn’t eaten her usual ration of cookies that afternoon.

Could she be allergic to Oreos? She shook her head, refusing to believe those delicious chocolate wafers with their luscious cream filling could be the culprit. It had been the flu, and that was that.

Grinning at her own silliness, she went to check her answering machine. The flashing light indicated four messages. The first was another one from her mother, which Skye erased. She felt a little guilty, but she knew Vince had talked to May that morning and assured her that Skye was fine, so there was no need for her to spend an hour—or more—reiterating the news.

The second was from Loretta again, short and to the point: “We need to talk about Vince. Call me.”

Shoot. Skye’s mood darkened. She should have known it wouldn’t be possible to stay out of that mess. She only hoped she wouldn’t lose Loretta’s friendship over it.

The third call was from Hope Kennedy, saying she’d run into Quirk at the gas station and he’d threatened her again. Skye tried to call the teacher back, but no one answered.

The final message was from Wally. “Hi. I’ve got some bad news. Dad fired the original nurse I lined up—said he wanted a male RN. I’ve found one, but he can’t start before Saturday, which means I can’t come home until then. My new flight arrives at four thirty, so I should be in Scumble River by six thirty or seven, depending on traffic. I’ll call you when I get in.” Skye thought he had hung up, but as she started to press DELETE, he said, “Why don’t you have your cell phone on? I keep leaving messages on your voice mail, but you never call me back.”

Crap. She wasn’t allowed to have her cell activated in the school building, and she kept forgetting to turn it on once she left. And she really needed to figure out how to access her voice mail.

As she quickly dialed Wally’s number, she wondered were she had put the instruction booklet that came with her cell. Of course, now Wally wasn’t answering his phone, so she left him a message about Quirk’s latest threat to Hope and hung up. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

Fridays were supposed to be good days, but Skye’s sure wasn’t going that way. When she walked into the high school, Homer dragged her into his office and began screaming at her about some stupid traffic cones. “Do you have any idea what a mess you caused this morning? Buses were stacked up like the Tupperware bowls in my wife’s cupboard. We had to close off the whole damn parking lot!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even here this morning. I stopped at the grade school to speak to a teacher.” Skye had assured Hope Kennedy that Wally would be back the next evening and would take care of the Quirk situation. “I didn’t get here until a few minutes ago.”

“Fern didn’t see you, and you didn’t sign the attendance log. I checked.”

“I forgot to sign it because I didn’t go into the office. After I talked to the teacher, I spent an hour setting things up for an evaluation this afternoon, then came over here,” Skye explained. “What happened?”

“You know darn well what happened.” Homer loomed over Skye, who was seated on a visitor’s chair in his office. “You put traffic cones funneling the buses away from the entrance and into the bus parking area in the back of the school, which is a fricking dead end.”

“I did not,” Skye protested, her heart pounding. No one messed with the buses and got away with it. “Why would I do that?”

“How should I know? But you were seen.” Homer crossed his arms and glared at her. “Mrs. Boswell, the old lady who lives across the street in the white house, was out walking her dog and saw you putting the cones out. She came to my office and told me all about it when she saw the traffic jam.”

“That’s impossible. I didn’t do it.” Skye ran her fingers through her hair. “What time was this?”

“Seven thirty-five. She remembers exactly because she waits until seven thirty to take Snowflake out. She said she knows all the teachers have to be here by that time, but the buses don’t start to arrive until seven forty.”

“But, but . . .” Skye trailed off.

“But nothing,” Homer roared. “In my thirty-five years of experience, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Skye stopped herself from blurting out that in reality, Homer had had one year of experience thirty-five times, since he did the same thing over and over again.

Homer stared at Skye, and when she remained silent he demanded, “Why did you do it?”

“I keep telling you I didn’t.” Skye was getting frantic. “Did Mrs. Boswell identify me by name?”

“No,” Homer admitted. “But she said she saw a female of your general build, with curly reddish brown hair.”

“What do you mean, my ‘general build’?”

Homer’s eyes dropped. “Not thin.”

“Fat?”

“That wasn’t what Mrs. Boswell said.” Homer didn’t look up. “Not exactly.”

Hmm. Homer was less of a jerk when he was embarrassed. Skye tucked that fact into her memory for future use, but quickly pressed on, not wanting to lose her slight advantage. “What exactly did she say?”

“She said she saw a big girl putting the traffic cones out.”

“She used the word girl?”

“Now don’t go all feminazi on me.” Homer was already over his embarrassment. “Mrs. Boswell is in her nineties—anyone under sixty is a girl to her.”

“I see. And she said curly hair?”

Homer nodded.

“My hair’s straight today.” Skye lifted a strand. “See? I had some extra time this morning, so I used my flatiron. It’s only curly when I let it dry naturally.”

“Do I look as if I care what you do with your freaking hair?” Homer’s voice rose in anger. “Try to wiggle out of this any way you can—the description fits you.” He jabbed her in the shoulder with his index finger.

Skye searched her mind. Had anyone at the grade school seen her at seven thirty? She’d talked to Hope quite a bit earlier than that. Yes. Thank goodness for Belle’s talkativeness.

“I can prove it wasn’t me. The speech pathologist stopped by my office at the grade school around that time to ask if I had been able to set up a testing appointment with the parents of the new student.” Skye pushed Homer away from her, got up, and grabbed the phone. “Call and ask her if you don’t believe me.”

Once Homer verified her alibi, Skye fled the high school. Her schedule called for her to be there all morning, but she knew that if she stuck around, she’d end up telling the principal what she thought of him, which would result in tears—either on her part or on his, maybe both.

If she hadn’t had the whole team set up to evaluate the little Russian boy, she would have given up and gone home. Instead, she spent the rest of the time until his appointment brooding in her office at the grade school.

Later she decided she should have taken the sick day. Nothing Skye said to the boy in English, or Jackie said to him in Russian, seemed to make any impression. Instead, Vassily spent the time tearing around the room and destroying anything that was not nailed down.

His parents said his behavior was similar at home, and they were at their wits’ end. Skye assured Mr. and Mrs. Warner that she would include a behavior plan when she wrote her report. Developmentally, he appeared to be less than two years old.

Vassily had cut a wide swath of destruction through Skye’s office, and as she cleaned it up, she thought about the last few days. Chemical bombs at the high school, wannabe mommies at the junior high, and now a wild child at the elementary school—not to mention Annette’s death and Hope’s revelation about Quirk. What was next? An invasion by spacemen?

Why was she doing this? Yes, she wanted to talk to Evie about her affair with Dylan Paine, and also find out why the new Promfest chair had run away screaming the night of Annette’s death. Yes, she was still afraid that she would look bad in comparison to Jackie. And yes, she had given her word, but in her heart, Skye knew it was a mistake to return to the haunted house.

She hadn’t been in the bathroom for ten minutes when her instincts were proven right. As she took off her street clothes and prepared to slip her costume over her leotard, she heard a siren. Was that the police? What had happened now?

Before Skye could decide whether to put her regular clothes back on or go ahead with the witch’s outfit, the building’s fire alarms started to blare. Instantly the other women, who were also changing into their costumes in the bathroom, made a mad dash for the exit, each trying to be the first one out.

Skye stood undecided—there had been so many false alarms at school that she distrusted the system—but a nanosecond later common sense prevailed. Even the possibility of being charbroiled was enough to make her skedaddle.

Snatching her tote bag, which contained her jeans and sweater, and wiggling into the long black witch’s dress as she ran, Skye followed the others. Regrettably, the women had halted only a few steps from the bathroom door, and Skye, unable to stop her forward momentum, plowed into them, mowing them down like a broom hitting a nest of dust bunnies.

It took her a few minutes to free herself from the tangle of arms and legs, and when she did she wished she could crawl back under the pile. Standing in the hallway, dressed like a cross between a cartoon astronaut and the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, was Earl Doozier. In his hand he held a toilet plunger. On his head was a portable siren duct-taped to a baseball cap, a stringy ponytail dangling out the opening in back. At his feet sat an industrial-size Shop-Vac. Glued to its canister was a hand-lettered sign that read GHOSTFLUSHERS.

Skye closed her eyes and prayed for a twister to transport her to the Emerald City. An instant later someone screamed.