Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  Is this school really a “boondoggle”? Have my dad and Hollerin’ Hank clashed about fixing the stadium, as well as coaching strategies?

  The cheerleaders had arrived for practice, too, and I found Viv at the head of the pack, her lips frozen in what everyone else accepted as a smile, but which I always thought looked like a wolfish snarl, complete with wrinkled snout and sharp incisors.

  And did Viv know how much fixing the cracks will cost? Did she know I’ll have to write a story that really will make Dad look bad? Because he gets blamed for everything that goes wrong at Honeywell High.

  How sick to use me against my own father . . .

  “I guess you’ll wanna see the storage space, huh?”

  “What?” I turned around to see Big Pete heading toward a door I’d never noticed before, in the cinder-block wall under the bleachers. I also saw a bunch of fine, jagged fissures in that wall, which often bore the weight of hundreds of people, because Honeywell’s nationally known football program packed in the crowds. “What did you say?” I asked again, catching up to my guide.

  “I guess you’ll wanna see the storage space,” he repeated, jamming a key in the lock before I could tell him that, no, I didn’t really need to see a bunch of old javelins or tackling dummies or whatever they kept under bleachers. Especially since, as I drew closer, I started to smell something coming from behind that portal.

  Stepping reluctantly beside Pete, I fought the urge to cover my nose, thinking, Jeez, what’s really in there? Mascot Buzz’s unwashed, sweaty bee costume? The eviscerated organs of our vanquished sports foes?

  “Look, I really don’t think I need . . .”

  I was just about to insist that we keep that door closed when Pete, looking confused himself, hauled it open. The stench got even worse, and we both looked at each other, like, What the heck?

  Looking back, I’d never be sure what, exactly, compelled both of us to walk toward that odor instead of running away from it. Maybe it was the fact that I’d come to document the whole bleachers problem, and clearly there was something seriously messed up inside that dark hole. Regardless, after a moment of hesitation, I made the first move, taking a tentative step into the shadows—only to stumble and fall against something. Something big and hard, but squishy and slippery, too, as if it was covered in nylon.

  This is wrong, I thought on instinct. Something is very wrong here.

  Then, as my eyes started to adjust and I began to recognize exactly what—or whom—I was resting against, Big Pete gave me the quote of a lifetime, albeit one that I couldn’t have put in a G-rated school newspaper article, even if I’d been able to write anything down.

  “Holy ****! It’s a dead guy—on a John Deere!”

  Chapter 5

  “Let me go!” I cried, slugging somebody—hard—in the shoulder. “LET ME GO!”

  The individual who was clutching me to a rock-hard chest didn’t listen. On the contrary, he spun me around, so we were in a Heimlich-maneuver position, then began dragging me so the soles of my old Adidas scraped concrete. “Deep breaths,” he whispered in a low, strangely soothing voice that was at odds with the way I was straitjacketed and struggling in his arms. “You’re okay. Stop screaming.”

  I wanted to protest that I, Millie Ostermeyer, had never screamed in my entire life—not even on Hersheypark’s Skyrush roller coaster—but as I was hauled into slightly fresher air and fading sunlight, I realized that I was, indeed, shrieking and maybe borderline incoherent. And when I finally did inhale deeply—catching a whiff of very nice soap or cologne, layered on top of the smell of rotting flesh—I also realized who was holding me—and recalled what I’d fallen onto moments before.

  Coach Killdare’s CORPSE.

  I just fell directly onto a dead phys ed instructor, who is inside a cinder-block TOMB, slumped over a lawn tractor with THE ENTIRE BACK OF HIS SKULL SMOOSHED IN.

  Feeling my captor’s grip ease, like he’d realized I was at least lucid again, I turned to face the boy who’d yanked me out of that makeshift mausoleum, and for some reason felt compelled to inform him, in big ragged gasps, “Mr. Killdare . . . His whole head . . . Bashed in!”

  Then, before Chase Albright could respond—before I could even read what was going on behind his deep blue eyes—I proceeded to thank him for helping me by bending over and vomiting my entire dinner of SpaghettiOs, minimeatballs, and gummy bears onto his cleats.

  And as round two came up—again onto his shoes, because, honestly, there wasn’t even time to move—I felt someone else grasp my shoulders and heard my father offer, “I’ve got her, Chase. You go clean up.”

  True to his usual form, Chase didn’t say a word. I just saw his puke-covered feet move out from under my face while I remained bent over, because I’d eaten two cans of SpaghettiOs, and I wasn’t sure they were both accounted for yet.

  “Millie, are you okay?” Dad asked. He helped me straighten, finally, so I could see that Ryan had joined us, too. “Did I hear you right about Mr. Killdare?”

  My dad was obviously concerned about me, but distracted. His gaze kept darting toward the storage space, where Big Pete was blocking the view, warding off the football players and cheerleaders who were starting to gather around, trying to figure out what had happened.

  “I’m . . . I’m okay,” I assured Dad. “You’d better go help Pete, because Mr. Killdare really is . . .” I couldn’t say “dead,” for some reason. Not without getting queasy again.

  “Go ahead, Coach,” Ryan intervened, clasping my arm. “I’ll stay with Millie.”

  That seemed to reassure my father. “Thanks.”

  With one last glance at me, Dad left us, threading his way through the crowd of players, managers, and cheerleaders that had gathered. Some kids were gawking at the girl who’d freaked out and lost her lunch on a quarterback, but most were craning their necks, trying to get a glimpse past Big Pete, whose bulk was coming in handy.

  “Nothin’ to see here,” he kept telling everybody. “Nothin’ to see!”

  Except stuff I’ll revisit in nightmares, I thought, recalling, too vividly, how Mr. Killdare’s bluish-white hands had hung stiffly down at his sides, the way his face had been pressed against the tractor’s steering wheel, and, of course, the caved-in back of his head . . .

  “Millie, what’s going on?” Ryan asked, studying my face with obvious concern. “What, exactly, is under the bleachers?”

  I started to tell him, but my voice was drowned out by the wail of approaching sirens. Only then did I finally fully grasp that Mr. Killdare actually had been murdered, just like I’d sort of predicted a little over a year before.

  And as I recalled, yet again, the list of suspects I’d made, in an exercise that didn’t seem remotely amusing anymore, I realized that no fewer than three of them were right on the scene: Vivienne Fitch, who was arguing with Big Pete, as if she’d waited her whole life to see a homicide victim and would not be denied the chance to take a photograph of it with her cell phone; Mike Price, for once not glued to Viv’s hip, but rather standing on the margins; and, of course, Jack Ostermeyer, who by then was at the entrance to the storage space, not taking charge, as I’d expected, but staring into that stinky crypt with a very strange look on his face. One I couldn’t quite read in the dimming daylight.

  And as police cars and ambulances began to drive up to the stadium, tearing across the grassy field, I also saw that Chase hadn’t run off to change his shoes, like I thought he should do before semiliquefied Chef Boyardee seeped through his laces. He still lingered at the very back of the milling, excited throng, far enough away from the other kids to qualify as alone.

  And the look on his face . . . It struck me as even more curious than the expression on my father’s. I almost could’ve sworn that Chase Albright, whom I’d previously thought incapable of anything but an icy, unyielding, smug superiority, looked . . . sad.

  Then I jumped about a mile when somebody clapped a firm hand on my shoulder and told me, in a weasel
y, sort-of-familiar voice, “Don’t go anywhere, Millicent Ostermeyer. I’ll need to talk to you.”

  Chapter 6

  “So, you two were the first youths on the scene,” Detective Blaine Lohser said, pacing in front of me and Chase, whom he’d corralled on the bleachers, out of the way of other official-looking people who were bustling in and out of the storage space. Somehow, the way he said “youths,” it came out as “juvenile delinquents.” His gaze darted between me and Chase. “Why were you two under the bleachers?”

  He managed to imbue that simple question with heavy innuendo, so it was clear that he believed the correct answer was (a) “making out,” (b) “shooting heroin,” or (c) “returning to the scene of the murder we had planned for kicks.” Or maybe (d) “all of the above.”

  I knew skinny, twitchy Detective Lohser from when he’d been a patrolman with the Honeywell police force, where he’d earned zero respect, and I was pretty sure that he still struggled to remind people that his last name was pronounced with a long “o”—a battle he’d probably fought since kindergarten. However, that didn’t stop me from feeling inexplicably guilty under his boring—in the sense of “soul searching”—gaze.

  “Well?” he asked when neither Chase nor I answered.

  It was Chase who spoke first, and it was clear that he wasn’t nervous. “First of all, we weren’t ‘under’ anything,” he said, sounding borderline dismissive. “And I’m sure the maintenance man told you why . . .” He finally looked at me, like I should supply my name, and I blinked at him in disbelief.

  Seriously? You sit practically behind me in French class!

  He kept waiting, though, so I grumbled, “Millie. My name is Millicent, remember?”

  That seemed like a revelation. And not necessarily a good one. “Oh.”

  “We sit two desks away—every day—in French,” I reminded him. “Every. Day.”

  “I don’t think you participate much,” Chase countered coolly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get called on.”

  “Maybe not, but I get yelled at,” I pointed out. “Don’t you hear Ms. Beamish? ‘Mee-leh-CENT! Wake up!’ Or however she says it in French.”

  Chase frowned. “Yeah. I guess I have noticed that—”

  “Look, lovebirds,” Detective Lohser interrupted, like he hadn’t paid attention to anything we’d just said. Really, wouldn’t a lovebird know its mate’s name? “What were you doing under the bleachers? With a body?”

  Chase returned his attention to our interrogator. “As I started to say, I’m sure the custodian explained why Millicent was there—with him.”

  How did it once again seem like I’d been making out with somebody? And with a custodian in dirty coveralls, to boot?

  “I didn’t show up until Millie screamed,” Chase continued before I could decide if I needed to clarify things. “I heard her and went to see if I could help. My role is pretty simple.”

  “Yeah,” I blurted, finding my voice, because it seemed that I hadn’t exactly been exonerated. In fact, I felt a little bit like someone who’d just been thrown under a bus, the way Chase had said “My role.” “If you think we killed Mr. Killdare, you’re completely wrong!”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they probably hadn’t been prudent, and Chase seemed to agree. He turned to me again with warning in his usually unreadable eyes, as if to say, Why the heck did you say that? The twitchy cop didn’t say anything like that! Then, in case I hadn’t picked up on the nonverbal message, he leaned close and whispered, “Are you trying to make us suspects?”

  “No!” I took in a whiff of cologne while I had the chance. Unfortunately, Chase’s shoes were starting to smell, and I gagged a little. “I’m . . . I’m just trying to help.”

  “No whispering!” Detective Lohser snapped. “Address me!”

  Chase took a moment to lock eyes with me, silently suggesting that I shut up—or maybe wishing me luck, because apparently he was already done with the whole interrogation thing. “Look,” he told Detective Lohser. “I didn’t see anything, and my cleats are a mess . . .” He shot me one last glance, this one of blame, before asking, “So is it all right if I take off?”

  The cop, who had to be sweating in his cheap, out-of-season tweed suit, clearly didn’t appreciate the attitude, and I almost found myself silently siding with the bossy bureaucrat. Did Chase think he was above everybody?

  “You’re staying put until you tell me when you last saw Mr. Killdare—alive,” Detective Lohser advised my classmate. “Then you’re going to explain, fully, how you just happened to discover his body.”

  There didn’t seem to be any room for argument, and so I was very surprised when Chase stood up, rising to his full six-foot-something height and towering over the mini-detective. “No offense,” he said firmly. “But you don’t have any authority to keep me here. I’m not under arrest, and I don’t have anything to contribute—at least not without a lawyer present—so I’m hitting the showers.”

  I blinked up at him, thinking “contribute” was a nice alternative to “say.” But did people really talk like that outside of Law and Order? Tell cops they were just leaving?

  I considered myself pretty rebellious, but Detective Lohser was a real police officer, not a powerless figurehead like Principal Woolsey, who’d also shown up and was talking with my father.

  Chase was obviously going to get away with his insubordination, though. Detective Lohser didn’t say a word—just vented steam through his ears—as Chase walked off. And although it seemed absurd, I couldn’t help thinking, Is Chase leaving because he has something to hide? Something that he doesn’t want to leak out—at least without a “lawyer present”?

  Moreover, didn’t he want to help? Because, sure, Mr. Killdare had been pretty disgusting even in life. He’d always spat in our faces when he’d dressed us down in class, and inevitably hiked up his eternally droopy khaki pants a moment too late, after you’d already glimpsed the waistband of his tighty whities and a flash of belly hair. And it had been hard to ignore his armpit stains when he’d stalked around the gym, telling us what “sorry asses” we were. But he hadn’t deserved to be murdered. The man had, at the very least, won a bunch of football games and set a local record for steak consumption. Didn’t those achievements mean something?

  “Look,” I offered, choosing my words more carefully. “I didn’t know Coach Killdare that well, and it’s going to gross me out, but I can tell you everything I saw today, in detail, because I do have a nearly photographic memory—”

  I was ready to spill my guts—figuratively, this time—and therefore was a little offended when Detective Lohser, still watching Chase, waved me off. “Never mind, kid. Forensics will go over everything you saw with a fine-toothed comb. You can’t tell me anything right now.”

  Then he shifted his gaze and got this creepy smile under his desperate attempt at a mustache, muttering, “Right now I need to talk to a certain person who, for as long as I can remember, has obsessively craved all the glory for Honeywell High’s football program.”

  For a second, I didn’t know who the heck he was talking about. Then I followed where Detective Lohser was looking—a little “obsessively” himself, in my opinion—and realized that, of course, he was referring to my father.

  I also remembered that list I’d made, which had positioned my dad as the prime suspect in a once-hypothetical murder that had now actually happened. And how my dad had fought—successfully—to get Detective Lohser fired from the Honeywell force about three years before.

  Uh-oh.

  Chapter 7

  The sun was setting on Honeywell’s main thoroughfare, and I knew it was almost time to leave the glass ticket booth that jutted out onto the sidewalk and head inside to work the Lassiter Bijou’s concession stand, but I kept stalling, just watching the street.

  Would Chase show up?

  We were screening something black and white and dull all over by the master of gloom, Ingmar Bergman, and Cha
se always came for Bergman films. I couldn’t imagine that even stumbling across a murder would keep him from Winter Light, which featured the most depressing poster I’d ever seen. It was simply of a glum guy sitting in a chair. The second I’d seen it, I’d mentally set aside a ticket for my classmate.

  What does Chase get out of movies about suicidal fishermen, wars, and medieval plagues?

  Will I ask him, now that I sort of “know” him?

  Doubtful.

  “I can’t believe I have to be here,” I grumbled, turning off the light to signal that the box office was closed, because it was after seven-thirty and the projectionist, old Mr. Mordrick, would’ve started the film already. Clearly, murder had been enough to keep Chase away, while I, on the other hand, had to “soldier on” and “meet my work responsibilities.”

  “You have an obligation to Mr. Lassiter,” I muttered, imitating my father as I ducked to retrieve the till with the evening’s ticket receipts—a whopping fifteen dollars. And while I was still crouched out of sight, I heard voices. Familiar voices.

  Viv. And Mike.

  I honestly didn’t intend to eavesdrop on them. I stayed hunkered down, hiding, only because I’d more than once been compared to a monkey in a cage in my booth. I really didn’t need Viv threatening to toss me a banana or calling me “orangutan”—which she sometimes did, even when I wasn’t working.

  As they walked past, though, I couldn’t help hearing Viv tell Mike quietly, but with earnest venom in her voice, “Look, idiot. You know what happened. I know what happened. But nobody else will ever—and I mean EVER—find out . . .”

  Then their voices and their footsteps faded as they moved down the sidewalk.

  I kept crouching for a long time, my hand frozen on the till, because while I didn’t know what they’d just been talking about, it didn’t sound like anything as mundane as covering up cheating on a French test.