Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  Chapter 12

  “Millie, you know I want you to win another one of those Peacemaker thingies—and show up Viv,” Laura said nervously. “But do you really think this is a good idea? I mean, Ryan wouldn’t do it.”

  “Ryan has a chem test tomorrow, or he’d be here.” I kind of fibbed because while the part about the exam was true, he’d also texted “RU NUTS??” when I’d revealed my plan to search Coach Killdare’s house. Locating a promising dark window on the back of Hollerin’ Hank’s property, I led us in that direction, explaining, “If I’m going to solve this case, I need to understand Mr. Killdare. See how he lived, who he was.” I could tell she wasn’t convinced, so I added, “It’s in all the detecting how-to books.”

  Well, it probably was.

  “Millie?” Laura grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You don’t really think Viv and Mike could’ve, you know . . .”

  After swearing Laura to secrecy—because even if I didn’t like Viv or Mike, I didn’t want to spread unfounded, hideous rumors about them—I’d filled my best friend in on the conversation I’d overheard at the theater. “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t just sit around while Viv either steals the biggest story of the decade from me or gets away with murder—or both.” I resumed leading us across the yard. “I need to start investigating.”

  Laura trotted behind me. “Why don’t we just Google Mr. Killdare?”

  Okay, maybe I had skipped a logical step or two. “We’ll do that later, of course,” I said, like that had been my plan all along. “But first I need to see the milieu of his life.”

  “The mildew of his life?” Laura cried. “I don’t want to see that! How would that help?”

  “No offense, but if you’re worried about getting caught, you should lower your voice,” I suggested, pressing my shoulder against the window I’d selected. “And why didn’t you wear black, like I told you to? Did you really have to promote breast cancer awareness tonight?” Inexplicably, Laura was wearing a pink T-shirt to a felony. “You know I’m committed to curing every kind of cancer, but seriously . . . tonight?”

  “I didn’t really think we’d do this!” She sounded close to panicked as I gave the window a shove—and it rose a few inches, like I’d expected. Nobody in Honeywell locked windows during the warm months. “I thought you’d chicken out. You don’t generally do things that require moving around, or even standing up, you know. I see you in gym class!”

  “Well, that’s all changing.” I rammed my shoulder against the old wooden frame again. Just a few more inches, and I’d be able to push Laura—who was even smaller than me—through the gap. “You are in the presence of a new Millicent . . .”

  I’d intended to say my full name—Millicent Marie Ostermeyer—but all at once, the window yielded about six inches, so I nearly lost my footing on the slippery grass, and the next thing I knew . . .

  We could actually get in.

  Chapter 13

  “You don’t think there’s a body in here, too, do you?” Laura asked, sounding even more worried than before. “It really smells in here!”

  At least, I thought she sounded worried. It was difficult to hear her, since her head was in Coach Killdare’s kitchen and her butt was facing me.

  “I doubt Mr. Killdare was much for potpourri,” I pointed out, although I had to admit that I was also a little put off by the strange stink coming out of our teacher’s house. An odor that was definitely not the stench of death, yet somehow familiar. “Just wriggle in,” I urged. “Then unlock the door, okay?”

  Laura continued to delay. “I don’t understand why you get to just walk in, while I have to do this . . .”

  She was starting to complain, but was cut short as she dropped all the way into the kitchen, hitting the floor with a thud. At which point she screamed at the top of her lungs, then cried, way too loudly for a covert operation, “Millie . . . Something is licking me!”

  Chapter 14

  “It’s creepy in here,” Laura whined, sticking too close to me in the dark kitchen. She looked down at her feet, where a long shadow loomed. “And that thing keeps following us.”

  “I knew I recognized that stench,” I said, bending down to pet the ugliest basset hound I’d ever seen. It was so hideous that it crossed the line into being awesome, and I wanted to take it home, name it something like Chumley, feed it Slim Jims, and make it my permanent trademark sidekick who went with me everywhere. I rumpled Chum’s already wrinkled head. “My Aunt Inez had a dog just like you, and her house always stank, too.” I realized that was insulting and added, “Don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault. It’s a hound thing.”

  “Can we get on with this?” Laura urged. “Before we get caught?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.” I started to move around the room, appraising everything with the beam of a flashlight I’d actually had the foresight to bring.

  “What are we even looking for?” Laura asked. “And don’t say mildew. Or clues.”

  Darn it. I had been about to utter that second word, because I still wasn’t sure what I’d expected to find in Mr. Killdare’s house.

  Certainly not the greatest dog ever . . . Yes, you are, Chumley! Yes, you are!

  “Will you leave that smelly mutt alone?” Laura begged as I tugged a pair of wonderfully droopy ears. “Please? Because if I get arrested, I’m pretty sure I get kicked out of Key Club.”

  “Oh, fine.” I again swept the light around the kitchen, which was surprisingly tidy for a bachelor’s place. In fact, it was almost un-bachelor-y. I held the beam on a wall clock. A guy like Mr. Killdare—a blustery, nonwhimsical football coach—bought a clock shaped like a chicken? Really? Then I continued to move the light around the room, noting a matching poultry-themed key holder by the door, with all but one peg filled, as if Mr. Killdare had been organized, in spite of his sloppy appearance. And finally . . .

  Jackpot. Well, maybe.

  “You check the refrigerator,” I suggested, moving to the kitchen table, which was covered with envelopes, magazines, and the freebie shopper paper that nobody wanted but everybody got anyway, twice a week.

  All at once, looking at that pile, I realized that something seemed . . . off.

  I walked by Mr. Killdare’s house all the time on my way to the theater, and I hadn’t noticed mail piling up on his porch while he’d been missing. And he apparently got a ton of stuff, including big items, like Sports Illustrated and . . . I shuffled through the magazines. Ugh. Something called XXtreme Sports, which featured a woman in a football jersey that didn’t exactly fit her right. Meaning it was about seven sizes too small.

  Trying to pretend I hadn’t seen that, I looked down at Chumley, who was staring up at me expectantly and wagging his tail, like he hoped for a snack. But he obviously wasn’t starving, even two weeks after Mr. Killdare’s death. Nor was the floor covered in pee and poop.

  What’s not adding up here?

  I was starting to think I might be onto something important when Laura broke my concentration with an inane observation that really made me wish I’d come alone. “Hey, it looks like Mr. Killdare ate a lot of Buffalo wings—and pickles. He’s got kosher dill and two jars of sweet gherkins.”

  I turned to find Laura bathed in the dim glow of the refrigerator. “I don’t know if the gherkins are really crucial.”

  “You’re the one who told me to check the fridge.” She closed the door, adding, “There’s a picture of Mr. Killdare here, too. Under a magnet advertising Willie’s Wing Hut.”

  I shone the flashlight across the room and saw Coach Killdare scowling at me, as if he wasn’t exactly enjoying his time—apparently alone—in a place that looked like Florida. Sunny and beachy. Or maybe it was the palm trees on his shirt that made me think the setting was tropical. “I don’t really see it as a clue,” I said. “No more than the pickles.”

  Laura crossed her arms defensively. “Well, I don’t see you doing any stellar detecting!”

  “Actually, I was thinking ab
out how Mr. Killdare’s house is clean and the dog is fed.” She gave me a dubious look, so I reached for some envelopes. “I’m checking the mail, too.”

  Training the light on a bunch of return addresses, I read a few.

  Doctor’s office. Hospital. Doctor’s office.

  “Jeez, for a guy who was always yelling at me about ‘developing some muscle tone,’ Mr. Killdare went to the doctor a lot,” I mused. For the first time, I became aware of the paradox—or hypocrisy—of a gluttonous coach. “I wonder if he could’ve run a lap!”

  “Millie . . . maybe that really is important.” Laura came over to the table and picked up an envelope with the return address “Cavenaugh-Beecham Clinic.” “Maybe he was sick.” I saw, even in the dark, that she had an idea brewing. “Maybe he knew he was dying and killed himself—like Hemingway. He was a ‘man’s man,’ like Hemingway.”

  I appreciated that literary-themed theory, but shook my head, trying to get Laura to focus. “Nah . . . Mr. Killdare was sitting on a lawn tractor with his skull caved in.” I made an awkward motion with the flashlight, miming hitting the back of my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Laura seemed crestfallen. “But I do think there might be something to all the medical bills—or appointment reminders . . . Whatever’s in these envelopes. They strike me as sort of strange.”

  She was right, and I felt bad for wishing I hadn’t brought her along. Laura Bugbee might’ve been a goody two-shoes who didn’t like creeping through windows or—I glanced down at Chumley—the planet’s most incredible dog, but she was also insightful. “If you really think these might be valuable, I’ll check them out,” I said, swiping some letters and stuffing them into the back pocket of my suitable-for-a-crime dark-wash jeans. “Later. At home.”

  “What?” Laura grabbed my wrist. “You can’t take stuff. That wasn’t part of the deal!”

  “Nobody’s collecting on Mr. Killdare’s medical bills or expecting him to keep an appointment,” I reminded her. “He’s dead. And dead men don’t pay bills—or go to doctors.”

  Actually, I wasn’t sure about the payment part. But Mr. Killdare definitely couldn’t get in trouble for falling behind on some debts. What would they do? Put him in prison?

  “The police probably want everything left just the way it was,” Laura said, pointing out something I hadn’t thought about. “This might all be evidence.”

  Well, it was disturbed evidence at that point, and I couldn’t undisturb it. Besides, the police had probably come and gone already. But they wouldn’t clean up piles of dog poop, even if they’d found that. Meanwhile, somebody was collecting Mr. Killdare’s mail before most of us even knew he was dead, because there was never anything on his porch. So who’s been taking care of the place? A housekeeper—or someone else?

  I was about to mention that something about the mail situation and Chumley’s being fat, happy, and relatively clean seemed weird to me when I realized that Laura was staring at the table.

  Following her gaze, I saw it, too.

  Then Laura and I looked at each other and said, simultaneously and with no small measure of surprise, “You don’t think Mr. Killdare had a friend, do you?”

  Chapter 15

  It was just a postcard—a flimsy piece of cardboard with a foreign stamp and a pretty picture of a town called Lucerne, in Switzerland—but it was almost heartbreaking to find it among all the other impersonal mail on Coach Killdare’s kitchen table.

  “This makes him seem almost . . . human,” Laura said softly. “Somebody actually thought about him while they were on vacation.”

  “Yeah, really . . .” I kept turning the card back and forth, not sure whether I should read the message. Breaking and entering was invasive. And stealing mail, like I was doing, might technically be a federal offense. But something about reading a very personal, if small, note was finally making me feel surprisingly squeamish and guilty.

  Mr. Killdare wasn’t just a mean, loud ogre. Somebody cared about him.

  Then again, I’d heard that most murders were committed by people who supposedly loved one another, and given that the pool of individuals who’d been fond of Mr. Killdare was pretty small, it seemed foolish to overlook what might be genuinely important information.

  Making my decision, I read out loud: “Having a great time but missing you. Love, BeeBee.” I glanced at Laura, not sure why I’d hesitated. “Not very original, huh?”

  But my co-investigator had her eyebrows in a knot. “Who the heck is BeeBee? What kind of name is that?” She frowned. “Do you think it’s a nod to Mr. Killdare coaching the Stingers? Like, she’d call him Big Stinger, and she was his little BeeBee?”

  Just the thought of that triggered my gag reflex, and I forced the image of Mr. Killdare getting “cutesy” out of my brain. “I don’t know about the pet-name thing—in fact, hope to never think about it again,” I said. “But I agree that it’s definitely a woman’s name. And the writing looks girlish to me.” Moreover, the script looked somehow familiar. I couldn’t place it, though, and added, “Anyway, since there’s no return address, it’s impossible to tell who she is.”

  “Not unless she’s recently called Mr. Killdare, too,” Laura noted, so we both turned toward a phone hanging on the wall. But the message light wasn’t blinking, which might’ve been yet another indication that Coach Killdare had been phenomenally unpopular—or, equally likely, that Detective Blaine Lohser had gotten to any messages first.

  Was there anything from my dad on there? One of his disgruntled calls?

  Then Laura raised another possibility. “Nobody uses a landline. His messages are probably on his cell.”

  I swept the counter with the light. “I wonder if that’s around here.”

  “I’m sure the police have it,” Laura reasoned. “It was probably on him when he got murdered.”

  When Laura said that word—“murdered”—we met each other’s eyes in the dark kitchen, both of us creeped out. “We should get moving,” she urged.

  “Yeah.” Ignoring another look of disapproval, I crammed the postcard into my pocket, because I really wanted to study that writing when I had more time. “We’ll check the rest of the house fast,” I promised. “But first . . .” I bent down and shook Chumley, who’d dozed off. He grunted awake in a way that I was going to find endlessly endearing when he slept at the foot of my bed. “I want to give Chum a snack.”

  Laura seemed confused. “Chum?”

  “Yeah, Chumley.” I began to hunt among the low cabinets, assuming that’s where you’d keep pet food, while the dog followed me, his toenails clicking on the linoleum floor and his tongue lolling out. “That’s his name.”

  “According to . . . ?”

  “Me. Who is going to adopt him.” Locating the correct cabinet, I hauled out a big bag. “He’s going to need a new home.”

  It was Laura’s turn to make me think straight. “Your father will never let you have a dog, Millie. Especially one that reeks and that you’ll dump on him as soon as you graduate and head to Europe.”

  I paused, sack in my arms. Yeah, what was I thinking?

  And what had I been thinking, breaking into a brutally murdered teacher’s house, because all at once we heard a car pull into the driveway, a slamming door, and footsteps on the porch, all of which happened before we even seemed able to react. The most I could do was drop the bag, so discount kibble scattered everywhere, then fumble to turn off the flashlight as a key was turned in the lock. Grabbing Laura’s arm, I dragged my wide-eyed, panicked friend deeper into the house, both of us whispering in terrified, hushed tones a name that had at first sounded anything but ominous—until she’d come to kill us, in cold blood, for investigating her heinous crime of passion.

  “BeeBee!”

  Chapter 16

  Laura and I were on all fours, hiding in Coach Killdare’s den—there was a La-Z-Boy, a big-screen TV, and a hideous plaid couch, so I guessed that constituted a den—and breathin
g way too hard for people desperate to go unnoticed.

  Fortunately, whoever had entered the kitchen was making a fair amount of noise, too, first tossing what must’ve been that day’s mail onto the table, then calling my dog by the wrong name, scolding him mildly. “Baxter . . . How did you get the food out?” I heard happy whining and the thump of a hand against a dog’s substantial side, along with, “You are a real glutton, mutt.” There was a pause, then “Wow . . . And I have got to give you a bath tonight.”

  I didn’t want to get caught, but I couldn’t help turning on the flashlight and pointing it up between me and Laura’s faces, so we could see each other’s confused, surprised expressions as we both mouthed silently, “Chase Albright?”

  Chapter 17

  “Easy there, Bax,” Chase said, sweeping up the dog food I’d spilled and dumping it into a bowl.

  At least, that’s how it sounded from where Laura and I were still crouched, only half hidden by the recliner and a small bookcase. Shifting my weight, I bumped into the shelves and nearly knocked over a replica of London’s Big Ben clock and a plaster Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  “Shoot!” I muttered, earning a wide-eyed “shushing” look from Laura.

  But Chase was still oblivious, telling the snuffling dog, “Slow down. Chew!”

  I knew Laura and I should start backing toward the front door, which I could see over my shoulder, through a small foyer. But something kept me there, on all fours. A question I’d asked about a year before and that was actually getting harder to answer:

  Who are you, Chase Albright?

  As Chase moved around the kitchen, finally turning on a light, so Laura and I jumped, I ran down the few things I knew for certain about him.

  Quarterback. Semifluent speaker of French. Fan of pretentious, gloomy movies. And now . . . Dog watcher for dead coaches?

  “Let’s get out of here,” Laura whispered, when it sounded like Chase sat down on the floor to keep Chumley . . . er, Baxter company while he ate.