Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  That reminder didn’t exactly catch me off-guard—of course, everyone knew Ryan was gay—but I sometimes forgot his orientation. He certainly didn’t act the way most movies and TV shows would lead one to expect. For one thing, he loved sports—the more violent, the better—and I was pretty sure he couldn’t hum a Broadway show tune to save his life. Moreover, Ry sucked at fashion, maybe worse than I did, and had a whole wardrobe built upon a foundation of Faded Glory T-shirts from Walmart.

  “I think you’d be smart not to get too interested in Chase,” he continued, ignoring the way I was opening my mouth to protest. “He doesn’t talk about himself much. Well, almost never. But he did mention having a girlfriend, once. And it sounded serious.”

  “How did that come up?” I asked, suddenly recalling that Laura had mentioned a picture Chase kept in his locker. A photo of a girl. “If he’s so private . . .”

  “The guys were talking about the cheerleaders, joking that Chase could have his pick, but he shut it down pretty fast. Told them he couldn’t even look because of some girl named Allison.” Ryan shrugged. “I guess she’s pretty jealous.”

  Allison . . .

  I was considering that name, thinking how it sounded like it would belong to a girl with delicate features, long dark hair, and wide, wide eyes—a popular girl, but nice and well-mannered, “from a good family”—when I saw Ryan look past me, out the passenger side window. And just as I turned to see what was up, someone scared the bejeepers out of me by rapping on the window, hard, with his knuckles, and saying, loudly and rudely, “Millie Ostermeyer! Get out of the car! I’m tired of waiting for you!”

  Chapter 23

  “I can’t—and won’t—tell you anything,” I informed Detective Lohser, who was standing too close to me, breathing down my neck while I fumbled to unlock the theater. I was trying to speak with authority, but my shaky fingers no doubt revealed how nervous I was. “I thought you said I didn’t know anything useful, anyhow!”

  “That was before we determined—almost to the minute—the time of Coach Killdare’s death,” he said, following me as I entered the theater and began turning on lights, both because he was creeping me out and, as usual, I was running late and needed to get ready for the seven-thirty show. “I need you to confirm your father’s whereabouts on Sunday, September first, at nine p.m.,” he demanded.

  I moved behind the candy counter, putting that barrier between us, and powered up the popcorn machine with fingers that were still unsure—just like my voice. “Where . . . where does Dad say he was?”

  “I want you to confirm, not corroborate,” Detective Lohser clarified, like he thought my father and I were part of some grand conspiracy. Which he probably did believe. “So where do you say he was?”

  I started stacking soda cups, which I’d never done before. I just needed a moment to think. He was badgering me, and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Then I realized I couldn’t say the wrong thing—because how the heck would I know where my father had been on a certain day weeks before? I didn’t know where I’d been on September first. “I don’t keep track of my dad’s schedule,” I said. “I have no idea where he was!”

  Detective Lohser leaned against the counter, right over the Lemonheads, his expression more sour than the candy. “Sunday night is pretty quiet around here,” he pointed out. “Most people”—he made that sound like “most decent people”—“spend it at home.” He cocked his head, feigning confusion. “So wouldn’t it have been unusual if your father was out somewhere at nine p.m.? Shouldn’t you at least be able to say, with relative certainty, that he was home? Maybe watching 60 Minutes?”

  “Is that still on?” I asked with genuine curiosity. “Really?”

  “Focus, Ms. Ostermeyer.” Detective Lohser managed to say that without moving his lips. And he enunciated each word very slowly when he repeated, “Where. Was. Your. Father?”

  I paused my pointless stacking exercise. Was it weird that I hardly ever knew where my dad was anymore? I didn’t believe for a second that he’d commit murder. I mean, Dad felt guilty if he accidentally came home with a municipal-issue ballpoint pen in his pocket and would remind me, “Taxpayers bought that for official use, Millicent! It has to go back!” A guy like that, who wouldn’t take a ten-cent office supply, certainly wouldn’t take a life. But lately he was always out, and seldom told me what he was up to, sometimes seeming almost evasive.

  “Well, Millicent?” Detective Lohser pressed, clearly sensing—and misunderstanding—my uncertainty. “Surely you remember something. It was just a few weeks ago!”

  His practically yelling at me wasn’t helping my memory, and I snapped. “I have no idea where he was!”

  “Interesting.” Detective Lohser’s eyes glittered. “Because your father has no idea either.”

  What? But that wasn’t possible. My dad kept a planner for his planner . . .

  The badge-wielding badger on the other side of the counter obviously saw my increasing bewilderment. “You seem surprised, Millicent. As if you also think that’s strange.”

  I wanted to be like Chase and tell him to get lost, but—maybe because I could tell that Blaine Lohser really did have it in for my father, as I’d suspected from day one—my usual disregard for authority again failed me, and I heard myself babbling, “Can’t you please just leave my dad alone? He didn’t hurt anybody. I can name ten other people who would’ve loved to see Mr. Killdare dead!”

  Detective Lohser straightened, seeming intrigued. “Really? You can, now?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, mainly to distract him. “I made this list once . . .” I tucked some of my hair nervously behind my ear. “A list of people who might want to murder Coach Killdare.”

  That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Detective Lohser scowled. “What kind of twisted person makes a list like that?”

  I knew I was still saying the wrong stuff, but I blurted, “It was just for fun!”

  He leaned close again. “Does murder amuse you? Does that run in your family?”

  “No!” I cried. Calm down, Millie! He’s bad copping you into oblivion! Yet I couldn’t seem to get a grip. “I just saw Mr. Killdare on the sidelines at a football game.” I did have the presence of mind to omit the part about him fighting with my father. “And I realized that a lot of people really hated him.”

  Detective Lohser crossed his arms, challenging me. “Like who?”

  Principal Woolsey. Mike Price—and his parents. The family of a kid named Roy Boyles, who’d gotten dehydrated—and disappeared. Buzz the Bee, who got kicked in the butt. Viv . . .

  I could’ve provided all those names and more, but all at once, I pulled myself together enough to comprehend that the big loser across the counter was trying to con and browbeat me into doing his job for him—and make me sell out people who were most likely innocent. People who—even if I didn’t like some of them—didn’t deserve to be hounded, any more than my dad did. And when I got a grip, I got really angry, and, true to my sometimes overly impetuous nature, I stepped from behind the counter and got right up in his mustache, telling him, “You know, you are nothing but a bully. And I do not think harassing a teenager at her place of work is proper procedure. I should call your superiors!”

  It was an idle threat—one that seemed to amuse him, more than anything—but it was enough to make someone intervene. Someone I hadn’t even seen come into the theater, but who stepped between me and Detective Lohser, just as he’d stepped between Mr. Killdare and my dad a year before. And while I still didn’t know what Chase had said to defuse his coach’s anger, I heard him very clearly when he echoed my recent sentiments, only more calmly, telling my tormentor, “Millie’s right. You are harassing her. And you should leave, now, before I really do call the cops on you.”

  Chapter 24

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said gruffly. I wasn’t sure if I should thank Chase for getting rid of Detective Lohser or kick him out of the lobby for the way he’d treated me in French
class. “I could’ve handled it.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you could’ve.” Chase surprised me by concurring. “But I’ve dealt with guys like him before. I’m used to them.”

  “Guys like what?” I asked, because I thought Detective Lohser was pretty unique. “How many dweeby yet drunk-with-power men in bad suits do you know?”

  But, of course, Chase wasn’t going to elaborate. Those sluice gates he called eyes slammed shut again, and he changed the subject. “I came to tell you I’m sorry about speaking French to you today in class. Although I don’t exactly know why I have to apologize. It is an upper-level course, and you should have a reasonable degree of fluency.”

  “Is this still part of the apology?” I asked, walking toward my ticket booth, in case somebody was waiting to watch a silent comedy called The Gold Rush. “And if you’re going to stay for the movie,” I added over my shoulder, “you need to buy a ticket.”

  “No, I’m not interested in Chaplin,” he informed me.

  I turned to face him. “What? Afraid you might laugh?”

  It was a joke—admittedly sarcastic—but Chase didn’t crack a smile. “I just like dramas.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noted your grim tastes.”

  He arched his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Don’t get all full of yourself,” I advised him. He was looking at me like I was a stalker. “This theater only has, like, six customers. I can predict who will show up for any film.” Then I turned my back on him and started to climb into my monkey cage, because I had tickets—probably four—to sell.

  “Millie . . .”

  The tone of Chase’s voice stopped me, and I turned around again. “What?”

  “I really am sorry that I was rude to you,” he repeated, seeming more sincere. “I just don’t like people prying into my life.”

  That seemed to be the understatement of the year. “I wasn’t prying into your life,” I reminded him. “I’m interested in Coach Killdare.”

  Chase shifted on his feet, appearing uncomfortable. “Yeah, well . . . Just remember that I’m not part of whatever happened to him. I want justice for his murder, too, for reasons you can’t understand.” His lightly tanned face got the slightest bit pale. “But anything you run across, related to me, as you snoop around . . . Just leave it alone, okay?”

  The great Chase Albright, big-shot football player and shunner of all attempts at friendship by lowly Honeywellians, was asking me for a favor. Actually humbling himself before me. And intriguing the heck out of me, too, so all I could do was look him square in the eyes and say, “We’ll see. I guess that depends on what I find, doesn’t it?”

  He obviously had something on the line, but he didn’t beg or grovel more for the protection of his privacy, which I sort of respected. “Just remember that you want to write about Coach Killdare, Millie,” he said again evenly. “Not me. My life is not a story that you, or anyone else, needs to read.”

  I wasn’t so certain about that. Or, at the very least, if nobody needed to read the tale of Chase Albright, I was pretty sure that a lot of people—especially girls at my school—would kill to dive into that mysterious narrative.

  I didn’t tell him that, though. I just crawled into my booth, and Chase left without another word.

  Watching him cross the street to his car, I started to get this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was still hard for me to imagine a teenager getting mixed up in murder, and yet this small part of me couldn’t help wondering if Chase would kill to protect whatever secrets he harbored.

  After all, somebody in Honeywell—somebody strong enough to bash in a skull, and who was familiar with the football stadium—had committed murder for some reason. And secrets deep enough to compel a guy to beg me for protection might, I reasoned, provide a pretty big motive if a certain coach had discovered, and threatened to spill, them.

  As Chase opened the door of his expensive BMW, I also wondered why a guy whose family provided him with that would do odd jobs for Mr. Killdare.

  Maybe because Mr. Killdare had been blackmailing him? Holding Chase’s secrets over his head, in exchange for watching his house and dog sitting?

  Then I pictured a chicken-themed key holder by Mr. Killdare’s door, too. One with a single empty peg.

  Chase also had access to all his coach’s keys. Maybe including the ones that unlock school property, like storage spaces in the stadium . . .

  It was late September and still stifling in the glass booth, but I couldn’t help shuddering a little, thinking, Ryan is wrong about me obsessing over Chase because of some unrequited crush. Because clearly, any investigation of Coach Killdare’s death would necessarily involve a look at Chase Albright’s past—and his present—too.

  But how could I research a guy who wouldn’t talk and didn’t seem to exist?

  Chase’s car pulled away, and I watched until it was out of sight. And when the street was quiet again, I also wondered why in the world my father couldn’t account for his whereabouts on September first—especially since, in retrospect, I was pretty sure he hadn’t been home watching 60 Minutes.

  Chapter 25

  “So, Millie, how is your investigation going?” Ms. Parkins inquired, accepting the books about psychos and detecting that I was returning. “Have you cracked the case—and written that award-winning story yet?”

  “Umm . . . It’s only been a few days,” I reminded her. “And no—I haven’t gotten anywhere. So far all I’ve done is break into Mr. Killdare’s house—”

  This news caused her to stop scanning my books just long enough to give me a curious look over her cat eyes, but then she resumed the intake process and let me continue.

  “—where I took some envelopes that seem to indicate he was sick, and a postcard from a woman named BeeBee.” I hesitated, thinking. “I also asked this guy in my class—a football player who takes care of Mr. Killdare’s dog—if he knows anything. But he’s a bigger mystery than the murder.”

  Anybody other than Ms. Parkins—any other adults, at least—probably would’ve given me a lecture about my sleuthing methods, but my librarian merely asked, “How so? What makes your classmate so mysterious? Because—no offense to them—but most teenage boys are far from enigmas.”

  “Oh, this guy’s a total puzzle,” I said. “He’s incredibly good-looking, and obviously smart, not to mention the Stingers’ quarterback—”

  “Chase Albright?”

  Ms. Parkins’s interruption surprised me. I’d never considered her a sports fan.

  “How do you know him?

  For the first time since I’d met her, Isabel Parkins seemed uncertain. Maybe even . . . cagey? She didn’t quite meet my eyes as she said, “He’s in the newspapers, of course. Quite the star, from what I understand.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, not entirely buying her explanation. I skimmed the local paper every day, too—but never bothered with the sports section. Was she a closet Stingers follower? “Anyhow,” I continued, “he doesn’t ever talk about himself—and he doesn’t have any presence on the Internet. When you Google him—nothing, except football articles.”

  “Interesting,” Ms. Parkins conceded. Then she changed the subject, asking, “Where are the Nancy Drew books?”

  Why did I keep them when I’d nearly choked just to read one sentence?

  “I guess I forgot them.” I fibbed for some reason. Then I frowned. “Do you think Nancy ever verbally attacked a detective?”

  Ms. Parkins’s bright red lips twitched with amusement. “I don’t think she had that much spunk.” She leaned on the counter. “So what’s next? What’s your plan?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “I’m sort of winging it here.”

  “Maybe I can help.” Ms. Parkins was reaching under the counter, and I was pretty sure she was going to offer me some investigating how-to book I’d missed. But to my surprise, she pulled out a newspaper, spreading it open and pointing to an article.

  I looked closer.

  W
ell, not an article, exactly, but an obituary.

  “If you want to unearth Mr. Killdare’s secrets, they might just surface here,” she advised me. “At least, that’s been my experience.”

  I thought she was telling me to read Coach Killdare’s obit, and I was about to remind her that those things were sanitized to cover both overt flaws and hidden faults. But when I bent closer, I realized that she wasn’t pointing to the brief account of his life. Rather, she was directing me to the announcement for his memorial service, since apparently his body had finally been autopsied long enough and yielded all the clues it was going to yield.

  “Oh, gosh . . .” I straightened. “I don’t know . . .”

  I hadn’t been to a funeral since my mother’s and wasn’t incredibly eager to get back in the swing of things. I wasn’t much for standing graveside.

  I knew that Ms. Parkins understood my hesitation—she’d been right there with me, all through my mom’s illness—and she gave me a sympathetic look. “I’ll admit, Millie. I don’t think Nancy Drew ever had to face a funeral.” She smiled. “Then again, she never chewed out a detective, and she never won a national award for journalism.”

  I didn’t make any promises, but I did take the paper and tuck it under my arm. Just in case I got the guts to go—which, of course, I did.

  And boy, was I glad about that. Because, as usual, Ms. Parkins was right.

  People’s secrets did get revealed at funerals.

  And not just those of the person getting buried.

  Chapter 26

  “Don’t you think it’s going to be weird, us showing up at a teacher’s funeral?” Laura asked as she, Ryan, and I trudged through Wildacre Cemetery on a day that was awful for a graveside memorial—or maybe just right. It was chilly and rainy, the dirt path through the graves filled with puddles that we had to navigate on our way toward a distant white tent.