Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  All of a sudden, I got a pang of guilt because if I’d been a truly unbiased reporter, I’d have been digging deeper into Mr. Killdare’s cancer diagnosis. Even if that meant reopening an old, potentially mayoral-career-killing rumor about Honeywell High being located on tainted ground.

  And if Detective Lohser finds out, will it be another black mark against my father, who definitely wouldn’t like to see that gossip start up again?

  “So, how was it, hanging out with Chase?” Laura interrupted my thoughts. She dropped her voice, even though Chase was about forty feet down the crowded hallway, opening his own locker. “Did you guys have fun?”

  “Yeah, we did,” I said, shaking off concerns about my dad—and perhaps answering with too much enthusiasm. Maybe, just maybe, I’d relived aspects of that evening a few times. Such as the way Chase had put his hand on the small of my back and pulled out my chair. Then I glanced down the corridor and saw something taped to the inside of Chase’s locker door. The photo Laura’d told me about. It was too small to make out the face, but it looked like a formal school portrait, stuck right in the middle of the otherwise gray, empty space. It was hard for me to imagine Chase Albright doing something as frivolous as adorning his locker in any way, which almost certainly meant whoever was in that picture really meant something to him. I turned back to Laura and Ryan, changing my tune just slightly. “It was okay. No big deal.”

  “If you’re talking about your stupid stories, you’re right—they’re no big deal. The article I’m going to write, based on my exclusive interview with Detective Loser, is going to blow them away.”

  I hadn’t even heard Vivienne Fitch slither up behind me like a cobra in a tight sweater, and apparently Ryan and Laura were caught off-guard, too. We all spun around in unison, clunking into each other like the Three Stooges. Viv wasn’t laughing at our routine, though—and I wasn’t amused, either. Just confused.

  “What exclusive interview?”

  Viv smiled smugly. “The one I got by just visiting his office, after school, and persuading him to give an earnest, ambitious student journalist information that I don’t think any other reporter has yet.”

  I knew what Viv meant by “visiting” and “persuading.” They were code for “barging in” and “bullying.” Well, bullying no doubt combined with intermittent hair tossing, eye batting, and pouts that said, Poor helpless me, just trying to get a story from big, strong you!

  All at once, I started to get nervous, because a guy like Detective Lohser wouldn’t be able to handle those one-two punches, which would have exploited his incompetence and preyed upon his obvious, if completely unwarranted, vanity.

  “What did you learn?” I asked, trying to act as if I hardly cared. “Nothing, probably.”

  “Wrong, as usual, Ostermeyer,” Viv said. “I got him to admit that he thinks that alibi your father concocted out of the blue is going to crack and stink like a rotten egg.”

  I swallowed thickly because, while my armpits were getting damp, my throat was suddenly bone-dry. “What did you just say?”

  “That Detective Lohser doesn’t believe your dad’s alibi for a minute—and neither do I.” She snorted, deigning to appear unattractive, if only to demonstrate her disgust for a man we apparently mutually disliked. “What a wuss that cop is, though, and if he blows this case—”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded. I looked at Ryan and Laura, but they seemed as baffled as I was, and I turned back to Viv. “What the . . . ?”

  My nemesis rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about your dad suddenly ‘remembering’ that he was alone with his girlfriend when Mr. Killdare got murdered. Like that holds water. Like his lover wouldn’t lie for him!”

  All of a sudden, the hallway seemed to constrict. Or maybe that was my chest. I definitely had trouble breathing, and barely got out, “Umm . . . girlfriend?”

  “Jeez Louise!” Viv seemed to realize—much to her obvious delight—that I really had no idea what she was talking about. Her lips curled into a vile smile as she said, finally really sticking it to me, the way she’d wanted to do for years, “Please don’t tell me that you had no idea your father is seeing some dweeby librarian named Isabel Parkins!”

  Chapter 44

  “I will not be needing this anymore,” I told my former librarian, keeping my chin high and defiant, so it wouldn’t quiver as I handed in my library card for good. “You can cut it up, or run it through a shredder . . . whatever you do with cards that won’t be used again.”

  “Millie . . .” Ms. Parkins didn’t accept the plastic rectangle that had represented the bond between us, and she sounded incredibly sorry—which was not going to soften me up—when she said, “Your father told me how upset you are, and I understand. But believe me, we kept our relationship a secret—even when it cast suspicion on your dad—for you. Until it became impossible not to tell Detective Lohser, we stayed quiet for you—”

  “You did nothing for me,” I snapped, slapping the card on the counter. “Except betray me.”

  Ms. Parkins reeled back, as if I’d slapped her hard enough to make her big, dangly earrings swing. But she didn’t dispute the charge, saying only, “Oh, Millie . . . Your father and I . . .”

  I hated that she was talking like they were a real team. One that had formed behind my back.

  “. . . It just happened gradually between us,” she explained, echoing stuff my dad had said when I’d confronted him, too. Had they rehearsed their big rationale during one of their clandestine meetings? “And you were always at the forefront of our minds when we began to realize how we felt for each other.” Ms. Parkins kept trying to justify her lies—in vain. “We tried to fight it, for you. Your father . . . He was worried that you wouldn’t like him dating. We talked about waiting until you went to college, at least, so you’d have your own life and wouldn’t feel like I was intruding in your home.” Two round, pink spots formed on her cheeks. “But we love each other, Millie. I’m sorry, but we do.”

  There was so much to swallow in what she’d just said that it all ended up sticking in my throat. I didn’t know how I felt about my father dating again. I wasn’t all right with it, but part of me understood that Dad wasn’t dead. I even thought my mother would want him to be happy . . . if not necessarily in love with another woman, even if that woman was great. Or used to be great. Maybe too great . . .

  I read a lot of philosophy books, but I couldn’t seem to put any of my knowledge to practical use right then—couldn’t be stoic or understanding, let alone sort out what I was feeling—and what ultimately came out of my mouth was “But . . . but you’re all wrong for each other!”

  Ms. Parkins seemed confused. “That . . . that’s your main concern?”

  I had no idea if that was my “main concern.” I’d just blurted it out, and it was true. My dad was sensible and stern and mayoral, while Ms. Parkins was whimsical and funny and quirky and compassionate . . . like my mom had been, only with more rhinestones and chunky rings and crazier shoes . . .

  This is all too confusing.

  And because I couldn’t explain what I’d meant, I pushed the card toward Ms. Parkins again, along with a bunch of long-overdue books that I’d found scattered around my room—the fines on which I had no intention of paying—and summed up my emotions with the bitter reminder, “You were my librarian!”

  I knew that Ms. Parkins would understand exactly what that meant. She, of all people, knew the sacred trust that word—“librarian”—implied. Because a librarian was supposed to be a spiritual, intellectual mentor who kept your secrets and didn’t give you a funny look when you checked out a book about the care and feeding of pythons because you might’ve borrowed one from your junior high science lab, just to give it a weekend of freedom from a cage. A librarian could’ve answered questions that you had about a certain guy whom you used consider an insufferable snob but who was turning out to be confusing and maybe likable. Perhaps too likable for a girl with a pug-dog nose and no table manne
rs. A librarian opened up new doors for you, intellectually, too, without shoving you through them.

  A librarian was important. And now I didn’t have one anymore.

  No mother. And no librarian.

  “You were MY LIBRARIAN” I repeated, too loudly, even for a laid-back library. “Don’t you get it?”

  Ms. Parkins didn’t say anything right away. Probably, I realized, because her eyes were watery and her throat was tight, like mine. “Please, Millie,” she finally said softly. “Don’t stop reading because of this. Even if you can’t forgive me, don’t give up books.”

  “Oh, I’m not giving up books,” I informed her, jutting my chin again. “From now on, I’ll be using the school library.”

  I’d hurt Ms. Parkins with my accusation of betrayal, but I nearly crushed her when I said that, because we both knew that confining me to the Honeywell High library was the equivalent of putting a lion used to roaming a vast plain and feasting on wild game in a zoo with a few scraps of gray, grocery-store meat. Like confining a majestic Burmese python in a fish tank. It wasn’t the school librarians’ fault, but they had a limited budget and even more restrictions on what they could buy. I’d never find Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness at school, because they needed five copies of Huckleberry Finn for all the ninth graders who wanted it for book reports every year. It was a sad economic reality—and my reality for the rest of the year.

  “Oh, Millie . . . Please keep your card,” Ms. Parkins begged, shoving it back across the desk. “You can come when I’m not here.”

  But we both knew that when she wasn’t with my father, apparently, she was always there. Librarian-ing was a labor of love for Isabel Parkins. Which wasn’t going to make me like her again, either. Besides, the public library just wasn’t the same for me anymore. I didn’t want to go there, ever again.

  “I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” I said, turning to go. “Since your affair is out in the open now.”

  She didn’t say anything. She just let me walk out the door, and I hoped, in this mean, hurt little part of my heart, that she was crying, too.

  Chapter 45

  When I got home, I went to my bedroom, only to realize that I hadn’t taken back every book I owed the library. Somehow, I’d overlooked the Nancy Drews that were right on my desk.

  My mood even darker, if that was possible, I picked up The Hidden Staircase and The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, thinking I should march right back and return them, so I could consider my ties with the Honeywell Public Library officially severed . . . at least until I got another notice about my outstanding fines. Those would probably keep coming forever.

  But as I stood there holding the books, I changed my mind. Not only didn’t I want to see Ms. Parkins again—it definitely would’ve undercut the impact of my dramatic, final departure if I came crawling back fifteen minutes later—but all at once, I was angry with myself, too.

  You didn’t handle that very well, Millie. Nancy Drew wouldn’t have fallen apart if some lady had started dating her suave, widower father, Carson Drew . . .

  “But I’m not Nancy Drew,” I muttered, staring at the teen sleuth on the cover of The Hidden Staircase. A girl who did everything rationally, and with class and manners. Mom and I used to laugh about how Nancy was so prissy and perfect, with her “titian, bobbed” hair always in place, even when she drove around in her spotless convertible with her dorky, do-gooder boyfriend, Ned Nickerson.

  That night, I wasn’t remotely amused, though.

  Why can’t you be that pulled-together girl, Millie? Why is everything about you, from your wardrobe to your feelings to the way you learn, messy?

  I didn’t know. And even though I was, by then, well aware that I’d been childish, veering too close to throwing a genuine tantrum at the library, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fix things with Ms. Parkins, either.

  She lied to me.

  And just when I finally started to let loose in a different way, by crying, the other last person I wanted to see came knocking on my bedroom door. When I didn’t answer, Dad opened it anyhow, and for once he didn’t complain about the trash on the floor or the half-empty bowl of Chex Mix or the way my collection of stretched-out bras refused to be fully contained in my underwear drawer. He just stood there, looking uncharacteristically uncertain.

  “If you’re here to apologize again . . .” I said, turning my back on him because it hurt to see his face. In part because I was furious with him, but in part because he looked miserable, too. Still, I finished my thought. “Don’t bother.”

  I half expected him to ignore my curt dismissal and attempt, one more time, to reach out to me. But Dad didn’t do that. Instead, he just softly reminded me of plans I’d completely forgotten as I tried to sort out my pain and anger.

  “Chase is here to pick you up, Millie. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  Chapter 46

  I knelt before Mr. Killdare’s bookshelf, this time not hiding, since Chase, of course, had let us both into the house and was helping me explore. I could hear him upstairs, presumably in Coach Killdare’s bedroom, opening and closing drawers, because he was a lot less squeamish than Laura about intruding.

  “Mr. Killdare’s gone, Millie,” Chase had reminded me when I’d gotten slightly cold feet. “And we’re trying to help find his killer.”

  “And getting nowhere,” I muttered, staring blankly at that shelf of knickknacks that I’d thought were so important when I’d first seen them.

  I was having trouble focusing because my mind was still on my dad and Ms. Parkins, and how I’d said everything I’d wanted to say right to their faces—yet nothing had come out right.

  And my bad mood was compounded by the fact that Baxter had followed Chase upstairs, picking his part-time caretaker over the person who’d clearly been most excited to see him when we’d opened the door. I’d held out my arms, and Baxter had bounded right past me, tail wagging as he’d hurled himself at Chase.

  Suck it up, Millie. He was never really your dog.

  “Okay, let’s see,” I mumbled, forcing myself to inventory the items on the shelf. There was a porcelain copy of the Acropolis in Athens, a working clock shaped like Big Ben, and a foot-high plaster Leaning Tower of Pisa next to what looked like a brass replica of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark, if I remembered correctly.

  In all, there were about eight cities represented there.

  I peered more closely.

  But something was missing.

  Something that would’ve sat at the end of the row, and that had a perfectly square base. I could see the shape, even though dust was starting to accumulate over the spot.

  I was very curious about that missing landmark, because who brought back souvenirs?

  People who travel and send postcards, that’s who.

  People like BeeBee—

  “Hey, I found some old yearbooks—and something weird in one of Mr. Killdare’s drawers.” Chase’s voice broke into my reverie, as did a cold nose, nudging my hand.

  “Get lost, mutt,” I grumbled, pushing Baxter away, even though I really wanted to hug him. “Too little, too late.”

  “Millie, did you hear me, about Mr. Killdare’s drawers?”

  I turned around and plunked down on my butt, looking up at Chase—and grudgingly accepting a wrinkled head in my lap. “Yeah,” I said, still refusing to scratch behind a waiting ear. “And the last thing I want to do is check out something ‘weird’ in Coach Killdare’s ‘drawers.’ That sounds repulsive—and borderline wrong—to me.”

  “I’m not talking about his underwear . . .” Chase seemed to catch himself. “Well, I’m kind of talking about that.”

  My hand, of its own accord, began to stroke that silky canine ear. “There is obviously way too much familiarity in male locker rooms,” I noted. “You guys need boundaries.”

  Chase opened his mouth, and I could tell that he was about to bite on my invitation to start some kind of argument. Then he seemed
to change his mind and asked, for at least the tenth time, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, Millie? Because you have been bad company all night. Where’s the girl who cracked me up, eating pie with her bare hands and showing me the fudge stain on her shirt?”

  Sure, sure . . . I was great—to laugh at. But he had another priority, too. A better, no doubt prettier, girl, with a locker-worthy face. Just like my father had a librarian he couldn’t stop loving, even if it hurt me, and Baxter had a better master. I was never quite enough for anybody, was I?

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I repeated, pushing aside Baxter’s head, standing up, and brushing off my butt. “What’d you find?”

  “Like I said, these old yearbooks.” Chase held up a stack of annuals. “Which might give us some clues to friends—or enemies—from Mr. Killdare’s past. Or present. There are high school and college books here. Including some recent ones from Honeywell.”

  “Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve signed ‘Hate your guts enough to kill you someday. Have a great summer. Stay cool for-evah!’” I drew the numeral four in the air with my finger. “With a ‘four’ in ‘for-evah.’”

  I could tell the sarcasm got under Chase’s skin. He tossed the books onto the La-Z-Boy. “I didn’t say these held all the answers.”

  Stop taking your bad mood out on Chase, Millie. It’s not his fault you’re unlovable.

  “So, what’s so interesting in Mr. Killdare’s drawers?” I asked, forcing myself to be minutely less grouchy. “What’s up there?”

  Please don’t say “stains.”

  “The top drawer in his dresser—where pretty much every guy keeps socks and underwear—is, like I’d expect, a mess,” Chase informed me. “Except for about a third of it. There’s an empty space, like somebody else kept stuff there, then took it. Maybe after Mr. Killdare died, because it seems like he would’ve spread his clothes out if he’d still been using the drawer. You know, while rooting around for matching socks, because they definitely aren’t paired up.”