Buzz Kill

by Beth Fantaskey

  “I know how to handle the press,” Lohser grunted, but evasively, in a way that told me Viv had—as I’d suspected—manipulated him into saying more than he’d wanted. “I did everything by the book.”

  Yeah. The “Big Book of Bad Detecting.” The “Idiot’s Guide to Being an Idiot.”

  I really didn’t know what would be worse. Having a competent detective investigate Mr. Killdare’s death, because there was circumstantial evidence against my father, or to have a completely incompetent blabbermouth with a vendetta on the case. Maybe I—and my dad—couldn’t have won either way.

  “You’d better stop talking about my father in public,” I warned him. “We’ll sue you.”

  It was my second threat of litigation in less than a month, and I had no idea if we’d have a leg to stand on. But Detective Lohser didn’t seem to care, anyhow. In fact, he suddenly seemed distracted, his eyebrows scrunching together as he frowned at something behind me.

  “Step aside,” he muttered, pushing me with his arm. “I want to see something again in the medicine cabinet.”

  I edged over, and Chase and I looked at each other, both shrugging, as if to say, Oh, well. At least he’s off our case.

  Well, I thought I was glad that Detective Lohser had shifted his attention—until he opened the cabinet and plucked a bottle of pills from the top shelf. I wasn’t sure why, but something about the way he stared at that container—like he’d found the Holy Grail—made me nervous, and since I was standing right next to him, I did my best to read the label.

  And when I did, I got a little sick to my stomach—although the product in his hand, dexamethasone, was, ironically, meant to ease nausea.

  I knew that because my mom had taken it to counter the effects of chemotherapy. I’d brought it to her dozens of times during her treatment.

  And I really hated the look in Detective Lohser’s eyes—the hostile little gleam—as he met mine, saying, like he knew what he held, too, “Interesting, huh?”

  Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t as much of an idiot as I’d thought.

  Chapter 49

  “What was that all about, with the medicine?” Chase asked when we were outside, standing next to his car on Mr. Killdare’s dark driveway. Detective Lohser was still spooking around inside. I saw a light go on in the kitchen and seriously hoped he wouldn’t kick Baxter, which seemed like something he might do, just for laughs.

  I waited too long for the right moment to ask for a dog. Now Dad and I aren’t even speaking—

  “Did I miss something there?” Chase interrupted my thoughts, tossing the yearbooks he’d managed to swipe into his BMW. “Why’d you both get strange about that pill bottle?”

  I hesitated, then realized there was probably no reason not to tell Chase about the drug. Still, I lowered my voice, in case Detective Lohser came outside, on the off chance that he didn’t really know what he’d discovered. “It was a bottle of dexamethasone—”

  Chase raised a hand. “Slow down, Millie. It’s like you’re talking French.”

  I ignored the joke. Especially since I wasn’t sure he should be mocking me right then. I was pretty sure we’d discussed my flaws enough for one night. “It’s a drug that relieves nausea in chemotherapy patients,” I explained, leaning against his car, forgetting that he probably cared about the paint job. “My mom took it, too.”

  Chase raised an eyebrow. “So . . . Mr. Killdare had cancer?”

  “Yeah. I also know that from a letter I found. He had acute myelogenous leukemia. AML, for short.”

  “French again, Millie.”

  “It’s pretty common, actually,” I said. “In fact, some people think it’s too common for anybody who works or goes to school at Honeywell.”

  “Still not quite following,” Chase admitted.

  “A few years ago,” I whispered, “there was talk about the school giving people cancer because it’s located on an old industrial site. A place that used benzene, which has been linked to AML.” I dropped my voice even lower. “My dad almost lost an election before you moved here because he fought to have the school built there. The soil and groundwater have always tested safe, but when two custodians and a teacher got sick, these rumors started. There’s no way there was a connection—the school had only been open about a year, for crying out loud—but people freaked out about the coincidence.”

  Even if he wasn’t familiar with antiemetic drugs or myeloid leukemias, Chase was a smart guy, and he quickly put the rest of the story together. He fell back against his car, too, exhaling with a whoosh. “Wow, Millie . . . So your dad possibly had several reasons to want Mr. Killdare dead. The big fights. The head-coaching job. Wanting to keep the cancer thing silent if your dad knew about it . . .” He bent to look at me. “You’re not just investigating this murder because you want some journalism award. You’re worried about your father.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Millie . . .” Chase seemed genuinely confused. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I guess I keep stuff to myself, too.”

  “So did Mr. Killdare,” Chase noted, looking impressed. “He must’ve been pretty sick. But he never let it show at practice or school.”

  Once again, Hollerin’ Hank was turning out to have had some good points. He’d obviously sucked up some pretty serious misery, continuing to coach without burdening his squad or letting his students know he was suffering.

  I bit my nail, staring blankly down at the driveway.

  But had my father known? Could Mr. Killdare really have kept something so big from his right-hand man?

  Would I ask Dad, if I ever talked to him again?

  “Millie?”

  Chase’s voice, softer than before, again broke into my thoughts.

  I looked up to see that his mood seemed to have shifted. “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry . . . about almost kissing you.”

  “What?”

  Somehow I’d thought we’d never mention what had almost happened by the tub. I’d thought we’d both just pretend that nothing had occurred.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” Chase continued. “I really shouldn’t have—”

  “Okay, Chase,” I interrupted. I was starting to get annoyed again. “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” He shifted, so he was leaning on his side, facing me. “I just . . . I just can’t, Millie. But you looked so sad, and your big green eyes . . .”

  Oh, gosh. He’d nearly kissed me out of pity? Because I looked like Baxter during a bath, all droopy eyed and woebegone? That was even worse than, say, “momentary, if ill-advised, lust.”

  “What?” I asked, hearing an edge of anger in my voice. “You’re the universal antidote for female sadness? One kiss from Chase Albright sends every girl into ecstasy? So you thought you’d spare a dose for pathetic, eats-like-a-linebacker me, even if it made you ill?”

  Chase shook his head. “No, Millie! It’s not like that. You’re misunderstanding and putting words in my mouth. I’m trying to say that you just looked . . . It seemed like . . .” He dug his fingers into his too-good-for-me hair, concluding weakly, “But I really just can’t.”

  I knew what he was trying to say without rubbing my nose in it. That he had a girlfriend. And more to the point, I wasn’t the type of girl guys like him kissed. I didn’t need a PowerPoint presentation, or even completed sentences, to grasp the two main thoughts he was trying to express.

  “Chase Albright, if you wrap this up with ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ I am going to break your perfect nose,” I informed him. “So I suggest you stop talking now.” I started to walk away, even though I really would’ve liked a ride home. “And don’t be in any hurry to contact me in the future, either,” I added him over my shoulder. “El jerko.”

  Chase didn’t try to persuade me to come back. He didn’t say a word.

  And when I finally made it home, there was a neat pile of yearbooks waiting for me
on the front porch like maybe our brief investigative partnership really was over.

  Picking them up, I opened the door and went inside—only to nearly drop the whole stack when my dad, looking pale, informed me, without so much as a hello, “I’m being taken in for official questioning, Millie. Don’t wait up for me.”

  Only then did I realize that Detective Lohser had beaten me to my house, too.

  He was standing in the living room.

  Needless to say, smirking.

  Chapter 50

  “Dad, what happened?” I asked, bounding off the couch when he finally got home around midnight. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I’m fine,” he said, not exactly meeting my eyes. We hadn’t really looked at each other since the whole affair . . . of the affair. He loosened his tie roughly, like it was a noose that he couldn’t wait to shake off, and headed for the stairs. “Just go to bed, Millie.”

  “I . . . I made you a snack,” I said, grabbing a plate of cheese and crackers off the coffee table. Okay, maybe I hadn’t so much “made” as “assembled” a snack. “Are you hungry?”

  He already had one foot on a riser and a hand on the banister. “No. Thanks.”

  Ditching the plate, I followed him. “Dad . . .”

  He finally turned to look down at me, seeming borderline exasperated—and completely exhausted. “What, Millicent?”

  “Did you . . . Did you know about Mr. Killdare’s cancer?”

  He frowned—even more, if that was possible. “How did you know?”

  “I just . . . did.” I studied his face. “But you . . . Did you know?”

  Dad’s lips clamped into a white line, and he shook his head. “No, Millie. This is the first I’ve heard of it, tonight. I didn’t know Mr. Killdare was ill.”

  He started to head up the stairs again, but I stopped him one more time. “Dad?”

  His hand clenched on the rail, and he exhaled with a big sigh. “What?”

  “Are you . . . Are you going to be . . . arrested, or something?”

  Dad didn’t exactly answer me. “They don’t have a murder weapon.”

  That was all he said. Then my father trudged upstairs, and I wondered whether he would call Ms. Parkins to tell her everything that had happened. Unburden himself to her. Or had I really ruined all that?

  I couldn’t ask. He clearly didn’t want to talk to me that night. Maybe because he was sick of talking, or didn’t want to bother me with his problems, or thought my concern was too little too late. Or maybe he was upset with me because Detective Blaine Lohser had snitched about me being on a bathroom floor with Dad’s prize quarterback.

  Maybe it was a combination of all that stuff.

  I stood at the foot of the stairs, listening to my father close the door to his bedroom and thinking that somebody had better find that murder weapon soon.

  Because, of course, that would exonerate my dad.

  I mean, how couldn’t it?

  Chapter 51

  “What’s going on with you and you-know-who?” Laura whispered. She looked past me toward Chase’s desk, an area of the French classroom that I was studiously avoiding. Actually, I’d never been so studious about anything in my entire life. “I thought you guys were getting kind of . . . friendly.”

  God love Laura Bugbee. She was the only person who’d ever thought there could be anything, even friendship, between me and Chase Albright, and she continued to cling to her delusion.

  “That ship has sailed—and sunk,” I informed her quietly as I folded the latest edition of the Gazette, which didn’t feature Viv’s interview with Detective Lohser. The story had been pulled at the last minute, because apparently the too-chatty cop had called Mr. Woolsey, admitting that maybe he’d told Viv too much and begging for intervention. Needless to say, Mr. Woolsey—who knew what it was like to be manipulated by Vivienne Fitch, and who wanted the story gone, anyhow—had been more than happy to exercise power for once.

  I shouldn’t have told Viv that I reminded Detective Lohser he shouldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but I couldn’t resist seeing her throw a massive, hilarious hissy fit—

  “Millie?” Laura was lightly smacking my shoulder. “Ships sailing? And sinking?”

  I finally dared a glance at Chase, who was busy doing what Laura and I were supposed to be doing: conjugating on a worksheet. He seemed oblivious to me, head bent and pen moving. I turned back to Laura. “Actually, it was kind of like the Titanic crashing into one of those boats named after states. The Arizona, or the Maine.” I bashed my fists together and made a sound like a small explosion. “Boom! Luxury liner Chase meets battleship Millie with disastrous results.”

  Laura clearly wanted to know more, but my maritime-disaster reenactment had drawn Mademoiselle Beamish’s attention, and she said sharply from behind her desk, “Mee-leh-CENT! Taisez-vous!”

  Of course, most kids were amused, as usual, to witness me getting in trouble. But for once, Viv wasn’t among them. She was watching me with cold eyes, obviously still enraged about my messing up her “exclusive” story.

  I stared back, not intimidated. What’s your big secret, Vivienne? The one that you don’t want Mike to EVER reveal?

  Then I looked at Mike Price, who was also studying me—and who wasn’t laughing, either. On the contrary, his simian brow was furrowed, like he’d pushed the right buttons but the researchers hadn’t given him the banana he’d expected.

  He’s stupid and full of testosterone. But is he really brainless—and hormonal—enough to commit an impulsive murder? Kill a coach who’d messed up his one shot at playing big-time college ball . . . ?

  “Millie? Are we gonna dialogue?” Laura was tapping me again, apparently alerting me to the fact that it was time for Monday’s free-form dialogue session.

  I didn’t answer her, though. I was watching, confused, as Viv didn’t pair up with Mike.

  No, she stood up, and with one more evil glance at me, made her way directly to Chase before Ms. Beamish could even hoist herself out of her chair.

  But . . .

  “Millie? Are we gonna talk?” Laura asked again.

  I wanted to spare my friend yet another painful conversation with our instructor, who was already—clearly unhappily—searching for another victim. I really did.

  Yet I found myself looking once more at Mike Price, potential killer, alone and baffled with nobody to talk to—a sitting duck, maybe just waiting to make some verbal slip that would implicate him in a murder—and I heard myself saying, “Sorry, Laura. I gotta talk with the other worst speaker in class.”

  Chapter 52

  “What do you want?” Mike asked when I slid into the desk next to his. “Huh?”

  “I just thought we should talk,” I said, too cheerfully. “You know, we’ve gone to school together forever. But do we really know each other?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he mumbled. He was addressing me—at least, making semihuman sounds—but staring at Viv and Chase, clearly unhappy that he’d been abandoned in favor of the quarterback who’d also stolen his football glory.

  I found myself watching Viv and Chase, too, as they conversed with apparent ease.

  Is Viv finally making her move on Chase? And does he like talking to her? Because he might think she’s intense, but let’s face it, she’s got those boobs . . .

  I turned back around, forcing myself to focus on Mike, and because we only had a few minutes, I stopped acting like I wanted us to be pals. “First of all,” I said quietly, “neither one of us speaks French, so let’s not even pretend to try.” When he didn’t respond—didn’t even give any sign of having heard me—I added directly, “How about Coach Killdare getting murdered? Huh? What do you make of that?”

  Okay, that wasn’t exactly brilliant on my part, but at least Mike grunted a response. “I’d say it sucks. For him.”

  I was interested in that last prepositional phrase, but I also kept wondering how Viv could stand spending time with a gu
y who spoke in monosyllables, even if he did her bidding.

  I shifted once more to see Viv and Chase chattering away, no doubt in French.

  Sure, they’re both smart, good-looking, and can use “dejeuner” correctly. But he would never like HER . . .

  Turning back around, I tried to focus on my own partner again. “I guess it sucks for you, too,” I noted. “I mean, Mr. Killdare was your coach and mentor. Probably like a father figure.”

  Mike gave me a look like I was the dense one. A look I’d probably earned by pushing it too far with the “father figure” comment. “Are you nuts?” he asked. “You know he brought in Albright as a ringer, so I’m not quarterback anymore, right? I hated that jerk!”

  Okay, Mike didn’t say “jerk.” He used a very nasty epithet that made me reel back in my seat. “Wow,” I said. “You really did despise him, huh?” Then I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes. “Maybe enough to wish he was actually dead?”

  As soon as I said that, I couldn’t believe the words had come out of my mouth, and needless to say, even Mike understood what I’d done. He cocked his head and said pretty loudly, “Did you just accuse me of murder?” He looked around the class, as if for support. “What the hell?”

  “Sssh!” I ordered him. Kids were staring at us, and Ms. Beamish was also watching, with a look of displeasure so profound that it seemed to have drained all the color from her face. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t storming over to insist that we use French. Speaking even more softly, I told Mike, “I didn’t accuse you of anything. At most, there was a slight inference . . .” I could tell I’d lost him with that word, and concluded, “Look, you were the one who said you hated Coach Killdare, then got all defensive when I called you on it. You made yourself look guilty.” All at once, I realized Mike really had overreacted, and I added, “You’re the one who used the word ‘accuse.’ I never said that.”

  He didn’t answer me. He just sat there, watching me with his dim eyes.

  Eyes that, I realized, might actually be unfeeling enough to belong to a killer.