“Oh, Hubbard. You are a naughty boy!”
Annie’s mind hopped back in forth in her head. Track down a garden hose? Confront Julia and Mr. Dells and break up their non-sanctioned coupling? Bitterhausen was yards in front of her and disappearing into the crowd.
It dawned on her: foreign thugs in suits, a plan and a Wisconsin Hot Guy with a talent so weird Frank suspected he could be a murder suspect. Ka-Ching! This had to be the illegal betting ring Carson told her about. Could even be why Frank Plank was murdered. The water-toy-crossed lovers would have to wait. She stood up, rubbed her knees and took off after suspect Bitterhausen.
Annie trailed Bitterhausen all the way back to Oconomowoc High. He kept a low profile, but still entered through the unlocked front door. She followed him down multiple hallways, remaining a safe distance behind. She was stealthy and she felt invisible behind her mom’s huge Jackie O sunglasses. Until she passed the gym.
Its doors were wide open and a bunch of men, most of them pageant contestants, played a pick up game of basketball. Probably blowing off their pre-evening wear competition jitters. Annie couldn’t help but pause and check out the action.
Mr. Appleton dribbled the ball with one hand, spinning on his chair’s wheels like he was on fire. “Heads up!” He pitched the ball to Jamie who caught it, ducked and dribbled while fighting off aggressive members of the opposing team. Jamie was a flurry of muscles and intensity and determination as he made a break for the basket, aimed from outside the paint and sunk the shot.
Cheers erupted from half the players. Resigned sighs from the other half.
“Awesome shot, Jamie!” Mr. Richland Center said and they high-fived.
Jamie was sweating buckets, but he looked more alive than he had since Frank died. He spotted her and called out. “Hey Annie! You used to be a great cheerleader. Come on, cheer for our team!”
“No way, dude,” Mr. Milwaukee said. “A pageant judge can’t cheer for your team. She has to be impartial. Right, Ms. Graceland?”
“Sorry. Must run,” Annie said.
Annie spied through the half-inch crack behind the door from inside the boy’s bathroom and watched Bitterhausen enter Oconomowoc High’s art studio. While she wasn’t in the habit of hanging out in men’s bathrooms, this one was conveniently located across the hall from the art classroom and was the perfect hiding place. That was before she spotted one of the Hot Guys huffing down the hallway toward its door with an anxious look on his face.
Too late to flee, Annie raced into a bathroom stall and locked the door behind her. She looked down at her feet. There wasn’t a man in the world that would spot a women’s size eight platform clad shoes and assume they belonged to a petite guy.
What’s the big deal, she thought as she crouched on top of the toilet seat? So what if the guy discovered her. Who cared if he reported her to the pageant board? What’s the worst that could happen? They’d fire her as a judge. Great! She’d go home to her beloved cat and her new boyfriend.
But that would screw up her murder investigation. The board would most likely kick her out of the contest. Her reputation would be irrevocably tarnished and she wouldn’t survive with enough credibility to track down Frank’s killer. So, Annie balanced on the toilet seat. Squinted and peeked through the miniscule opening between the door and the lock. And prayed the guy would just get it done and leave.
He finished his immediate business, shaked it, and zipped up. Washed his hands. Combed his hair. Fluffed his hair. Examined his reflection in the mirror. Combed his hair again.
Annie’s legs trembled. She thought longingly of yoga classes back in Venice Beach. She could hold those warrior poses forever. But squatting behind RVs and on toilet seats seemed to require different muscle groups.
The guy leaned into the mirror and inspected his eyebrows. He pulled tweezers from his pocket and plucked a few errant hairs. He then lifted his arms up and checked out his armpit sweat circles on his T-shirt.
Oh, dear God, Annie thought. Was he going to take off his shirt and wave it under the hand dryer?
He turned the water back on, dipped his hand under the faucet and slapped more moisture under his arms. Then stared back into the mirror as he lifted his arms up, balled his hands in fists, flexed, and smiled.
Her legs were shaking. How much longer could she endure this?
Frank leaned against the stall door and eyed her. “Come on. Suck it up. Nothing’s ever easy for a babysitter or a pageant judge.”
Annie gritted her teeth as sweat rolled off her forehead as she forced herself to breathe. Silently.
The Hot Guy winked at himself in the mirror and said, “You can win this, champ! I promise! Now, go get ’em!” He high-fived his reflection and walked out the door.
Annie toppled off the seat and bounced off the stall door, which gave way. She stumbled across the room and caught herself on the bathroom counter. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She was sweaty, disheveled—again. Dang!
“You can do this,” Frank said as he stood behind her, massaging her shoulders.
She stretched her head toward her shoulder and cracked her neck. “I can’t.”
“You can,” he replied. “Put on a little lip gloss. You always feel better when you’re wearing a little lip gloss.”
She pulled the tinted balm out of her purse, leaned into the mirror and applied it to her lips.
“Much better,” Frank said.
“I am going to nail the scrapbooker. And if Mr. Bitterhausen’s guilty—get ready for pizza in Heaven.”
Annie stood next to the door that led to art department. The window within the door was covered with paper from the inside. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see in. She leaned her ear against the door and heard Bitterhausen mumbling. She couldn’t make out his words. Who was he talking to? Probably a co-conspirator in his illegal betting ring.
Oconomowoc’s high school had several tiny art classrooms, but when Annie matriculated here, this studio was the crown jewel. Every student who walked through this door either quickly discovered art was not for them or came to the opposite conclusion—art could and would consume their every waking moment.
This spacious room had huge windows that let in the light during sunny days as well as darkness and thunderclouds during stormy ones. There were large blackboards and painting easels. Bins towered high filled with supplies: papers, tubes and jars of oil and water-based paints. There were photographs, art books, books on artists. Long flat Formica tables where aspiring teenage artists could lay out their photographs, work on collages, or sketch on pads of paper.
Annie’s hand rested on the yellowed wood frame of the door as she leaned against it. Bitterhausen was still in this studio. Annie heard both male and female adult voices followed by peels of laughter that sounded like children. She shook her head. Adult co-conspirators she could understand. But using children in an illegal betting ring? She was so going to nail this guy.
She cracked the door open a half-inch and peered inside. There were men and women and kids seated at the art tables with scrapbook pages laid out on the tables in front of them. At the front of the room Mr. Bitterhausen held court. “When I’m involved with a project that requires multiple ribbons, I use this handy spinning ribbon rack.” He held up a small device covered in spools of ribbons. He picked up what looked like enormous multi-colored rubber bands. “When properly applied, these bands can keep your books closed and safe from exposure.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie walked inside the classroom. “Have I interrupted?”
Bitterhausen’s eyes widened. “Class dismissed! Vote for Mr. Bitterhausen! May your memories be forever glue-gunned.” The class groaned, grabbed their books and supplies and shuffled out the door.
“You’re teaching a scrapbooking class? In the middle of the pageant? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Annie asked.
“I’m just being a nice guy.” Bitterhausen gathered his papers and materials. He slipped them into his lea
ther valise. “I’m being helpful. All you judges with all your rules. Before I moved to Wisconsin I was surrounded by rules. Choking on rules. I’m finally living in a place where I can be myself and not constantly worry about what everyone thinks of me. You can’t tell me what I can do.”
“I’d totally agree with you if we weren’t in the middle of a contest, where things like this scrapbooking class, can and will be construed as ways to seduce fans and garner votes,” Annie said.
He snapped his valise shut, lifted his wrist to his lips and spoke into his watch, “Ivan, fire out of control. Repeat, fire out of control. Put it out.”
Oh, God. What did that mean? Was she in danger? Annie backed away from Bitterhausen while she searched for the contest rulebook in her purse. She yanked out a Pepe’s Pizzeria menu. It would have to do. “I quote the Wisconsin Hot Guys Contest rule book chapter five, paragraph six.”
“Why does the Hot Guys rule book have a large mushroom pepperoni pizza on its cover?”
She tried to hide the menu with her hand as she squinted at it. “And I quote, ‘Top ten Wisconsin Hot Guys contestants cannot overtly fraternize with fans without written permission of the Hot Guys board e pluribus unum et al, forever and ever. Amen.” Annie stuffed the menu back in her purse and pointed her finger at Bitterhausen. “You, Mr. Bitterhausen, are blatantly fraternizing.”
He turned toward her. His eyes were huge and dilated. He had a significant bulge in his pants pocket. Oh, dear Lord. Maybe he was a perverse wacko who got off on being threatened. Or maybe he was packing heat.
“Ivan,” he said into his watch. “The female judge with the auburn hair wearing the camouflage shorts. Shut her down. Yes, now. Before evening wear.”
Annie backed away from him. “Admit it. You’re the lynchpin in an illegal betting ring.”
“I play the ponies. I’ve played baccarat in the finest casinos in Fredonia.” He stepped toward her. “But I’ve never run an illegal betting ring.”
“Then why do you have bodyguards?” Annie slammed into the knife-edge corner of a Formica table whacking her behind. “Ow!” She grabbed her right cheek and broke into a sweat.
“That’s going to be a nasty bruise,” Bitterhausen said. “Why don’t you sit down? Relax. I’ll get you an ice pack.”
“What’s a little bruise to a Midwestern chick? It’s a mosquito sucking blood from your arm in the woods during the summer. It’s the lone fly buzzing next to the wet cat food. Who cares? Nobody. Wisconsinites just deal. You, on the other hand, have bodyguards protecting your every move. None of the other Hot Guys have bodyguards. Why’d you enter Wisconsin’s Hot Guys contest? Did you buy the contest results ahead of time? Did you hate Frank Plank?” Annie’s eyes teared as she clutched her behind and inched toward the door.
Bitterhausen reached for something in his pants pocket.
She ducked and ran toward the door. “If you killed Frank Plank, I am so not voting for you to be a top five finalist!”
Sixteen
Bleacher Baby
Annie skidded down high school hallways. She slipped and slided on the scuffed linoleum floors as she careened past her sophomore-year English comp class where she always got Cs, and the general biology classroom where she refused to pith the frog, smuggled it out and gave it to ten-year-old Jamie Ryan.
She rounded a corner and collided with a teen couple making out against a locker, their limbs and tongues intertwined. Well, they used to be until she knocked them over and broke up their little hormone-fest.
“What the—” The guy looked at her, confused.
“Bitch!” The girl glowered and rubbed her tongue.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Annie said. “Twenty years from now, you’ll be trying to track me down on Facebook to thank me.”
“I can explain!” Bitterhausen hollered from the hallway behind her.
Annie’s eyes widened and she raced off. “Save it for your bookie, Bitterhausen, when you can’t pay your bill!”
Annie paused for a moment and rested her hand on a doorway that looked familiar. No it felt familiar. Within seconds she had a headache the size of a monstrous periodic table. Symbols like “Ca” popped into her brain—but it didn’t stand for her beloved California. It was… Calcium. “As” came to her mind and she immediately thought of Asshat. But then realized “As” stood for arsenic. Like poison. The kind that killed people.
She clutched her head and cried out softly from the pain. Only this wasn’t her headache. This was another empathic hit—a headache from the decades of students who had passed through this door. She had nightmares for years about this and it just couldn’t be possible. Not Inorganic Chemistry—not again.
Bitterhausen’s approaching footsteps grew louder. He was most likely just one hallway away. But there were other floor stomping thuds made by someone with extremely heavy feet. “Ve vill get her, bvoss.”
Ah, crap, Annie thought. Bitterhausen’s muscle had arrived. Her breath was ragged as she reached the back doors that led to the gym. The overhead lights peeked through the narrow slice between the doors, but she didn’t hear anybody inside.
Even though she never considered herself a ‘rescue me’ type-of-girl, where in the hell were a couple of polite manly men when a girl needed a little rescuing? She pushed on the doors. Pulled them. Shook their handles. But they didn’t budge. “Crap!”
“Anvee Glacevand! Halt!”
Annie whipped around and spotted Bitterhausen with Ivan, his goon, striding toward her. “Double crap!” She yanked off her platform shoes, took a moment to aim and pitched one at Bitterhausen.
It bounced off his crotch with a metallic boink. He paused, looked down, but didn’t even break a sweat. Uh-oh. She threw her other shoe at Ivan. It hit his forehead and made a boink as well. They rubbed their respective body parts and straightened back up—just like Arnold in The Terminator.
“Triple crap!” She ran around a corner, headed toward another set of double doors. Please, oh, please, Annie intoned as she yanked on them. They opened. She snuck inside and closed them gently. She looked around. The gym was empty. Probably everyone had left to prepare for evening wear competition.
It was only a matter of seconds before Bitterhausen and his goon would find her. She looked around for something to block the doors. But there was nothing. Her gaze rested on the light switch. It was her only chance. She walked the few steps toward it, said a little prayer and pushed the knob down.
The gym lights shut off. She was left alone, in complete darkness and, except for the racing of her heart, utter stillness. It felt like a tomb.
She extended her arms out in front of her and zombie shuffled toward where she estimated the bleachers were. She smelled the players’ sweat, after-shave and even a whiff of tooty-fruity gum. She could almost make out the scent of the rubber from the basketballs that had recently bounced off the gleaming wooden floors. Her outstretched hand smacked the metallic rim of the bleachers as she crouched under them, kneeled and crawled into their underbelly.
The gym doors opened with a squeak. The clip, clip, clip, of solid shoes echoed off the gym’s floor. Whoever wore those shoes paused. Was it a knight in shining armor? Or a sadistic killer?
Annie crawled as far as humanly possible beneath the bleachers. She hid in a discrete corner and covered her head with her hands. After all these years, she refused to end up dead here, back in Oconomowoc. She could not be killed before she found Frankie’s killer, before she told everyone she loved that she, indeed, loved them. And, surprise, surprise, she’d discovered her list of loved ones was longer than she realized.
She lay curled up in a ball. Frankie, she said silently in her head. Frankie, I’m trying so hard. I hope I don’t fuck this up.
“Nothing’s ever easy for a babysitter or a pageant judge.” Frankie crouched under the bleachers next to her and smoothed her hair.
“Thank you,” Annie mouthed.
The gym lights flicked back on. They were harsh, glaring. She b
linked. Her left boob started itching. An empathic reaction?
“I’ve been looking for you. I heard you were back visiting our high school. I had a feeling I’d find you here, under the bleachers, again. The memories are seared into my brain. You wore a pink bra. No underwires. You didn’t need them—then.”
Annie lifted her head and spotted Scott Puddleman. He leaned down and leered at her from the open-aired side of bleachers. “Do we have catching up to do or what?”
She screamed and crawled away from him.
“You still have those cheerleader pipes. I have exciting news. The Lake Lodge concierge called Hot Guys HQ with a message for you. Blackhoof Busline not only found your luggage but also dropped it off. It’s waiting for you in your room.” Scott motioned to her. “Come on now.”
“Oh, my God!” Annie eyed Scott. He was so tan, his teeth so white, his hair so dyed. What could she have been thinking when she was sixteen? You could go back to your hometown, but life would never be the same—everyone had changed for good, forever. Or had they? Frank was still madly in love with Lila. Suzy DeLovely was still an egomaniacal control freak. Annie’s mom still made the best pancakes.
Old friends—were they still friends? Old enemies—were they ever really enemies, after all? Maybe everyone was just hormonal, stressed out and doing the best they could do with what life handed them. Just like Annie was doing now—twenty years after graduating high school.
Then she remembered her luggage and the awesome outfits inside. She’d have enough time to slip into something fabulous for the evening wear competition. Holy smokes she’d finally look styling, a dream that every pageant judge held dear.
Scott beckoned. “I can only crouch here so long before my tricky golfing knee locks up. I told your mom I’d give you a ride back to the lodge. I even drove my mommy’s 'Vette. You always loved the 'Vette.”
3 Cupcakes, Pies, and Hot Guys Page 12