Murder of An Open Book: A Scumble River Mystery (Scumble River Mysteries Book 18)

by Denise Swanson

  The Scumble River school district belonged to the Stanley County Special Education Cooperative, an entity that furnished them with programs and personnel, as needed. The cooperative provided social workers, occupational and physical therapists, speech pathologists, and teachers for low-incidence issues such as vision and hearing impairments. The co-op was also the watchdog that dealt with the bureaucratic red tape of special education funding.

  “You don’t provide services to the degree my daughter needs.” Mrs. Northrup crossed her arms. “I’ve asked and asked for more time, but Ashley never gets it.”

  “We do need to balance those extras against what she misses in the classroom while she’s with the therapists,” Skye explained.

  “That wouldn’t be a problem at Thorntree.” Mrs. Northrup’s expression was triumphant. “Academic instruction is presented either individually or in small groups, so Ashley would never miss anything.”

  “We can do that here.” Skye felt as if she were wading through a bowl of oatmeal. “But you wanted her mainstreamed.”

  She sympathized with Mrs. Northrup, but Scumble River High School was in full compliance with the rules and regulations, and Ashley was doing very well. There was just no way the board would approve the money for a private placement since they weren’t required by law to do so.

  “You don’t understand.” Mrs. Northrup scowled. “Thorntree does it all. There’s no sacrificing one thing for another. Social skills lessons are part of the daily curriculum, so Ashley’s social awareness and communication skills would improve organically.” The woman’s face reddened as she continued. “She’ll develop an understanding of others’ feelings, be taught calming techniques, and learn how to seek comfort from people instead of self-stimulating.”

  “That’s exactly what the co-op’s social worker and OT are working on with Ashley here.”

  “In isolation!” Mrs. Northrup shouted. “At Thorntree she can be on an athletic team and fully participate in extracurricular activities rather than be parked on the sidelines. In this school, there’s only one club where she can completely take part in the activities. At Thorntree they use the students’ strengths to teach them to interpret their environment.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” Homer lumbered up from his desk and said, “We get it.” He reminded Skye of the Wookiee from Star Wars. Not only because of his lumbering movements and his large frame, but also because of the hair that enveloped him from head to foot. His eyebrows were bushier than her cat’s tail, wiry strands poked from his ears like the filaments in lightbulbs, and a coarse pelt covered his arms and hands. Clumps even pushed out between the buttons of his shirt. “This private school is God’s gift to all the handicapped little kiddies. How much does it cost?”

  “Differently abled student,” Skye quickly corrected before Ashley’s mother exploded.

  “Whatever.” Homer waved his hand. “We’re providing an appropriate education, correct?” Skye nodded, and he swung his massive head in Mrs. Northrup’s direction. “In that case, we’re not paying an arm and a leg to send the girl to this fancy school.”

  “Fine.” Mrs. Northrup rose to her feet. “Ashley is going to Thorntree with or without the school’s blessing.” She flung a sheaf of papers onto Homer’s desk. “Here are the signed forms. I expect her file to be transferred before the end of business today.”

  After the parent had slammed out of the office, Homer sank back into his chair, put his arms behind his head, and said, “That went well.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Skye pressed her lips together and ducked her head. Shoot! Note to self. Just because it comes into my brain doesn’t mean it should be allowed out of my mouth. “What I meant to say was that we’re going to get hit with a due-process hearing. You’d better notify our special ed coordinator at the co-op and the district’s attorney.”

  “Nah. Why rock that boat?” Homer narrowed his eyes. “Maybe the mom is willing to pay.”

  “I doubt it.” Skye tapped her fingers on the chair’s arm. “I read Ashley’s file. Mrs. Northrup is a widow, and she recently lost her only means of support. A while back, the Laundromat she and her late husband owned burned down. There is no way she has the money to pay for a private school.”

  “You need to let grayer heads prevail.” He nudged the paperwork toward Skye. “Take care of this. The sooner the girl’s gone, the better.”

  “I’m telling you this is going to be a problem.” Skye flipped through the pages. “Mrs. Northrup is going to hit us with the bill for Thorntree.”

  “You don’t know that.” Homer’s gaze wandered to the coffeepot and the box of doughnuts on the credenza behind Skye. “Maybe the girl’s father had a big life-insurance policy.”

  “If he did, they need that cash to live on.” Skye stood. “Trust me. Mrs. Northrup is going to put her daughter in Thorntree, then take us to due process to pay the tuition. And once Ashley is in that school, if she does really well there, our case against the placement is going to be a whole lot harder to prove.”

  “I’m not stirring up trouble that only exists in your mind.” Homer pointed over Skye’s shoulder at his brand-new Keurig. “Make me a cup of coffee on your way out and hand me one of those chocolate long johns.”

  Skye ignored the principal’s food order and heard him yelling for Opal as she hurried down the hall. She had only a few seconds to drop off Ashley’s folder and pick up what she needed for her ten o’clock observation. Serving Homer his brunch was not on her schedule.

  The rest of the day was busy, and as she had feared, a student crisis reduced her contractually entitled half-hour lunch break to the time it took her to drive to the elementary school. Instead of a shower, she got indigestion from gulping half a dozen crackers down during the three-minute trip, which left her in a bad mood for the rest of the afternoon.

  On her way home, she stopped at the pharmacy. She was almost out of her prenatal vitamins and needed to pick up a card for Vince and Loretta’s baby shower. Previously, in order to maintain her privacy, Skye had purchased the vitamins in Laurel, but she didn’t have time to drive the forty miles, so she had to get them locally. The tricky part would be getting in and out of the store without anyone noticing what she was buying.

  Skye headed over to the greeting cards and quickly made her selection from the handful of options available. Once she was done, she headed toward the vitamin aisle. After scooping up the bottle, she covered it with the shower card and made a beeline toward the pharmacy counter in the back. She knew the druggist wouldn’t gossip about her purchase, unlike the woman running the front register, who was a friend of her mother. Checking out with one of May’s many pals would be like sending a text to the town’s rumor mill.

  The pharmacist winked at her when she requested that he ring up her order, and Skye put a finger to her lips. He nodded his understanding and slipped her items into a bag before he took her credit card. She signed the slip, and then, feeling smug, Skye turned around to find her mother heading down the aisle toward her.

  May was sixty-three but had the energy of a twenty-five-year-old. She kept her house immaculate, exercised at a nearby community’s fitness center three times a week, and worked part-time as a police, fire, and emergency dispatcher. Along with her already busy schedule, May’s priority was taking care of her offspring. Which would have been understandable if Skye and her brother, Vince, been under eighteen years of age, but not so much when they were both well into adulthood.

  May’s face lit up when she spotted her daughter, and she hurried toward her. Enveloping Skye in a hug, she said, “I didn’t see your car out front.”

  “I’ve got Wally’s Ford today.” Skye gave her mother a quick kiss on the cheek, then edged away from her in the direction of the door. “The brake, parking, and license plate lights aren’t working on my Chevy.”

  “Does your dad know?” May asked. “I’m sure he can
fix that.”

  Skye’s heart sank. Her dad’s idea of the perfect vehicle was good transportation—paint and fenders were optional. After driving her father’s eyesores all her life, she had wanted something a little snazzier when she grew up. Instead, the last time she’d been in need of a car, Jed and her uncle Charlie had found and restored a 1957 Bel Air for her. Although she loved the thought behind the Chevy, Skye hated driving the aqua behemoth and was thrilled to be zipping around in her husband’s cool little T-bird convertible.

  “I figured Dad was busy getting ready for planting season,” Skye hedged. Her father was a farmer, and spring was a busy time for him. “There’s no rush.”

  “It’s probably something simple like a loose wire.” May followed Skye toward the exit, evidently forgetting she had just arrived and hadn’t done any shopping yet. “I’ll tell Jed about it after I get off work tonight, and he’ll pick up the car in the morning.”

  “Okay.” Skye grabbed the door handle. “Is that a new uniform shirt?” She took a stab at distracting May’s attention. “I really like that color on you.”

  “This old thing?” May straightened the stand-up collar. “You’ve seen it a thousand times. I was actually thinking of donating it to the church’s next clothing drive.”

  “Oh. Well, it still looks great.” Skye took a step backward. “I better get going.”

  “What did you stop for?” May reached up and put her hand on her daughter’s forehead. “Are you sick? You do look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine.” Skye opened the door. “I just needed a card for the baby shower.”

  “That doesn’t look like a card.” May pointed to the bag in Skye’s hand, her salt-and-pepper hair appearing to bristle in curiosity.

  “Uh.” Skye stared into her mother’s emerald green eyes, the same eyes she saw in the mirror every morning. “Toothpaste,” she blurted out. “While I was here, I remembered we needed toothpaste.”

  “Stuff like that is too expensive here in town.” May tsked. “Now that you’re married, you should buy it at Sam’s Club in Joliet. You and I could go over this Sunday and do a massive shopping. I can check your stuff out on my card so you get the really good price.”

  “Thanks. We’ll have to do that sometime.” Skye hugged her mom and scooted out the door. “But this weekend isn’t good for me. Trixie’s decided to have a fund-raiser Sunday. She’s putting on a rubber duck race and I promised to help her. Maybe we can go during spring break.”

  “Dad and I can get you a membership as an Easter present.” May caught the door before it closed and called after Skye, “Because . . .” May’s words were muffled. “. . . baby, you’ll really need to be able to buy in bulk.”

  Shit! Skye slid into the car and leaned her head on the steering wheel. Had her mother said when you have the baby? No. There was no way she could know. Was there?

  CHAPTER 5

  —Frownie Face

  Skye pulled into her garage and parked Wally’s T-bird next to the out-of-commission Bel Air. Slipping the straps of her purse and duffel bag over her wrist, she grabbed the pharmacy sack and an armload of files, then exited the car and hurried up the sidewalk. It had taken quite a bit of research, but Skye thought she had finally figured out what form of architecture the big old house represented.

  The design seemed to have Colonial, Tudor, and even Victorian features, but she was fairly certain it was actually an American Foursquare to which a previous owner had added a wraparound porch. Strictly speaking, a Foursquare had a quartet of nearly equal-size rooms per floor, and this place didn’t, but Skye was pretty sure that before the various additions, it had started life in the traditionally boxy shape.

  She wasn’t totally certain about the house’s origins since she’d inherited the place from Alma Griggs, a woman she’d known only a couple of months prior to receiving the bequest. Mrs. Griggs had taken a liking to Skye after she had stepped in when an unscrupulous antiques dealer had tried to take advantage of the sweet old lady.

  And because of a weird birthday coincidence, the elderly woman had decided Skye was the reincarnation of her deceased daughter. Because of this, and since Mrs. Griggs had no close relatives, she’d made Skye her sole beneficiary. Her only request had been that the house be repaired and Skye live in it for at least a year.

  The unpaid back taxes and the lack of liquid assets had forced Skye to take out a home-equity loan for the renovations, and a bumpy start with a bad-boy contractor had delayed the restorations, so it had taken her quite a while to get the place fixed up. But she was finally done—at least with the first and second floors. The third story was still completely untouched.

  Thank goodness Wally had agreed to live there after their wedding. With everything she’d been through refurbishing the house, Skye wanted to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

  It had helped that once they were officially married, the resident apparition had backed off. Prior to making their relationship legal, Mrs. Griggs, who evidently had never gone toward the light, had done everything in her ghostly power to prevent Skye and Wally from making love. If that had persisted, there was no way in heck they could they have continued to live there. However, Skye took it as a good sign that they hadn’t had a visit from the resident spook since returning from their honeymoon.

  Unlocking the door and stepping into the foyer, Skye found her path blocked by a large black cat. Bingo sat on the throw rug, narrowed his big golden green eyes, and stared at her accusingly. He had belonged to her grandmother, who had explained that since she could never win the actual game, she had named her cat Bingo so that she could at least shout out the word when she was calling for her pet.

  After Grandma Leofanti’s death, Skye had rescued the beautiful kitty from her uncle’s evil clutches. Dante had been sure the animal was valuable and had wanted to sell him, but Skye knew that an older cat with no pedigree would more likely be abandoned than cause a bidding war.

  Evidently, forgiving Skye for whatever real or imagined transgressions had upset his feline feelings, Bingo twined around Skye’s ankles, meowing and purring simultaneously. She dropped her stuff on the hall bench and scooped him up, burying her face in his velvetlike fur. He revved his motor and purred louder, kneading her shoulder with his front paws.

  A few seconds later, apparently deciding he’d had enough affection, Bingo extended his back claws to indicate his sudden displeasure. Once he got Skye’s attention, he leaped from her arms. Landing with a soft thud, he strolled away, his tail sticking straight up into the air.

  Strangely soothed by the cat’s customary welcome-home ritual, Skye picked up her duffel and the pharmacy bag and headed toward the staircase. Stopping in midstride, she sniffed. What was that delicious smell?

  It took her a few seconds to remember that Dorothy Snyder made supper for them on Mondays and Thursdays. Along with his gun collection, treadmill, and awesome sports car, Wally had brought something, or she really should say someone, else into the marriage—a part-time housekeeper. Skye had been reluctant to have somebody cook and clean for her, but when Wally had pointed out that if she refused, she was putting the woman out of a job, she’d relented.

  Skye was still uneasy with having Dorothy work for them. While the woman was an amazing chef and kept the place spotless, she was also one of May’s oldest friends. Although Wally had assured Skye that he’d spoken to her about confidentiality and warned her that any leaks to her BFF would result in her immediate dismissal, Skye continued to be a bit uncomfortable with the situation.

  Then again, Skye took another whiff of the enticing aroma; she was getting used to coming home to a wonderful meal she didn’t have to prepare. What was worse—a lack of privacy or having to cook every night?

  Exasperated at her own indecision, she ran upstairs to change clothes. She couldn’t wait to get out of the outfit she’d worn for school. When she’d packed it, she hadn’t re
alized that the waistband of the khaki slacks had become uncomfortably tight and the buttons on the blouse now pulled open across her chest. Wally might be thrilled with her larger breasts, but an increase in cup size meant that nothing fit right anymore.

  After tucking her vitamins into the master bath’s medicine cabinet, she took the last pill from the previous bottle and tossed the container in the trash. Then, finally, Skye took a much-needed shower. Once she was clean, she put on sweatpants and a T-shirt and hurried down the steps. Dashing into the kitchen, she skidded to a stop, letting out a tiny squeak of alarm.

  What was Dorothy still doing here? Normally the housekeeper left before Skye got home from work, and on the days she didn’t, the cranberry red Cadillac Catera sitting in the driveway gave Skye a heads-up that she was in the house.

  Dorothy turned from the stove and said, “Are you early or am I late?”

  She was a tall, solidly built woman in her early sixties. She and May had been classmates, and her deceased husband had been in the navy with Jed. The two couples had been close friends, and as a child, Skye had spent a lot of time with the Snyder family.

  “I think it must be you, because I even stopped at the drugstore on my way home.” Skye hugged the older woman. “Where’s your car?”

  “Tammy’s SUV was in the garage. She needed to run to Laurel to get food for my granddog, so she borrowed the Caddy and dropped me off.”

  Skye hid a smile. Dorothy’s daughter had stated that the only grandchild she was producing for her mom would have four feet. Dorothy had accepted Tammy’s declaration much better than Skye’s mother would have taken similar news.

  Dorothy glanced at the wall clock and frowned. “She should have been here to pick me up over half an hour ago. I hope she’s okay.”

  “Maybe you should call her cell.” Skye lifted the lid on one of the pans. Italian sausage simmered in a spicy tomato sauce.

  “Yeah.” Dorothy reached into the pocket of her jeans and dug out her phone. “I have to get home and get spiffed up. Tonight’s my bowling league, and there’s a new guy who’s a real cutie patootie.” She winked and slid her free hand down her hips. “Rumor has it he’s a widower.”