Murder of a Small-Town Honey

by Denise Swanson

“After my meeting this morning I chatted with Abby Fleming, the school nurse. You know she’s dating Vince now, but did you remember she went out with him a few times in high school?”

  May smiled indulgently. “I couldn’t keep track of all the girls Vince dated. He was so popular.”

  Skye wondered if her mother was reminding her that she had not been very sought after in high school. Talking with her mother always required being on the alert for ambushes.

  She ignored that unwelcome thought. “Anyway, Vince dated her right before he got involved with Honey Adair. And Abby was really ticked off at Honey for stealing Vince.”

  “This all happened so long ago. She can’t still be upset about it.”

  “Think of it this way. She’s dating Vince again, everything is going really well, and suddenly she finds out that Honey is coming back to town. I’d say all the old resentment would resurface.”

  “How would she know that Honey was Mrs. Gumtree?” May took a few more fries from Skye’s pile.

  “I haven’t worked out that part yet.” Skye shrugged. “But she could have recognized her from her picture on those posters that were all over town.”

  May shook her head. “Abby is such a sweet girl. She couldn’t do something like that.”

  “Right.” Skye opened another ketchup packet. “And there were no drugs in Scumble River when I was in high school. At least that’s what you always told me when I complained about the pushers in class.”

  “Did you find out anything else?”

  “Oh, my, yes. Did you know that Chief Boyd’s wife, Darleen, dated Mike Young in high school, while he was so involved in drugs? Honey broke up that relationship, too.”

  “No, I didn’t know any of that. Well, that might explain his wanting to pin this murder on Vince without much investigating. He probably doesn’t want anything about his wife’s past to come out.” May shook some salt on her sandwich.

  “I would imagine not, but I just can’t picture Chief Boyd with Darleen. She’s the special ed teacher at the junior high, and there’s something about her that bothers me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let me think. To begin with, she’s emaciated, not just fashionably thin but skeletal. Also, her eyes bulge out. I keep trying to remember what medical condition causes that. But mostly it’s her extremely submissive behavior around the principal that disturbs me.” Taking a sip of her Diet Coke, she tried to put the pieces together.

  May finished her meal and started to clean up the debris, putting everything back on the tray. “Everyone doesn’t have to be as bossy as you are.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

  May got up and dumped the trash in the garbage. “You’ve found out a lot already.”

  “That’s not all.” Skye followed May to the door. “Abby said that Honey was very friendly with her softball coach back then. And you’ll never guess who that was.” She paused for effect. “It was Lloyd Stark, the junior high principal.”

  “Do you really think someone like him would get involved with a student?”

  “Remember, this was sixteen years ago. He may have changed considerably since then. Nevertheless, I’m going to talk to him too.”

  They walked toward their cars, parked side by side. May opened her door, then cautioned, “Be careful. If one of these people did kill Honey, they may already think you saw something, and by asking questions you could be stirring up a hornet’s nest.”

  Skye hugged her mother and kissed her on the cheek. “When you asked me to help Vince, what did you think would happen?”

  “I guess I didn’t think, but I don’t want to put one of my kids in danger to save the other.”

  “Sure, Mom, I’ll watch it.”

  Skye was scheduled to spend the rest of the day at Scumble River Junior High. As soon as she arrived, she asked to speak to Lloyd but was told by Ursula, the school secretary, that he was unavailable.

  Next, she went to the special ed classroom. There she found Darleen, along with eleven students, who were studying for a math quiz.

  Skye whispered to Darleen from the doorway, “Mind if I watch?”

  Darleen shook her head, but she kept glancing uneasily at Skye as she taught.

  Making her way to the back of the room, Skye sat in a yellow plastic folding chair. From reading their files she knew the kids had a mixed bag of disabilities, with the majority having either learning or behavior problems. They all had study sheets, and most had written in their solutions. Darleen was going over those answers.

  Skye was visiting the classrooms in an attempt to match faces to the names on file folders, allow the teachers and students to become accustomed to her, and get a feel for the different teaching styles.

  The bell rang at two-fifteen and the students piled out of the room. Gym was last period, and they had a lot of bottled-up energy to expend.

  Turning to Skye, Darleen gestured to the sheaf of papers she was holding. “This is my planning period, so there won’t be any more students today.”

  Skye nodded. She recognized a dismissal when she heard one, but she persisted. “Are you going to the teachers’ lounge?”

  Darleen gave Skye a deer-in-the-headlights look. “Yes, I thought I’d get a soda while I grade these papers.”

  Skye ignored Darleen’s attempt to make it perfectly clear that she didn’t want company. “Great. Mind if I join you? Maybe we can get to know each other.”

  Sighing, Darleen trudged down the hall.

  The teachers’ lounge was decorated in Early Grandma’s Attic. Nothing matched, and everything was at least fifty years old. A refrigerator had been placed in the back corner, next to a counter with a sink full of used coffee cups. The microwave, located on an old library cart, was stained both inside and out. Several tables had been shoved together, plastic folding chairs arranged haphazardly around them. A couch covered in nubby orange fabric occupied the opposite wall, and next to it a child-size desk held a telephone.

  Darleen opened the fridge and took a half-empty can of soda from the shelf. She sat down at the table and started grading papers.

  Skye looked around for the pop machine but did not see it. “Where’s the soda machine?”

  Darleen shrugged listlessly. “It must still be out for repair.”

  Making a mental note to bring in a few cans of Diet Coke to put in the fridge, Skye joined her. While Skye waited for Darleen to look up, she studied her. If anything, the teacher looked worse now than she did the first day of school. Her skin was pasty, and she had dark circles under her eyes. She wore an overall romper over a Spandex crop top.

  Skye thought, Why would a teacher who deals with disturbed adolescent boys dress like that? Talk about asking for trouble.

  The silence lengthened and Skye’s impatience grew. “So, are you from Scumble River?”

  Darleen nodded but did not look up.

  This conversation was more of a chore than getting a sixteen-year-old to talk. “You must have gone to high school here then, right?”

  Again a nod but no eye contact.

  “That murder Sunday was awful. Did you know Honey Adair?”

  Finally Darleen looked at Skye and started to nibble on a fingernail. The rest of her nails showed evidence that this was a long-standing habit. Her fingers also had yellow stains, suggesting she was a chronic smoker. “No, not really. Well, sort of. I mean we were in the same class, but I never hung around with her or anything. I don’t think she had any girlfriends.”

  Skye took the opening that statement provided. “Yes, but I hear she had a lot of boyfriends.”

  Darleen looked down at the papers in front of her and shrugged.

  “In fact, I just heard today that before she started dating my brother, Honey and Mike Young were closer than two ones in an eleven.” Skye stared at Darleen, daring her to deny the truth.

  “I don’t remember.” Darleen’s face had turned an unhealthy shade of red.

  Feeling as if she was pulling the wings off a butter
fly, Skye leaned closer and said, “Oh, I’m surprised to hear that. I thought you and Mike were dating before Honey stole him away.”

  Darleen stood up so suddenly that the chair she was sitting on went flying back and toppled onto the floor. She was trembling when she turned to Skye, and tears were running down her cheeks. “You’re like all the rest of them, asking questions, prying into the past. Leave me alone. Why can’t everybody just leave me alone?”

  Darleen ran out of the lounge. Skye sat there, stunned. I wonder who all the rest of them are? Who else has been prying into her past?

  At five o’clock, on her way out of the building, Skye stopped at the front office to try once again to talk to Lloyd. Ursula had been telling her all afternoon that he wasn’t seeing anyone. This time she found Ursula gone and the room vacant.

  She called out as she walked back toward the principal’s office, “Lloyd, are you busy?”

  There was no answer, but she could see that the light in his office was still on. Standing at the partially closed door, she knocked. “Lloyd, it’s Skye Denison. Could I talk to you a minute?”

  Silence, except for the humming of a computer monitor. This was beginning to feel like déjà vu. First Mrs. Gumtree’s trailer, then Charlie’s cabin, and now this. Skye forced herself to push the door all the way open and stick her head inside.

  The office was trashed. All the desk drawers had been taken out and their contents strewn on the floor. Certificates and plaques that usually hung on the wall were thrown into a pile. It was clear that someone was searching for something and didn’t care who or what got in the way.

  CHAPTER 14

  As Time Goes By

  Once again Skye found herself in the backseat of Chief Boyd’s squad car. Scumble River had recently purchased all new police vehicles, which meant buying two of them. Chevy Caprice Classics had been the mayor’s selection after an arduous brainstorming session. This was not exactly a risky choice, since most police officers in the country drove similar sedans, and Chevrolet manufactured a special line of this model especially for law enforcement departments.

  Scumble River’s Caprices were robin’s-egg blue with a map of the river painted in black on both front doors. Chief Boyd’s squad smelled faintly of his aftershave, and something else Skye couldn’t identify.

  The interior was exceptionally neat. No candy wrappers, empty soda cans, or other debris littered the floor. The dashboard was dust free and the windshield sparkled. Skye wondered if her mother routinely washed the windows before each of her shifts.

  She felt unsettled. After the initial shock of discovering Mrs. Gumtree’s body had worn off, Skye had found the situation fascinating, in a morbid way. Of course, she was upset when Vince was arrested, but she felt resourceful as she took charge and saved him. Talking to people was interesting, and she was astounded at how easily they told her their secrets. But she was getting tired of finding rooms vandalized everywhere she went.

  Chief Boyd interrupted her thoughts by opening the door. “Okay, Skye, we’re finished. You can come back inside. I have a few questions to ask.” He smiled. “You know the drill by now.”

  Slowly, Skye followed him into the school. He led her to the health room and closed the door. After they were seated, he took out his notebook and clicked his pen. “Tell me what happened. Start with why you were here after everyone else went home.”

  She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m either dedicated or foolish, take your pick. The school system hasn’t had a psychologist in almost a year. They still don’t have a social worker. There’s a ton of paperwork that the state and federal agencies require be done . . . in triplicate. I’m trying to catch up so I can do my real job of working with kids.”

  “It sounds like my job. More paperwork than police work.”

  “In a small town you have to do both—be an administrator and go out in the field.” Skye tried to gain brownie points by demonstrating her empathy.

  Chief Boyd nodded and leaned toward her. “Okay, when did Ursula and Lloyd leave?”

  “They usually leave between four and four-thirty. I checked with Ursula at about three-fifteen to see if Lloyd could see me. She said he was unavailable but didn’t give any details. Then I got involved with what I was doing and forgot to go back until I decided to call it a day at five.”

  “Did you see anyone when you walked from your office to Lloyd’s?”

  “No. It was sort of spooky. Like someone gave a signal and the place just cleared out. Or like they’d all been beamed aboard the Enterprise.”

  The chief made a note. “I’ll have to check and see if this is typical behavior. I don’t suppose you’ve been around long enough to tell?”

  Skye shook her head. “Was there anyone in the building when you searched it?”

  “We found a custodian in the boiler room, but that was it. Tell me what you did when you found Lloyd’s office trashed.”

  “I backed out the door, used the phone on Ursula’s desk, and called you.”

  “What did you do until we got here?”

  “Well, I knew there was no one in Lloyd’s room or up here in the front office, so I sat in Ursula’s chair where I could see the entrance. The only thing I touched was the telephone and Lloyd’s door. Do you think this has anything to do with the murder?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t see how, but you never know.”

  Sitting silently, Skye debated whether to mention his wife’s peculiar behavior and what she had found out about Lloyd. She finally decided to tell him what she knew about Lloyd but not mention Darleen. “Ah, Chief, I did happen to hear about a connection between Lloyd and Honey.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How did you ‘happen to hear’ about this connection?”

  “I was chatting with Abby Fleming, the district nurse, and she mentioned that Lloyd coached a softball team that she and Honey were on the summer before their senior year in high school.”

  “That’s not exactly a close association. He coached various sports for several years. There are a lot of people in town who were on those teams.”

  Skye hesitated, not wanting to start an unsubstantiated rumor. “Abby did allude to a closer relationship than student and coach.”

  “What do you mean by ‘allude to’?”

  “She said they seemed very close. More so than he and other students.”

  “This was just an opinion, right? Abby didn’t actually witness any impropriety?”

  “No, I think it was only an impression.”

  He took her hand. “I know you don’t want to think that Vince could have killed her, but you have to consider the facts. They all point to him.”

  Skye snatched her hand from his grasp. “All the facts do not point to him. You have to consider that you haven’t looked at anyone but him. Which makes me wonder why. There are a lot of people in this town who hated Honey Adair and had good reasons to want to see her dead.”

  She paused, knowing that if she continued she’d be sorry. Stealing a peek at the chief, she saw a look of condescension on his face and lost control.

  Her words tumbled out with no pauses for breath. “Lloyd Stark may have been intimate with her when she was underage. Abby Fleming certainly hated her for breaking up the relationship Abby and Vince had in high school. Charlie Patukas inherits a lot of money with her dead. Mike Young had an intense relationship with Honey until she went after Vince. And last, but definitely not least, your wife had reason to hate her for stealing Mike away.”

  Without giving him a chance to reply, Skye stood up and stalked out of the room. She got into her car and drove home, refusing to think about what she had just done. It wasn’t until she was in her bedroom changing clothes that she allowed herself to consider the consequences of her impulsiveness.

  She sat on the bed and pounded her knee with her fist. I hate it when I put my mouth in gear without first engaging my brain. What have I accomplished by provoking Chief Boyd? Nothing. Up until now he has treated me like the old friend I
was. He hasn’t done anything to deserve that abuse.

  Then an idea crossed her mind, and she stopped hitting her leg. This whole thing could force the chief to look at other suspects. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe he won’t be angry that I threw his wife’s high school fling in his face. Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly, too.

  A glance at her clock radio told her it was five after seven. That Big Mac had been a long time ago. She went into her kitchen, and over to the refrigerator. The shelves were empty. It was time to go to the grocery store.

  Clouds had continued to roll in, and it was beginning to get dark when Skye pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket. She winced as a flash of lightning illuminated the asphalt. Hunger, stress, and heat had given her a raging headache.

  As she cruised the lot looking for an open slot, her emotions ranged from self-pity to outrage, settling somewhere near resignation. In her exhausted state she felt as if she had been looking for a parking place for hours. She recovered somewhat when she saw someone getting into a car parked only three spaces from the door.

  Pulling up almost behind the occupied vehicle, Skye put her turn signal on, indicating her intention to claim the spot. True to the tenor of her day, the people in the car took an eternity to get settled and start to move out. Finally their brake lights came on and they began to inch backward.

  They were barely out of the parking place when a white Lexus zipped into the space, narrowly missing Skye’s right front bumper. She pounded on her horn, which produced only a feeble whimper, but the auburn-haired driver exited his car and entered the store without glancing back.

  Still fuming, Skye finally made her way into the store after being forced to park what seemed like a mile and a half from the door. By that time the rain had started and she was soaked.

  Scraping her wet hair back into a ponytail, she headed for the soda aisle. It looked almost as barren as her refrigerator.

  She was reaching for the last six-pack of Diet Coke on the shelf when a long, tanned arm reached above her and grabbed it.