Rivaled in Murder

by Helen Gray

  When she turned into the hospital parking lot, Toni spotted Melody's parked car sitting empty. She parked next to it, pulled her coat collar up around her ears, and hurried to the building. As she entered, she spotted the girls at the information desk. They turned as she approached.

  Melody ran to Toni. "They won't let us see Farris, or even tell us anything."

  "But the fact that he's here means he's alive," Toni pointed out, hoping she was right. “Let's get something to drink and wait a while before checking again. It's the best we can do."

  When they returned to the waiting area with sodas from a vending machine they had located down the hall, they took off their coats and found seats in the lobby. Shortly after finishing their sodas, Buck Freeman, in uniform, and a civilian clad man stepped off the elevator. When Buck spied Toni and the girls, he turned his head and spoke briefly to his companion. Then they both headed toward her.

  As the two men approached, Toni stood. The man dressed in a black suit extended a hand to her. "I'm Detective Allen from Brownville. Buck tells me you're the teacher whose students were attacked."

  “Yes, and those students are right here.” She indicated the girls, who had stood when she did and hovered behind her.

  "His case is out of my jurisdiction," Buck explained. "But we think his murders and my assault case are connected, so we're working together now."

  "The boy made it through surgery and will be in recovery for several hours," the detective informed Toni and the girls. "He's critical, in a coma, and it's touch and go. His parents are with him."

  "Is there anything more you can tell us about the investigation?" Toni asked, watching the girls press knuckles to their mouths as they absorbed every word.

  Detective Allen shook his head. "A truck driver spotted the boy’s car at the bottom of a steep embankment. Evidence says he was run off the road, apparently while on his way to school this morning. His rear bumper was dented, and there's paint on it. The car that hit him should have front bumper damage. After I've questioned his parents, I'll call garages in the area and find out if any of them have done any repair jobs that match such damage."

  Toni extended a hand. "Thanks for the update."

  Allen gave it a polite shake and took off in a lope down the hall. Buck stayed behind.

  "Let's have a seat." Her dad’s old friend indicated the twin sofas behind them.

  He landed on the nearest one. Toni and the girls took the one facing him. "I get the feeling there's more,” Toni said. “How much can you tell us?"

  Buck aimed a grim look from one girl to the other. "They found a gun in the boy's gym bag. It looks like the murder weapon."

  "Farris didn't do it." Zoe blurted, shooting to her feet and glaring down at the Chief.

  "I understand your feel ..."

  "No, you don't understand our feelings," she cut him off, her voice rising. "You don't know Farris the way we do."

  "She's right." Melody was also standing now, her fists clenched. "Farris is silly and likes to have fun, but he would never hurt anyone."

  Buck raised both palms. "Listen, I'm not happy about any of this. But the evidence is real. Not only does it look like he shot those two kids, but we may be able to identify his accomplice."

  Both girls flopped back onto the sofa. "None of this makes sense," Zoe moaned, lolling her head back and rotating it from side to side. "Farris was at a meeting when we were attacked. He didn't do that. He wouldn’t."

  "We're not sure how that fits into the overall picture," Buck admitted. "The boy's principal talked to the computer lab teacher, and they checked the roster of the class that meets during the time period your phony Facebook page was created."

  He paused to give them a moment to assimilate that information. "All the students in that class are being questioned. I'm not sure how it all connects, but whoever created that fake page is probably the boy’s accomplice."

  Zoe grabbed Toni's arm. "Mrs. Donovan, this is all wrong. You have to help us find the real killer, before he gets us."

  Rather than join her friend's plea, Melody sat immobile, her gaze locked on Buck. She stared in silence, focused on his crossed legs. Then her eyes turned glassy, as if in a trance.

  Buck leaned toward her. "Are you all right?"

  Melody didn't answer, but just continued to stare. After another long minute, she frowned. Then an odd expression crossed her face. She blinked and gave her head a quick shakee. "May Zoe and I talk to you privately, Sir?"

  "Sure." Buck pushed to his feet. "Let's take a walk up the hall."

  Toni leaned back on the sofa cushion. What in the world was going on here? Could Zoe and Melody be mixed up in something bad?

  She frowned in concentration. If they were, it had to be without their knowledge. They were good students. She had watched them interact with their classmates, and had never heard complaints from other teachers about them. Of course, she didn't know their friends from the Brownville School.

  She halted her thoughts for a moment, struck by the fact that only teens were on her suspect list. Could that be totally wrong? Could an adult have done it?

  She had read or heard horrible stories about parents who had killed their children. But younger children were more likely to be killed by parents than teenagers—unless the murdering parent had a desire to hurt the surviving parent.

  No, she didn’t think a parent—or any adult—had murdered these two. The boy had been a teen lothario, which could have angered other boys—or girls.

  Peer pressure could lead to any number of involvements, possibly ending in murder. Too much unsupervised time with peers, or drug and alcohol misuse also led to trouble.

  Toni’s spinning-but-going-nowhere thoughts were interrupted by the return of Buck and the girls. His expression was solemn. Uh oh.

  "The girls have remembered something that might be helpful,” he said gruffly. “And they want to claim the reward money for it."

  Chapter 10

  Toni fought to hide her shock. They needed money? She watched Zoe rake her teeth over her lower lip, while Melody hugged her arms around her torso and rubbed them back and forth.

  "They don't want to keep the money," Buck said, reading her reaction. "They say Shelby's mother needs it, and if what they told me helps make an arrest and they're given the reward, they want to give it to Mrs. Warren for Shelby's funeral expenses."

  Toni's mouth went slack. She drew in a long slow breath. "I see. Is their information worth it?"

  He raked a hand over his jaw. "I'm not sure. We’ll have to see how helpful it proves to be and how those who contributed the reward money feel about it. I have to leave now, but they can tell you what they told me." He turned and strode toward the exit.

  When he was gone, the girls resumed seats on the sofa next to where Toni had dropped. They faced her, and Melody cleared her throat. "When Chief Freeman crossed his legs a while ago, it made his socks show, and it caused a picture to form in my mind. When those two people attacked us and knocked us to the ground, I grabbed at a pants leg. When I did, I saw socks. They were pink. Does a guy wear pink socks?"

  "I don't think it's likely," Toni admitted. "I don't recall seeing any."

  Zoe snorted. "They wouldn't be caught dead in 'em. That was a girl. Trust me."

  Toni's mouth twitched ever so slightly. "You've made your point."

  "While I was telling the chief about it, Zoe remembered something else," Melody continued.

  Zoe nodded. "A few weeks ago Farris mentioned that a couple of the girls—I’m not sure which ones—wanted to go out in the country and do some target shooting. He said he would borrow his dad's gun for them to use."

  Toni suddenly recalled the park caretaker saying he had found a paper target at the crime scene. If that gun from Farris’s bag matched the bullets that killed Brant and Shelby, it suggested that the shooter was one of the teens who had borrowed it and done some target shooting with it. Had a rivalry flared out of control?

  It was too bad the
caretaker had thrown that target in the trash. It might have yielded fingerprints that could be matched to the girls.

  "In addition to being the team mascot, Farris is sort of a gofer for the cheerleaders," Melody explained. "If any of them want something, they just ask Farris."

  "Whoever those girls were," Zoe said, "I think they kept the gun and used it to kill Shelby and Brant. Then, for some reason, they think Farris told me and Mel about the target shooting and we know who they are."

  Toni tried to follow their reasoning and the picture they were drawing. Did she buy their theory? She didn’t know—but she had an idea. "This is more than we had. Will you two go to one of your houses, look for your Brownville yearbooks, and bring the most recent one to my house? I want you to show me pictures of your friends, put names with faces."

  "How do you think that'll help?" Zoe asked.

  "I don't know that it will. But it can't hurt. And I might learn something interesting."

  "She might recognize some of the faces she saw at the game Monday night," Melody said, warming to the idea. “Let’s go to my house. I have what she wants, and I’m driving.”

  Zoe shrugged into her coat. "If it rocks your boat. Let's go."

  Toni picked up her boys on the way home and looped through the McDonalds drive-through for fast food. There were no complaints from either son.

  They were at the table when Zoe and Melody drove up outside. Toni put down her half-finished chicken sandwich and pushed away from the table. "You guys go ahead and eat. I'll finish after I talk to the girls."

  They nodded and kept chewing.

  At the door, she admitted them and said, "Hang your coats in the closet here in the foyer and have a seat on the sofa." She motioned toward the living room.

  The three of them perched in a row on the edge of the cushions, with Toni in the middle. Melody handed her the Brownville yearbook she had brought. Toni opened it and began to flip through the pages. She stopped when she found a page depicting the class Zoe and Melody would have been part of two years earlier.

  Melody leaned closer. "Let me show you the ones who are cheerleaders now."

  Tracing a finger over the top of the page, she moved to the second row of photos that were in alphabetical order. She tapped a finger on a picture. "That's Jodi Babcock. She used to be a cheerleader, but she’s not this year."

  The finger trailed on down the page. “These are the current cheerleaders.” She pointed out girls one by one. "There's Sheena Clark. Angela Decker. Cindy Evans. Linda Fisher."

  She flipped the page and continued. "Dione Gorski. Mallory Johnson. Fiona Martin. Britney Thomas."

  When she finished, Toni flipped back to the page that had caught her attention. She pointed at one girl, and then another. "Are these two good friends?"

  Zoe leaned closer and peered at the pictures. "Angela and Linda hang around some, but it isn't because they're cheerleaders. They both wait tables at the Green Top restaurant. Angie's folks own it, so I guess she got Linda the job there."

  "They look like the two girls I saw arguing during the game Monday night."

  Both girls frowned, but it was Melody who spoke. "I noticed that and wondered what it was about. Linda's kind of a nerd, but she's athletic and good to help others with their reports and things like that. I figure that's what helped get her on the squad."

  "Some of those girls are pretty mean," Zoe commented matter-of-factly. "Linda hasn't always been part of that crowd. Like Mel said, she's brainy and a computer geek. The other girls like to have her around because of the things she can do for them."

  "Sort of like Farris," Melody added. "Linda was never popular until some of them figured out how handy she is. They probably had her make that fake Facebook page. She's not as mean as them, but she'll do anything to be part of their crowd."

  Toni's cell phone rang. She fished it from her pocket and saw that it was Buck. She answered, listened to his brief report, and disconnected after he did. She eyed the girls. "That was the Chief of Police. He said Detective Allen has talked to all but one person who could have created that Facebook page in Mrs. Smith’s computer lab. One of the students on that class roster missed school today."

  Both girls froze, alarm etched in their faces.

  "Which one was absent today?" Melody asked cautiously.

  "He didn't give a name, but he said it was a girl."

  Melody's face became even more troubled. "I don't have a good feeling about this."

  She wasn’t the only one. "Why?"

  "Farris missed school. Then he was found hurt. I'm afraid it's Linda, and that …that she's hurt." She strangled on the last words.

  Toni put the yearbook on her lap and took the girl's hand in her own. "Don't anticipate trouble. A girl missed a day of school. There's nothing unusual about that."

  "I can't help it," Melody said miserably, taking the book and closing it.

  "Thanks for bringing that." Toni saw them to the door. When they were gone, she returned to where Gabe and Garrett were finishing their meal, no longer interested in finishing her own sandwich. "There's something I need to do. How would you guys like to go for a ride?"

  Both frowned. “We just got home a few minutes ago,” Gabe moaned, his sandy hair sticking out in disarray from removing his cap earlier. But when Garrett went to get his coat, he reluctantly followed.

  Toni put her coat back on and ushered them back to the van. When she reached the highway, traffic was light. The hills in the distance formed a dark silhouette across the gray skyline. Pale yellow lights gleamed from downtown. The sun had dropped from sight, leaving the sky almost dark.

  Anticipation buzzed through Toni. She wanted to talk with little Miss Cheerleader Captain. Like Melody, she had an uneasy feeling in her gut about the girl who had missed school. And she doubted the police had talked to that girl yet, since they didn't know about the hostility between the two cheerleaders.

  When she arrived at Brownville, Toni turned in at a small shopping center and parked in front of a large building that housed a mini mart in the front and a restaurant in the back. There weren't many cars in the lot, but it wasn’t quite five o'clock, a little early for the evening crowd. Toni took the boys in through the front door and parked them at one of the little booths where several local retirees hung out mornings and drank coffee. "Sit tight. I'll only be a few minutes."

  She walked to the back of the mini mart and entered the restaurant through the door between the two businesses. Inside the room, she paused and made a quick survey. A salad bar occupied the center of the restaurant. Booths lined the walls, and about twenty tables filled the floor space. She noted a kitchen door at the back. A whiff of cinnamon made her stomach yearn.

  Two teens were on duty. They both wore hip hugging jeans and green tee shirts emblazoned with the name of the restaurant. The girl with long dark hair was taking orders from a table of customers, while the blond wiped the salad bar with brisk motions.

  For several seconds Toni watched the blond she recognized as the cheerleader captain, hoping the other one was the computer nerd. She adopted her play dumb face and approached the blond. The girl's face was oval shaped and pretty enough, but there was a sulkiness to it. She had green eyes, and straight hair draped across one of them. She looked up as Toni approached her.

  "Excuse me. Are you Linda Fisher?" Toni asked, stepping nearer.

  "No," the girl answered, her brows wrinkling in surprise. "Linda works here, but she's not on duty tonight." She pulled a nearly empty salad dressing container from its bed of crushed ice and nestled it in the crook of her arm.

  "I'm sorry. I was told she works here, and I need to talk to her. Can you tell me how I might reach her?"

  The girl frowned. "Do you have her phone number?"

  "No. If you'd give it to me, I'd appreciate it."

  "Linda wasn't at school today. I guess she's sick," the girl volunteered, setting the dressing down and pulling her order pad and pen from her pocket. She jotted a number on the bot
tom of the pad’s cardboard backing, tore it off, and held it out.

  Toni took it, hoping she wouldn't be asked for her name. She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to identify herself. She pivoted as if to leave, and then turned back.

  "Say, weren’t you leading cheers at the game Monday night?"

  A smile appeared on the girl’s face. She visibly preened at having her importance noted. "Yes, that was me."

  Toni stared at her briefly. "I noticed that one of the girls seemed to be giving you a hard time. I hope everything's all right."

  The girl made a dismissive wave of her hand. "Oh, sure. Everything's cool. It was just a little misunderstanding. We had a new cheer we've been working on, and Linda wanted to do it. I didn't think it was ready yet."

  Toni grinned and shook her head. "I know how those things go. Well, thanks for your time. You've been very helpful."

  The girl shrugged. "No trouble. I hope you catch up with her."

  Toni held up the piece of paper with the number on it. "Sure. Maybe I can contact her before ..." She let the statement trail off, her tone hinting that the matter was personal.

  The girl picked up the dressing container and began to edge away. "Good luck."

  "Good night. Thanks again." Toni gave her a little wave and headed for the door.

  When she and the boys arrived home, Toni was surprised to find Kyle's truck parked in the garage. The boys cheered and rushed inside the house.

  “I’m in the kitchen pouring myself a cup of coffee,” Kyle called as she entered the foyer behind the boys. He stepped through the doorway. "Want some?"

  "Sure,” she said over her shoulder as she hung her coat in the closet. “Maybe it'll warm me. What are you doing home? I didn't expect you until tomorrow."

  "My charter group changed their schedule to a later date. I stopped at a diner for something to eat. The boys acted happy to see me. How about you?"

  Toni met him in the living room and wrapped her arms around his neck when he turned from setting two mugs on the coffee table. After a welcome kiss, he held her back and peered down into her face. "Where have you guys been?"