Murder of a Sleeping Beauty (2 page)

Side by side they entered the unlit gym. As her eyes adjusted, Skye could just make out the stage at the opposite end of the room, cluttered with partially completed sets for the spring musical
Sleeping Beauty
. She moved forward, a firm grip on her prisoner’s hood. Half walls and skeletal trees loomed in the darkness. While they climbed the steps to the stage, Skye wondered if she were doing the right thing. She didn’t think the faculty handbook covered this situation.

To their right, a mock castle bedroom had been set up. Lying on the twin bed was one of the most beautiful young women Skye had ever seen. Her straight blond hair brushed the floor, and her face was a flawless oval. She had passed from the awkwardness of adolescence, and was yet to be touched by the hand of time. She was perfect.

Skye took a closer look. Her skin had a waxy appearance and was almost blue-gray in color. Her lips and nails were pale. Skye rushed to the bed and checked for a pulse. She could feel nothing over the thud of her own heartbeat. She put her ear to the girl’s chest. Again nothing. Finally, she placed the back of her hand to the teen’s mouth. She wasn’t breathing.

Skye forced herself to remain calm and remember what she had learned in her first-aid course. Nothing applied here. Sleeping Beauty was dead.

“Run to the office and call 911.” Skye looked up to find the other girl gone. “Shit, I shouldn’t have let go of her.”

“You shouldn’t say ‘shit’ either.”

Skye’s heart thudded, and her head jerked up. She caught her breath when she recognized Justin, standing near the stairs. It was so rare to hear him speak that she hadn’t recognized his voice. She hadn’t noticed, but he must have followed when the girl dragged her away.

He was the type that blended into the background. Medium height, medium build, and medium brown hair that hung straight from a center part to the middle of his ears.

“Justin, am I glad to see you. Run to the office and call 911. We need an ambulance.”

“Looks more like you need a hearse.” His words were cocky, but his face was pale and sweaty.

“Justin, please, just call 911. Tell them no lights or siren, and no radio.” Skye wondered if there were anything else she should do. “And get the principal. Oh, and tell him to shut off the dismissal bell.”

He shrugged. “He’s not going to listen to me.”

She searched the pocket of her gray wool skirt and found a pad of passes. “Give me a pen.”

The boy handed her the Bic from his shirt pocket.

She scribbled a note and signed it, then handed it to Justin. “Hurry!”

When the boy left, Skye pulled down the sleeves of her pink cardigan and shivered. It was the beginning of April, and it was still cold in Illinois. Of course, it didn’t help that the school board turned off the furnace on March 31, no matter what the weather.

Skye felt a deep sadness settle over her. Why was this young woman dead? She had barely begun to live. This was one Sleeping Beauty who would never awake to her prince’s kiss. Skye’s gaze was drawn back to the girl. What had caused her death? There was no visible wound, no blood, no mark of any kind.

She glanced around. The scene looked ready for a rehearsal. Except—what was that, not quite under the bed? She got down on her hands and knees, and peered at the object. The label had been peeled off, but the bottle’s odd shape teased Skye’s memory.

She sat back on her heels and gnawed at her thumb.
I wonder where it came from? The school doesn’t sell anything in bottles.

Suddenly doors flew open and lights snapped on. “Miss Denison, what’s the meaning of all this?” Homer Knapik, the high-school principal, scurried across the gym floor.

As he approached her, a detached part of Skye’s mind noted that between his squat build and the hair emanating from nearly every orifice and covering every limb, the principal looked like a sheepdog—one ready to bite the next lamb that veered from the flock.

Justin followed at a prudent distance, his face still chalky but his brown eyes alight with interest.

Skye met Homer at the bottom of the stairs. “Did you call 911? Did you shut off the dismissal bell?”

“Yes, and you’d better have a damn good reason for your note.” He peered peevishly up at her through the fuzz hanging over his eyes.

“I do.” She pointed to the body on the bed. “Maybe you’d better have the teachers escort the kids out the front door. We don’t want any of them wandering back here.”

Homer took a step closer and squinted upward. “Oh, my God! That’s Lorelei Ingels. She isn’t . . . dead?” When Skye nodded, he scribbled a note on the pad from his pocket. “Boy, take this to the front office immediately and give it to Mrs. Hill.”

“Justin, after you do that, wait for the ambulance crew, and show them the side entrance.” Skye lowered her voice and kept an eye on the teen, who was walking away ever so slowly. “We’d better call the police, too.”

“What?” Homer jumped from foot to foot, as if he were about to pee his pants. “Do you have any idea who Lorelei Ingels is? Her family is one of the wealthiest and most influential in town. She’s won nearly every beauty pageant in the state. We’ve got to be extremely careful.” He stopped hopping around, and his shoulders slumped. “What am I saying? No matter how we handle this or how she died, we’re screwed.”

“A young woman is dead, and that’s your first reaction?” Skye shook her head. She hoped that thirty years in the school system wouldn’t turn her into a bureaucratic zombie like they had poor Homer.

The PA blared into life, making them both flinch. “All teachers are to personally escort their eighth-period students out the front door. Teachers without eighth-period students are to report to the locker area and help supervise. No students are allowed anywhere in the school unescorted.”

When the announcement ended, Homer tried to climb the steps, but Skye stepped in front of him. “What are you doing? Get out of my way,” he demanded.

Skye didn’t budge. “I think we’d better leave things on the stage alone. We don’t want to disturb any evidence.”

Homer gave her a withering look. “Are you saying the girl was murdered? All we need is for a rumor like that to get started.”

“The police will want to know why an apparently healthy eighteen-year-old suddenly dropped dead.”

As if in response to her words, they heard the sound of running feet. Moments later, paramedics rushed through the door. Skye pointed to the bed. They pushed past her and went up the stairs.

Homer grabbed her arm. “I’d better call the superintendent. I’ll be right back.”

Skye watched the principal scurry out of the gym and Justin step just inside the doorway, turning back to the stage only when the EMTs began to fire questions at her. “How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you find her?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“Was she conscious?”

“No, just like she is now. No pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing.”

One of the paramedics turned to his partner. “Better call the police.”

 

The chief of police, Walter Boyd, was the first to arrive. He was tall and powerful-looking, with a muscular chest. Skye watched him swiftly assess the situation, then radio for backup from the county sheriff’s department and the state police. He also called in all four of the off-duty Scumble River cops.

Wally’s expressive brown eyes became shuttered when he spotted Skye. “I should have known you’d be involved.”

She bit her lip. It wasn’t fair. She had never even dated the guy, and still her relationship with him had always been complicated: from her first crush on him when she was fifteen and he twenty-three, to their latest fight over what he considered to be a betrayal of his trust. “I’m sorry you’re still mad at me,” she said.

“Mad? I’m not mad at you. I just don’t trust you anymore,” Wally said without inflection. “I specifically told you not to go off investigating on your own.”

“I explained why I had to go alone to talk to those survivalists when my grandmother died last summer.” Skye moved closer. “They never would’ve said anything if you’d been with me.”

He stepped back from her and ran a hand through his curly black hair, pain etched in the lines bracketing his mouth. “Yeah, Darleen explained why she had to leave me for another man, too. Let’s stick to business.” He flipped open his pad and clicked his pen. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

Skye noted the weariness in Wally’s face, and realized once again just how much she had hurt him. She wanted to repeat her apology but knew it would never be enough, so instead she replayed the last hour for him, step by step.

“Where’s the girl who originally found the body?” Wally asked.

“I haven’t seen her since she got away from me, and I don’t know her name.”

Wally walked over to where Justin stood a few feet away from the adults. “Do you know who the girl is?”

He shrugged. “Could be Elvira Doozier.”

Skye looked heavenward. She should have guessed. Anytime there was a problem, a Doozier was usually involved somehow. She had first encountered the family when she initially returned to Scumble River. In fact, Junior Doozier had helped her when her car was totaled. Then the boy’s uncle had tried to kill her, and Junior had again come to her aid. She wondered where Elvira fit into that twisted family tree.

The chief sent Justin to wait on the bleachers and ordered Skye, “Tell me about the boy.”

“Who, Justin?”

Wally nodded impatiently.

Skye quickly sorted out what she had gathered from their counseling sessions, and thus considered confidential, from what was a matter of record. “I’ve been seeing him for nearly two years, ever since I started working for the Scumble River school district. He’s a freshman. We haven’t made much progress. He barely speaks to me. At the end of last year, he almost came around, but thanks to Aunt Mona and her committee, he was denied an essay award he had legitimately won. Now he’s reverted to his previous hostile self.”

“How did she stop him from getting a school award?”

“She didn’t like his essay topic—pro-choice vs. pro-life.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Hard to say. Justin’s a loner, due to his deep distrust of both adults and peers. He’s a bright boy, with an IQ in the superior range, but he squeaks by with Cs and Ds, so he doesn’t hang out with the Nerds. He’s not athletic, so he doesn’t fit with the Jocks either. He’s both angry and uncommunicative, which is a dangerous combination. I’m worried about the type of group he might eventually find.”

“But what about now? Is there anyone he hangs with?”

Skye shook her head. “Why are you asking all these questions about Justin? Surely you don’t suspect him of being involved with this death. He was with me this period.”

“We don’t even know what happened, let alone when. But since this boy was around, I just want to get a picture of him. Have you talked to his parents? What are they like?”

“I’ve tried to warn his parents of the seriousness of his emotional state, but his mother’s coping with her own depression, and his father’s in poor health. They’re both pretty absorbed in their own needs.”

Wally made a note, and his voice turned formal. “Thanks. Please sit on the bleachers with the boy until you’re dismissed.”

Skye chafed at his brusque tone but did as she was told.

Simon Reid, the coroner, arrived next. As tall as the chief, he had a more sophisticated demeanor. His dark auburn hair and golden hazel eyes reminded her of Gary Cooper. As usual, he was dressed impeccably in a perfectly pressed designer suit.

He rushed past Skye, nodding coolly. He was another of her interpersonal disasters. They had dated for nearly a year after Skye had first returned to Scumble River, but had broken up last summer when he had pushed for a level of intimacy she wasn’t ready for.

Skye sat on the bottom row of the bleachers. Shouts echoed through the cavernous gym. Ceiling lights in their safety cages cast ominous shadows. Justin sat beside her, sneaking worried glances at her face. She knew she should say something to reassure him, but she felt drained and unable to move, let alone make a decision.

Occasionally, she heard the voices of people trying to push past the police officers and enter the gym. Eventually, someone calling her name penetrated her fog. She rose unsteadily from the bench and made her way to the door.

Kent Walker, Scumble River High’s new English teacher, the director of
Sleeping Beauty
, and the man Skye was half-heartedly dating, was arguing that they should let him into the gym. He was tall and lithe, with a casual grace that spoke of money and privilege. He had caused many heads to turn and hearts to throb when he moved to town last September. Skye had never understood why he chose to date her, especially since there was so little sexual chemistry between them. She had come to the conclusion it was because she shared his wry view about rural life.

He turned away from the officer and demanded, “Skye, tell these buffoons who I am.”

She dutifully said, “This is Kent Walker. He’s the director of this year’s musical.”

“So?” Deputy McCabe took off his hat and scratched his head. “The chief says nobody comes in or goes out. No exceptions.”

She shrugged at Kent. “Sorry.”

His handsome face reddened. “I need to come in.” He dropped his voice. “Is it really Lorelei Ingels?”

Skye hesitated. “I can’t say. The police aren’t releasing the name until the next of kin can be notified.”

Kent’s tone turned frosty. “Why are you treating me like a stranger? I thought we had something between us.”

She raised an eyebrow. Something between them? She didn’t think so. True, they had gone out half a dozen times, but they weren’t dating each other exclusively, and they had never progressed beyond a quick kiss good night.