Murder of a Smart Cookie: A Scumble River Mystery (30 page)

Skye poked through the strewn clothes, but other than learning that Cookie had a penchant for silk teddies in jewel colors, she discovered nothing of interest.

The bathroom had been similarly ransacked. Skye looked over the array of makeup and perfume strewn across the marble countertop. Cookie’d had expensive taste. There were products from Lancôme, Chanel, and Elizabeth Arden, as well as many others Skye didn’t recognize, but from their packaging she assumed they were pricey.

Curious, Skye picked up a bottle of foundation from the assortment and noted the shade—alabaster. Mmm, that color was all wrong for Cookie’s warm skin tone. Skye picked through the rest of the cosmetics until she found another bottle of foundation. This one was honey beige, a much better choice for Cookie.

Skye made a face at herself in the mirror. She was wasting time. What woman hadn’t bought the wrong makeup at one time or another? Still, at thirty or more dollars a pop, that was a costly mistake. And didn’t expensive brands like these offer staff that helped you choose the right shade? Maybe Cookie hadn’t listened to them.

As Skye walked back through the bedroom, she swept the room with one last glance, desperate to find something useful. She frowned. That pillow, the one sticking out from under the pile—why had it caught her attention?

Swiftly she crossed the room and picked up the pillow. It looked a little different from the others, which were all made of satin and lace. This one was plain tan and in a tweedy material. Now she remembered. A few months ago, she had seen a similar pillow for sale in a mail-order catalog. The catalog had offered everyday household items like books, shaving
cream cans, and cereal boxes that had been hollowed out to secretly hold valuables.

Skye flipped the pillow over and unzipped it. Her heart sank; the opening revealed nothing but foam rubber. This was clearly not the pillow safe she had seen in the catalog.

She was about to throw it down when she heard a faint rattle. She pushed at it and felt something hard. Looking more closely, she saw a seam, and lifted out the square of foam. There, in the center of the pillow, was a box. She bit her lip as she lifted the lid. Nestled inside was a slim packet of letters tied with a blue satin ribbon.

This had to be what she was hunting for. Suddenly she felt uneasy and looked at her watch. Shoot! She’d been at Cookie’s for more than an hour. She didn’t know why, but it felt like too long. It was time to go.

Skye scooped up the letters and jammed them into her fanny pack. Was there anything else? No. Her instincts were telling her to get out.

She hurried through the apartment, ran down the stairs, and fumbled with the lock on the exit. Her hand was shaking, and she couldn’t get the key into the slot.

Finally, using both hands, she was able to open the door. She edged out and relocked it, then leaned against the side of the building trying to regain her breath. Her head felt light, and the aches and pains she had been ignoring in her bruised arms and legs burst into her consciousness. They were stiffening up; she had to get moving or she might not be able to.

Skye sucked in one more lungful of air and pushed herself away from the building. Turning, she started to head out of the alleyway when she heard footsteps behind her. She broke into a run while unzipping her fanny pack. Just as her fingers found the stun gun, a hand clamped on her shoulder, and a male voice said, “Find anything useful?”

S
kye screamed and whirled around, clutching the stun gun, prepared to go down fighting.

Wally jumped back and held up both hands, palms out. “Whoa. It’s only me.”

Skye lowered the weapon. “Oh, my God, you scared me to death.”

“Sorry.” Wally grinned. “I didn’t think a burglar would be so nervous.”

“I’m not.” Skye crossed her fingers. “I mean I’m not a burglar. I didn’t steal anything.” Certainly letters she intended to copy and then mail back to the estate didn’t count as stealing.

Wally raised an eyebrow.

“And I wasn’t breaking in, either. I had a key.”

“Good. I won’t have to arrest you, then.” Wally’s smile widened.

“Right.” Skye stared at him. Why wasn’t he yelling at her? Why was he in such a good mood? Did it have something to do with their kiss? Did she really want to know?

Wally took her arm. “Come on. I’ve got someone back at the station you might want to talk to.”

“Who?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Wally’s good mood was making her nervous. Surely he understood that their kiss had been a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. “A nice surprise?”

“You tell me.” They had rounded the corner and come up to the cruiser. Wally opened the door to the passenger side, and Skye got in.

He maintained his jovial disposition as they drove to the police station but refused to give a hint as to whom she would find there.

Wally parked in the garage, and they entered the building through the door that led directly into the coffee/interrogation room. Sitting at the table, a Coke clutched in one hand, potato chips in the other, and a computer magazine open in front of him, was Justin.

Relief swept through Skye, and she stepped forward to hug him, but the hostile glare he blasted in her direction stopped her in midstride. She glanced at Wally, confused. Why was Justin so angry at her?

Wally shrugged and pulled out a chair for her. “Have a seat. You want a pop before we get started?”

She nodded. Her mouth felt as dry as a day-old donut. Wally put a dollar into the machine in the corner and pressed the Diet Coke button. He got himself a Mountain Dew, brought both cans to the table, and then sat down.

Skye opened her soda and took a gulp, then said to Justin, “I’m really glad to see you safe and sound. We were all very worried about you.”

He stared at his magazine, refusing to acknowledge her presence.

“Why did you disappear like that?” she asked.

He pretended not to hear her.

She looked at Wally for help. Justin was the master of long silences. It had taken an entire school year to get him talking when he was first referred to her for counseling as an eighth grader, and she had a feeling they couldn’t wait that long this time.

Wally took a swig of his soda, then said, “I found Justin sneaking out of the bowling alley this morning. He told me that Bunny had been letting him stay there while he got his head together.”

Ah, that explained the copy of
PC Magazine
on Bunny’s coffee table. Skye was happy that one mystery was solved. She’d been half afraid that Simon’s mom was starting an adult-only Web site. “But why did he need to get his head together?”

“That’s all I know so far. I had to leave when Quirk radioed me to say you were breaking into Cookie Caldwell’s.”

“I told you before, I did not break in. I have a key.” Skye wanted to make her innocence, at least on that point, perfectly clear.

Wally smirked at her and shook his head, then turned to the teen. “Now Justin’s going to tell us the rest of the story, from the beginning.”

Justin stared at the chief but didn’t speak.

Wally stared back. “If you don’t talk to us, I’ll be forced to arrest Mrs. Reid for harboring a runaway minor.”

Skye struggled to keep her expression neutral. She knew Wally was bluffing. Was harboring a runaway minor even a crime?

“That’s not fair.” Clearly Justin was torn between his anger at Skye and his sense of loyalty to Bunny, who had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go. He crushed a potato chip with his soda can, gazed at the ceiling, and heaved a put-upon sigh. “It all started last Saturday night.”

“The night Cookie was murdered?” Wally clarified.

“Yes. I’d been trying to come up with a story about
the
yard sale for the school newspaper, but I didn’t want to do the same old dumb kind of thing the local papers were doing. I was looking for an unusual angle.”

Wally and Skye both nodded their understanding of Justin’s quest for original journalism.

“Anyway, I decided to do a story about the effect of the sale on a local business owner, and since Ms. Caldwell’s store was right across the street from the Lemonade ShakeUp stand where I’d be spending a lot of time, I picked her.”

“Did you tell her she was your subject?” Skye asked.

Justin shot her a venomous look and stopped talking.

“Go on,” Wally prodded.

“Not too much happened during the day on Saturday, but I thought maybe I’d see something more interesting at night. So after supper I went back to the ShakeUp booth and watched Miss Caldwell’s place.”

“What did you see?” Wally asked.

“Ms. Caldwell worked between her booth and her store until about eight-thirty, then went upstairs for a half hour, then drove away. Lucky for me, she only went a few blocks down the street to the bowling alley, so I was able to follow her on my bike. I’ll be so happy when I get my driver’s license next week,” Justin added as an aside, then continued. “Anyway, she sat at the bar there for a couple of hours. I watched her from the inside door, since I’m not old enough to go in the bar area.

“Around eleven, she came back to the store with that singer she’d been talking to at the bowling alley. I thought they were going to, uh, you know, hook up, but he took a sword out of his car trunk and brought it into the shop. He left about twenty minutes later through the back door, and a few minutes after that a lady showed up. I’d seen her around before, but since we don’t have cable I didn’t know her.”

Wally let that last cryptic remark go and instead asked, “When did she leave?”

“I don’t know. Not before I had to go home. My curfew is midnight.” Justin frowned. “And then the next day I heard Ms. Caldwell had been murdered.”

“Why didn’t you come to me and tell me what you saw the night before?” Wally demanded.

“I did, but the dispatcher told me that the sheriff’s department was handling that case and had me talk to one of the deputies.”

“And?” Skye asked.

“And like all adults, he blew me off.” Justin’s voice cracked with anger. “Oh, he took down the description of the woman and all, but you could tell he thought I was just some crazy kid.” He glared at Skye. “Lots of adults seem to think that way.”

Puzzled, Skye looked back at him. What was he getting at?

Wally’s eyes were dark with compassion. “Is that why you decided to run away?”

“No. I wasn’t sure what I should do next, so I decided to talk to Frannie about it. She was out of town on Sunday, so I went to her house Monday morning. Instead of listening to what I had to say, she went all female on me because I had sat with some girl she didn’t like at the concert in the park.”

Skye raised an eyebrow. The innocent act didn’t work. Justin knew very well the extent of the antipathy between Frannie and Bitsy, and he had done a lot more than just sit with the other girl. “Is that when you ran away?”

“No.” Justin’s tone was furious. “I went to talk to you, but you weren’t at your cottage.”

“I rented it out to the TV people for the duration of the yard sale. I’m staying with my parents. Didn’t the folks there tell you?”

“Yeah, eventually. But at first when some lady answered the door, I introduced myself and asked for you. It took me a second, but I realized the woman I was talking to was the one I had seen at Ms. Caldwell’s.”

Skye gasped. That’s what he had meant by not recognizing Cookie’s visitor because his family didn’t have cable TV. Although even if he could get the channel Faith’s program was on, Skye doubted Justin would have watched it. How many teenage boys tuned in to shows about garage sales and collectibles?

“From the expression on my face, she must have realized something was up, but at the time I didn’t know she knew, because she invited me inside and was real nice. Then when I asked if she was a friend of Ms. Caldwell’s, she got mean. She said why would a TV star like her be friends with a small-town shopkeeper? And that obviously I was too young to see how ludicrous that would be. And that’s when I did something stupid.” Justin squirmed in his seat, pulled at his T-shirt, and swallowed several times before saying, “I told her I had seen her going into Ms. Caldwell’s store Saturday night.”

Skye groaned, and Justin flashed her an outraged glower. “That’s when she said, ‘Justin Boward. Oh, now I remember why your name seems so familiar. You’re the one Skye told me about. She said both your parents were barmy and she was afraid you’d grow up to be crazy, too. Do you really think anyone will believe what the town wacko has to say?”’ Justin glared at Skye. “
That’s
when I decided to run away. I hid in the garage behind the bowling alley, but Miss Bunny found me the next day, and when I told her someone had betrayed me and I had to think about it, she let me stay with her.”

“I didn’t. Really.” Skye was appalled that Faith would lie to Justin like that, and that he would accept what she said as the truth. “Why would you believe her?”

“Because.” The teen sneered. “How else would she know stuff that I only told you?”

“I don’t know.” Skye put her head in her hands. “Let me think.” Breaking confidentiality was one of the worst sins a psychologist could commit. Skye had never told even her closest friends anything a client had said during counseling, and she sure hadn’t told Faith Easton, a person she wouldn’t trust to take a cake out of the oven. How had Faith known Justin’s secrets?