Murder of a Creped Suzette

“Already done.” Skye whipped several sheets of paper out of her tote bag and slid them across the desktop toward him. “I wrote it last night after I got home so it would be fresh in my mind.”

“Good thinking.” He picked up the pages and flipped through them. “Is there anything here that you remembered after we spoke? Anything you didn’t tell me?”

“Nothing about finding the body.” Skye made a couple of notes on the legal pad. “But I did discover some information today.”

“Great.” Wally leaned forward. “We sure haven’t made much progress on this end.” He absently fingered a letter opener. “We did brief interviews with the Country Roads employees and we told them all to stick around town until we give the go-ahead to leave. Though if anyone consults a lawyer, they’ll find out we can’t really hold them here.”

“From what I overheard Uncle Dante telling you on the phone earlier, it doesn’t sound as if Rex has any intention of altering his plans to open a music theater,” Skye reassured Wally. “Which means I doubt he’d let any of his employees leave town.”

“True.” Wally flipped to a fresh page on his legal pad. “So tell me what you’ve got.”

“First”—Skye held up a finger—“the bad news. The EMT who attended to Kallista Taylor’s fainting spell heard someone mention that the victim was Suzette, so that cat’s out of the bag.”

“Oh, well.” Wally shrugged. “We knew we’d never keep it quiet.” He grimaced. “But I can’t make an official announcement until the ME confirms the DNA samples, which will drive the reporters crazy.”

Skye nodded sympathetically. “Number two, I discovered that Suzette’s father worked at the high school for a year as a music teacher.”

“How did you find that out?”

“The current music teacher told me.” Skye explained how Noreen had come to confide in her, finishing up with, “I’ll talk to her more about Mr. Neal tomorrow, and also find out from her if there’s anyone else still around town who would have known him back then.”

“That’s great information to have, especially because Martinez couldn’t find the case file on Mrs. Neal’s accident.” Wally tapped his pen on the desktop.

Zelda Martinez was the newest, youngest, and only female officer on the Scumble River police force. She’d started less than five months ago, straight from the academy, and was still considered a rookie, which meant she was given all the boring assignments.

“Do you think they didn’t write up the case?” Skye could believe it. The chief before Wally had been hired because he was the previous mayor’s cousin, not because he was the best candidate for the job.

“No. I’m sure the file exists. The problem is the chaos in the storage room.” Wally ran his fingers through his hair. “I told Dante a couple of years ago we needed to get those records in the computer, but he refused to give me a budget to hire someone to do it, and with only one officer and one dispatcher on duty per shift, there’s no time.”

“Sounds like the school system.” Skye walked around the desk and rubbed his shoulders. “Something is never important enough to spend money on until it’s an all-out emergency.”

“Right.” Wally blew out a puff of exasperation. “Dante only pays attention to whatever is hot now. Then it’s asses and elbows, but once the crisis is over he goes back to his same old neglectful ways.”

“Remind me again why we chose to be civil servants.” Skye smiled wryly.

“Because we’re too idealistic for our own good.”

“That brings me to the third piece of info.” Skye gave his muscles a final squeeze and sat back down. “The one I’m not sure I should share with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s only a hunch.” Skye pursed her lips. “Actually, not even a hunch—just a possibility. An extremely unlikely possibility.”

“That’s never stopped you before.” Wally grinned. “In fact, that’s your specialty.”

“You are so not funny.” Skye shot a rubber band at him, then sobered. “The difference this time is that I could hurt a friend.”

“I promise to move cautiously”—Wally put his hand over his heart—“and try to keep whatever I can out of the written reports.”

“Okay.” Skye inhaled sharply. After keeping a secret from Wally in their last case, she had vowed never to do it again. She had to tell him, no matter how bad she felt doing so. “Owen Frayne disappeared last Saturday afternoon and didn’t reappear until early that evening.”

“So?”

“He told Trixie he went to Joliet for a drink with a friend.”

“But?”

“But I think he may be lying and he really might have been with Suzette.” Putting her suspicions into words tied Skye’s stomach into knots. “She was missing during the same period of time Owen was gone. And when she did finally show up at the concert, I saw her being dropped off by someone in a dusty black pickup.” Skye blew out a breath. “Just like the one Owen drives.”

“There are a lot of dirty black trucks in the area,” Wally pointed out. “What was the make and model?”