Murder of a Small-Town Honey

unvarying color that it had to be dyed.

As the silence lengthened and Lloyd showed no indica­tion of talking, Skye sat back in the chair and crossed her legs. Although she had been taught to wait, because often the most interesting revelations came when people grew uncomfortable with silence, waiting was still extremely dif­ficult for her.

Lloyd rearranged the objects on the desktop, aligning the blotter carefully with the edge of the desk. Turning to a fresh page on his legal pad and selecting the most perfectly sharpened of his pencils, he finally looked at Skye. 'I do not run a democracy. We do not vote on issues. I solicit opinions, but make the final decisions myself. Do you have a problem with that?'

Skye struggled to remain composed, while allowing her­self the time she needed to formulate a suitable response. 'So you're saying it's important to you to feel in control of the school you are responsible for?'

A puzzled look crossed Lloyd's face. 'Well, yes, I guess that's what I am saying.'

Skye found herself able to read Lloyd's thoughts as he realized that this discussion was not progressing in the manner he had envisioned. He began to feel uncomfortable, and she saw him struggle to regain control of the conversa­tion, floundering as he persisted, 'Is that a situation you can live with?'

Concentrating on not losing her cool, Skye leaned for-

ward. 'You want to know if I'm going to respect your au­thority, right?'

'Well, yes, that's one way of putting it. Are you?' he in­sisted.

'Of course, I will back you in any matter that is not against my professional ethics.' Skye gave him an insin­ cere, yet dazzling smile. 'But I'm sure you would never suggest anything less.'

Lloyd seemed flustered, and sat silently for some time before continuing. 'Let me give you a brief summary of my school. We have one special education teacher, and she has two assistants. There is a school nurse and speech patholo­gist whom we share with the rest of the district. We do not currently have a social worker, so with the addition of you, me, and an occasional visit from the representative from our co-op, that pretty much makes up our PPS Team.'

'When does the Pupil Personnel Services Team meet?'

'Every other Tuesday, starting tomorrow, at eleven-thirty.'

'What special education cooperative are we with?'

'StanCoCo.'

'And that stands for... ?'

'Stanley County Cooperative. Any more questions?' Lloyd's tone made it clear that he found her queries tire­ some.

Ignoring this, Skye proceeded, taking out a pad and pen­cil. 'How do we handle fulfilling the components of a case study evaluation without a social worker to do the social history? How does all the counseling get done?'

'We don't need a social worker to do a social history. What we've done in the past is have the nurse address the medical segments and the psychologist deal with the adap­tive behavior, family structure, and so forth.'

Skye frowned, thinking, / will definitely have to take a look at the Illinois rules and regulations to see if this is legal. I'd also better check with the Illinois School Psychol-

ogists Association as to whether it's ethical. And, if it is, I'd better brush up on taking social histories really soon.

Lloyd was looking at Skye as if he expected to be praised for his resourcefulness. 'Oh, how clever,' she said. 'Maybe we can talk more about this later.'

Without warning Lloyd changed the subject. 'You were the one who found that body yesterday, right?'

Nodding, Skye sat straighter, wondering where this was leading.

'It must have been extremely frightening. You probably didn't have a chance to notice much . . .' Lloyd's voice trailed off, encouraging her to fill in the details.

She knew he wanted something, but she couldn't imag­ine what. 'No, I was in and out in a couple of minutes. Why do you ask?'

'No reason. Just curious. I didn't even know the woman, for heaven's sake.'

'Oh, you sounded like maybe you had a specific ques­tion in mind.'

He stood abruptly and walked to the door without com­menting. 'Why don't I take you to meet some of the team?'

He was halfway through the main office before Skye could gather her belongings and follow him. Keeping an eye on his retreating figure, she hurried after him. Lloyd was of medium height and build, but he moved as if his legs were as long as a basketball player's. Skye didn't catch up until he was already most of the way down the central hall.

Skye was wearing the coolest professional clothes she owned, a short-sleeved lilac linen shirtdress with matching high-heeled pumps. Midwestern style valued matching ac­cessories, but after trying, without success, to keep up with Lloyd's quick pace on the highly polished and slippery linoleum, she immediately resolved to buy lower-heeled shoes—no matter what the color.

She rounded a corner in time to see Lloyd enter a class-

room near the back of the building. Judging from its loca­tion, she knew without asking that it was the special educa­tion room. Such classrooms were usually as far away from the front door as the structure of the school allowed.

Upon entering, Skye spotted Lloyd with a woman in her thirties. She was much taller than average and cadaverously thin. When she held out her hand for Skye to shake, her nails were bitten so short they looked raw. Her grip was listless.

The room was painted bile-green and held only a black­board, a teacher's desk, and twelve student work stations, the type where the chair and table area are welded together. It was obvious that they had interrupted the teacher as she was attempting to liven up the room by putting various posters and pictures on the walls.

Lloyd introduced them. 'Darleen, this is our new psy­chologist, Skye Denison. Skye, this is our special education teacher, Darleen Boyd. She's married to the police chief.'

Skye checked Darleen's reaction to Lloyd's having gra­tuitously announced her husband's occupation. Even by Scumble River standards his remark had been a bit sexist. Darleen remained impassive. Her short baby-doll dress re­vealed twiglike arms and legs. No one spoke.

Searching for something polite to say, Skye settled at last on, 'How nice. My mom works as a police dispatcher.'

Before Darleen could reply, Lloyd broke in. 'Where are your assistants?'

'They're with the kids in their mainstream classes. Re­member, last year the PPS team decided to put the aides in regular classes to help the special ed kids?' She nervously smoothed her hair, which was a dull brown and cut as if a bowl had been placed on her head for a pattern.

'How about the nurse and the speech therapist? Surely they're not in the classrooms too? They should be around.' Lloyd scanned the room as if the people he sought might be hiding behind the desks.

'Abby's in the health room, but I haven't seen Belle. She's probably at the elementary school.' Darleen studied the poster she had just hung on the wall, not meeting Lloyd's eyes.

Turning to Skye, Lloyd asked in an affronted tone, 'Did you meet Belle Whitney, the speech and language therapist, at the elementary school when you were there earlier?'

'Why, no, I spoke with the principal on Thursday, and she gave me a list of meetings. She ran out of time before she had a chance to show me around the school or intro­duce any of the faculty or staff.'

Lloyd nodded in satisfaction.''Let's pre'ss on, then. At least I can introduce you to the nurse.'

'Could you show me where my office is, too?'

'It's on the way.' A line appeared between Lloyd's eye­brows.

Skye moved closer to Darleen. 'It was nice meeting you. Would it be convenient for me to come back this afternoon so we could discuss your program and how my services might fit in with it?'

Looking uneasily at Lloyd, Darleen's hazel eyes bulged alarmingly. 'Sure. I'll be here until four. We can talk then. We don't want to keep Mr. Stark waiting.'

As Skye followed Lloyd back toward the front of the school, she pondered Darleen's attitude. She appeared much more subservient, even fearful, than other special ed­ucation teachers Skye had met.

Skye was convinced that the room Lloyd indicated as her office had started life as a janitor's closet. Its window-less walls were painted an egg-yolk yellow, and the smell of ammonia made her sneeze when she pushed