Murder of a Royal Pain

Fridays were supposed to be good days, but Skye’s sure wasn’t going that way. When she walked into the high school, Homer dragged her into his office and began screaming at her about some stupid traffic cones. “Do you have any idea what a mess you caused this morning? Buses were stacked up like the Tupperware bowls in my wife’s cupboard. We had to close off the whole damn parking lot!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even here this morning. I stopped at the grade school to speak to a teacher.” Skye had assured Hope Kennedy that Wally would be back the next evening and would take care of the Quirk situation. “I didn’t get here until a few minutes ago.”

“Fern didn’t see you, and you didn’t sign the attendance log. I checked.”

“I forgot to sign it because I didn’t go into the office. After I talked to the teacher, I spent an hour setting things up for an evaluation this afternoon, then came over here,” Skye explained. “What happened?”

“You know darn well what happened.” Homer loomed over Skye, who was seated on a visitor’s chair in his office. “You put traffic cones funneling the buses away from the entrance and into the bus parking area in the back of the school, which is a fricking dead end.”

“I did not,” Skye protested, her heart pounding. No one messed with the buses and got away with it. “Why would I do that?”

“How should I know? But you were seen.” Homer crossed his arms and glared at her. “Mrs. Boswell, the old lady who lives across the street in the white house, was out walking her dog and saw you putting the cones out. She came to my office and told me all about it when she saw the traffic jam.”

“That’s impossible. I didn’t do it.” Skye ran her fingers through her hair. “What time was this?”

“Seven thirty-five. She remembers exactly because she waits until seven thirty to take Snowflake out. She said she knows all the teachers have to be here by that time, but the buses don’t start to arrive until seven forty.”

“But, but . . .” Skye trailed off.

“But nothing,” Homer roared. “In my thirty-five years of experience, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Skye stopped herself from blurting out that in reality, Homer had had one year of experience thirty-five times, since he did the same thing over and over again.

Homer stared at Skye, and when she remained silent he demanded, “Why did you do it?”

“I keep telling you I didn’t.” Skye was getting frantic. “Did Mrs. Boswell identify me by name?”

“No,” Homer admitted. “But she said she saw a female of your general build, with curly reddish brown hair.”

“What do you mean, my ‘general build’?”

Homer’s eyes dropped. “Not thin.”

“Fat?”

“That wasn’t what Mrs. Boswell said.” Homer didn’t look up. “Not exactly.”

Hmm. Homer was less of a jerk when he was embarrassed. Skye tucked that fact into her memory for future use, but quickly pressed on, not wanting to lose her slight advantage. “What exactly did she say?”

“She said she saw a big girl putting the traffic cones out.”

“She used the word girl?”

“Now don’t go all feminazi on me.” Homer was already over his embarrassment. “Mrs. Boswell is in her nineties—anyone under sixty is a girl to her.”

“I see. And she said curly hair?”

Homer nodded.

“My hair’s straight today.” Skye lifted a strand. “See? I had some extra time this morning, so I used my flatiron. It’s only curly when I let it dry naturally.”

“Do I look as if I care what you do with your freaking hair?” Homer’s voice rose in anger. “Try to wiggle out of this any way you can—the description fits you.” He jabbed her in the shoulder with his index finger.

Skye searched her mind. Had anyone at the grade school seen her at seven thirty? She’d talked to Hope quite a bit earlier than that. Yes. Thank goodness for Belle’s talkativeness.

“I can prove it wasn’t me. The speech pathologist stopped by my office at the grade school around that time to ask if I had been able to set up a testing appointment with the parents of the new student.” Skye pushed Homer away from her, got up, and grabbed the phone. “Call and ask her if you don’t believe me.”

Once Homer verified her alibi, Skye fled the high school. Her schedule called for her to be there all morning, but she knew that if she stuck around, she’d end up telling the principal what she thought of him, which would result in tears—either on her part or on his, maybe both.

If she hadn’t had the whole team set up to evaluate the little Russian boy, she would have given up and gone home. Instead, she spent the rest of the time until his appointment brooding in her office at the grade school.

Later she decided she should have taken the sick day. Nothing Skye said to the boy in English, or Jackie said to him in Russian, seemed to make any impression. Instead, Vassily spent the time tearing around the room and destroying anything that was not nailed down.

His parents said his behavior was similar at home, and they were at their wits’ end. Skye assured Mr. and Mrs. Warner that she would include a behavior plan when she wrote her report. Developmentally, he appeared to be less than two years old.

Vassily had cut a wide swath of destruction through Skye’s office, and as she cleaned it up, she thought about the last few days. Chemical bombs at the high school, wannabe mommies at the junior high, and now a wild child at the elementary school—not to mention Annette’s death and Hope’s revelation about Quirk. What was next? An invasion by spacemen?

Why was she doing this? Yes, she wanted to talk to Evie about her affair with Dylan Paine, and also find out why the new Promfest chair had run away screaming the night of Annette’s death. Yes, she was still afraid that she would look bad in comparison to Jackie. And yes, she had given her word, but in her heart, Skye knew it was a mistake to return to the haunted house.

She hadn’t been in the bathroom for ten minutes when her instincts were proven right. As she took off her street clothes and prepared to slip her costume over her leotard, she heard a siren. Was that the police? What had happened now?

Before Skye could decide whether to put her regular clothes back on or go ahead with the witch’s outfit, the building’s fire alarms started to blare. Instantly the other women, who were also changing into their costumes in the bathroom, made a mad dash for the exit, each trying to be the first one out.

Skye stood undecided—there had been so many false alarms at school that she distrusted the system—but a nanosecond later common sense prevailed. Even the possibility of being charbroiled was enough to make her skedaddle.

Snatching her tote bag, which contained her jeans and sweater, and wiggling into the long black witch’s dress as she ran, Skye followed the others. Regrettably, the women had halted only a few steps from the bathroom door, and Skye, unable to stop her forward momentum, plowed into them, mowing them down like a broom hitting a nest of dust bunnies.

It took her a few minutes to free herself from the tangle of arms and legs, and when she did she wished she could crawl back under the pile. Standing in the hallway, dressed like a cross between a cartoon astronaut and the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, was Earl Doozier. In his hand he held a toilet plunger. On his head was a portable siren duct-taped to a baseball cap, a stringy ponytail dangling out the opening in back. At his feet sat an industrial-size Shop-Vac. Glued to its canister was a hand-lettered sign that read GHOSTFLUSHERS.

Skye closed her eyes and prayed for a twister to transport her to the Emerald City. An instant later someone screamed.

CHAPTER 20