“Of course it is.” Theresa smoothed her pale yellow shirtdress. “Let me guess . . .” She tapped a finger on her lower lip. “A construction job for that lowlife husband of yours. I heard he’d been fired—again.”
“That’s a lie!” Ginger’s voice rose to a high, squeaky pitch that made Skye want to cover her ears. “Flip was not fired. The company went under. He was one of the last to go.” She appealed to her supporters. “You all know that things are so bad around here, the bank is sending out loan applications with REJECTED already stamped across them.”
A few women tittered sympathetically, and Theresa hurriedly said, “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
“That’s just BS you read on a T-shirt.” Ginger’s voice rose in anger. “If you weren’t dumb as a post, you’d realize how stupid you sound.”
Skye knew she had to stop the women, but while she was trying to figure out how, the battle continued.
“Really?” Theresa’s eyes glittered with malice. “You know, I wasn’t going to mention this, but your son Bert did a good job in the spelling bee we had last week.”
Skye tensed at the abrupt change of subject. What was Theresa up to?
“Oh?” Ginger’s expression was wary. “He didn’t mention that.”
“Yes.” Theresa’s tone was saccharine. “The winning word was
It took a few seconds, but once they got the joke everyone laughed, and Ginger sputtered, “You just made that up.”
“Maybe.” Theresa smirked. “And maybe the reason Flip has so much trouble keeping a job has more to do with his whiskey consumption and less to do with the economy.”
“That’s not true,” Ginger protested. “Flip only drinks beer.”
“Beer, whiskey, whatever,” Theresa said with condescending indifference. “A drunk by any other name is still a—”
Before the teacher could finish, Ginger lunged forward and slapped her. Theresa looked stunned as a bright red handprint appeared on her cheek. A nanosecond later, she grabbed a handful of Ginger’s blouse and hauled the tiny woman toward her.
The sound of tearing fabric galvanized Skye into action, and she stepped toward the two brawlers, raising her voice. “Ladies!”
No one seemed to hear her.
“Ladies!” Skye shouted, then put two fingers between her lips and whistled.
All heads turned in her direction.
Skye thought fast. “Theresa. What if one of the children saw you fighting like this? What kind of example are you setting?”
Theresa let go of Ginger and ducked her head. “You’re right.”
“And, Ginger”—Skye turned to her cousin—“if your mother heard about your behavior, she’d be mortified. Aunt Minnie raised you better than this.”
“You’re not going to tell, are you?” Ginger’s voice wavered. She was nearly as afraid of
“Not”—Skye kept her voice firm—“if you agree to discuss this in a civilized manner.”
“How about her?”
“Theresa?” Skye asked.
“I don’t know what got into me.” Theresa’s expression was sheepish. “Except I love this town and our way of life here, and if people like her have their way”—she cocked a thumb in Ginger’s direction—“it’ll be lost forever.”
Ginger shot Theresa a look of pure loathing and said, “And if people like her have their way, Scumble River will die a slow, boring death because there aren’t any jobs.”
“It’s a complex issue and we won’t solve it at a PTO meeting,” Skye stated, knowing there was no easy answer.
Although her sympathies lay with Theresa, she could see Ginger’s point of view. Not as many families were able to make a living from farming as in the past, and the only factory in the area that was still in business was Fine Foods.
Employment opportunities were scarce, and in order to live in the town they grew up in, most young people had to be willing to commute an hour or longer to Joliet or Kankakee.
“Can you two agree to disagree and deal with whatever was originally on your agenda?” Skye asked.
“Only if she apologizes to me,” Ginger said, crossing her arms. “She slandered my husband and ripped my best shirt.”
“I apologize for my ill-advised words.” Theresa’s face was red. “But you struck me, so we’re even regarding the torn blouse.”
Skye looked at her cousin. “Ginger, are you okay with that?”
“Yeah.” The tiny blonde examined the damage. “It tore on a seam. I can sew it up.”
“Great.” Skye smiled warmly at both women. “Then I’ll leave you to your meeting.”
As Skye walked away, she realized it hadn’t even been forty-eight hours since Rex Taylor’s announcement, and this was the second argument over the project that she had witnessed. Which did not bode at all well for the future of Scumble River.
CHAPTER 7
“Killin’ Time”
It had been raining steadily since eleven a.m., and was still pouring when Skye left the high school at four fifteen. The irony would not be lost on the farmers—when the crops had needed water, there’d been a drought; now that they needed dry conditions for the harvest, there was a downpour.
The deluge wouldn’t be good for the construction at the barn-theater site, either. The workers had probably been sent home hours ago. In which case, Rex may have decided to call it a day, too.
Wally had told Skye that the old police records—ones pertaining to cases more than ten years earlier—hadn’t been put into the computer yet. They were still stored in cardboard boxes in the PD’s basement. He had promised to ask one of his officers to try to find the Neal folder as soon as possible, but he couldn’t swear when that might be.
Now that Skye had decided to help Suzette, she was eager to get started, and had come up with a list of questions:
1. What was the time of death?
2. When did Mrs. Neal usually take her bath?
3. Where did the Neal family live?
4. Did anyone remember Mr. and Mrs. Neal having marriage troubles?
5. Where did Mr. Neal work?
6. Was Mrs. Neal a stay-at-home mom?
7. Did they have any relatives in town?
With the file currently unavailable, her only source of information was whatever details the singer could remember about her family.
Although a useless trip would be annoying, at least the dairy farm wasn’t far. As Skye turned the Bel Air onto Maryland Street, she could only hope that Suzette wanted to find her mother’s killer enough to stick around, even if everyone else had left.
The Hutton dairy farm was located midway between Scumble River and the neighboring towns of Brooklyn and Clay Center, in an area Scumble River had annexed a couple of years ago, when the mayor promised the town
