Buzz Kill (18 page)

Really? He had to “recall” something I knew from a million television shows?

How had I ever been intimidated by this man?

Chase didn't seem impressed, either. Moreover, he didn't step back, so the two guys stood practically chest to chest, which gave Chase a height advantage. “I've never heard anything about the murder taking place here,” he pointed out.

Detective Lohser seemed to realize he'd misspoken, and he backtracked, stammering. “Well, er . . . This is still a place of interest . . .”

Chase wasn't listening. “We're here to take care of the dog—at the request of Mr. Killdare's family. I have a key and every right to be here.”

“Looks like you were taking care of other business, too,” Detective Lohser countered. “Maybe the same ‘business' you two were addressing under the bleachers the night a
body turned up?
”

Okay, it was starting to get creepy for an adult to keep referencing kids making out. Especially since Chase and I hadn't really been doing anything.
God forbid!
But Detective Lohser wasn't quite done, and he narrowed his eyes at Chase. “It must be nice to have the keys to an
empty
house, huh, Romeo?”

Chase took another step forward, and for a second, I almost felt sorry for Detective Lohser. I doubted he had any idea that he was up against somebody who'd dealt with authority figures who made Hollerin' Hank Killdare look like a teddy bear. There was no way a guy who'd probably been voted “most likely to shoot his own foot” at the police academy was going to bully a Mason Treadwell alum. “What, exactly, are you implying?” Chase asked. “Huh?”

Detective Lohser had no choice but to step back, but he remained on the verbal offensive. “Maybe that you wanted Hank Killdare out of the way so you'd have
unfettered access to your love nest.
”

That was the worst “bad cop” line I'd ever heard, and I nearly burst out laughing. I also finally understood why my father had once said jokingly, “I think the county made Lohser a detective because around here it keeps him behind a desk, away from the real criminals!”

“Come on,” I interjected. “You can't really think that. I mean, we might just be kids, but even we know the house will be sold—and probably soon. My dad says real estate moves like lightning in Honeywell. Who would kill for a few weeks of . . . ?”

I wasn't sure how I wanted to end that sentence. Maybe with “privacy”?

Detective Lohser didn't need me to finish my thought, anyhow. “People have killed for less,” he said evenly. “Much less.”

“I don't really think so.” Chase agreed with me. “And if we honestly
took a life
to get access to this house—even for a few weeks . . .” He finally looked at me again. “If Millie really was my girlfriend, would we be
sitting on the bathroom floor?
Would we go to all that trouble for
that?
”

He was supporting me, but that sort of stung, too. A “girlfriend” would've gotten better treatment. That girl in his locker—Allison—wouldn't have had to stare at plumbing fixtures as he'd put his arm around
her.

All at once, I started to get frustrated with guys in general—ones who almost kissed you, then looked mortified, and ones who abused their authority. I also happened to think of something else that was irking me about Detective Lohser. “Yeah,” I said. “And why did you tell Vivienne Fitch—a stupid student reporter—about my dad's alibi? Are you supposed to tell the press stuff like that? Whatever happened to ‘I can't comment on an ongoing investigation'?”

“I know how to handle the press,” Lohser grunted, but evasively, in a way that told me Viv had—as I'd suspected—manipulated him into saying more than he'd wanted. “I did everything by the book.”

Yeah. The “Big Book of Bad Detecting.” The “Idiot's Guide to Being an Idiot.”

I really didn't know what would be worse. Having a competent detective investigate Mr. Killdare's death, because there was circumstantial evidence against my father, or to have a completely incompetent blabbermouth with a vendetta on the case. Maybe I—and my dad—couldn't have won either way.

“You'd better stop talking about my father in public,” I warned him. “We'll sue you.”

It was my second threat of litigation in less than a month, and I had no idea if we'd have a leg to stand on. But Detective Lohser didn't seem to care, anyhow. In fact, he suddenly seemed distracted, his eyebrows scrunching together as he frowned at something behind me.

“Step aside,” he muttered, pushing me with his arm. “I want to see something again in the medicine cabinet.”

I edged over, and Chase and I looked at each other, both shrugging, as if to say,
Oh, well. At least he's off our case.

Well, I thought I was glad that Detective Lohser had shifted his attention—until he opened the cabinet and plucked a bottle of pills from the top shelf. I wasn't sure why, but something about the way he stared at that container—like he'd found the Holy Grail—made me nervous, and since I was standing right next to him, I did my best to read the label.

And when I did, I got a little sick to my stomach—although the product in his hand, dexamethasone, was, ironically, meant to ease nausea.

I knew that because my mom had taken it to counter the effects of chemotherapy. I'd brought it to her dozens of times during her treatment.

And I really hated the look in Detective Lohser's eyes—the hostile little gleam—as he met mine, saying, like he knew what he held, too, “Interesting, huh?”

Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as much of an idiot as I'd thought.

“What was that all about, with the medicine?” Chase asked when we were outside, standing next to his car on Mr. Killdare's dark driveway. Detective Lohser was still spooking around inside. I saw a light go on in the kitchen and seriously hoped he wouldn't kick Baxter, which seemed like something he might do, just for laughs.

I waited too long for the right moment to ask for a dog. Now Dad and I aren't even speaking
—

“Did I miss something there?” Chase interrupted my thoughts, tossing the yearbooks he'd managed to swipe into his BMW. “Why'd you both get strange about that pill bottle?”

I hesitated, then realized there was probably no reason not to tell Chase about the drug. Still, I lowered my voice, in case Detective Lohser came outside, on the off chance that he didn't really know what he'd discovered. “It was a bottle of dexamethasone—”

Chase raised a hand. “Slow down, Millie. It's like you're talking French.”

I ignored the joke. Especially since I wasn't sure he should be mocking me right then. I was pretty sure we'd discussed my flaws enough for one night. “It's a drug that relieves nausea in chemotherapy patients,” I explained, leaning against his car, forgetting that he probably cared about the paint job. “My mom took it, too.”

Chase raised an eyebrow. “So . . . Mr. Killdare had
cancer?
”

“Yeah. I also know that from a letter I found. He had acute myelogenous leukemia. AML, for short.”

“French again, Millie.”

“It's pretty common, actually,” I said. “In fact, some people think it's
too
common for anybody who works or goes to school at Honeywell.”

“Still not quite following,” Chase admitted.

“A few years ago,” I whispered, “there was talk about the school giving people cancer because it's located on an old industrial site. A place that used benzene, which has been linked to AML.” I dropped my voice even lower. “My dad almost lost an election before you moved here because he fought to have the school built there. The soil and groundwater have always tested safe, but when two custodians and a teacher got sick, these rumors started. There's no way there was a connection—the school had only been open about a year, for crying out loud—but people freaked out about the coincidence.”

Even if he wasn't familiar with antiemetic drugs or myeloid leukemias, Chase was a smart guy, and he quickly put the rest of the story together. He fell back against his car, too, exhaling with a whoosh. “Wow, Millie . . . So your dad possibly had several reasons to want Mr. Killdare dead. The big fights. The head-coaching job. Wanting to keep the cancer thing silent if your dad knew about it . . .” He bent to look at me. “You're not just investigating this murder because you want some journalism award. You're worried about your father.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Millie . . .” Chase seemed genuinely confused. “Why didn't you tell me this earlier?”

“I don't know,” I told him. “I guess I keep stuff to myself, too.”

“So did Mr. Killdare,” Chase noted, looking impressed. “He must've been pretty sick. But he never let it show at practice or school.”

Once again, Hollerin' Hank was turning out to have had some good points. He'd obviously sucked up some pretty serious misery, continuing to coach without burdening his squad or letting his students know he was suffering.

I bit my nail, staring blankly down at the driveway.

But had my father known? Could Mr. Killdare really have kept something so big from his right-hand man?

Would I ask Dad, if I ever talked to him again?

“Millie?”

Chase's voice, softer than before, again broke into my thoughts.

I looked up to see that his mood seemed to have shifted. “Yeah?”

“I'm sorry . . . about almost kissing you.”

“What?”

Somehow I'd thought we'd never mention what had almost happened by the tub. I'd thought we'd both just pretend that nothing had occurred.

“I shouldn't have done that,” Chase continued. “I really shouldn't have—”

“Okay, Chase,” I interrupted. I was starting to get annoyed again. “I get it.”

“No, you don't understand.” He shifted, so he was leaning on his side, facing me. “I just . . . I just can't, Millie. But you looked so sad, and your big green eyes . . .”

Oh, gosh.
He'd nearly kissed me out of
pity?
Because I looked like Baxter during a bath, all droopy eyed and woebegone? That was even worse than, say, “momentary, if ill-advised, lust.”

“What?” I asked, hearing an edge of anger in my voice. “You're the universal antidote for female sadness? One kiss from Chase Albright sends every girl into ecstasy? So you thought you'd spare a dose for pathetic, eats-like-a-linebacker me, even if it made you ill?”

Chase shook his head. “No, Millie! It's not like that. You're misunderstanding and putting words in my mouth. I'm trying to say that you just looked . . . It seemed like . . .” He dug his fingers into his too-good-for-me hair, concluding weakly, “But I
really just can't.
”

I knew what he was trying to say without rubbing my nose in it. That he had a girlfriend. And more to the point, I wasn't the type of girl guys like him kissed. I didn't need a PowerPoint presentation, or even completed sentences, to grasp the two main thoughts he was trying to express.

“Chase Albright, if you wrap this up with ‘It's not you, it's me,' I am going to break your perfect nose,” I informed him. “So I suggest you stop talking now.” I started to walk away, even though I really would've liked a ride home. “And don't be in any hurry to contact me in the future, either,” I added him over my shoulder.
“El jerko.”

Chase didn't try to persuade me to come back. He didn't say a word.

And when I finally made it home, there was a neat pile of yearbooks waiting for me on the front porch like maybe our brief investigative partnership really was over.

Picking them up, I opened the door and went inside—only to nearly drop the whole stack when my dad, looking pale, informed me, without so much as a hello, “I'm being taken in for official questioning, Millie. Don't wait up for me.”

Only then did I realize that Detective Lohser had beaten me to my house, too.

He was standing in the living room.

Needless to say, smirking.

“Dad, what happened?” I asked, bounding off the couch when he finally got home around midnight. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I'm fine,” he said, not exactly meeting my eyes. We hadn't really looked at each other since the whole affair . . . of the affair. He loosened his tie roughly, like it was a noose that he couldn't wait to shake off, and headed for the stairs. “Just go to bed, Millie.”

“I . . . I made you a snack,” I said, grabbing a plate of cheese and crackers off the coffee table. Okay, maybe I hadn't so much “made” as “assembled” a snack. “Are you hungry?”

He already had one foot on a riser and a hand on the banister. “No. Thanks.”

Ditching the plate, I followed him. “Dad . . .”

He finally turned to look down at me, seeming borderline exasperated—and completely exhausted. “What, Millicent?”

“Did you . . . Did you know about Mr. Killdare's cancer?”

He frowned—even more, if that was possible. “How did
you
know?”

“I just . . . did.” I studied his face. “But you . . . Did
you
know?”

Dad's lips clamped into a white line, and he shook his head. “No, Millie. This is the first I've heard of it, tonight. I didn't know Mr. Killdare was ill.”

He started to head up the stairs again, but I stopped him one more time. “Dad?”

His hand clenched on the rail, and he exhaled with a big sigh. “What?”

“Are you . . . Are you going to be . . .
arrested,
or something?”

Dad didn't exactly answer me. “They don't have a murder weapon.”

That was all he said. Then my father trudged upstairs, and I wondered whether he would call Ms. Parkins to tell her everything that had happened. Unburden himself to her. Or had I really ruined all that?