Murder of a Royal Pain

Shit! She wasn’t surprised the information was out so quickly, but Kurt had better not have been the one to leak the story. Now the murderer knew the identity of his victim. If Annette hadn’t been his intended target, his real quarry was now in danger.

Skye ate a handful of dry cereal. She really had to go to the grocery store. She’d better call Trixie to see if her friend could give her a ride to the old American Legion hall to pick up her car. But first she needed to talk to Wally.

While she got dressed, she punched in his number. It immediately went to voice mail, and she left a message for him to get in touch with her as soon as he could.

Next she dialed Trixie, whose first words were, “Why do I always miss all the excitement?”

“Yeah. Right.” Skye snorted. “It’s oh, so much fun wandering around a haunted house tripping over dead bodies.”

Trixie ignored Skye’s statement and peppered her with questions.

Skye finally managed to say, “Give me a ride to my car, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Once Skye explained why her car was at the American Legion hall, Trixie said, “I’ll be right over.”

Fifteen minutes later, Skye met Trixie in the driveway, and as she hopped into her friend’s Civic, Trixie demanded, “Spill.”

“You really had to be there.” Skye buckled her seat belt. “Last night was one of the worst, the longest, and the most bizarre nights of my life.”

Clearly unsatisfied with Skye’s answer, Trixie said, “That’s the point. I wasn’t there. So tell me already.”

“I guess it all started when Justin told me about the ghosts.”

“Oh, my God!” Trixie squealed. “This is even better than I thought.”

Skye filled her friend in, concluding with, “Anyway, after the police let us go, guess who was waiting in the parking lot for me?”

“Simon.”

“No. He had to go with the body. The new reporter in town, Kurt Michaels.”

“Oh, he’s a hunk. I hope you were nice to him.”

Skye described their conversation and drive home. “Don’t you think that was odd?”

“He’s definitely hiding something. Maybe he’s an FBI agent.”

“Investigating what?” Skye snickered. “Illegal haunted houses?”

They both laughed.

Skye finished up with, “Oh, yeah. Frannie was waiting for me on my porch when I got home, and she’s decided to quit college. And to add icing to the cake, there was a mysterious message from Vince on my answering machine. He said he needs to talk to me and is coming by after work.”

“What do you think that’s about?”

“My optimistic side hopes he’s going to tell me he and Loretta are getting married.”

Trixie frowned. “And your pessimistic side?”

“Hopes that whatever the problem is, it’s something I can fix before Mom and Dad get home from Vegas.”

Trixie was silent for a moment, then brought the conversation back to the murder. “Do you think Annette was the intended victim, or do you think it was supposed to be one of the three women everyone thought would be dressed as witches?”

“I don’t know.” Skye shrugged. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill me—other than a crazed parent.”

“Could one of the parents you’ve worked with be that angry?”

Skye considered Mrs. Idell and nodded reluctantly. “I guess it’s possible. I’m pretty sure a disgruntled parent slashed my tire.”

After Skye explained about the note she had found on her car, Trixie said, “We need to find out if anyone had a reason to want either Hope Kennedy or Nina Miles dead.”

“That’s a good idea.” Skye bit her lip. “I’ll try to find out if Quirk is concentrating on Annette, or if he’s looking into the other witches’ enemies, as well. But he told me to stay out of it—”

“Men are like horoscopes,” Trixie cut Skye off. “They always tell you what to do and are usually wrong.”

Skye giggled, then completed her interrupted sentence. “So, I’m not sure how to get that information.”

“You need to call Simon. With both your mom and Wally gone, he’s your only contact at the police department.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why?”

“What if he thinks I’m trying to get back together with him?”

“Then maybe your reporter friend has dug something up. Call him.”

“That’s not a good idea either.”

“Again, why?”

“Because I don’t want him to get the wrong idea either.” Skye felt her cheeks color, and quickly added, “Besides, he’d probably end up getting more info from me than I would from him.”

“Then I guess it’s you and me, Sherlock.” Trixie stomped on the brake pedal, threw the little car into reverse, turned it around, and headed in the opposite direction. “Let’s go talk to Nina and Hope.”

No one was home at Hope Kennedy’s house, so Trixie and Skye drove over to Nina Miles’s. Nina lived in the expensive part of Scumble River, where each of the houses was situated on several acres of land. It was ironic that they all backed up to an old graveyard. The homeowners had fought long and hard to have the bodies moved, but had lost the battle. At the time, Skye had wondered why they had built their houses there to begin with, if they didn’t like living next to a cemetery. It wasn’t as if the tombstones had popped up overnight.