Murder of a Smart Cookie: A Scumble River Mystery Read Online Free

regain control of her breathing and figure out what to do next. How had she managed to get fired from yet another job? First her school psychologist job in New Orleans three years ago, then the lifeguard position earlier this summer, and now this. But none of the dismissals had been her fault, had they? Well, she definitely hadn’t had anything to do with the geese pooping in the lake. And no way could she have ignored the teen in Louisiana being molested by the girl’s own father. But maybe she should have kept her mouth shut about the vase.
    She rocked from cheek to cheek. Cookie was obviously a terrific tennis player with a great backhand. That whack from the sword still stung.
    Skye twisted a chestnut curl around her finger until it formed a dreadlock. Now what should she do? Without a summer job, how could she earn the extra money she needed for the down payment on her cottage? She couldn’t even make an offer until she was sure she’d have the cash.
    Suddenly a wave of exhaustion hit her and she slumped over the steering wheel. Just when things started going well in her life, there was always a bump in the road. Maybe that was why her dad and godfather had restored such a sizeable vehicle for her. They must have known that nothing less substantial than a 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible could take the jolts. Although why the car had to be bright aqua she would never know.
    Sighing, she straightened up. Self-pity wouldn’t get her anywhere. She had to think. Where would she find another job in this economy? She had already checked around to see if there was any contractual work for psychological testing in the neighboring school districts, but school budgets were too tight for any extras.
    Was she allowed to do private counseling? She’d have to check with the Illinois School Psychologists Association to see what the rules were about that. Should she go home and try to call someone right now? It had been such a salmon day—she felt as if she’d spent the entire twenty-four hours swimming upstream, only to get screwed and die in the end—maybe it would be better to wait.
    As she was pondering her next move, a white Oldsmobile pulled up behind the Bel Air. Skye paled as she watched a short woman wearing a dark blue police dispatcher’s uniform and an angry scowl on her face jump out of the car and scurry toward her. Skye felt her eyelid twitch; things were about to get worse.
    As the passenger door was wrenched open, Skye’s mother, May, exploded, “That man will drive me to my grave.”
    Skye looked at her mom’s red face and, half afraid of the answer, asked, “What did Dad do now?” May had never quite forgiven her husband for his failure to tell her when he discovered the dead bodies of the town’s perfect couple, Barbie and Ken Addison, last Thanksgiving. Because she held that grudge, anything else Jed did was twice as annoying to her.
    “I’ve been asking him to fix the toilet in the big bathroom since Christmas and he’s always too busy.”
    “Well …” Skye struggled to defend her father. “Farming takes a lot of time, and he is the only mechanic in the family, so he has to keep everyone else’s tractors running, too. Plus he cuts both your lawn and Grandma’s.”
    “I understand that.” Emerald green eyes that matched Skye’s own blazed. “What I don’t understand is, if he is so dang-blasted busy, how did he find the time to work on that old clunker Bunny Reid just bought?”
    Oh, oh. No wonder May was blowing a gasket. Skye’s mother had taken an instant dislike to Bunny when she had moved to town last November. Knowing Jed was spending time with that woman, even innocently, would drive May wild.
    Skye had been silent too long. May huffed, “I suppose you think that’s perfectly all right. That he should help her get that car running. Don’t you?”
    To complicate matters, Bunny was the mother of Skye’s boyfriend, Simon Reid, the town coroner and owner of the local funeral home,