Denise Swanson - Murder of a Small-Town Honey

As she sat, Skye slowly arranged her purse and briefcase by her feet and allowed herself to examine the man behind the desk. Lloyd looked more like a used-car salesman than an educator. She had heard that he had been the principal of Scumble River Junior High School for nine years. Before that, he was a RE. teacher and coach at the high school for ten years. She guessed that although Lloyd was not origi­nally from Scumble River, over his nineteen-year tenure he would have become well acquainted with its foibles, espe­cially nepotism.

One of her Denison cousins worked as a custodian at the high school and had told her that Lloyd and the other prin­cipals had held a private conference after the July school board meeting, the meeting at which it was decided to hire Skye as the new psychologist without even a token inter­view or reference check.

According to Kenny, none of the principals was happy about hiring her, but all agreed they would reserve judg­ment and not hold her relationship with the school board president, Charlie Patukas, against her.

Skye continued to study Lloyd. He did not match his cheaply furnished office. Dressed in an expensive blue pin­striped suit, rnonogrammed white broadcloth shirt, hand­made silk necktie, and highly polished black tasseled kilties, he wore no wedding band, but there was a large pic-

ture on his desk, framed in heavy gold leaf, of a drab woman and three ordinary-looking children.

Finally, since it appeared that Lloyd was not about to begin their meeting, Skye leaned forward and extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Skye Denison, the new psychologist."

"Yes, I had figured that out." Lloyd held her hand for a fraction of a second too long, and then they sat without say­ing anything further. His flat black eyes exactly matched his slicked-back black hair, which was such an unvarying color that it had to be dyed.

As the silence lengthened and Lloyd showed no indica­tion of talking, Skye sat back in the chair and crossed her legs. Although she had been taught to wait, because often the most interesting revelations came when people grew uncomfortable with silence, waiting was still extremely dif­ficult for her.

Lloyd rearranged the objects on the desktop, aligning the blotter carefully with the edge of the desk. Turning to a fresh page on his legal pad and selecting the most perfectly sharpened of his pencils, he finally looked at Skye. "I do not run a democracy. We do not vote on issues. I solicit opinions, but make the final decisions myself. Do you have a problem with that?"

Skye struggled to remain composed, while allowing her­self the time she needed to formulate a suitable response. "So you're saying it's important to you to feel in control of the school you are responsible for?"

A puzzled look crossed Lloyd's face. "Well, yes, I guess that's what I am saying."

Skye found herself able to read Lloyd's thoughts as he realized that this discussion was not progressing in the manner he had envisioned. He began to feel uncomfortable, and she saw him struggle to regain control of the conversa­tion, floundering as he persisted, "Is that a situation you can live with?"

Concentrating on not losing her cool, Skye leaned for-

ward. "You want to know if I'm going to respect your au­thority, right?"

"Well, yes, that's one way of putting it. Are you?" he in­sisted.

"Of course, I will back you in any matter that is not against my professional ethics." Skye gave him an insin­cere, yet dazzling smile. "But I'm sure you would never suggest anything less."

Lloyd seemed flustered, and sat silently for some time before continuing. "Let me give you a brief summary of my school. We have one special education teacher, and she has two assistants. There is a school nurse and speech patholo­gist whom we share with the rest of the district. We do not currently have a social worker, so with the addition of you, me, and an occasional visit from the representative from our co-op, that pretty much makes up our PPS Team."

"When does the Pupil Personnel Services Team meet?"

"Every other Tuesday, starting tomorrow, at eleven-thirty."

"What special education cooperative are we with?"

"StanCoCo."

"And that stands for... ?"

"Stanley County Cooperative. Any more questions?" Lloyd's tone made it clear that he found her queries tire­some.

Ignoring this, Skye proceeded, taking out a pad and pen­cil. "How do we handle fulfilling the components of a case study evaluation without a social worker to do the social history? How does all the counseling get done?"

"We don't need a social worker to do a social history. What we've done in the past is have the nurse address the medical segments and the psychologist deal with the adap­tive behavior, family structure, and so forth."

Skye frowned, thinking, / will definitely have to take a look at the Illinois rules and regulations to see if this is legal. I'd also better check with the Illinois School Psychol-

ogists Association as to whether it's ethical. And, if it is, I'd better brush up on taking social histories really soon.

Lloyd was looking at Skye as if he expected to be praised for his resourcefulness. "Oh, how clever," she said. "Maybe we can talk more about this later."

Without warning Lloyd changed the subject. "You were the one who found that body yesterday, right?"

Nodding, Skye sat straighter, wondering where this was leading.

"It must have been extremely frightening. You probably didn't have a chance to notice much . . ." Lloyd's voice trailed off, encouraging her to fill in the details.

She knew he wanted something, but she couldn't imag­ine what. "No, I was in and out in a couple of minutes. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just curious. I didn't even know the woman, for heaven's sake."

"Oh, you sounded like maybe you had a specific ques­tion in mind."

He stood abruptly and walked to the door without com­menting. "Why don't I take you to meet some of the team?"

He was halfway through the main office before Skye could gather her belongings and follow him. Keeping an eye on his retreating figure, she hurried after him. Lloyd was of medium height and build, but he moved as if his legs were as long as a basketball player's. Skye didn't catch up until he was already most of the way down the central hall.

Skye was wearing the coolest professional clothes she owned, a short-sleeved lilac linen shirtdress with matching high-heeled pumps. Midwestern style valued matching ac­cessories, but after trying, without success, to keep up with Lloyd's quick pace on the highly polished and slippery linoleum, she immediately resolved to buy lower-heeled shoes—no matter what the color.

She rounded a corner in time to see Lloyd enter a class-

room near the back of the building. Judging from its loca­tion, she knew without asking that it was the special educa­tion room. Such classrooms were usually as far away from the front door as the structure of the school allowed.

Upon entering, Skye spotted Lloyd with a woman in her thirties. She was much taller than average and cadaverously thin. When she held out her hand for Skye to shake, her nails were bitten so short they looked raw. Her grip was listless.

The room was painted bile-green and held only a black­board, a teacher's desk, and twelve student work stations, the type where the chair and table area are welded together. It was obvious that they had interrupted the teacher as she was attempting to liven up the room by putting various posters and pictures on the walls.

Lloyd introduced them. "Darleen, this is our new psy­chologist, Skye Denison. Skye, this is our special education teacher, Darleen Boyd. She's married to the police chief."

Skye checked Darleen's reaction to Lloyd's having gra­tuitously announced her husband's occupation. Even by Scumble River standards his remark had been a bit sexist. Darleen remained impassive. Her short baby-doll dress re­vealed twiglike arms and legs. No one spoke.