Band Room Bash by Candice Speare Prentice Page A

’tweren’t nothin’.”
    “Did you throw up?” my cashier asked me breathlessly.
    “No.” I hated this kind of attention, particularly since it was at Georgia’s expense.
    My mother’s friend had to add her two cents. “Well, everyone should remember that Trish is the one who found Jim Bob in the milk case of this very store last spring. She’s used to this by now.”
    “Dude!” The bagger eyed me with awe and carefully bagged the rest of my groceries.
    What a thing to be known for. Finding dead people.
    My mother’s friend wasn’t done. “Not only that, but she solves crimes.”
    “Well, not exactly,” I said.
    “That’s not what your mother says.”
    The air stilled, as if all the people around me were holding their breath. All eyes were on me. I wanted to disappear. Solving crimes was one thing, but to have the fact advertised all over the county could be dangerous.
    “So will you cancel the play?” a woman in line behind Carla asked her.
    I breathed a sigh of relief. That got everyone’s focus off me.
    “Absolutely not,” Carla said. “The show must go on. We can’t let anything take us from our duties.”
    I waited for applause, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Carla sniffed, put her purse strap over her shoulder, and picked up her grocery bag. “We need to get to the bottom of this crime. I’m upping the security in the school. I told the school board at the beginning of the year that we were at risk and needed a school resource officer. We also need cameras in the halls. You never know when a crazy person is going to break in and hold the children hostage. Now I have proof that we are susceptible to attack from the outside.”
    That was the third time I’d heard someone say a stranger had broken into the school. Was I the only one who didn’t believe that?
    The bagger dude offered to push my groceries outside to my car. I agreed and ended up walking next to Carla. “So you think a stranger broke into the school?”
    “Certainly. You don’t think anybody we know could be guilty of this, do you?” Her gaze was challenging.
    I shrugged and decided not to give her my opinion at the moment. “Did you know Georgia well? I didn’t, although she did grow up around here.”
    “Well, I knew her better than the other teachers on staff. We ate dinner together on occasion. She was dedicated. Determined that the children should be well educated.” Carla’s purse slipped off her shoulder, and she shoved it back. “She was under a great deal of pressure to take care of her grandmother, though. I wondered if she should take a leave of absence.”
    “Did you know that she and Connie were cousins?” I asked.
    Carla blinked. “Well, of course I knew that.” She stopped in front of a smoke-gray Volvo and opened the front door, leaning over and placing her bag on the passenger seat.
    Bagger Dude hovered behind me, listening.
    “Aren’t you worried about the football team?” I asked.
    “The football team?” Carla stood up, gripping her purse with both hands, and stared down at me. “Why? Just like our band, our football team is one of the best in the tri-county area. As a result, we get attention from some of the best colleges in the area.”
    Rah, rah, rah. Sis boom bah. I was getting the party line and decided to grab the bull by the horns, to quote another one of my mother’s oft-used clichés. “Well, I heard that Georgia was threatening to fail Jason, the star quarterback. Wouldn’t it be possible that he or Coach Smith had something to do with the attack on Georgia?”
    “What?” Carla blinked like a toad in a hailstorm. Her fingers clenched spasmodically on her bag. I’d plainly caught her off guard, so I pressed my advantage. “I heard that Jason was going to be removed from the team.”
    She took two steps backward. “It’s absolutely ridiculous to think our football team is good only because of one player. Besides, if Jason could be guilty, then any number of our other young