The Odds of Getting Even, page 18
Crud.
A heartbeat later I knocked on Capers’s door. The key clicked and the door swung open on a room cluttered with clothes, shopping bags, papers. “What a pit,” I muttered.
“Anything of interest?” Capers asked, exiting the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head.
I jumped. “I knocked,” I said, taming my runaway heart. “Just picking up the trash.” I peeked at the papers on her desk. More tan numbers and letters. “How do you play this game?” I asked, snagging her trash bag. “I’d like to try.”
“Another time,” she replied, holding the door to the hall for me.
Smooth—but rude.
Her gaze followed me down the hall like cat follows mouse.
Moments later, the Colonel sprang the Underbird’s trunk, which yawned open on a couple weeks’ worth of trash bags. “I know, they go in the Dumpster. I’ll get around to it,” he muttered. He cut his eyes to me. “Lana doesn’t need to know.”
“You’re a rebel, sir. I’ll take care of this,” I said, picturing the coded papers waiting in those bags. “One man’s trash is a detective’s treasure,” I added. “Sir, about Lavender . . .”
“Lavender’s losing heart,” he said, his voice gentle. “We’ll hope for the best. But a lost heart is a very hard thing to find.”
That evening I set the Colonel’s elegant 1940s fan on the floor of my flat and placed a trash can on its side a few feet away. I emptied the first trash bag between them and clicked on the fan, whirring the tissues and gum wrappers into the trash. Like panning for gold, I thought, grabbing a crumpled paper covered in the odd, ghostly letters. I snagged a 2-6-type code with the date-like key at the corner of the page torn off.
An hour later, I had a folder full of . . . what? More mystery than clue, I thought.
But Sal had said the more the merrier, and I’d see her first thing in the morning.
Chapter 23
Stakeout at Grandmother Miss Lacy’s
“Where’s Sal?” I asked the next morning, blasting into Skeeter’s office.
“Sick,” Skeeter said, marking her place in her law book. “She might be back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Crud.
The day oozed by like a sloth on pain meds. Even Harm wilted as the morning slid into afternoon.
“Harm Crenshaw,” Miss Retzyl said, clapping her hands. “Wake up!”
Harm lifted his head from his desk and gave her a sleepy smile. “The periodic table,” he said. He blinked. “This is science, isn’t it?”
Miss Retzyl went glacier. We’d finished science a half hour ago. “Harm,” she said, “you’ve fallen asleep two days in a row. Why?”
Attila sneered. “I hear Mr. Red’s building a still in his living room. Maybe the noise is keeping Harm up.”
Harm stretched. “I’m sorry, Miss Retzyl,” he said. “I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m Miss Thornton’s houseguest and I haven’t quite settled in.” He gave her a sleepy smile. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
Harm corralled Dale and me on the way out of school. “You’ve stayed late at Miss Thornton’s before,” he said, looking at me. “Did you hear anything weird?”
“Weird?” I said. “You mean like guineas?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I mean like running water, or creaks and bumps? I don’t want to seem lame, but . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe it is that old boiler. Or the house settling. Throw in those squawking guineas . . .”
“Squawking? At night? What’s scaring them?” Dale demanded.
“How should I know?” Harm asked, exasperated. “But I thought we could check it out. You know. Pro bono her a stakeout.”
“A luxury stakeout,” I said. “Count me in. When?”
“Tonight.”
“Come see the pups first,” Dale said. “And I need to check on Newton.”
I hopped on my bike. “Race you,” I shouted.
“Hey girl,” Dale said a few minutes later, rubbing Queen Elizabeth’s ears. The puppies tumbled around her, mewing. The biggest rolled to his feet and tried to walk.
I laughed and scooped him up. He squirmed against my chest, a warm armful of wiggle and mew. “He’s like a little sumo wrestler.”
Dale gently sorted the puppies. “That’s Mary Queen of Scots—Miss Retzyl’s pup. Sal picked little Ming. Skeeter wants King John. And Susana’s taking Ferdinand I. Little Agnes wants this one,” he said, picking up the only spotted pup in the litter. “She said, ‘This one is different.’ That’s a kindergarten skill. She hasn’t picked a name yet.”
I strolled over to the terrarium. “Where’s Newton?”
“Resting,” Dale said, going shifty. He grabbed his guitar and sang: “How much is that puppy in the closet, the one with the cute little tail?”
Harm tromped back in. “Miss Rose says it’s rude for us to go to Miss Thornton’s hungry. She’s warming up pizza for us.”
“Pizza?” Dale gasped. “No!”
Miss Rose’s scream pierced the air. “Dale Earnhardt Johnson III! You get in this kitchen right this minute!”
Dale dropped his guitar. “Mama,” he cried, running to the door. “I can explain.” Harm and I raced down the hall behind him.
Miss Rose stood at the open refrigerator. “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded, nudging a pizza box with a spatula. “What’s Newton doing in my icebox, Dale? Did you put him in here?”
“Rhetorical?” he whispered, looking hopeful.
“Dale,” Miss Rose said. “Why is your lizard . . .”
“He’s not a lizard,” Dale replied. “He’s an amphibian. The difference—”
Miss Rose stomped her foot. When she spoke, her voice came out like canned cake frosting: unnaturally smooth and way too sweet. “Dale, there’s a newt in my refrigerator. Explain.”
“Newton’s depressed. I think he’s fallen off life’s cycle, and he’s my responsibility. Maybe he’ll feel better if he hibernates.”
Miss Rose stared at Dale like she was adding up to see if she could afford boarding school.
“I thought about putting him outside,” Dale said, “but there’s the possibility of cats. And coyotes. Still,” he admitted, “the refrigerator may have been a mistake.”
“Do you think so?” Harm asked, very innocent.
Newton lifted his head and blinked. “I’ll take him to my room,” Dale told Miss Rose. “Unless you want to keep him with you while we’re on stakeout.”
“Your room’s fine,” she said. “And Dale, everything’s not your responsibility. You’re eleven years old.”
“Eleven and three-quarters. Can I borrow your electric blanket?” Dale asked. “Because Newton’s—”
“No,” she said.
“No,” Dale echoed, heading down the hall. “I didn’t think so.”
“Newton? Depressed? Tragic,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said a half hour later, placing a plate of cookies on the table. Her eyes traveled to the window, and Lavender’s garage. “I’m afraid Newton’s not alone,” she murmured.
A vase of tulips graced the table by the window. A card lay beside it. I could just make out the word troubadour.
Hannah’s metaphor. Harm’s flower-of-choice.
Her eyes followed my gaze. “Red,” she said, smiling. “It makes us young again.” She strolled over to adjust the card. “Harm, I wish you’d told me you couldn’t sleep.”
“I’m a light sleeper,” he said.
A total lie. I’ve seen him sleep through a fire drill.
“I just need to understand the sounds here,” Harm said. “Like . . . I don’t know. Water gurgling, things squeaking. I’ll sleep better when I know what they are.”
“We thought we’d pro bono you a stakeout,” I said. “We brought our pj’s.”
“A sleepover! Wonderful,” she said, flushing like a girl. “Having those sounds explained will be a bonus. Sometimes I feel like someone’s staring at me—when I know nobody’s here. And a chill slips right up my spine.”
She shivered. “Why don’t I cook some dinner? Liver and onions,” she said, watching my face. “With rutabagas and wilted spinach . . .” She burst out laughing. “My word, your faces. Burgers and fries? I’ll call the café.”
Old people humor, I thought, shaking my head. I never see it coming.
After supper Grandmother Miss Lacy and me developed film. Harm helped Dale with his math homework. “But why would fractions even want to divide decimal numbers?” Dale demanded as I walked in from the darkroom. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know why,” Harm said, his calm unraveling. “I just know it will be on the test. Try again.”
Finally, we settled in. Dale and Harm upstairs in the guest room, Grandmother Miss Lacy in her room upstairs, me on the parlor sofa. I curled up with my pillow toward the door and my eyes on the window.
My eyes closed, closed, closed . . . Bump.
What was that? A man at the window?
The wind blew, sending a kaleidoscope of shadows across the window screen.
Just the wind.
I settled back and closed my eyes. A creak behind me, a sharp dance of prickles across my shoulders. Was someone behind me, in the doorway? I darted a glance.
Nobody.
I’d almost dissolved into sleep when . . . “Mo?”
“What?” I gasped, sitting up.
“It’s Dale. Harm and me wondered if you’d been killed yet.”
Yet?
Dale slipped into the room. “I mean, you’re like a human sacrifice if there’s a killer in here because you’re the only one downstairs, so he’d get you first. We were just wondering if you were . . . you know.”
“Dead?”
“Dale was wondering,” Harm whispered. “I wasn’t.”
My eyes adjusted to the moonlight. They stood side by side in pale pajamas, the tall one slouching against the door frame, the short one shifting from foot to foot. “I’m okay, Desperados,” I whispered. “Go back to bed.”
I never could say for sure what woke me next.
Maybe it was the ragged tin-can squawk of Grandmother Miss Lacy’s guineas. Or the clunk of the radiator. Or the flicker of flat orange light against the windowpanes.
I stumbled to the window half-asleep and tried to piece together the picture outside: Orange snake-tongues darting from the garage’s eaves. Moonlight glinting off the curves of Lavender’s truck. The sharp, greedy smell of smoke.
Fire.
“Fire!” I shouted. “Fire! The garage! Fire!”
Time slung me forward and shot me into the hall. I turned at the stairs. “Fire!” I screamed. “Fire!”
Upstairs, a door slammed.
The boiler thunked.
Footsteps thundered down the hall.
Then I heard it, faint and distant: “Help! Help me!”
Lavender!
Dale flew halfway down the steps and vaulted over the banister. “The garage!” I shouted as Harm pounded on Grandmother Miss Lacy’s door.
“Hurry! It’s Lavender! Fire!”
Chapter 24
Fire!
Dale and me sprinted for the garage. I yanked open the wide door and a tidal wave of heat and smoke slammed into us.
“Lavender!” Dale shouted, his scream more like a cat’s than a boy’s.
“Here!” Lavender shouted. “Dale! The jack slipped! Hurry!”
Flames scrabbled their fingers up the back wall and a thick black curtain of smoke pressed down from the ceiling.
We dashed to the heavy jack at the side of the car. “Turn the knob on the jack,” Lavender shouted, struggling to squirm from beneath the car. “Hurry.”
The lightbulb overhead exploded.
I fumbled with the small metal button on the side of the jack. The smoke grew heavier by the second, stifling me and clawing my eyes.
“Turn it, Mo!” Dale said. “Turn it!”
“I can’t.” My world became a blur of smoke and tears. “Help!” I shouted as the fire crackled.
Dale’s hand shoved mine away, his fingers rough and frantic in the heavy smoke.
The knob clicked.
“Mo, here,” Dale gasped, grabbing the jack’s handle. I threw my weight onto the blistering handle and together we jacked the car up up up.
Lavender skinnied from beneath the car. “Run,” he gasped, staggering to his feet. “Get out. Now.” He toppled sideways. We rushed to his sides—one beneath each arm—and half dragged him across the garage.
I slammed into Harm at the door. “I’ve got him, Mo,” he said, scooting into my place. “Get away from the garage. Run.”
Pop! Pow!
We ducked as small explosions rattled the building behind us.
Finally we collapsed, panting, on the cool lawn.
Grandmother Miss Lacy fell to her knees beside us. “Are you all right?” she asked, fumbling with Lavender’s collar. “Breathe, child. Oh my word, breathe.”
An explosion slammed against the ground and a wave of heat bowed us low.
“My car,” Lavender said, turning to the garage. He closed his eyes. “My car.”
The roof caved in, throwing a shower of sparks to the stars.
An hour later we sat in the parlor, watching the volunteer fire department rake coals and hose down charred rafters still glittering with embers. The ash-white skeleton of the number 32 car stood stark in the moonlight. Starr’s men prowled the edge of the forest, searching.
The phone rang. “Mo,” Grandmother Miss Lacy called. “It’s Lana.”
I hurried into the kitchen, suddenly starved for her voice. “Hey,” I said, the tears crowding my eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“Are you all right? We just heard.”
“I’m fine,” I said, very quick. “Me and Dale saved Lavender’s life. Starr’s taking our statement. Please don’t make me come home. Lavender needs me. He almost died,” I said, my voice wobbling.
Her silence hugged me tight. “All right, sugar. Tell Starr we’re making free coffee and breakfasts for volunteers. Call me if you need me, Mo. Promise you will.”
The phone rang just as I hung up. “Hey, Miss Rose,” I said. “Dale and me just saved Lavender. Hang on.” I covered the mouthpiece. “Dale,” I shouted.
I strolled back into the parlor. “Miss Lana’s making free breakfast for you all.” Outside, neighbors stood in clumps. Capers talked to Sam, who’d tipped his volunteer fireman’s hat back on his head—a movie-star look.
Dale stomped back in and glared at Lavender. “You made Mama cry,” he said, and hurled himself onto the sofa beside me.
“Tears of relief, I’m sure,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said, letting the curtain fall. “We were lucky tonight.”
Starr perched awkwardly on an old lady chair. “Any idea who hates you this much, Lavender? Jealous husband, jilted lover? Anybody?”
“I wish I knew,” Lavender said, his voice cracking as he leaned forward to rest his forehead in his hands.
Starr tapped his pen against his pad. “Tell me again what happened.”
Lavender coughed. “What I did was stupid.”
“Understatement,” Dale muttered, his face dark with anger.
Lavender gave him a tired smile. “Don’t ever slide under a car without the jack stands in place.”
“I already know that,” Dale snapped. “You’ve said it a hundred times. I listened. Daddy said to watch your back. You aren’t even trying to be careful.”
Lavender closed his eyes. For one heartbeat, I thought he would cry.
“Dale, I made a mistake. I’m sorry. Let it go,” he said. He turned to Starr. “Sam borrowed my jack stands this morning and I forgot. I couldn’t sleep, so I came over to mess with my car. Tinkering settles me down.”
He took a deep breath. “I wanted to check the muffler. I jacked her up, made sure the jack was set, slipped under, and . . . I heard footsteps.”
I interrupted. “What kind of footsteps?”
“Good question,” Starr said.
Lavender closed his eyes and rubbed his fingertips across his forehead. He cocked his head, like he could hear the footsteps all over again. “Light steps, like an athlete. I called hello, no one answered. I started to slide out and the jack fell. Something popped. Someone cursed, and I smelled smoke.”
“A pop?” Harm said. “An accelerant, to speed up the fire.” He gave us a sheepish grin. “I’ve been watching detective shows, trying to pick up some skills.”
Harm’s a self-starter, like me.
Lavender continued. “That’s all. I called for help. Thank God, Mo heard me.”
Grandmother Miss Lacy shook her head. “Flick Crenshaw’s quick enough to set that fire and get out.”
“It wasn’t Flick,” Starr said. “I’ve had an eye on him since the church robbery.”
“Your stakeout,” I said, thinking back. “So Flick robbed the church?”
Starr shrugged. “He volunteered to help search, which was out of character. Sometimes criminals return to the scene of the crime, to watch the investigation unfold. This wasn’t Flick. I’ve checked.” He stood. “Anything else?”
“I don’t know who started that fire,” Lavender said. “But I will never forget who ran into it to save me.” His gaze found Dale’s and mine. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “You are heroes to me.”
My heart opened so wide I almost fell in.
Starr headed for the door. “It’s three a.m. Get some sleep,” he said. “Lavender, I’ll send someone to watch your house soon as I can.” For some reason, Starr pointed at me. “Stay away from the crime scene. In fact, stay inside. All of you.”
