Spyhole Secrets (12 page)

S
o that was that, Hallie thought. The Crestman story was over, and it looked as if she would never know how it ended. For a week or two she thought about it a lot. Every night she went through
The Irvington Times
very carefully, at least the pages that had local stuff like fires and accidents and neighborhood feuds, looking for any mention of the Crestman name, but without any luck. And once or twice a week she made a quick trip to the attic to see if anything had changed in the apartment, but nothing ever had. No sign of the Crestmans, and nothing new that would mean that a different family was moving in.

As time went by she found that she wasn’t thinking about the Crestmans as much, but now and then she still wondered whether the beautiful Rapunzel/Tiffany ever got to see her boyfriend, Tony, again. And whether funny little Zachary was still
studying about psychiatry and pretending to be a witch doctor.

Now and then she seriously considered telling her mother about the Crestmans. She really wished she could get Mom’s opinion on whether or not she should have done something more drastic when she’d seen that gun just before the Crestmans disappeared. Whether she should have called 911 or even the police. But there were other times when she was sure that all Mom would do was freak out over the fact that Hallie had spent all that time in the attic when she knew what might have happened if Mrs. Crowley found out about it. And it really did seem as if it would be too bad to dump the attic problem on Mom right now, just when she was painting again and beginning to seem more like her old self.

After a while Hallie even began to think about the possibility of telling Katlyn a little bit about the Crestmans. Not mentioning the spyhole, of course, just making it into a kind of story. Katlyn loved sad, romantic stuff almost as much as Marty used to. Hallie had found that out when she’d mentioned that her dad had been in the big freeway accident, and something about Katlyn’s reaction made her go on talking—and on and on and on. Right while she was babbling away, Hallie had been sure she would be sorry afterward, but for some reason she wasn’t.

Hallie was sure the Crestmans would be another story that Katlyn would really get into. She hadn’t decided just how much to tell, but she had begun to seriously consider how to bring the subject up the next time she went to Katlyn’s house to do homework and play computer games.

On a Saturday morning almost a month after the Crestmans disappeared, Katlyn called and asked Hallie to meet her at Weatherby Park to go skating instead of coming to her house. Hallie’s mom was going to be at an art gallery most of the day, so it would be good to have someplace to go, but Hallie was surprised and a little bit disappointed about the park idea. She really liked Katlyn’s parents and their house, a big old Victorian with a large yard and all kinds of pets. Being at the McKnights’ was a little bit like being back in Bloomfield.

“How come skating, all of a sudden?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Katlyn said. “It’s just such a nice day and you said you used to like skating before … before you moved to Irvington.” She paused for a moment before she went on to ask in a sympathetic tone of voice, “You still have skates, don’t you?”

Katlyn had this thing about how poor Hallie and her mother were nowadays. She liked to ask about it, and the weird thing was that Hallie didn’t mind answering. She didn’t know why, except that you could
tell that Katlyn wasn’t gloating or even feeling sorry for you when she asked that kind of thing. It was more as if she kind of admired Hallie, envied her almost, for having such an excitingly miserable life. She even liked visiting Hallie at the cell block, where she really got into pretending she was one of the poor maidservants who used to live there.

“Just imagine what it was like for them,” Katlyn would say. “Having to work hard all day scrubbing floors and waiting on people, and having no place to call their own except one little dark room.” That was Katlyn McKnight for you; she just couldn’t help enjoying a good tragedy.

But this time Hallie didn’t have any tearjerker story to share with her, since she still had her old inline skates and they still fit pretty well. “Yeah, I still have them,” she said. “Where do you want to meet? At your house?”

“At the park,” Katlyn said. “Right there by the duck pond. You remember how to get to the pond?”

Weatherby Park was in the really nice part of Irvington, a long way from Warwick Avenue but not too far from Katlyn’s house. If you stayed on the number four bus that went past the McKnights’ you went right on up to the park. “Sure,” Hallie said. “I remember.”

So that was how it happened that Hallie Meredith was walking up the path to the Weatherby Park duck pond at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, carrying
her skates by their long laces over one shoulder and a backpack over the other.

She was almost to the first duck-watching bench when a familiar, high-pitched voice said, “Hey, Hallie. Hallie Meredith.” And there above the path, sitting cross-legged on a big flat rock, was Zachary Crestman. Hallie couldn’t believe it. What she especially couldn’t believe was how glad she was to see him.

“Wow,” she said, kind of brain-dead with surprise. “Wow. How did you get here?”

Zachary slid down off the rock and turned around to reach back up for his backpack. Then he bounced down the slope to the path and said, “I walked. How did you get here?”

Hallie stared at him. There he was, looking pretty much like always, the same sharp-edged face, laser-beam brown eyes, and round, fuzzy head. She surprised herself and him too by grabbing his shoulders and giving him a shake that was almost a hug. When that was over she just went on standing there grinning at him. After a while he grinned back briefly before he repeated, “How did you get here?”

“Wow,” Hallie said. “You really want to know how I got here, don’t you? Okay. I flew, maybe, or …” She held up her skates. “Or skated. Yeah, maybe I skated all the way from Warwick Avenue.” He just went on staring at her, waiting. When Zachary Crestman asked a question he wanted a straight answer.

“Okay, the truth,” Hallie said. “On the bus. And you really walked? Where from? Where do you live now?”

Zachary pointed back toward the entrance to the park. “That way,” he said. “Up there at our house on Alderman.” His grin got wider. “We live at home now. All of us.”

“At home?”

He nodded. “Where we used to live before my mom and dad started getting divorced. Only they’ve stopped now.”

“Stopped what?” Hallie didn’t get it.

“Divorcing.” Zachary sounded impatient, as if he couldn’t see why Hallie was looking so puzzled. “Dad’s lawyer got…” He stopped and looked around at the people who were walking past them on both sides. The path was getting crowded. “Come on,” he said, lowering his voice. “Let’s go back up on my rock.”

After they’d climbed up the slope and onto the rocky ledge, Zachary went on with what he was saying. “My dad’s lawyer retired and Mom’s …” He stopped to look at Hallie. “You know, the one my dad hit that time when they wrote about us in the paper?”

Hallie nodded and he went on, “Okay. That lawyer moved to Australia, so the divorce kind of just-stopped happening.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Hallie said. So that was what had been going on. Zachary’s father had been living
in the Towers apartment because he was getting a divorce and Zachary and his sister were … “I get it,” she said. “That’s why you weren’t there very much. Sometimes you lived with your mother, right?”

“Yes, sometimes I lived at home with my mother.” Zachary’s eyes had a faraway look and he was sounding preoccupied, and Hallie found herself staring off into space too. She didn’t know what Zachary was thinking about, but what she was thinking was what a lot of time she’d wasted worrying about the whole bunch of them. So there really hadn’t been any murder, and if Zachary’s father was kind of hard to get along with at times it was probably because he was unhappy about the divorce. There hadn’t been any reason to worry at all, except… What about the gun?

“But what about the gun?” she asked Zachary.

“What gun?”

“You know, I asked you if there was a gun at your house and you said—”

“There wasn’t one,” Zachary said. “I told you there wasn’t one.”

“Yeah, you did,” Hallie said. “Okay. But what…” She grabbed Zachary’s shoulder and turned him around to face her. “Listen,” she said. “What was it your dad kept in a big drawer in the dining room sideboard? You know, in his apartment.”

“A big drawer?” Zachary asked. “In the dining room?”

Hallie nodded and for a long time Zachary nodded
too, before he said, “Papers I think, and pens. Things like that except…” His face suddenly lit up. “Except on my birthday. On my birthday he hid my present in that drawer.”

“Oh yeah?” Hallie asked. “When was that?”

“Last month,” Zachary said. He grinned suddenly. “The same day that we all went back home. Right after Dad gave me my present my mom called up and said for us to come over. All of us. My dad too. So we did and the next day we all moved back home.”

Hallie was beginning to get the picture. Zachary’s dad had been sitting there in his big chair and Zachary came in looking nervous, as if maybe he was wondering if his dad had forgotten his birthday, only he was sort of afraid to ask and then …

“Hey,” Hallie had a sudden brainstorm. “I’ll bet I know what your dad gave you. I’ll bet it was a toy gun. Was it?”

Zachary stared at her. “No!” he said, sounding shocked and angry. “Why would he do that? A nine-year-old person doesn’t play with toy guns.”

Hallie had never seen him so indignant, not even when he thought she’d pushed him down on the sidewalk. “Well, all right. All right. I was just asking. So what did he give you?”

It took Zachary a minute or two to calm down enough to pay attention to the question. But when he did his grin came back. Definitely a nine-year-old grin, wide and uncomplicated. “He gave me just what
I always wanted ever since I was a little kid. He gave—” He stopped suddenly, and grabbing his backpack, he opened it and started taking things out. A couple of books, a notebook, a pair of binoculars, and then something black and chunky. At one end there was a tiny keyboard and monitor screen. “He gave me this,” he said triumphantly. “An electronic notebook.”

Hallie stared at the little computer. “Here,” she said. “Let me see.” Taking it out of Zachary’s hands, she held it in her own, turning it this way and that and covering one end of it with her fingers. “Yes, maybe,” she murmured. When one end of the electronic notebook was covered, the other end sticking out of her fist did look a little like the handgrip of a pistol. At least it did if you were kind of expecting it to.

“That gun stuff,” Zachary said. “I bet you dreamed it.”

“Yeah,” Hallie said. “I guess I did.”

T
hat Saturday in Weatherby Park turned out to be full of surprises. Running into Zachary and then finding out that there hadn’t ever been a gun in the sideboard drawer was the first big surprise, but it wasn’t the only one. Hallie was still sitting right there on the rocky ledge above the duck pond, learning how to use Zachary’s electronic notebook, when he suddenly flopped over on his side and pulled his empty backpack over his head.

“What is it?” Hallie demanded, trying to pull the backpack off his head. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Down there on the path. Look!” Zachary’s voice sifting out through the canvas had a muffled sound.

“Look at what?” All she could see was a mother with a kid in a stroller, and behind her some teenagers. A tall, broad-shouldered teenage guy walking along with …
wow.
The girl was … “It’s Rapun— I mean, Tiffany.” She poked Zachary again. “It’s your sister, isn’t it?” she said.

Zachary pulled the backpack tighter over his face. “I know, I know,” he was whispering. “Keep still. Don’t talk to me. Don’t let her see me.”

Hallie was bewildered, but she quit poking Zachary and trying to talk to him. Instead she concentrated on noticing how the beautiful Tiffany looked up at her handsome boyfriend and fluttered her long dark eyelashes. And then as they walked on past how her hair gleamed in the sunlight as it slid across her shoulders and drifted on down below her waist in a sleek, shimmery curtain.

It wasn’t until Hallie whispered, “Okay. They’re gone,” that Zachary sat up and took the backpack off his head.

“Hey.” Something had just occurred to Hallie. “I thought you said Tiffany’s boyfriend had a ring in his nose. I didn’t see any ring.”

“I know,” Zachary said. “He doesn’t have one. The one with the nose ring was Tony. This one is Gary. He plays football. My dad likes this one okay.”

Hallie had to think about that for a minute before she asked, “Why were you hiding? Why didn’t you want them to see you?”

Zachary looked embarrassed. He put his books back into his backpack and started fiddling with its Velcro flaps before he answered, “Because she’s mean. Tiffany is. If she sees me when she’s with any of her boyfriends she always says I’m spying on her, even when I’m not. Like now, for instance. Then she slugs
me.” Before he went on Zachary rubbed his jaw as if he was remembering a recent slug. “Tiffany is a very good slugger.”

“Can’t you tell your parents?” Hallie asked. “Won’t they make her knock it off?”

Still rubbing his jaw, Zachary grinned. “You mean my head?”

Hallie grinned back. “No, you idiot. I meant can’t they make her stop slugging you?”

Zachary’s smile vanished suddenly. “No. I can’t do that because—” He sighed deeply. “I can’t because I’m afraid they’ll fight about it.”

“Who’ll fight?”

“My parents. My mother says it’s Tiffany’s fault and my dad says it’s mine. Then they fight about it.”

That was a real downer. She couldn’t help feeling bad about poor little Zachary having to worry all the time about giving his parents something to fight about. A hand reached out and almost patted him on his fuzzy head before Hallie realized it was hers. She jerked it back then and put it behind her, feeling sure he would resent it.

The whole thing about Tiffany’s boyfriend was kind of depressing too. Right at first Hallie didn’t know why, but after she thought for a while she said, “But Tiffany cried about Tony. Her eyes were all red and there were dark smudges around her eyes. Like bruises.”

Zachary stared at her. “How did you…,” he
started, but then he nodded and said in a very suspicious voice, “I know. In your dreams.” After a minute he shrugged and said, “Tiffany cries a lot.”

“And the bruises?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Mascara, I think. It happens when she cries.”

Hallie was amazed and confused. There was so much to think about, but before she could even really begin she heard someone calling her name. This time the caller was Katlyn. Hallie jumped off the ledge and slid down the slope to meet her.

Katlyn looked a little bit angry. “What were you doing up there?” she asked. “Didn’t you see me? I’ve skated past here twice looking for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Hallie said. “I was just really busy talking to …” She pointed up to where Zachary was still sitting. “To this little kid I used to know.” She gave Katlyn one of her best unstarching smiles, and it kind of worked. Katlyn’s frown had started to disappear when Zachary skidded down the slope and bumped into her. Katlyn skated backward and then forward trying not to fall down and when she finally got her balance again she stared at nerdy little Zachary and then at Hallie with an “I don’t believe it” look on her face.

Hallie tried to make her own smile say “Yeah I know” and also “I’ll explain later.” Then she said, “Look, Zachary. Let me see that computer notebook
for a minute.” Zachary fished it out of his backpack and Hallie punched in her phone number and the words
CALL ME MONDAY. RIGHT AFTER SCHOOL
.

When she handed it back to Zachary he read it and grinned. “Okay,” he said. “I need to find out about…” He looked at Katlyn and his voice dwindled away.

“About…?” Hallie prompted him.

He looked at Katlyn again before he punched something into his computer and held it out for Hallie to see.
YOUR DREAMS
it said on the little screen. Standing on tiptoe, he whispered in Hallie’s ear, “I still don’t believe it.” Then he bounced off down the path.

The rest of the day Hallie and Katlyn skated and ate lunch, and Hallie told Katlyn a lot about Zachary’s sad story. She didn’t mention the spyhole, though. Without actually saying so, she made it sound as if she’d just met Zachary at the library and he’d started telling her about his problems. All about his beautiful, mean sister and his father who was mean too, at least when he was feeling angry about the divorce that he and his wife were getting. And how they were back together now, and maybe it would stay that way and maybe it wouldn’t.

And that brought up how Mr. Crestman had punched his wife’s lawyer and Zachary was so embarrassed by the story that was in the paper that it made
him cry. It was Katlyn’s kind of story and before Hallie was through she could tell that Katlyn was hooked.

“The poor kid,” she kept saying. “That’s so sad. It’s such a sad story. Such a little kid having so much to worry about. We ought to do something about it. Don’t you think?”

Hallie couldn’t help grinning, at least inwardly. That was Katlyn for you. Not that she was perfect. She could be moody sometimes and even kind of bad tempered, but it was just that she was really interested in other people. All kinds of people.

“Sure,” Hallie said. “Let’s do something.”