The Case of the Missing Mascot (A Sherlock Shakespeare Mystery Book 1) (12 page)

Watson put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed lightly. "It'll work out."

"Yeah."

He removed his arm. "Wanna hear about what Tanya did at the cookout?"

"Not really."

"Yeah you do."

"Fine, Wats. What did she do this time?"

He started dancing around in front of me in excitement while we walked. "She dumped her entire cherry slushie on her boyfriend's head when he looked at another girl. Then she started throwing hot dogs at him until some of the parents made her leave." His eyes sparkled. "Looks like they might be broken up for good this time."

"Why is that so exciting to you?" I stopped walking, a horrifying thought setting up shop in my mind. "Don't tell me you've got a thing for her."

"Everyone has a thing for her." When he realized I wasn't still walking, he came back to me. "What? She's hot and I'm awesome. I totally have a shot."

"I know you do." That was the problem.

"Sorry. We don't have to talk about Tanya while you still don't know what's going on with Tom."

I started walking again. "Oh, I know what's going on. I'm pretty sure I broke up with him tonight."

"Don't yell at me or anything for saying this, but since when has Tom ever let you break up with him?"

He had a point. "Probably since I decided he didn't get to own me."

Watson chased after me, pestering me for details, but I didn't feel like rehashing it. It wasn't like he'd have to wait long to find out anyway. I'm sure Tom had called several of his pals to let them know how horrible I was. He was probably already trying to line up a sure thing for after the dance.

It didn't matter. Tom could sleep with every hot girl between here and Austin if that's what he wanted. Not my problem.

I had a mascot to find.

Don't get me wrong; the way people were freaking out about a missing pig was still totally stupid. I'd just never needed a distraction from life like I did right now. Drew hated me, Jamie was insane, Tom would never let me end things with him without some sort of a scene and now there was a chance my brother was going to hook up with the one girl at the school I couldn't stand. Oh, and I was potentially schizophrenic or something.

Sad as it was, finding that damn pig was the only normal thing in my life right now.

Thursday was basically the worst day ever. From the moment I stepped foot on school grounds, everyone seemed to be looking at me and whispering. As predicted, Tom had called his remaining high school buddies to fill them in on what a terrible girlfriend I was. Yeah, girlfriend. I didn't get to be free until he said so.

And no, I wasn't just being paranoid. When I was in the restroom between second and third period, I heard a group of underclassmen gossiping about how they would worship the ground the former quarterback walked on if they were lucky enough to be his girlfriend. I knew that I should wait in the stall until they left, but that was something Doormat Sherlock would do.

Instead, I left the stall and walked through the middle of the now silent group to get to the sink. When I was done washing my hands, I turned back to them and said, "Maybe you should tell Tom that when he's here for the game tomorrow night. See how much you enjoy being cheated on and controlled by that arrogant asshole."

While it felt good to say something instead of continuing to pretend I didn't notice anything, it wasn't the smart thing to do. Before the door could close behind me, the girls started gossiping again. "I don't get why he's with her. She's not even pretty."

I probably could've done without hearing that.

Lunch usually wasn't so bad because I always sat with Drew and having him with me was like a shield against all the petty high school crap. Today, however, he walked right by me without so much as a glance and went to sit with Tanya and the other cheerleaders. That appeared to be the signal they'd been waiting for and they all started flashing dirty looks my way.

Whatever. I removed my phone from my pocket and tried Jamie. She was a no-show for school again today. When her cell went straight to voicemail, I tried the landline. Her mother always picked up if she was home, regardless of how many telemarketers called.

"She's got some kind of a bug, Sherlock. I'm sure she'll be back on Monday."

"Oh. Should I pick up her assignments and bring them over after school?"

"She's already made arrangements with all her teachers."

"I could come over anyway."

"I wouldn't." Jamie's mother lowered her voice. "She's barely coming out of her room right now. You'd just spend the afternoon trying to talk to her through the door." After a pause, she added, "You're a good friend."

Yeah. Tell that to Drew.

After I'd put away my phone, I pulled a random textbook out of my bag and resigned myself to studying whichever subject it was until lunch was over. And, of course, to carry on the day's streak of amazing luck, I pulled out my econ book instead of history or literature or anything I'd actually want to read. Oh well, it was the subject I needed to study for if I didn't want to end up repeating it next semester.

I was about a page into the evils of applying ceilings and floors to supply and demand when someone pulled out the chair across from me. I looked up expectantly, hoping it was Drew. No such luck.

"What do you want, Ricardo?"

He leaned forward in the chair and grinned. "Why, I'm here to keep up the pretense of pursuing you now that shit with Encyclopedia Brown finally hit the fan."

I sighed and closed my textbook. He wasn't Drew, but he was still a shield of sorts. "And should I be on board with this or annoyed as usual? You saved my life, so letting you call this one is the least I can do."

Ricardo reached across the table and covered one of my hands with his. "It really depends on whether you want the spies to report back to your man that you're considering hooking up with someone else the very next day after a big fight. I can spin it to my advantage either way."

Ugh. The spies. It would serve Tom right to think I'd already moved on, but we still hadn't technically broken up. Since I didn't want to deal with the fallout that would come if the rest of the school thought I was now cheating on the sainted Tom Brown, I pulled my hand away.

"Good call." He leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out under the table, again forcing me to fold my legs up into the chair. "You'll understand if I don't leave yet. Can't look affected by being shot down, you know."

"It's fine. Economics was boring anyway."

"That's why I rarely go to it."

Come to think of it, this might be the first time I'd ever seen Ricardo in the cafeteria. "Don't you usually go off campus for lunch?"

He shrugged. "I've got a test next period. Thought I'd take it. Besides, it's sad times right now."

"Right. Because your hangout burned down the other day."

"That. And my supplier was trapped in the bathroom when it happened."

"Is he okay?"

"Nope." His gaze went far away for a moment before focusing back on me. "Thing is, it could've been me. I was supposed to meet him there, but got caught up dealing with a call from Keek."

Right, the fire. Since the guy who'd died hadn't been anyone I'd known from school or around town, I'd pretty much forgotten about it already. "Um, how is, uh... Kiki?"

He rolled his eyes. "She's still on the warpath because I'm not into public displays as much as she is."

Briefly, I wondered whether he was calling Kiki a girl because that's how Kiki thought of himself or if it was just part of the cover. Probably both, if I had to guess. "Being someone's secret would be hard on anyone, Ricardo."

"You know, my friends call me Card."

"Oh. Are we friends?"

"Better or worse, you're in the inner circle now." He cleared his throat and changed the subject abruptly. "How's the investigation going? Save Homecoming yet?"

"Almost. I'm pretty sure Francois LePort is planning to serve Champers to the governor for dinner on Saturday night." I leaned forward, glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear me and filled him in on what happened at the bookstore last night—minus the Tom part.

He looked skeptical. "Gourmet chefs serve pork all the time. That lead is flimsy as shit."

"On the surface, yeah, but he was up at Karmic on Friday afternoon threatening Irene because she got his meat supplier shut down. Turns out, you can't just buy suckling pig at the grocery store."

"But our mascot is supposed to be a different kind of pig, right?"

"Teacup, yeah. I did some research when I got home last night and a teacup pig with an apple stuffed in his mouth could pass for a suckling pig in a pinch. Suckling pigs are supposed to be less than twenty pounds. Teacups are usually less than twenty-nine pounds. From what I remember of the picture they sent out of Champers, he was on the scrawny side." I leaned in even closer. "Card, he could pass."

"Would he taste the same?"

"How would I know? We don't eat a lot of suckling pigs at my house. I guess with the right spices and strong enough pre-dinner cocktails it would probably be close enough."

"Eh... okay. Call in the five-oh yet?"

"Please." I slouched back in my seat. "I've already been wrong twice before. And in case you haven't noticed, Tom made sure I'm the school's favorite outcast right now. I can't afford to be wrong. I'm not looping the police in until I've got hard proof."

"Tell me you aren't planning to break into his house. You're pretty bad at this whole detective thing, you know."

"Yes, I'm aware." Why did everyone feel the need to tell me what a terrible detective I was? I already knew it, but that didn't make me wrong this time.
 

He grew uneasy. "You need to listen to me. LePort's not the kind of guy you want to be alone with. He's not a good guy when he's sober, but when he's hittin' the bottle..."

"I don't have to break in. He's interviewing waiters at three. I can slip in with everyone and snoop around while he's busy with someone else."

"This is going to be a disaster."

"Probably. Still better than letting him butcher our mascot." I let out a sigh. "Besides, I need a distraction today."

"Naw, you just need to change the narrative."

"Huh?"

"Get everyone talking about someone else." An oily grin spilled over his lips. "Slap me and storm out of here. Problem solved."

What? How did that solve anything? "I'm not going to slap you."

"Yeah you will. You slap me and suddenly you stop being the evil girlfriend and start being the girl fending off advances from other guys out of respect for her man."

He had a point. "This is stupid."

Ricardo shrugged. "Look, everyone can be talking about you for the rest of the week or they can be talking about what a perv I am." He shrugged one shoulder. "I could use a little special attention this week."

"You're nuts."

"Yeah, now you're getting it. Tell people you slapped me because I was trying to get you to gargle my nuts."

"Why would you even say something like that?" Now that he was being gross, I was starting to warm to the idea, whether it offered me any sort of protection from Tom's friends or not.

"You think exceptional dirty minds just happen? They take work." He reached across the table and grabbed my arm. In a louder voice, he said, "You wanna get outta here and get things started or what?"

My hand connected with his face on reflex. If we hadn't been talking about it moments before, I might've sat there stunned, but I snapped myself out of it quickly and gathered up my things. "I said no," I yelled, even though the cafeteria was as quiet as a library, and stormed out just as he'd told me to.

I heard him call me a vicious bitch as I was walking away, but I also heard the hidden smile in his voice.

As soon as the last bell rang, I was out of my seat and dumping as much of the stuff from my backpack into my locker as possible. The last thing I wanted to do was get to LePort's house and have to rummage around for something to carry Champers in if I found him. I'd already tried the totally unprepared thing a few times during this investigation, so it was time to change tactics.