The Girl Is Murder (10 page)

“Psst … Iris. Over here.”

I followed the sound and found Pearl near the girls’ bathroom. She waved me in and, once I was safely inside, blocked the door with her body.

“I’m supposed to go to the office,” I said.

“You’re kidding, right? I sent the note.”

That’s right. It was her study hall, when she worked in the attendance office. “You can do that?”

“Apparently so. It’s my first time abusing my power.” She beamed with the jolt of having done something forbidden. I would’ve been happy for her if I hadn’t convinced myself the note meant something horrible had happened.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

“Your pop was here.”

“At school?” She nodded. “How do you know?”

“Paul told me. He saw him right before lunch. He said he was trying to talk to the Rainbows.”

How come I hadn’t seen him? Probably because he didn’t want to be seen by me.

“Do you think it has something to do with Tom Barney?” asked Pearl.

“I don’t know.” I was so dumbstruck that Pop had been at the school that I didn’t know how to respond. Was he checking up on me? It wasn’t possible. The only friends I’d mentioned to him were Paul and Pearl.

“Anyway, I thought you should know.”

“How’d Paul know it was him?”

“Paul remembered seeing him the night we went to the Jive Hive.” It was the prosthetic that had given him away. Try as he might to hide it, Pop’s limp was the first thing you noticed about him. “Paul asked me if he was a cop, because I guess the Rainbows thought that was the case. And I told him, no, he’s a private detective, and that you sometimes help him out. He was pretty impressed by that.”

“What would my pop want with the Rainbows?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

We waited out the period in the restroom, testing out theories of why Pop was there. When the bell rang, I grabbed my things and headed home. I was dying to find out what he was up to, but it looked like any fact-finding was going to have to wait. Pop was in the office with the door closed when I arrived home. And he wasn’t alone.

Through the vent I eyeballed a man and woman. The woman’s face was long and horselike, her eyes underscored by bags so dark I would’ve thought they were makeup if it wasn’t clear she avoided the stuff on the rest of her face. Her husband was round, his face ruddy. They didn’t look like the kind of people who could afford a detective.

“Here’s the photo you asked for,” said the woman. From her pocketbook she produced a small, framed picture.

Pop took it, gave it the once-over, and set it on the desk. “And this is how he looked at the time he disappeared?”

The man and woman exchanged an indecipherable look. “Not exactly,” said the woman. “The photographer made him put on that getup. He was fit to be tied, I’ll tell you. He wanted to wear that awful zoot suit of his, but the school was having none of it.”

Zoot suit? So Pop
had
been to school because of Tom. And these must be his parents.

The man I believed to be Mr. Barney looked at Pop through lowered lids; now that I knew who he was, I saw the resemblance between him and his son. “Did you have any luck today?”

“I talked to a few of his friends and got access to his locker. Does the address 240 Houston Street mean anything to you?”

“No,” said the woman. “Why?”

“Someone left a note in his locker with that address.
If you’re serious, meet me at 240 Houston Street #7D at 4:00.
It’s something to follow up on, anyway,” said Pop.

“And how much is that going to cost me?” asked Mr. Barney.

“Frank!” said his wife.

“This is ridiculous, Louise. You know it and I know it. The no-good kid has run off.”

“But he wouldn’t do that. Not our Tom.”

Mr. Barney shook his head. “He hasn’t been our Tom for a while.”

“He was always such a good boy. Never gave us trouble. And then two years ago he got these new friends and suddenly he was talking back, breaking curfew, and going to those … places.”

Mr. Barney leaned toward Pop. “Negro clubs.”

“He said they went there to dance. They liked the music. In any case, we didn’t approve,” said Mrs. Barney. “Those are dangerous places. We’ve heard stories.”

“Drugs. Drinking,” said Mr. Barney.

“You didn’t tell me he’d been arrested for stealing,” said Pop.

Mr. and Mrs. Barney exchanged another look. “It wasn’t his fault. He was forced into it.”

“Louise—” said Mr. Barney.

“You know it’s true. Tom’s not a thief.”

“According to the school secretary, he admitted it,” said Pop. “And spent a week at a detention center. I’m surprised he wasn’t expelled.”

The Barneys exchanged a look. Even from my vantage I could read it: they’d begged the school to take him back.

“How were things at home after that?” asked Pop.

“How do you think?” said Mr. Barney. “I let him know that that was the last straw. I wasn’t fixing things for him anymore. One more mistake and he was out of our house for good.”

Pop’s chair squeaked as he leaned back in it. “Then isn’t it possible that’s what happened here? He made a mistake and took off, knowing he wouldn’t be welcomed home?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying since the beginning,” said Mr. Barney. “The kid screwed up and didn’t want to pay the piper.”

“He wouldn’t run away. He wouldn’t do that to me,” said Mrs. Barney.

But he had run away before, if what I’d overheard Suze say was accurate.

“I think we’re done here,” said Mr. Barney. His chair creaked as he started to stand.

Mrs. Barney grabbed onto him and pulled him down. “Please, Frank—we need to find him. I can’t take another month of this. If something’s happened to him, if someone’s hurt him, we need to know that.”

“Okay, okay—stop with the tears already.” Mr. Barney passed his wife his handkerchief. “What did those kids he hangs out with tell you?”

“Not much,” said Pop. “They’re scared. They’re terrified they’re going to get into trouble.”

“This isn’t about them!” Mrs. Barney’s voice rose into a shriek. I jumped at the sound, accidentally rattling the door vent. They all looked my way. Slowly, so as not to make any other noise, I backed away from the door and prepared to bolt. “I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Barney. “I forgot myself. It just seems to me that if they’re his friends, they’d want to help.”

“Don’t give up hope,” said Pop. “They have to know that Tom’s disappearance is going to bring them under close scrutiny. And they’ll eventually realize how much more suspicious their silence makes them seem.”

Would they? It seemed to me that they’d never talk to Pop unless they trusted him, and that wasn’t going to happen. He was an adult, after all.

Which was precisely why he needed my help. There was nothing dangerous about roaming the school halls and trying to find out what the scoop on Tom was. And I was bound to be loads more successful at it than Pop. I was innocuous and supposed to be there. He stood out like a lion in a den of cubs.

“I’ve only been on the job a week. Time has a way of working in our favor in cases like these,” said Pop. “Eventually, one of them is going to make a mistake and lead us to your son. You can count on it.”

“And what do we do until then?” asked Mrs. Barney.

“We wait,” said Pop.

THE BARNEYS LEFT TEN MINUTES LATER. By then I’d planted myself on the sofa and was humming with so much excitement that my legs were vibrating.

Pop walked them to the door and then turned to face me. “You’re home.”

“Only for a few minutes.” I could tell he was trying to analyze what sort of mood I was in. I decided to play it cool. Not cold, but clearly not interested in anything he might’ve been up to, either. If he was going to let me work on Tom’s case, it needed to be his idea.

“How was your day?”

“A little strange. A boy’s gone missing and it’s all anyone’s talking about.” I picked up the radio guide and flipped through it like I was looking for something more interesting to entertain myself with. “I heard you were at school today,” I said.

“How’d you hear that?”

“Paul saw you. He remembered you from the night you walked me to his house.” I deliberated how to play the next part. I could mention Tom by name, or I could let Pop introduce the topic. The latter made more sense to me. “Am I in trouble or something?”

He seemed surprised at the question. And a little relieved. “No. There was some paperwork they needed. Records from Chapin. I thought it would be easier to bring it over in person.”

“Oh.” To say I was disappointed was like saying Frank Sinatra was okay-looking. Seriously? He expected me to believe that lie? “New clients?”

“Old clients come for a follow-up.”

I ground my teeth. My previous attempt to thaw failed and I could feel the ice returning to my spine and shoulders.

He thumped his fingers on the fireplace mantel. “Are you all right?”

I offered him a tight, false smile. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He didn’t join us for dinner that night.

I WAS SO STEAMED I was willing to let Pop flounder on the case. Let him hit a dead end and tell the Barneys they had to take their business elsewhere. But as the evening wore on and reality set in, I knew he couldn’t afford another failure. My pride wasn’t worth us missing another month’s rent. He wasn’t going to ask me for my help—I had to accept that. After telling me to stay out of the business before, he couldn’t go back and tell me he’d changed his mind. After all, it had to have hurt his pride to need his fifteen-year-old daughter’s assistance. But what if I were to do a little work on my own, just to see if there was anything worthwhile to be found?

Things looked slightly more fraught in the light of the next day. It was all well and good to say I was going to investigate Tom’s disappearance, but how did I expect to pull it off? A normal girl would’ve just put her ear to the ground and asked her friends for the scoop, but I was an outsider. How on earth could I expect a bunch of cool cats who’d barely looked my way to confide in me? Sure, there was Suze, who’d at least talked to me, but even she was bound to get suspicious if I went up to her and started quizzing her about Tom.

Especially if she put two and two together and realized that the private eye who’d been interrogating the Rainbows was the father I claimed was still at war.

CHAPTER

7

I SPENT MOST OF THAT first morning trying to come up with a plan of attack. By lunch I had … nothing. I was desperately unprepared.

“What’s eating you?” asked Pearl.

“Tom Barney’s parents came to see my pop yesterday.”

Her eyes grew enormous behind her Coke-bottle lenses. She set down the cookie she was about to devour and gave me her complete attention. I let it all out then—well, most of it. I didn’t tell her that I was looking into things without Pop’s blessing. Or how worried I was about money. Instead, I focused on how ill-equipped Pop was to find out anything from the Rainbows. She waited until I was done before responding.

“So that’s why he was here yesterday. You are so lucky.”

“Lucky or not, I don’t know how to find out any more than what we already know.”

“Your sources are right there.” She jerked her head toward where the Rainbows were sitting.

“Sure, I’ll just go up to them and ask where Tom is.”

“You said Suze talked to you once before, right?” I nodded. It was twice, actually, but who was counting? “So see if you can’t get her to do it again.”

I thought about it for a minute. Pop said that one of the reasons I screwed up the Wilson case was I didn’t stay invisible. Pop knew how to charm information out of people—he did it all the time. It was all about ingratiating yourself to them. You had to make them want to tell you stuff.

Asking about Tom straight out would definitely tip my hand, but that didn’t mean that Suze couldn’t be a way to get information. She’d been nice to me because of our connection—both of us were suffering the agonizing uncertainty of having loved ones off to war, or so she thought. I could ask her about Bill again, but coming out of the blue that might seem strange. No, if I was going to get her to talk to me, it had to be because
I
had received some news.

It was, in many ways, the perfect setup. After all, I’d been pulled out of typing class the day before. As far as anyone knew, the news could’ve been delivered then.

I didn’t tell Pearl my scheme. I didn’t want to admit that the tenuous connection I had with Suze was built on a big fat lie. And I certainly didn’t want my one friend to know that I was about to play on Suze’s sympathy by claiming that I had bad news about Pop.

Fortunately, Pearl had to leave before the lunch period ended.

“I’ll find out if there’s any other talk in the attendance office,” she told me as she packed up the cookie she still hadn’t eaten. “Meet me after school on the steps.”

“Sure.”

As Pearl exited, Suze, Rhona, and a third girl headed for the girls’ restroom. The hot lunch that day was liver and onions—the liver was cold in the middle, and the onions hadn’t been cooked at all. I’d pushed the onions to the side when I ate, having no desire to eat them raw and reek of them all afternoon. When the girls made their exit, I shoved the onions into my napkin and gently blotted the gravy from them. Once they were more white than brown, I squeezed them until their juice oozed through my fingers. Just in case anyone was watching, I feigned dropping something under the table, and when I bent down to pick it up, I pressed my onion-soaked fingers against the corners of my eyes.

I hadn’t been prepared for the stinging. Or for the smell.

The onions worked their magic, though. Instantly, I had a face full of tears. I picked up my things, clutched a napkin to my cheek, and entered the girls’ bathroom.

All three girls were smoking. The cigarette smoke combined with the onion fumes was pure agony.

“Oh, sorry,” I said between tears that had progressed from pretend to real. “Is it all right if I … ?”

Rhona shrugged. The girl I didn’t know exhaled a plume of smoke. Suze said, “Go on, baby.”