The Red Blazer Girls (23 page)

Robert is at the security desk, immersed in
Marie Claire
.

“Does he ever go home?” I whisper unnecessarily.

“Morning, ladies. Got something for one of you.”

“Oh, good, you found it.”

Robert stares blankly at me. “Found it? Didn't find anything. This is from Mr. Winterbottom. For a … Sophie St. Pierre. That you?”

“Yes, that's me,” I say, utterly baffled. “But what about my bag?”

“Don't know nuthin' about a bag. Was told to give you this when you showed up, so here you go.”

I open the envelope. Inside is a note, printed in large, blocky letters.

That's it?

Margaret reads it, frowning. “Why didn't he just leave the bag here?”

“Did he happen to say anything about what he wanted?” I ask.

“Nope. Handed me the envelope and told me to give it to you as soon as you got here. Said you'd be in early.” He turns back to “Ten Things He'll Never Tell You About His Past!”

Margaret peers through the doors that separate the
foyer from the nave of the church. Construction workers are setting up ladders, portable lights, and other equipment, and covering the pews on the left side of the church with acres of drop cloths.

The security guard shakes his head. “Can't let you inside, girls. We'll only be open for a few hours today, two o'clock to five o'clock. They're going to be doing some work on the ceiling. Only the chapel down the hall here is open.”

“I don't care what the letter says; I'm going with you,” asserts Margaret. We march out the door and up the stairs to the rectory, where we pause to collect ourselves.

“Maybe he just wants to warn me about Malcolm.” I press the buzzer.

A few seconds later, Mr. Winterbottom's unnaturally tanned face appears behind the door. He opens it partway and says, “Which one of you is St. Pierre?”

“That's me.”

“Just you.”

“Can't I wait inside?” Margaret says. “It's cold out here.”

He opens the door and lets us in, directing Margaret to the room where we had waited for Father Danahey and motioning for me to follow him to his office.

“Now then,” he says, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. “Let's get right down to brass tacks. We each have something that the other wants. I have
your bag, and you—well, you have something very special.”

“Look, Mr. Winterbottom, I swear I didn't take those candlesticks, if that's what you're talking about.”

“We'll get to those in a minute. I'm much more interested in some information that you have and that I
need
.”

“Are you sure you have the right girl?”

“Quite sure. Sophie St. Pierre. Lovely name, by the way.”

“What kind of information?”

“Don't be coy.” He taps his ashes into an overflowing ashtray. “It concerns the whereabouts of a certain valuable item—a religious relic. One that has been hidden in the church for a long time—twenty years, to be precise.”

Jeez. How does
he
know this? “Look, I'm not admitting anything, but even if I knew anything about this thing you're talking about, why would I tell
you
about it? What's in it for me? I get my bag back? Big deal. I'm willing to take a chance that I can get new books and that L.L.Bean has a few more backpacks just like that one.”

Mr. Winterbottom takes a long puff from his cigarette and stares right back at me, with his version of a smirkle slowly pulling half of his mouth upward. Then he theatrically sets the cigarette in the ashtray and applauds me. “Bravo. Outstanding performance, Miss St. Pierre,
truly. Really, I do admire your—dare I say it—your chutzpah, but it's not quite as simple as you think. You see, there is the matter of the candlesticks.”

“What about them? We already told Father Danahey we didn't have anything to do with them. And he believed us.” And that's when I notice his cigarettes. Short and stubby, homemade-looking things. Just like the one I'd seen burning in the ashtray at Ms. Harriman's.

“Then perhaps you would like to explain what they are doing in your backpack, which I discovered under the altar table—not five feet from where they disappeared.” He reaches under his desk and pulls out my bag, unzipping it just enough to reveal the tops of two wooden candlesticks.

“Hey, wait a minute.” I stand up, protesting. “That's not—”

“Fair?
Is that what you were going to say? Look, I'm going to make this real simple. You have twenty-four hours. Tomorrow morning at seven o'clock sharp, you are going to meet me at the church, alone. We will have half an hour before the workers start; you're going to retrieve this item for me and then we're going to make a little trade. If you don't show up, I take the bag to Father Danahey, and thanks to your little friend's embarrassing disclosure of your past—well, I'm sure you can guess the rest. And oh, I almost forgot to mention the missing statue of St. Andrew—the very one
you seemed so interested in the other day. I wonder when that will turn up.”

Oh, he is good
.

“One question. What makes you so sure that we know where the, uh, this thing is?” I know the answer, of course; I just want to see if he'll admit it. Winnie has been spying for
him
all along, not Malcolm. But why—what is the connection between those two?

Unlike all those crooks on TV who always explain everything, though, he simply escorts me out to the front door, where Margaret stands waiting.

“Is everything all right? You look a little pale. And where's your bag?”

“Oh, she'll be fine. She just needs a little fresh air.” He blows some smoke our way for emphasis. “Good day, girls. I'll be seeing you soon.
Very
soon. Toodle-oo.”

Outside, Margaret takes me by the arm and leads me down the steps and around the corner to Perkatory. She doesn't say anything until we sit down.

“Okay spill it!”

“I'm so sorry, Margaret.” I fight back tears and can't look her in the eyes.

She takes my hand. “Sophie St. Pierre, what are you talking about? What happened in there?”

“It was
him
in the church last night, not Malcolm. He knows about the ring. Winnie has been spying for him. He says that I have to help him find it at seven o'clock tomorrow morning, or he'll take my bag to Father
Danahey. And guess what ended up in my bag? Those missing candlesticks. And the missing statue that Father Danahey mentioned? It just happens to be the one I asked Winterbottom about while you were looking at the Christmas stuff. He's gonna say that he found the bag under the table, and they were all in it.”

“And you think Father Danahey's going to believe that you stole those things?”

“Admit it, Margaret, it looks pretty bad. My word against the word of the church deacon. Who would
you
believe? And now that Danahey knows about my, um, past, if Winterbottom takes him that bag, I'm toast.”

“Then we're a pair of… toast. We're in this together, Sophie, especially since it's my own stupid fault that anyone even knows about that silly St. Christopher medal. But there's no way we're handing that ring over to that sleazeball. There has to be another way. You know, I can't believe he turned out to be so … scummy. Don't you think it might be best to go straight to Father Danahey, like right now, and tell him what happened? How would Winterbottom explain your meeting?”

“Father Danahey's not there today. I overheard him last night talking to Father Julian. He's going to Pittsburgh or someplace to see his sister. He'll be gone until Monday.”

“Hmmm. I have to think.” She puts her hands over her ears, and a minute passes. Finally, she speaks. “We'll just have to get the ring out of there
today
.”

I shake my head. “Impossible. Winterbottom, the security guard, the construction workers, Malcolm, Father Julian, and all the other priests. There is no way we can go in there without getting caught.”

“Nothing is impossible. We need some help—and I think I know just the person to ask.”

It is all I can do to keep from laying my head on the table and sobbing. “Who?”

“Malcolm Chance.”

I stare at her. “An hour ago you thought he was the enemy.”

“I was wrong. He can help us. Remember, he has the ‘backstage pass’ to the church.”

“I'm sure he
could
help us, but why
would
he?”

“Well, for one thing, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't want Mr. Winterbottom to have the ring any more than we do.”

Good point. “But how is Malcolm ending up with the ring any better than Winterbottom? Isn't one just as bad as the other?”

“It's entirely possible that we have misjudged Malcolm. Think about it. Has he really ever done anything to us? Sure, his ex-wife doesn't care much for him, but how many people out there go around saying nice things about their exes? Don't get me wrong; I like Elizabeth, but she
is
a bit batty.”

Margaret's plan to join forces with Malcolm has another element: we can play the “family card.” Her
theory is that the ring truly belongs not to him, not to Ms. Harriman, but to Caroline, their daughter. After all, it
was
her birthday present.

I have my doubts about the plan, but I know I only have two choices: make nice to Malcolm or pack my bag for juvie hall.

And so my fate lies in the hands of the unlikely duo of Margaret Wrobel and Malcolm Chance. First, we go online in the library and find his office number at Columbia. Margaret leaves him a message to call her cell phone, and we cross our fingers and head back down to the cafeteria.

Leigh Ann, her perky little self, is studying for a vocabulary quiz with Rebecca. I spin around and try to head back upstairs to our locker, but Margaret won't let me.

“I know it's rude,” I admit, “but I already have too much on my mind to deal with
her
.”

“Soph, we're going to need her help tonight, so you're going to
have
to deal. Let's just get through this ordeal and the banquet Friday night, then we'll figure it all out.”

I plonk myself down on the chair and sigh deeply.

Rebecca yanks her thumb at me. “What's
her
problem?”

“You okay, Sophie?” asks Leigh Ann.

Why does she always have to be so damn nice?

“She's had a rough twenty-four hours,” Margaret says. “We kind of got busted in the church last night, and now her book bag is being held for ransom.”

“What?!”

When Margaret gets to the end of our whole sordid tale, Rebecca says, “Man, you guys are my heroes. What are you gonna do?”

“What
we're
going to do,” says Margaret, “is get the ring
tonight
, assuming that we get Malcolm to help.”

“How do you know this Malcolm guy's not going to scam you?” Rebecca says.

“Look, Sophie's future is at stake here, and I made things worse when I opened my
grande bouche
about that stupid St. Christopher medal. So either we get Malcolm to help or we break in after hours without him. If we got caught doing that—”

Leigh Ann whistles. “We'd be expelled for sure.”

“You guys
are
coming with us tonight,” says Margaret, very matter-of-factly. “That table weighs a ton. Before you say anything, Rebecca, I will talk to your mom.”

“What! No way.”

“I'm serious. I'll tell her the truth—that we're helping out a woman in the parish.”

“And what are you gonna say we're doing for this lady?”

“That we're helping her … look for something important. C'mon, Rebecca, trust me. It'll work.”

“Look, I know you're Miss Goody Two-shoes and all, but my mom doesn't know that. I just … oh, fine! I'll come!”

Behold the power of peer pressure.

Margaret's phone rings in the middle of Mr. Eliot's class, just after he asks me to describe some of the changes Pip undergoes during his first few months in London. She lunges for it, knocking her books off the desk in the process.

“My, isn't
this
an interesting development? You know, Miss Wrobel, I'm under strict orders from Sister Bernadette to confiscate cell phones that are used during school hours.” He holds out his palm.