Say It Ain't So (16 page)

“Wait—one
more
thing,” I said.

“What's that?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“Thanks for your help,” I said. I hoped she knew I meant it.

She nodded once quickly and disappeared through the front door.

Maria lived just off of Center Street, so it was easy enough to find my way home. The journey was a little perilous, especially because it was getting dark and there were a lot of cars out. Well, a lot of cars for Schwenkfelder. I pedaled as fast as I could and was home in a matter of minutes.

I pulled my bike into the garage and walked into the house.

“Lenny, where were you?” my mom asked. She was standing in the kitchen washing dishes. I guess I missed dinner.

“I left you a note,” I said. I pointed to the piece of paper stuck to the door.

“Yeah,” she said. “And what language is this in?”

“Pretty much English,” I said.

“Pretty much?” She held up the paper. My
handwriting has never been that great. And I was in sort of a rush to get to the library. She read it out loud. “It looks like it says ‘At a wedding. Phil is dead.' ”

I laughed. “Yeah, Mom. I went to a wedding after murdering some guy named Phil. Had to do it. Stupid Phil. You should have heard the stuff he was saying about you.”

She did not laugh. She saw my eye. I tried to brush it off. I mean, I tried to brush
her
off. I did not try to brush my eye off. I like my eye. For seeing and stuff.

“It obviously says ‘At the library. Phone is dead,' ” I explained, trying to look away.

“That explains why you didn't pick up,” she said. “I was nervous. And I think I had good reason! Lenny, what happened to your eye?” She grabbed me by the shoulders and peered at my face.

“Oh, this?” I said, pointing to the noninjured eye. “I was born like this. Had this guy since the very beginning. Good old right eye. Best friend of left eye. Thought you'd remember. There are plenty of pictures.”

“Did someone hit you?” she asked. “Who hit you?”

“Nobody hit me, Mom,” I said. It was such a lie.
“It was a baseball,” I said. “Just horsing around. And sorry about the confusing note. But, hey, you should be proud. Maybe I
will
be a doctor like you and dad. I already have the bad handwriting.”

“Yeah, but cardiologists are supposed to
cure
heart attacks, not cause them,” she said. “You made me really worried.” She handed me an ice pack.

Actually, it's not a pack but a frozen bear. We call him “Frosty Bear.” I really need a new ice pack one of these days. It's hard to look tough with a frozen Frosty Bear on your eye.

“You say potato, I say potahto,” I said.

“Speaking of,” she said. “I have mashed potatoes if you're hungry.”

“Mashed potahtoes,” I said.

She laughed and scooped some on a plate. There was also some chicken, and I realized that, yes, I was hungry.

“Where's Dad?” I asked.

“Working late,” she said. “He's not going to be happy when he sees this eye.”

“We'll just tell him that the other guy is much worse off,” I said. “Because when I find out who did this? He will be.”

“I thought you told me it was a baseball?” she said, peering at me.

Uh-oh. That's why I'm bad at lying. You always have to remember the lie you told, and sometimes stuff just comes out of my mouth. I tried to pretend it was a joke.

“Ha-ha,” I said. “Just kidding.” Smooth.

She gave me her skeptical mom eye, which I tried to ignore while I wolfed down my food. After I ate, I had to go up to my room to work on the case. It was no longer about just stealing signs.

It was getting personal.

I went up to my room with Frosty Bear on my eye and grabbed the phone. I put my feet up on my desk. Not sure why, but this is what detectives always do. Something about putting your feet up means being a detective. It probably helps you think. It was kind of uncomfortable. I put my feet back down. Detectives are also always smoking, but we know that's not an option. The cardiologists would murder me; plus, cigarettes are gross. I thought it would be cool to casually throw a ball up and down, but I kind of suck at catching. There was the distinct possibility I'd take an actual baseball to the other eye and end up looking like a raccoon.

So I just sat there cross-legged like a dork on my Phillies comforter and dialed the phone.

“Hello,” Mike said.

“Yeah, who dis?” I asked in a tough voice. I was
feeling pretty rattled from the punching incident, but also sort of silly.

“You called me, Lenny,” he said.

“How you know it's me?” I asked, still using the rough voice.

“Caller ID,” he said. “Also, why are you talking like that?”

“I'm your rough-talking detective,” I said. “I'm dangerous, but fair. I want just two things: justice and a cough drop.”

“You sound more like a criminal,” he said.

“Well, I ain't.”

I could almost hear his eyes rolling through the phone. “So what do you got for me, Detective?” he asked. “Anything?”

“I got all I ever needed,” I said. “A library card, a black eye, and a hunch.”

“What?” he said. “Stop talking in that weird voice and explain to me what's going on. And what do you mean a black eye?”

“Ninjas,” I said with a sigh. “It was ninjas.”

“Dude, shut up,” he said.

“It really was!” I said. “Okay, not
really
, but I thought it was. And some kid from Griffith really did punch me in the eye.”

“What?”

I told him the whole harrowing tale. I didn't exactly say Maria
saved
me, but I did have to mention that she was there. I figured it would probably come up later.

“Wow,” he said. “Ninjas.”

“And I did go to the library today and get a book about how to cheat at baseball. Pretty fascinating stuff.”

“I bet,” he said.

“And the weird thing is, someone had it out just before me.”

“Who?” he asked excitedly.

“Bonzer wouldn't tell me,” I said.

“Stupid librarian code of honor.”

“Exactly,” I said.

He sighed again. There was a lull in the conversation. I had to get down to business. I had to get down to brass tacks. Why do people get down to brass tacks? I've never even seen a brass tack. Anyway, I didn't want to ask him the hard questions. No one ever said being a detective would be easy. But I had a strong feeling Davis was framed. And an even stronger feeling who framed him. But just trying to say it was impossible. I felt a baseball-sized lump in my throat.

I took a deep breath and let it rip: “Before we
get too much further into this, I need to ask you a few questions,” I said.

“What? Who? Me?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Sure, sure,” he said. He sounded distracted. Like maybe he wanted to change the topic but couldn't figure out how to do so. I pressed on. No hard questions to start. Just easy ones. I thought it would be cool to get out a notepad to scribble ideas like detectives do, but I couldn't find one. I just promised myself I'd remember everything he said.

“Quick question that came to me,” I said. “Why do you and Hunter need signs anyway?”

“The two pitches,” Mike said. “He throws the fastball and the palmball.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know that. But if you're so good at catching everything, why don't you just get rid of the signs and block everything he throws? Then the batter would never know what's coming.”

“It's not that easy, Len,” Mike said. I could hear his voice rising. He was getting aggravated. “The two pitches are very different. The palmball is superslow and breaks a little. The fastball comes whistling in. If I don't have the glove in the right place, every pitch would smack me in the chest.”

“Or in the newts,” I said.

“Exactly. Plus, Hunter is just weird about it. He can't decide what pitch to throw and when. He totally needs me to call the game for him.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “This leads me to my next question. Why don't you guys make up a new system?”

“You don't think I've thought of that?” Mike said. “I've discussed changing our code, like, twenty times with Hunter. He refuses! Also, if you had any idea how long it took him to learn one system, you'd never ask that we make up a new one. Or come up with rolling signs that change. Forget it.”

“So what you're saying,” I said, drawing out the word, “is that Hunter Ashwell is
not
a genius.”

“I meant he's a genius on the mound, Lenny,” he said. “Not in the classroom. He thinks algebra is a woman's article of clothing that fell in a fish tank.”

“Algae-bra?” I said. “Good one.”

“Yeah,” he said without laughing. “I heard that from my dad.”

So I was cooking up two theories. Sort of the same theory. It started with this: Davis Gannett was innocent of stealing the phone. It was planted in his bag like he said.

It was planted there by Mike.

And so then Davis Gannett got kicked off the team, just like Mike wanted. This made Davis angry. Who wouldn't get a little angry about that? You're framed for a crime and kicked off the team. The guy who got you booted takes your place and gets all the glory. So how does this tie in to the other theory? One word:
revenge
.

If anyone would know how to steal signals from Schwenkfelder, who better than Schwenkfelder's own former catcher?
The Semilegal Guide to Cheating at Baseball
had taught me that. You had to be particularly wary when a catcher went over to the other side. They knew all your signs, all your secrets. This was just like that! Davis went over to Griffith and helped them set up a system to steal Mike's signs. When the batters knew what was coming, Hunter was easy to hit off of. Davis could sit there and laugh, living it up. He actually came over to our bench after the game to gloat about it. Maybe he even knew Mike was the one who set him up.

So, how to prove it? Step one was to interrogate Suspect A. Seriously weird. The suspect was my best friend. I couldn't believe it. But I had to get some more information from Mike.

“So listen,” I said into the phone. “I've been
thinking that somehow Davis could be involved in this.” Not exactly hard-hitting to begin with, but I was working up to it.

“Yeah?” Mike said. “Yeah! It makes perfect sense.”

“It does,” I said. “Indeed, it does. He is definitely the prime suspect in the sign-stealing scheme. But here's something else I'm thinking about: What if he got kicked off the team based on some, shall we say,
false information
?”

“What?”

“What if he was innocent?” I said. There. Blunt.

“They found the phone in
his
shin guard!” Mike said, his voice rising. “No one else would ever touch that thing. It smells terrible.”

“Davis has smelly shins?”

“Davis has smelly everything,” Mike said. “Trust me. Everything about that dude stinks.”

“I know, I know,” I said. Then I paused and took a deep breath. “But what I'm saying is: What if he was
framed
? What if—I don't know—maybe, like, Kyle's dad made the whole thing up? Or what if somebody else framed him, you know?
Framed him?
”

Mike said nothing. I didn't want to keep saying
“framed.” It wasn't very subtle. The phone was silent for so long I thought the battery had gone dead. “Are you still there? Maybe the person had a perfectly good reason—I don't know.” Still nothing. “Hello?” I said.

He sighed. “Yeah, I'm here,” he said. “But I really should go. I got homework.” He said it so fast it sounded like one word. And with that, he hung up.

I sat there peering at the phone with a skeptical eye.
Mike doing homework?
That was fishier than a cat burp. I peered again. Peering felt weird. My eye was still hurting, but that wasn't the worst of my problems. My stomach was hurting too. My chest was hurting. My
brain
was hurting. I was hurting all over. I took a deep breath and tried to sort things out. I ran the information backward and forward a million times. Unfortunately, I kept coming up with the same results.