The Underdogs (10 page)

“Hello, girls.”

Evie's eyes flew open and she found herself looking directly at Detective Ted Ashlock's white, upside-down face as he leaned over her. She scrambled to sit upright, tighten her ponytail, and pull her shirt down over her tummy.

“You've been quite the little detectives lately.”

I looked over from my perch and smiled, and he smiled back at me. I didn't think we had too much to worry about from him, but Evie's eyes were the size of tennis balls. Ashlock stood there calmly. He said, “What exactly do you think is going on around here?”

That question could be mildly scary to kids at the best of times, but said in that Ashlock voice, coming down like a hammer out of his pale, thin frame, it was paralyzing.

“Annabel's dead,” Evie said. I think saying it out loud made our loss more real, and I thought I caught a tear or two welling up in her eyes.

“That's right,” the detective said. “And I'm trying to find out what happened, but my work has no room for kids. This isn't some TV episode where everything gets solved and wrapped up in an hour. This is a real person, and another real person may have done this terrible thing to her. Do you understand?”

Ashlock slid into the matching chair to Evie's left. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “What's your name?”

“Evie.” She pulled at her T-shirt again, stretching it over her knees.

“Lucky Clement is your father?” She nodded. “And your friend here?” He tilted his head my way.

“My best friend. This is Chelsea. Her mom is Beth Jestin—”

“Nice to meet you, Evie and Chelsea,” he said. “Come to think of it,” he added, putting his hand to his chin like that famous statue, “if you're
the
Chelsea, you've made quite a name for yourself around town.”

I knew what he meant—it was this thing that happened earlier in the summer—but I wasn't a hero or anything. I was glad I could help
.
But Ashlock's face changed as he checked me out. He knitted his brow and took a harder look.
Ah
. He thought he knew me for reasons other than my “heroism.” My case had, indeed, been quite a big deal back in the day.

He quickly got down to business. “So. You know a few things about what I've been doing. Do you have any theories about what happened?”

Evie paused and I watched her gauging him, wondering how much to trust him.

“It's okay,” Ashlock said. “No one will ever know it came from you … It'll be our secret.”

He took out that ever-present hankie and blotted his upper lip, and Evie blurted out, “How come you never take off your hat or your jacket?”

I thought that was gutsy considering she wore sweatpants even when it was hotter outside than the center of Earth, but Ashlock didn't seem offended.

“I have a condition,” he said. “I'm allergic to sunlight.”

Evie was immediately fascinated. “Really? So do you burn up if the sun's rays touch your skin, or—?”

He smiled. “It's not really that dramatic,” he said. “Some people with this condition do have to stay indoors their whole lives, but I just have to be very careful. I break out in a terrible rash if I'm outside for too long, and sometimes, even with my hat, I won't know the sun's hit me until it's too late and I get a bad burn like if you spill hot coffee on yourself. Sometimes, I even have to wear gloves in the summer.”

Actually, I had noticed how his shirt was buttoned up to the base of his neck. Now his diabolical wardrobe choices were starting to make some sense.

Evie nodded her understanding. She said, “I guess we do have a few suspects in mind … Some of the same ones you do.”

“How do you know who my suspects are?”

“Because we heard you question them.”

“Just because I question someone doesn't mean they're a suspect. Sometimes we have to shake people up so we can get to the truth.”

“Like you're doing to us now?” Evie asked.

“Maybe.” He smiled at us, a mild, weary upturn of the corners of his mouth. I could see him doing that classic Ashlock mind-reading thing with Evie, and it was clear he liked what he saw. I thought they had a lot in common: authentic and kind, but not very popular.

He took out his notebook and stared at Evie. She sat up straighter and unhooked her shirt from her knees. She said, “I don't know who did it, and that's … scary.”

Ashlock nodded his understanding. “You don't need to worry about that. I'll tell you a little secret, but you have to swear you will never, ever repeat what I'm about to tell you to anyone. Do you understand?”

Oh, man.
We were on pins and needles. We were finally going to get some answers.

“If this was murder, and I'm not saying it was, it was about Annabel. It wasn't about you, or Chelsea, or anyone else at this club, or in this town for that matter. Whoever did this is not a danger to either one of you,” the detective said gravely.

“Okay…” Evie said.

“But I have one condition if we're going to get along,” he added. He leaned in closer. “You can't go poking around trying to find out who did this. Because then, and only then, would this person become a threat to you. Do you understand?”

Evie looked at me, and we both understood. If the perp thought we were onto them, we could be next. We'd have to be more careful with our snooping.

“Now, I'd like to hear what you think.”

Evie took a moment, directing her eyes up and off to the right as she contemplated the weighty demand. “Well,” she said finally, “I don't think Harmony had anything to do with it. He wouldn't hurt a fly.” Ashlock didn't let on whether he agreed with that or not. “Other than that, I really don't know.” Her voice cracked. “No one I know is a … killer.”

He nodded, and didn't press her anymore on that topic; he seemed to remember she was only twelve. Evie regarded him for a moment, then decided to go for it. “Everyone's saying Goran did it,” she said. “That he's going to be arrested any day now. You know, because he was”—oh Lord, I knew she'd choke on these words—“totally into Annabel. Like, it was a lovers' spat that went bad or something.”

Ashlock didn't look convinced. “You knew they were dating? My understanding is that they never told anyone about their romance.”

Evie shrugged. “They didn't have to say anything. I think a few people saw them … hanging out at one time or another.”

“You and Annabel were friends?” he asked gently.

Evie was choked up and could only nod. Ashlock said softly, “She was a nice girl, wasn't she? But Annabel was a very private girl, too. Even her best friends didn't know everything about her, so we're doing a lot of work to get to know her.”

Ashlock reached into his pocket and gave her a fresh hankie folded into a triangle. “It's clean, I promise,” he said when she hesitated to take it. “I have to carry a whole bunch of them around with me.”

Evie smiled politely and wiped her eyes, but was too shy to blow into the cloth, and handed it back. Then she looked away and quickly, as if we wouldn't see, wiped her nose on her T-shirt sleeve. She forged on. “I'm sure he didn't do anything to her, but Patrick really liked Annabel, and when Annabel didn't like him back, he got mad.”

Ashlock raised his eyebrows—I was learning how valuable that move was to his interrogation technique—and got his pen and pad ready. Evie told him about the last time we saw Annabel, about the confrontation with Patrick and that mysterious note, about how we'd never seen Annabel show emotion like that, ever.

Ashlock gave her a nod of respect and said, “This is very helpful, Evie,” he said. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

I thought that was a sweet way of putting it. Evie nodded and said in a grown-up voice, “You're welcome.”

As he tucked his notebook away, Evie said, “Detective? Did Patrick do this?”

The detective didn't miss the frightened look on her face. “I want you to remember something as the investigation goes on,” he said. “People aren't always who they seem to be on the surface.”

He was right. Things around here were definitely not always as they seemed.

 

After

My mom spit her coffee out on the shiny granite. It wasn't long after dawn the next morning, maybe six thirty a.m., and she and I were alone at the front desk. She'd just gotten hold of the latest
St. Claire Bee
.

“It's about time!” she exclaimed as she wiped up the coffee with a paper towel. She read aloud the front-page headline: “Cops: Annabel Harper Was Murdered.”

The real bombshell was in the second paragraph:
“Police said the victim appeared to have drowned in chlorinated pool water, likely from the pool she was found next to, although tests are still being conducted.”

“I would've sworn that poor girl was strangled,” Mom said. “I would've bet the house on it.”

I knew what she meant. I remembered what Ashlock had said that first day about how Annabel's hair was dry and perfectly styled when she was found, and how could a person drown without getting her hair wet? But Ashlock—all of us—had been wrong.

*   *   *

Later, Lucky walked up to the front desk where Evie, my mom, and I were hanging out. He leaned on the countertop with his chin resting on his folded arms. “What do you think the mystery item is?” he asked my mom.

“What?” she responded, not bothering to look up from changing the radio station.

“In the
St. Claire Bee
. The ‘item' they mention.”

She reached under the desk for the newspaper, incredulous. She checked the front page again, then flipped to the jump page.

“It's terrible,” Lucky said. “I have a daughter myself, you know? It really makes you think.”

“Oh,
I
know you have a daughter,” my mom said, briefly meeting his eyes. “I'm just not sure
you
know.”

Lucky almost looked hurt.

Suddenly my mom's eyes went silver-dollar wide. “How did I miss this?”

I had a peek. I could see how it had gotten past her—strangely, the
Bee
had put the detail in question in a separate box with just two brief sentences, below the main story about Annabel's death. Maybe the editor was out sick that day.

My mom read aloud: “A source close to the investigation into the death of local teen Annabel Harper tells the
Bee
that police are focusing on a ‘missing mystery item' that could lead investigators to a suspect in her killing. No further details were available at press time.”

Mom squinted and read it again, then looked up at Lucky, who was now yawning. “So? What is it the cops are looking for?”

“I thought
you
might know.” Lucky shrugged. Then he wandered away, leaving us to guess into the wind about the
Bee
's tantalizingly vague clue.

 

Before

“Come
on
,” Evie said, brushing her hair vigorously again. “Why is my hair so
flat
?” She bunched it up with her hands, but it went dead and fell unevenly past her shoulders.

She looked at me. “I need a haircut.”

I agreed. She really did. We were hanging out in the locker room while Evie got ready. Lucky was taking the older tennis camp kids to the movies and Evie was allowed to join them because he was her dad, and plus the movie was rated PG, so it wasn't just for the older kids—thus the hair drama. She sighed and combed her hair back up into a ponytail. I knew she was nervous about tonight. As she wrapped a scrunchie around her hair, she said to me, “You're the only real friend I have, Chels. But sometimes I need more, you know?”

I knew. My feelings weren't hurt because we were the best of friends and always would be. But man, was I worried about her. On top of everything else, her mom had skipped calling this week. It wasn't that Evie had illusions that she was going to come rushing back to St. Claire and move them into a house with a white picket fence and start taking her to dance classes, oboe lessons, or what have you, but a phone call now and then wouldn't have hurt.

Evie checked herself in the mirror one last time, sighed, and then we headed out to the lobby. We ran smack into the tennis people sitting around the elites' table waiting for Lucky, who'd be driving them to the movies in the club's beat-up old white utility van. They were all freshly washed and could've posed for a J.Crew catalog. Nicholas appeared and walked up to the table in vintage Levi's.

“Where's your sister?” Patrick asked him. I noticed that in the face of a six-foot-one protective older brother, Patrick acted like he was inquiring about a library book, not like he was flirt of the year.

Still, Nicholas bristled. “She's not here,” he said testily. Patrick put his hands up defensively. Mr. Perfect, Nicholas Harper, was not in a good mood. It was rare, I had to admit, but he had his moments, like anyone else. He took a seat and there was a tense silence. Perhaps that was the moment more people started to
get
it. Because here's the thing: Who else was missing? That's right: Goran Vanek.

Celia noticed us then and beckoned us over. “Hey girls, come on over here.”

I smiled and went over to her. She put her arm around me and squeezed. “Where were you all day? Your mom asked me to keep an eye on you, but you were running all over the place.”

Patrick leaned over and said to Evie, “Sorry about tonight. I'm afraid you're a little too young for this one.”

Evie shook her head. “No.
Jump Town
's only rated PG. I checked.”

“This is true,” Patrick admitted. “But we're seeing
Die, Die, Die
. It's an R.”