The Underdogs (2 page)

Evie sighed again and said, “You're right, Chels. Let's go find out what's going on around here.” We set off together to see what we could learn.

 

After

Evie blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and held a finger over her lips:
Shhh
. Her fine, dirty-blond locks weren't suited for the one braid she insited on wearing since she saw the same look on Serene Cowen-Lynch, the coolest girl at her school and also a tennis prodigy who trained at the club.

We were inside the women's locker room, hunched down against the door that Evie had opened by about three inches so we could see and hear the action. Both the men's and women's locker rooms' main entrances were off the club's lobby, and if you walked through the changing areas, past the toilets, and beyond the showers, you'd hit their back doors, which opened up to a hallway that led to the pool.

We already knew who the big player was in this tragic case: Detective Ted Ashlock, who was currently cornering the club's owner, Gene Hanrahan, outside the men's locker room. Their backs were to us, so we could see and hear them, but for now, at least, they had no idea we were a few yards away, peeking out of the women's locker room.

Ashlock was in mid-threat when we got to listening: “I can shut this place down right now. Is that what you want?”

Gene held up his hands, his wiry salt-and-pepper hair a mess and the bags under his eyes puffier than ever. “Whoa. I'm trying to cooperate here. I can't have this—this terrible tragedy—close me down. I'm a small business. I'm finished if I can't stay open.”

Detective Ashlock, a lonesome-looking man whose paleness stood out big-time among the sun worshippers and tennis people who trained here, held his ground. “A girl is dead. That's all that matters to me right now.”

That shut Gene up quick. I took a good look at this Ashlock. He wore snug jeans and a canvas belt paired with an azure sports jacket and a white button-down shirt, and he topped off the look with a white fedora that was entirely unfashionable but looked oddly right on him. I didn't know it then, but I'd be seeing a lot of that getup in the weeks to come.

Gene was wearing his usual white tennis shorts and Adidas polo shirt. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at the pool, probably thinking about all the paying members who should be out there splashing around right now. In reality, we were watching a swarm of Stormtroopers—that's what Evie and I had dubbed these guys dressed in white, with their strange puffy slippers—hanging around the pool area, vacuuming up bits of fluff or pebbles or blood or hair.

“Of course, that's the most important thing. But it was just an accident … a terrible accident. The girl obviously snuck into the club last night and drowned. Or maybe she got sick. It's not like there's any foul play. Not in this town.” Gene was talking fast.

Ashlock blotted beads of sweat off his forehead with a white handkerchief. It was the first week of August, and everyone was tired of the steamy New England heat. Ashlock looked like he was in danger of melting, like one of Evie's beloved Frooti-Freez bars.

“Well, we think it's very strange that the upper half of the victim's body was wet, and yet her hair was bone-dry. And styled. Styled like a perfect doll. So I'm not sure how you can assume it was an accident…”

The funny thing is that anyone who knew Annabel knew she
never
got her hair wet. She would swim like a Labrador, her head bobbing above the water as she paddled her way across the pool to wherever she was going. Everyone watched her whenever she moved; she knew it, too, and she always planned her migration from the sun lounger to the pool stairs carefully. She was aware she was on display.

I watched her do it so many times, watched her slip her bathing-suit straps back onto her shoulders before sitting up, only the tiniest wrinkles of bronzed skin rippling over her belly. She'd smooth down her hair, and then slowly, slowly she'd stand up while surreptitiously ensuring her bikini area was entirely covered, tucking her index finger under her bottoms to straighten them out. Then she'd stride casually to the edge of the concrete pool stairs and up her foot would come in slow-motion like a crane lifting a girder, and she'd point a dainty, painted toe like a ballerina for a grand dip to test the temperature. You get the idea.

*   *   *

Things were heating up in that little hallway in more ways than one. The smell of chlorine was wafting in from the pool, making Gene's face turn beet red as he fielded the questions lobbed at him by the detective.

“You said Annabel might have sneaked into the club. Who has keys to this place?”

“A few of us,” Gene replied. “I'll get you a list. So, um … when can we reopen the pool?”

I almost felt sorry for the guy
.
Gene, who'd been a local tennis star in the 1970s and was slim and sinewy but carried himself with a slight hunch and an incongruous little potbelly, was staring wistfully out at the pool. Evie and I both knew who had keys to the club, including at least one person who routinely used them after hours.

Gene looked like he had something else to say, but at that moment my mom poked her nose into the action. I was surprised it had taken her this long to scurry up to Gene's side, where she commenced speaking sternly to Detective Ashlock.

“Who did this? Our members will be terrified,” she proclaimed. “They'll need to be assured the killer is not a danger to them.”

Ashlock squinted at my mom, then shot an odd look toward Gene. I could guess why. It was interesting Mom and Gene had such opposing views of what had happened to Annabel.

“We certainly haven't determined this was a murder,” Ashlock said. He wiped sweat off his upper lip with one knuckle. “Our investigation is ongoing.”

Ashlock took a long, hard look at my mom. Evie turned to me nervously, mouth open. I could read her mind: We did not want any detectives looking hard at my mom. No sirree.

“Tell me, ma'am,” Ashlock said slowly, “what makes you think it was a homicide?”

My mom put her right hand on her chin. She did that when she was thinking about something or when she was stalling. I knew her so well. She recovered after a few seconds. “I just
assumed
, Detective,” she said coolly. “I mean, a young, healthy girl is found dead after hours, in her bikini? That screams foul play. The poor kid was only sixteen, for God's sake.”

“Mmmhmm.” Ashlock was taking notes again. “I'm sorry. What did you say your name was?”

“Beth Jestin. Front desk manager,” she replied. I saw Gene raise his eyebrows, but he was too smart to protest. Mom didn't exactly have an official title, but apparently he was willing to let it go. “Word gets around quickly here, Detective.”

Ashlock directed his thumb at the owner. “I'm going to need that list of people who hold keys to the club's entrance as well as to this door.”

He nodded in the direction of the revolving door that opened up to the pool. Evie and I knew better than anyone how hard that door was to open. Made of steel and Plexiglas, it had several special locks on both sides of the doorjamb. Even people
with
keys had trouble opening it. When summer was over, they would place a great white bubble over the pool, and since the bubble had to stay inflated, there was something about the suction between the bubble and the main building that messed the door up.

Gene nodded, still squinting out at the pool. That rectangular body of water was an oasis during a hot summer, and on a scorcher like today, it gleamed like an Olympic-size baguette-cut diamond that reflected the sun in a million different directions. The pool was surrounded by this fancy new designer caramel-colored pebble decking Gene had invested in, and that, in turn, was bordered by a plush lawn on the back end and the left-hand side. A wooden fence went three-quarters of the way around the whole thing, and at the base of the fence were bushes and flowers. The purple coneflowers and red verbenas were blooming particularly bright these days.

My mom held out one hand and counted off on her fingers while Ashlock made notes on his pad. “Here's your list. One: Gene. Two: the front desk manager—that's me. Three: the pool manager and lifeguard, Harmony Goldenblatt. He's only a kid himself … sixteen, I think. Four: the weekend-morning lifeguard, Nicholas Harper, Annabel's seventeen-year-old brother.” Her face softened. “Oh, no. Poor Nicholas. Who found her? Who found the body?”

Ashlock said nothing, and Gene, getting emotional, said, “Harmony found her after he opened the pool this morning. For God's sake, what if one of the little kids had seen her?”

My mom looked shocked to hear this, and if she wasn't such a tough nut I imagine she would've teared up. But not here, not in front of this detective. “How awful” was all she said, her voice almost cracking. Almost.

Evie and I were hanging on every word, and now she looked at me with a frown. It was shocking to hear that Harmony, a pal of ours, had to find Annabel like that.

Ashlock looked up from his pad. “This is just procedure, you understand,” he said, “but I have to ask. Where were you last night?”

Gene and Beth each grimaced, and it looked to me like they'd taken the question quite personally. Gene recovered first.

“I was at home.”

My mom echoed, “I was at home.”

Ashlock appeared to make notes to that effect and didn't bother to question their flimsy alibis further. It seemed like he wasn't nearly finished with them, though. Evie looked at me and shrugged. I had to agree with her assessment. This was getting us nowhere. I mean, did we
really
think my mom or Gene had something to do with Annabel dying?

“Anything else?” My mom had inched closer to Ashlock, almost protectively getting between Gene and the detective. She was nothing if not loyal—if you were on her good side.

“One more thing,” Ashlock told her. “I'd like to have a look at your shoes.”

“Come again?” Gene said irritably.

“Your shoes. The soles. Let me see them.”

My mom huffed but dutifully kicked her right foot up to Ashlock, nearly nailing him. He examined the bottom of her favorite cork wedges. Ashlock dropped her foot with no readable reaction and signaled to Gene, who did the same with his boat-size designer tennis sneakers, albeit with a bit more effort. He wasn't so young anymore. Ashlock took a look.

“Very good,” he said. “Don't go too far away from St. Claire. I'll need statements from both of you. No overseas vacations in the cards, I hope?”

My mom and Gene shook their heads. Ashlock blotted his brow again with a handkerchief and nodded a polite goodbye, but it turned out he wasn't actually finished.

“
One
more thing.” Gene and my mom looked less than thrilled. “Is there anyone around here you think had a reason to kill Annabel?”

Gene's face remained neutral. My mom's did not. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth as if to speak, but then thought better of it.

“If you know something, now's the time to tell me, Mrs. Jestin.”

“It's
Ms
.,” she said grouchily. “And I really don't know anything.”

“
Ms
. Jestin—”

“Fine. Fine! He would never hurt Annabel, but Harmony Goldenblatt has a key to the club
and
the pool and he was always staring at her. He was pretty obvious about it. But she never gave him a second look.”

My mom bit her lower lip. Gene put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to Ashlock.

“Every male with a pulse was always staring at that girl. Beth's right—Harmony's not a bad guy. I hired him because he's responsible and he's the only teenager who doesn't whine about opening up at five thirty a.m. in winter. He did so well as a lifeguard I made him summer pool manager. He and Nicholas Harper are our two senior guards.”

“Oh?” Ashlock said to the owner. “So if Ms. Jestin is correct about this being a murder, who do
you
think could have done it?”

Gene's face scrunched up, anguished, almost like he was trying not to cry, though I doubted he was in danger of that. Gene Hanrahan was not what I would call a crier.

“Nobody at this club. No way. This was an accident. Keep investigating. You'll see.”

Ashlock nodded slowly and turned in our direction.
Oh, snap.
We had to scramble because it seemed the detective was really done this time, which meant any one of the three grownups was about to walk right by us. Before we could move, Ashlock walked by, taking no notice of Evie and me peeking out from behind the women's locker room door. Thankfully my mom was distracted and followed right behind him, passing within a few inches of us. But someone else appeared on the scene who
did
notice us.

“What's happenin', Wonder Twins?” We saw muscular, tanned legs through the crack in the door.

We both leapt up and stepped out of the locker room. That chilled-out-yet-booming drawl belonged to Evie's dad, Lucky. He asked, “How are you holding up with all this?”

“We're fine, Dad,” Evie said, looking off after Ashlock, who was no doubt about to investigate something and we were missing it. He squinted as if he wasn't sure whether to believe her. Lucky Clement had shaggy, dirty-blond hair that was similar to Evie's but more spiky than soft, and he never went anywhere without a blue bandanna tied around his head. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was strong: compact, stout, springy, with thick thighs and wide shoulders. Lucky was a summer tennis coach, and like most of the club's coaches he taught both levels of the summer camp—the regular kids, who showed up with money but acutally were kind of average tennis players, and the elites, who had the real, jaw-dropping talent.

“Beth said I should come find you to make sure you're okay.” He paused. “So you're … okay?”