Vanishing Acts (4 page)

“Can I borrow some paper?” he asked.

“What for?”

“So I can take notes.”

“Oh, sure.” We stopped at the park entrance so I could tear off three pages from my notebook. I handed them over with my spare pen.

When Milo reached for it, our fingers touched. I didn't let go of my end of the pen immediately, and we smiled at each other, and then both looked away, embarrassed. And silent, because what do you say after such a perfect moment? There are no words.

“I'll take the boxer peeing on that stroller,” Milo said, pointing toward the playground.

“Okay, cool. See you in a bit.”

I headed in the opposite direction, pausing so dog-Milo could relieve himself in the grass. Once he finished, I walked up to Jane, a full-time dog walker. She walks about eighteen dogs over the course of a day, but at the moment, she had only three.

“Hey, Maggie,” she said. “And hi, little Milo.” She bent down to pet Milo, and I pet her three dogs—Clover, Scout, and Eminem.

Jane used to be pretty hostile toward me—afraid I'd take away all her business, even though I'd always assured her I'm a small operation. But she warmed up to me after she heard about last month's rescue mission.

“Hey, have you heard anything about this weekend's egg attacks?” I asked.

“Heard about them?” asked Jane. “Clover was a victim on Sunday morning. She'd just treed a squirrel when she got egged in the face.”

“Any idea who threw it?”

“Nope,” said Jane. “It's like it came from nowhere.”

“Did you happen to hear any noise?” I asked.

“You mean besides the slap of the egg and poor Clover's yelp?”

Just hearing that brought tears to my eyes. What kind of jerk would attack an innocent dog? I sniffed
and blinked hard, knowing I needed to remain calm. Detectives have got to keep their cool, act rationally, and think clearly, without letting their emotions get in the way. That's what I read somewhere, anyway.

“I only ask because the same thing happened to Cassie's dog, and she heard laughter.”

Jane shook her head. “There was no laughter.”

“Interesting,” I replied, taking down some notes. “And what is Clover? A chocolate Lab?”

“Yes,” said Jane. “That's exactly what she is.”

I wrote that down, too. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a woman walking her two beagles. I said goodbye to Jane and ran to catch up with her.

Turns out the woman's dogs hadn't been hit. And she had no idea what I was talking about. But the guy standing next to her overheard me and wanted to talk. His name was Milton. He had a purple mohawk and a black and white springer spaniel named David, and he was still fuming over his dog's egg attack from this morning.

“It happened at eight a.m. The craziest thing. And I swear I saw a guy in a black T-shirt appear from nowhere and then run for the woods.”

“What do you mean he appeared from nowhere?” I asked.

“Just that—it's like he was magical.”

“But that's impossible,” I said.

“That's what I thought, too,” said Milton. He wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes. “Totally trippy.”

“Well, what did he look like?” I asked.

“Like someone I wanted to pummel for egging my dog!” Milton replied, not very helpfully.

It was already five o'clock by the time we finished talking—dangerously close to my weeknight curfew. And I still had one more dog to walk. I found boy-Milo and told him I had to go. “Did you find any other victims?” I asked.

“Yup,” he said. “You?”

“Yeah—a couple.”

Milo handed me a piece of paper.

“What's this?” I asked.

“An incident report,” he said. “I'm not quite done, but here's what I have so far.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You're welcome. It's no biggie,” he replied with a shrug.

Then he turned around and jogged off without even saying good-bye. Which is strange, because usually he walks me home.

I looked down at the page. Milo's writing started out neat and boxy; then halfway through his report it morphed into sloppy cursive, like he had to struggle to keep up with the interviewees.

I squinted at the note, really wanting to make sure I made out those final words properly. Because it looked like Milo had not merely collected evidence—he'd also asked me on a date.

Dog-Milo and I ran home as fast as his little puggle legs would carry him. After checking his water bowl and locking up at Parminder's place, I took my landlady's dog, Preston, for a quick spin around the block. Then I headed straight upstairs to my apartment.

At my desk in my room I studied my notes, looking for patterns or connections or clues, or, ideally, all three.

Except my eyes kept narrowing in on the bottom of Milo's note, making it hard to focus on the eggings. I wondered if maybe this would finally happen. Milo and me, I mean. I pictured us strolling through the park, holding hands. Slipping notes into each other's lockers. Sharing one bucket of popcorn at the movies. Sledding in the park after the first snowstorm, and later that night sipping hot cocoa by the fire. (Not that either of us
has a fireplace. But let's not get too caught up on the details.)

How perfect and romantic and spontaneous to finally ask me out on one of my doggie deets!

At least that's what I thought before the doubt crept in.

Maybe when Milo said, “Want to hang out?” he meant it in a completely non-romantic, strictly “we're just friends” kind of way.

Hanging out doesn't have to be a date. I hang out with my friends all the time.

I put Milo's note aside, because I didn't want to spend all night analyzing its true meaning. Not when I had a mystery to solve. I needed to focus on the egg attacks. And since my notes weren't getting me very far, I needed a new place to look.

One thing about Brooklyn is, a lot of writers live here. And where there are a lot of writers, there are lots and lots of blogs. I figured someone must be documenting the egg attacks. And a quick Google search told me a few people were.

I found a whole blog devoted to the attacks.

I read up on Paco, the Great Dane who was egged on Saturday afternoon at four o'clock. His owner, Jed, reported three eggs fired. The first one missed; the second Jed managed to deflect with his hand; the third they
tried to dodge, but in the end, Paco got hit in the back. Like the attacks I already knew about, the eggs seemed to come from nowhere, with no warning.

Then there was Hemingway, a big white husky, egged at seven thirty on Thursday morning. “Just a single egg seemed to drop from the sky,” the owner reported. “No one got hurt, but I got egg all over my new wingtips.”

Pretty's spiked leather collar was now encrusted in egg, thanks to an attack on Friday at 7:14 a.m. His owner, Harry, spotted someone leaping out of a tree and running for the woods. He chased this person, but lost him or her.

I tried to make sense of my notes, to find some sort of pattern, either in the style of attack, the dog breed, or the time of day. Sure, Harry described his dog's attack in the same way Milton had, but other than that, there weren't many similarities.

However, all of the eggings took place on the weekend or early in the morning or late in the day—so I could at least conclude that the egger had a traditional nine-to-five type of job. Or maybe he or she or they were in school. Or maybe the egger had nothing to do all day and just waited until the park was most populated with dogs, since most dog owners do have jobs or go to school.

This person liked to climb trees. Or at least, he or she was good at it. Also, the egger ran fast.

Lots of people go to school or have jobs or don't and can run fast and climb trees, so I wasn't really narrowing my suspects down very far.

I drew a map of that section of the park: playground on the right, Long Meadow straight ahead, lots of trees and lots of brush. In other words, plenty of places to hide.

When I heard my mom's voice a few minutes later, I jumped.

I turned to find her standing in my doorway, still in her navy blue suit from work. She'd changed her shoes though, unless she'd started wearing bunny slippers to the office and I just hadn't noticed.

“How's your homework?” she asked.

“Great,” I said. And I wasn't lying. Not really. My homework
was
great—and sitting untouched in my notebook. Pristine, with no fingerprints, wrinkles, or wrong answers. Only, there weren't any right answers, either. I hadn't begun.

Not that I was about to admit this to my mom. She's cool, but strict when it comes to schoolwork. One of those moms who wants to know what Finn and I learned each day. And she's way into scheduling our free time, too. I'm lucky she lets me walk dogs, and I'm only
allowed to keep it up if I make it home by five thirty every night and keep my grades up.

“I didn't hear you come in,” I said.

“You must be concentrating pretty hard, because you forgot to set the table.”

“Is it already time for dinner?” I checked my watch.

“It's okay. I did it, and everyone else is already sitting down.”

I closed my notebook and followed my mom into the dining room. Finn and our dad had already started in on the turkey meatloaf.

“Hi, Mags,” said my dad. “Finn was just telling me about your strange morning.”

“Huh?” I asked, since I hadn't told him about Charlotte and the new dog-egger case.

“I mean the blow-up dolls,” said Finn.

“Oh, that. I almost forgot.” Sometimes it amazes me how much can happen in a single day.

“Did you say blow-up doll?” asked our mom with a look of alarm.

I told her all about the inflatable crowd. “It was supposed to be a part of the new Seth Ryan movie. They're filming on Second Street starting tomorrow.”

My father grinned. “I was wondering how long it would be before you found out about that.”

“You mean you knew?” I asked.

“Sure. Jenna Beasely came around with a petition trying to get the location moved last month,” he explained.

“Who?” I asked.

“You know Jenna,” said my mom. “She's my friend from law school. We all had brunch at that great place on Vanderbilt last summer.”

“There's no such thing as a great brunch place,” said Finn. “Which is exactly what I tried to tell you last week at Rio Nadres.”

“It got amazing reviews online,” said Mom.

“Did they mention that you have to wait for over an hour before being served a lousy plate of runny eggs and cold potatoes?”

Making Finn wait around for food when he's hungry is pretty much the worst thing you can do to my brother, which is why he was still grumpy about the brunch—and brunch as a category in general—a week later.

I turned back to my dad. “Wait, did you say she was trying to move the location?”

“Yup. She wanted to get the entire production banned from Brooklyn.”

I gasped. “Why would anyone do that?”

“If you lived on Second Street, you'd understand. They film things all the time there,” Mom said. “And it's plenty inconvenient. Basically, they take over the entire block, roping off both sides so you can't even
park on your own street. Besides the noise, you have to deal with the bright lights, and sometimes they shoot in the middle of the night, making sleep impossible. That's what Jenna says, anyway. We're lucky we've never had to find out for ourselves.”

My mom was right—no one had filmed anything on Garfield that I could remember, but I wished they would. It seemed so cool.

“Who wouldn't want to be inconvenienced if it meant possibly running into Seth Ryan?” I asked.

“I think you have your answer in Jenna,” said my dad. “But you don't need to worry about it, because she wasn't able to stop them.”

“Good,” I said. “Because they need extras, and I was hoping to sign up.”