Chapter Seven
Following the Clues
The rest of the week was a blur of busyness and suppressed excitement for the girls. They couldn’t talk about the camera on the bus or at school or anywhere they could be overheard, and they didn’t have any more opportunities to get together. But Shay found that not talking about the topic actually gave her more time to think about the evidence, and she was beginning to work out what all the clues meant.
First of all, she decided that the pictures on the camera really were a clue to the attack. Whoever took the pictures wouldn’t want to get caught. Shay was certain that Mr. Fletcher hadn’t been involved in the pictures because she knew that people who would take that kind of picture didn’t treat kids the way Mr. Fletcher did. Those types of people were either too nice, so the kid would trust them when it really wasn’t safe to do so, or they were pretty mean, because they didn’t want a kid around for any reason. Shay had never figured out if Mr. Fletcher liked kids or not, but she knew he didn’t care if kids trusted him and he was never outright mean. She knew in her heart that he just wasn’t someone who would take bad pictures of kids.
Secondly, Shay figured out that whoever was taking the pictures must have been there when Mr. Fletcher arrived and that was why they attacked him. Or, they came back looking for the camera and found Mr. Fletcher in the barn. Either way, they didn’t want to be caught. She had the motive!
Thirdly, Shay decided that the person who attacked Mr. Fletcher probably couldn’t use his own houses to take the pictures. Even though Sharon and Ginger’s parents didn’t pay much attention to their kids, they weren’t likely to let them get involved in pornography. Shay was pretty certain that the person who took the pictures had to be someone who lived with people who wouldn’t approve if they found out what the photographer was taking pornographic pictures.
Shay agreed with the police over the last piece of evidence: it had to have been a man who hit Mr. Fletcher because of the strength needed to hit anyone that hard, and because the person must have been taller than Mr. Fletcher in order to hit him so squarely on the back of his head. The information all made sense to Shay.
The girls could hardly wait until Friday night arrived and they could get back together to talk at Grace’s house. When the day finally rolled around, Shay and Larissa quickly did their share of the after dinner clean up chores and then almost ran out the door to begin the ten minute walk along the dark road that would take them to the Norton’s. The two girls laughed and chatted as they walked along, the excitement of their detective work giving them a renewed sense of energy that quickened their steps.
Just as they arrived at the Norton’s, Grace’s brother, Charles, drove up in the family pick up truck.
“Hi Charles,” Larissa said cheerfully. “We’re here to hang out with Grace tonight.”
“Good for you,” Charles replied, without looking at them. He bounded up the front steps past Shay, opened the door and disappeared into the house without saying another word.
“Well, I see my talkative and polite brother has been at it again” Grace said as she beckoned the girls to come into the house. “He’s such a jerk, and I don’t care what mom says, it isn’t just a phase, that’s how he’s always going to be.”
“Oh, I think he’s kind of cute,” Larissa gushed. “But don’t you dare tell him I said that!”
“You can be sure I won’t tell him that anyone thinks he’s good looking,” Grace replied sourly. “He’s conceited enough as it is.”
Shay laughed as she took off her jacket and hung it on the hallway coat hanger. “Hey Larissa, you didn’t mention him before when we were talking about droollie guys” she said.
“This conversation has to stop before I get sick,” Grace said as she took Larissa’s coat and hung it up. “Come on, let’s get upstairs to my room.”
The girls followed Grace up to her bedroom and as Shay positioned herself on the softly carpeted floor, Larissa started swooping around the room like a hummingbird searching for insects in a flower garden. Larissa peered at this and that, poking a doll, lifting a book, and looking into the closet.
“I just love your room,” Larissa effused when she finally finished looking at everything and sat with a plump on the cozy chaise in the corner. “It’s so pretty. I wish I had a bedroom just like this.”
“Thanks,” Grace said. “I’m going to help my mom paint it this summer so I’m not stuck with baby pink anymore. My mom is just obsessed with keeping me in pink. I’m not kidding, the older I get, the pinker she wants me. I thought an apple green would be good but my mom wants a baby blue…as if that’s some improvement!”
Shay looked discreetly around the room, trying not to let her envy show. Grace’s bedroom was larger and much better furnished than Shay and Larissa’s shared room. This bedroom had pictures on the walls from magazines as well as photographs of family vacations and pictures of friends. Her favourite dolls and stuffed animals saved from childhood were lovingly arranged along a high shelf that ran the length of one wall. The room reflected Grace’s happy life and it had the look of someone who had claimed it, who knew she belonged in this place. The empty place in Shay’s heart always shivered when she stepped into Grace’s bedroom; it was such a contrast to her own series of bedrooms, which were nothing more than impersonal, temporary sleeping places until she was moved on again. Shay suddenly realized that it wasn’t the room she envied; it was all the love and belonging it represented.
Shay took control of her thoughts and moved to sit beside Grace on the floor. Both girls leaned their backs against the soft, comforter covered bed while Shay told the other girls her theories.
“Wow,” Grace said, “you really thought this out. I’m impressed!”
“Yeah, she’s been thinking all week,” Larissa jumped in. “Every time I tried to talk to her she told me to shut up because she was thinking. I didn’t know people could think that much!”
“It doesn’t matter how much I’ve been thinking, there’s still always the possibility that I’m wrong about the first point,” Shay said. “If I am, and it’s just some local weirdo taking dirty pictures, then it’s none of our business and we’re sunk. But I have a hunch that it’s all connected to the attack, and since we have nothing else to chase down, we’ll follow up on this. Agreed?”
“Agreed, indeed,” Grace replied cheerfully.
Larissa nodded her head vigorously. “Agreed,” she said.
“You know, I’ve been thinking, too,” said Grace. “How come Mr. Fletcher didn’t see their car when he drove up?”
“How do you know he didn’t?” Shay asked.
“He hasn’t said anything about it,” Grace replied. “He said that he was just going about his chores when he got hit from behind.”
“Maybe he doesn’t remember seeing anything, or maybe no one was parked there. Or maybe they walked to the barn from someplace else,” Shay said thoughtfully. “But that’s not something you’d think people would do this time of year. Ginger lives here in Proctor, but her house is at the other end, near the far beach. They couldn’t have walked that far, not in winter. Where does that lady live? And what about Sharon?” she asked Shay.
“The lady lives across the lake at Balfour,” answered Grace. “I’ve seen her lots of times at the Balfour grocery store. Sharon lives in Nelson.”
“So, Sharon and Ginger, and the woman who was in the picture and the man who hit Mr. Fletcher, all had to get to the barn without anyone noticing. There aren’t many occupied houses around there this time of year, but people driving by the farm from the ferry should have seen something. How could they get there without being seen?” Shay asked the other two.
“That couldn’t happen. I bet someone noticed but they didn’t think anything of it,” Grace said. “The parents of the other regulars drop their kids off all the time so everyone is used to lots of different people and cars driving onto the farm. Lots of college kids and older high-schoolers have their own cars tha
t they park at the side of the barn when they come to ride. The police wouldn’t even know who to ask about. Lots of people in town have families or friends in Proctor so they could easily have come and gone on the ferry with no one thinking it was weird. Besides, the ferry operator can’t possible notice everyone who drove on or off during the day.”
“What if they didn’t have a car for anyone to notice in the first place? What if they came over in their own boat?” Larissa interjected. “Do any of them have a boat? What about the lady from Balfour? Everybody there has some kind of boat.”
“That’s brilliant! I hadn’t even thought of a boat,” Shay exclaimed. “If the four of them came over by boat, then no one would notice. There wouldn’t have been any car or truck in front of the barn and Mr. Fletcher wouldn’t have had any reason to think that someone was in his barn. We have to follow up on this somehow, but how?”
“Well, it’s obvious what we have to do first,”` said Grace. “We have to find out the woman’s name. That shouldn’t be too hard. I sure know what she looks like,” Grace giggled. “My parents know everyone out here so I can come up with some excuse to ask my mom who she is. Second,” Grace went on without pausing, “I go to the Balfour store and look up who has fishing licenses. I can say I’m looking to see if my brother has one because I know he’s been winter fishing. Nobody will think it’s too weird that I’m trying to get my brother in trouble.”
“Why would you look up fishing licenses?” Shay asked, looking puzzled.
“Because if this lady or her husband has a fishing license, then you can bet they’ve got a boat.”
Shay and Larissa stared at Grace, amazed at how quickly her mind was working. “How did you come up with all of that so fast?” Larissa asked.
“I’ve been thinking all week, too; besides, I have a logical brain,” Grace answered quickly. “It’s why I know I’ll be a good doctor. I can always figure out what to do.”
“Wow,” Shay said, “how come I never knew that about you before? I thought you were just good at math.”
“I’ve never had to figure out anything before that wasn’t school work, unless you count convincing my mother to buy me clothes that don’t make me look like I’m in kindergarten,” said Grace with a smile. “I actually like this detective stuff. It’s really getting exciting.”
“Yeah, it is kind of fun and it sure makes life less boring,” Shay said. “But sometimes I feel really guilty that I’m having such a good time just because Mr. Fletcher got hurt.”
Grace nodded her head slowly in agreement.
“I’ve been thinking,” Shay hesitated and then continued. “Should we call the police? I mean, you can bet they’ll do something about the case now that there are teens involved in something this awful.”
“You’re right,” Grace said. “We should turn the camera over to the police and let them handle it. We’ve done what we started to do, we found out what was going on, and we know they’ll take some action about stuff that’s this serious.”
“Oh no,” said Larissa. “They’ll tell the social workers and the parents will be told, and then Ginger and Sharon will be in trouble, and the adults will be in trouble too. But they still might not find out who attacked Mr. Fletcher, so we’d be no better off now than we were before. Everyone would know everything and we’d still lose the horses. Shay, you know I’m right.”
Shay nodded, and then said, “You’re right, we can’t trust the police to solve the whole case. We can only be sure they’ll stop them from taking any more pictures at the barn, but they could go somewhere else. But there is a worse problem. I mean, as long as we don’t report this then Sharon and Ginger might still be doing things they shouldn’t be doing and that needs to stop. We can’t just let that stuff go on.”
“Well,” said Larissa, “who cares about Sharon and Ginger? It was their choice to do whatever it is they’re doing, so why should we have to worry about them now?”
”We have to worry about them because their parents are drunks and you know that means: no one takes care of them and no one protects them,” Shay said angrily. ”They’re like us. They’re alone in the world, and kids like us have to take care of each other. You know that.”
”Yeah, I know that,” Larissa said slowly. ”I’m sorry, I just didn’t think it through.”
Grace looked at the two girls but said nothing for a moment. The silence was becoming awkward and finally Grace said, “Okay, that means we stop the pictures, but we do it without going to the police.”
“How do we do that?” Shay asked.
“We could send an anonymous note to Ginger and Sharon saying that people know about the pictures and they had better stop now or the police will be notified.” Grace said.
“That would stop someone like you or me,” Shay said, “because we don’t break rules. But I’m not sure it would stop those two. They don’t care how much trouble they get into.”
“No, but they do care about not getting caught, or they would have been photographed in some nice warm room instead of posing naked in a freezing cold barn. And, of course, then no one would have hit Mr. Fletcher on the head.”
“That’s true. We don’t want them to know it’s us though, so how about we write a note and poke it through the vent holes in their lockers at school?” Shay said. “We can say we know what they are doing and they had better stop or the police will be called right away.”
“That sounds good,” Grace said. “My locker is just down the hall from the grade 12’s, so I can do it easily. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Shay said.
“Agreed,” Larissa chimed in.
“Well, there’s nothing more we can do tonight. Do you want to watch a DVD? I’ve got some Johnny Depp movies and we can make some popcorn. Oh, I think Charles is in the TV room, but if we all go in, he’ll leave fast enough,” Grace giggled.
“I hope he stays,” Larissa said. “He really is kind of cute.”
“Oh, that is so gross,” Grace made a sour face. “Can’t you see how ugly he is? And he’s got no personality at all. He’s even got giant ears like my Uncle Arnold and he’s… he’s… well, he’s just a total geek!”
Shay smiled but kept silent. She secretly hoped that Charles would stay, too. “I don’t know, Grace, those Uncle ears aren’t as bad as you think they are,” she grinned.
Two days later, Shay was once again on the phone with Grace. She listened intently as Grace informed her of all she had found out. Mentally crossing her fingers, Grace had told her mother that when she was at the Balfour store she heard the lady with the weird blonde hair gossiping with the cashier about Mr. Fletcher. Her mother had known who it was right away. The woman, named Barbara Gillies, did indeed have a large boat, which she often drove while under the influence of alcohol during hot summer days on the lake. Mrs. Norton told Grace that Barbara Gillies had worked for twenty years as a server at the local resort in Balfour, and she was a single parent with three teenage sons from some early relationships. The boys had a bad reputation and Charles wasn’t allowed to go near them. Barbara Gillies also had two little daughters who, as far as Mrs. Norton was concerned, were destined to grow up to be as wild as their brothers.
“Well,” said Shay, “now we know why she can’t risk taking the pictures in her own home. She didn’t want to get caught by her kids.” Shay spoke quietly into the telephone so that Jolene couldn’t overhear her conversation with Grace. For the thousandth time, Shay wished she could use instant messaging like the other kids at school, but the Halliwells didn’t let the foster kids use their computer and there was no money for Shay to buy a computer or a cell phone. She was stuck with the house telephone and its lack of privacy. “Did your mom tell you anything else?” Shay asked.
“You know how my mom is--once she starts talking, she doesn’t stop,” Grace said. “Mom went to school with Barbara Gillies when they were kids, and she said the lady turned wild in the 1980’s and never grew up or sobered up. Barbara’s never been married
but she always has a boyfriend hanging around, although mom doesn’t think she’s with anyone serious now. She hasn’t lived with any guys since her youngest child was born.”
“How did you get all that information from your mother? Didn’t she suspect something when you kept asking questions?” Shay asked.
“My mom isn’t exactly in a good position to talk about other people being nosey. She always knows what’s going on with the whole community and half the Kootenays. I only had to ask her one question and the rest just poured out. I thought she’d never stop,” Grace giggled. “God, I hope I don’t turn out like her!”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with your mother?” Shay wanted to know.
“You know what I mean. I don’t want to live my whole life in the same place and end up knowing every single person I see on the street and knowing what they did as kids and what they do as adults. I want to see new faces all the time and have new things to discover and think about. I want something exciting in my life, and I want my life to mean something,” Grace answered.
Silent grief grabbed hold of Shay, but she quickly shut it off. She wouldn’t tell Grace how lucky she was to have a mom whose worst fault was that she gossiped during their weekly shopping trips to town. Nor would she tell Grace how lucky she was to be rooted in one spot, to know people in the community, to have a history that she shared with others and to know people who could remember what she looked like as a child.
“Yeah, I guess no one wants to be like their mom,” was all Shay could reply.
“That’s for sure,” Grace said, oblivious to Shay’s sadness. “So, what’s our next step?”
“I don’t know,” Shay said thoughtfully, shifting her mood as fast as she could. “Did you leave the notes in Ginger and Sharon’s lockers?”
“Yup, and I saw Ginger find hers. She read it and then kind of looked around the hall. I think she was pretty spooked by it. She sure didn’t notice me. You know how it is, the grade 12’s never notice the grade 9’s. I might as well have been part of the wall.”
“Did she look surprised?” Shay asked.
“Oh yeah.” Grace gave a wide eyed nod. “She looked totally freaked out. She shoved the note into her purse and ran down the hall. She was probably looking for Sharon.”
“I bet she was,” Shay replied. “That must have really shaken her up. I feel kind of mean doing that to her, but at least she and Sharon will stop posing for pictures after they read the note, so they’re as protected as we can get them for now. I still need to think of what we should do next.”
Shay had never really thought they would get any further with their investigation, yet somehow the three girls kept coming up with one piece of information after another, until they had actually figured out the motive for the assault and the identities of most of the people involved. But the next step in their detective work eluded Shay. “I’ll have to think about it and call you back later. Let me know if you get any good ideas.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “Hey, Shay, do you want to go to a movie tonight in Nelson? My parents are going to dinner with some friends so they’ll give us a ride to and from town, and we’ll have some time to hang out for a while after the movie, too. Maybe even go to the Club.”
The Club was an evening nightspot for younger teens. It had been set up by several of the local church youth groups so that teens would have a safe and supervised place to meet on weekend nights. It had a ‘no alcohol or drug’ policy that was strongly enforced, so even the strictest parents usually let their kids attend.
“You know how my parents are, they won’t usually let me hang out anywhere in town,” Grace said, “but if it’s only for a while and they’re picking us up, they might let me go. They let Charles go to the Club when he was my age, so it would be pretty sexist of them to not let me go, too.”
“I didn’t know you were the Club type.” Shay was surprised at her friend’s sudden decision to branch out socially.
“I know, but lately I’ve been getting bored with my life,” Grace answered. “This detective stuff has been kind of exciting and I think I like that. My whole life, I’ve always known what I’m going to do and when I’m going to do it, and everybody here knows everything there is to know about me. I don’t think I’ve ever had a secret before. It’s time for a change, don’t you think?”
Shay hesitated only a moment. “Well, I’ve had enough excitement and change in my life. I sure don’t need any more, but it might be kind of fun to at least see what the Club is like. I’ll ask Jolene. I think she’ll say yes as long as your parents are taking us.” Shay didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to want more in her life than school and saving the horses. “What will we wear? I don’t have anything to wear to the Club!”
Thoughts of poor Mr. Fletcher and the mystery were quickly back-burnered, as the girls planned their first evening on the town.
Chapter Eight
A Mystery Man