Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher

  He frowns. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that it’s not professional for me to discuss it with … a suspect.”

  “But you know I didn’t do it, and if I really am a suspect, I could use some help getting unsuspected.”

  He frowns and just sits there, quiet.

  “Oh, would you tell me already? I promise to keep it totally to myself.”

  “Hmm,” he says, and I’m thinking he’s probably thinking what I’m thinking—that I’d promised Billy and Sasha that I’d keep their secrets to myself, too. But then he says, “It’s nothing earth-shattering. Just a pile of random facts that don’t seem to add up.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as …” He looks at me. “Your vice principal seems to have a certain level of disdain for Bob Vince.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think he likes him very much.”

  “Well, who does?”

  He shrugs like, Yeah, true. “Vince’s ex-wife also seems to have a real beef with him. Apparently, the child-support payments have stopped.”

  “Wait. Mr. Vince has kids?”

  “Two girls, ages ten and eleven.”

  I slide down in my seat a little. “Man, I feel sorry for those kids.”

  “Yeah, well, he told me he didn’t want to get divorced and that he’s tired of having to pay while the boyfriend acts like he’s their dad. His ex told me she’s going to attach his wages.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “She’s going to get a court order that will automatically give her part of his paycheck.”

  “But if she left him …”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’re still his kids, and he owes child support.”

  I think about this a minute. “But she can’t be the person doing the Die Duding. For one thing, no middle-aged lady is going to say ‘Die Dude.’ And besides, how can anybody think it’s a woman or a girl or whatever when that phone recording was a guy’s voice?”

  He eyes me. “Maybe it’s the boyfriend.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  Officer Borsch sorta shrugs. “That theory’s got holes in it, too. And it doesn’t do you any good at school. Foxmore thinks that you and Billy are in it together and that you used a Halloween voice changer. And I did some checking. They are in the stores already, and when I had Debra speak into one, she sure didn’t sound like herself.” Then he says, “And speaking of that phone message, something about that whole day bothers me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  He just sits there staring through the windshield, so finally I ask, “And … ?”

  “And the timing of the fire alarm and the phone message seems like a strange coincidence to me. Sure, someone could have seized on the fire alarm as an opportunity to leave Vince that phone message, but it’s all too tightly choreographed for me. Especially since there was no fire.”

  That made my eyebrows reach for my bangs. And the thought of the calls being connected and someone trying to frame me for it was kinda freaking me out. “So … did you figure out who made the call about the fire?”

  He gives me a little smile. “Very good. And yes.” He does a nose wag out through the windshield toward the mall. “The call was placed from that phone booth right over there.”

  I let that sink in. “No view of the school from here.”

  “Unless you’re on the roof of the mall, and even then, barely.”

  “So it was a crank call, but … how does that connect to someone using Billy’s phone to leave a message on Vince’s machine?”

  He shakes his head. “More random facts that don’t seem to want to work together.” He eyes me. “But I still don’t like the coincidence.”

  We sit there a minute, and finally I ask, “So what else? What about his car getting keyed. How bad was that, anyway?”

  He reaches over and grabs the briefcase off the backseat with his good hand. “You want to see?” Then he clicks open the latches and pulls out a laptop. He boots it up, then jabs in a password with his right hand, and pretty soon I’m looking at the messiest computer desktop I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t slow him down, though. He double-clicks on a folder icon and then opens up a photo file.

  Suddenly the screen is filled with a picture of Mr. Vince’s SUV’s door.

  The DIE DUDE looks angry and deep.

  And the letters are big.

  Like, four inches tall.

  And they go nearly clear across the driver’s door.

  I shake my head. “That’s brutal.”

  He nods, then clicks through some other pictures of the door, until he gets to one where the DIE DUDE takes up about half the screen. “Notice anything interesting here?”

  I study it but have no idea what he’s seeing that I’m not.

  He gives me a minute, then says, “I didn’t really notice it when we took the report, but I definitely see it here.”

  I study the picture some more, but I still don’t get it.

  So he tells me, “Maybe lean back a little,” and when I do, I notice that there’s a rectangular area around the DIE DUDE that seems darker than the rest of the door. “This right here?” I ask, tracing the area.

  He cries, “Yes!” which is weird because I don’t think I’ve ever seen Officer Borsch excited before. Then he says, “I’ve been told I’m imagining things, or that it’s just a function of lighting, but once you notice it in one of the pictures, you start seeing it in all of them. It’s very uniform. Maybe a foot by a foot and a half.”

  “So what do you think it is?”

  “That’s just it. I have no idea. If the message had been sprayed on through a stencil, I’d think it would be from contact with the stencil. Or maybe someone held something up to the door to prevent leaving fingerprints.”

  “But you wouldn’t need to touch the door to scratch in the letters, would you?”

  “That’s right,” he says with a frown. “So you see what I mean? The more we know, the less things seem to add up.”

  I think about this a minute, then say, “Well, I probably should get going.” And as I grab my stuff and open the door, he asks, “You don’t want a ride?”

  “Nah.”

  “Well, thanks for the talk,” he says as I’m getting out. “I don’t know why, but I feel better.”

  “Me too,” I tell him. “Except that now I know Mr. Foxmore has it in for me.”

  “Just tell the truth. And try to be respectful.” He shakes his head a little. “Do yourself a favor, Sammy, and curb the attitude.”

  So I tell him, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” with plenty of attitude.

  He actually laughs, then all of a sudden stops laughing and says, “Oh—and watch that kid … What’s his name? Lance? Larson?”

  “Lars? Lars Teppler?”

  He snaps his fingers. “That’s him.”

  “What about him?”

  “He seems to have a lot of observations. About you in particular.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like he saw you waiting in line to use the pet tag machine at the pet store.”

  “He what?” But then I remember the Dog Tag Weirdo I’d been watching when we’d been at the mall with Mikey.

  “He also says you’ve got a lot of upper-body strength and that the classroom windows were open during the evacuation.”

  “So he’s saying I pulled myself in through the window? And how would he know about my ‘upper-body strength’? That’s just weird.”

  “He told me you had the chin-up record in your PE class.”

  “But he’s not even in my PE class! And guess what? Heather opened those windows. Right before the alarm!”

  “Hmm,” he says with a scowl. Then he starts the car and says, “Well, Foxmore was very keen on all Lars’ observations. So, like I said, do yourself a favor and curb the attitude at school. This is a lot more serious than you might think.”

  So I tell him thanks and clos
e the door, and when he takes off one way, I take off another. My head feels like it’s swimming, and the only clear thought I seem to have is that Officer Borsch is right.

  The more I know, the less things seem to add up.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I came home to a note from Grams telling me she’d gone out to dinner with my mother. “Nice of them to invite me,” I grumbled to Dorito as I leaned on the open refrigerator door, looking for something to eat. Actually, I was glad they hadn’t asked me along. Being around my mom always makes me lose my appetite. Why waste a good dinner?

  Anyway, there was a whole lot of nothing in the fridge, so I wound up opening a can of tomato soup. And as I sat at the kitchen table eating goldfish crackers and soup, it hit me that I never have dinner alone in the apartment. Even when I come home late and eat by myself, Grams is always around. She could be in her bedroom with the door closed, but I know she’s right there. I can feel her, right there.

  Once I had that thought, sitting there eating all alone felt weird.

  Really weird.

  The crackers seemed loud.

  The hum of the refrigerator was buzzy.

  The clock on the wall clicked.

  Click … click … click …

  Had it always clicked?

  Why didn’t it tick?

  What kind of clock clicks instead of ticks?

  Now, I’m not supposed to eat in the living room, but I scooped up my soup bowl and the box of crackers and went to the couch, where everything was quiet.

  Well, except for the crackers—they were still loud.

  I turned on the TV for company, but there was nothing good on, so I figured I’d earn a few brownie points with Grams and put in a Lords tape. I was planning to watch for just a little while, but since Grams had recorded the episodes back to back and had cut out the commercials, one episode just sort of ran into the next. And even after the soup and crackers were long gone, I still sat there, stupidly watching. I think I was too beat up to move. I mean, it had been another crazy day, and who could blame me for just vegging on the couch, right? But then before I know it, it’s after eight o’clock, and Grams’ key is sliding in the door lock.

  In a flash, I press the OFF button of the remote, scoop up my dishes, and dash for the kitchen. But I guess I didn’t press the button long enough, because the TV doesn’t go off.

  Now, given the choice, I’d rather be caught eating in the living room than watching a soap. And even though I was just doing it so Grams couldn’t accuse me of not being “involved” in my mother’s life, I still felt embarrassed about it. Like I’d been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to do instead of something Grams had been asking me to do.

  “How was dinner?” I ask from the kitchen, hoping she’ll come over and talk to me instead of noticing what’s on TV.

  Well, I guess I was acting a little too cheerful, because right away her granny radar goes up. She zeroes in on me suspiciously, then scans the apartment until she focuses on the television. “Oh!” she says, moving over to the living room. “You’re watching Lords.”

  I hurry in there, too, and switch off the TV. “Only so you’ll stop saying I’m a terrible daughter.”

  She blinks at me through her glasses. “I never said that!”

  I plop onto the couch and cross my arms. “Well, Lady Lana’s a terrible mother, and you said I was just like her.”

  “Samantha!” she says, but she says it softly. Like she’s shocked by my interpretation. And maybe a little hurt by it, too.

  And, really, I don’t know why I’m acting the way I am. I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed. “Sorry,” I mutter, grabbing a pillow to hug.

  She studies me a moment, then picks up the remote, saying, “Well, where are you in the story? Is Abigail still brain-dead?”

  “What do you mean, still brain-dead? If you’re brain-dead, you’re brain-dead!”

  Grams gives me a look like, Oooooooh, maybe not! Then she asks, “Well, has Mrs. Porter confessed who Abigail’s father really is?”

  I snatch the remote from her. “No! And why would I watch a stupid soap where people don’t know who their father is when I’m living that life?”

  Grams covers her mouth, then looks up to the ceiling, her eyes blinking like mad. Blink-blink-blink. Blink. Blink-blink. Blink! It’s like she’s praying in Morse code.

  Finally she says, “That was very stupid of me. I’m sorry. And I will have another talk with your mother about this, because I agree with you—the situation’s ridiculous.” She eyes me. “Especially now that she’s head over heels for Warren.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, great.”

  “She is,” she says, shaking her head. “They’re like two teenagers in love.”

  I look at her. “What? Wait—you went out with both of them?”

  She nods. “It was delightful.”

  I squint at her. “Anyone else there? Like Heather? Or Casey? Or Candi?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “So it was meet-the-mom time?”

  Grams shrugs. “I suppose so.”

  “Great,” I say, slouching into the couch. “Just great.” I turn my head to look at her. “She barely knows him! And he doesn’t know her at all!” I sit up a little. “Like, does he know she can’t cook and hates to clean? Does he know she freaks out if it’s windy ’cause it messes up her hair?” I sit up even straighter. “And, hey—does he know who my father is? ’Cause if it’s such a big oh-my-God-don’t-tell-Samantha secret, shouldn’t he know before he marries her?”

  “Good heavens! Can you not rush them to the altar?”

  “Me? I have nothing to do with this! But can’t you see? That is where this is going—why else would she want you to meet him? Officially! Over dinner!” I squint at her. “I mean, why is she still even here? She never stays this long!”

  Grams eyes pop. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?” I throw my hands in the air. “And of course not! I’m the last person to know anything!”

  “She’s going to the wedding.”

  “What wedding?” But then it hits me. “No! She can’t crash Officer Borsch’s wedding! And why would she want to?”

  “She’s not crashing it.”

  “Well, you can’t just take her! She barely even knows him!” I flash her a disgruntled look. “But see? Not knowing someone and weddings make total sense to her!”

  “Samantha,” Grams says with a laugh, “Gil invited her.”

  “He what? Why would he do that?”

  She shrugs. “You’re in the wedding? She’s your mother?”

  “But why would she go?”

  She gives another shrug, and this time it comes with a little smile. “You’re in the wedding? She’s your mother?” Then she adds, “She’s excited to see you as a bridesmaid.”

  “Oh, right,” I grumble. “The only reason she’d go is to steamroll everyone when they toss the bouquet.”

  She studies me a minute, then says, “That’s not fair. She’s trying, okay? She helped you out at school, she was very agreeable at dinner, she’s staying for the wedding.…”

  I scowl at her. “There is no way she’s hanging around all this time just to see me in a stupid poufy dress.”

  Grams nods. “Well, she is also helping Warren clean and paint the inside of the house he was renting out in Sisquane.”

  “She’s what?”

  “They want to make sure he gets his security deposit back.”

  “No, I mean you’ve got to be kidding me. She doesn’t know how to clean. She doesn’t know how to paint.”

  Grams laughs. “It’s not hard to figure out.”

  “But it’s hard work. She faints at the sight of a dust mop!”

  “Oh, she does not,” she scoffs, but she grins at me like she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

  “And you know what? If she’s gonna stick around town until Saturday, she’d better watch her back.”

  Grams frowns at me. “What
is that supposed to mean?”

  So I tell her about Heather spying through Hudson’s window and all that, and when I’m done, she says, “Are you sure she wasn’t just spying on you?” So then I have to tell her what Heather said when she ambushed me and all that. “See?” I say, showing her my hands and then pulling up the sleeve of my gym shirt, which I’d kept on after PE so people would stop asking me what happened.

  “Oh my!” Grams says, and believe me, her eyes are enormous.

  “And at this point Heather must know Mom’s on Lords, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “So what lie has Mom fabricated about where I’m living? I mean, does Warren know I’m living here?”

  Grams shakes her head. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, it matters.”

  “Yes, it does!”

  I grab my forehead. “Isn’t anybody else worried about this? I mean, maybe Warren won’t blow the whistle on us, but if Heather finds out? She is majorly ticked off and would love to make our lives miserable! So, yeah, Mom better watch her back, ’cause if Heather gets a chance, she will go totally psycho on her.”

  Grams thinks about this a minute, then takes a deep breath. “Heather would probably feel anger toward any other woman.” She shakes her head a little. “Girls can be very possessive of their fathers.”

  I scowl at her. “I wouldn’t know.”

  She just ignores that and says, “I’ll tell Lana what you said, though.” She pats my knee and stands up. “Maybe Warren can smooth things over with Heather.”

  “Good luck there,” I grumble.

  She heads for the kitchen, but halfway there she turns and says, “Oh. Your mother had a message for you.”

  I twist my head to look at her. “Yeah, what?”

  She looks up toward the ceiling like she’s trying to remember. “She said to tell you: ‘The note was unnecessary. There’s no reason you both can’t be happy.’ ”

  I sit up straighter and twist all the way around. “What?”

  So she repeats the message, then says, “She said you’d understand.”

  I snort and flop back around. “Well, I don’t.”

  “I sensed it had something to do with Casey,” she says, moving into the kitchen, “but she refused to elaborate.”