TWENTY
I crammed the bible in the back waistband of my jeans, covered it with my sweatshirt, then opened the closet door and came out with both hands in the air.
Tina nearly fainted, but the Croc didn’t even flinch. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you break into my house!”
“You wanted me to find Marique. I’ve found Marique.”
“What? Well, where is she?”
I handed over the kennel receipt. “I think you’ll find her at the Wag and Whisker in Santa Luisa.”
She studied it, then handed it back. “This is a receipt for a dog named Bubbles!”
“My bet is that Bubbles is one bald little Pomeranian.” I looked over at Tina. “Isn’t it, Tina?”
Tina snatched the receipt and said, “You are really grasping. Bubbles is Buddy’s grandmother’s dog. She’s visiting Buddy’s sister for Christmas and she asked us to check Bubbles into the Wag and Whisker for her.”
The Croc blinked. “Wait a minute. That’s your receipt?”
“It sure is, and I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing saying that—”
I pressed the Play button, and “Maaaariiique! Maaaariiique!” filled the room.
“That’s my voice,” the Croc whispered.
“Exactly. Tina played it over Buddy’s megaphone at the parade. Marique heard it and that’s why she went charging off the float.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding! How farfetched can you get?”
I looked at her and said, “It never made sense to me because you were home when the ransom note came and you were home when the fur got delivered.”
“That’s right! Mother, she’s just proved how ridiculous this whole theory is!”
I shook my head. “But then I remembered how both times you played with the lights on the Christmas tree. That was your signal to Buddy to make the delivery.”
Mrs. Landvogt was turning a very odd shade of green. Even for a crocodile. “You and Buddy did this?”
“Mom, don’t listen to her! There’s no way I—”
“And then I remembered how the first time I came over you looked straight at Marissa and asked if she was Sammy.”
“So what?”
“So if you’d been at the parade concentrating on anything besides getting your mitts on Marique, you’d have known I was Sammy, not Marissa.”
“Oh, come on! Like I’m supposed to remember every twelve-year-old girl I run into. Besides, I taped the parade. That’s proof right there that I didn’t do it!”
I looked straight at Tina. “If you don’t mind, I’m thirteen.” I handed Mrs. Landvogt Vera’s picture and said, “Here, take a magnifying glass to that and you’ll see Buddy holding a video camera, not Tina.”
She barely looked at it. “I don’t need a magnifying glass. I recognize his jacket from here.” Her voice sounded scratchy, almost tired. She glared at Tina and hissed, “How could you do this to me? You’re my daughter!”
Tina knew there was no use denying it anymore. Instead, she went off like a rocket. “Your daughter? I’m not your daughter, I’m your slave! The only reason you want me around is so I can do things for you. You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to do things with me. You don’t care how I feel or what I think or how you hurt me!”
“How I hurt you? What is this you’ve been doing to me? You’ve been blackmailing your own mother!”
Tina snickered, then said, “Like mother, like daughter. I learned from the master. You got a problem? Call immigration. Or the health department.” Her eyes got really big. “Or better yet, the wife! I can’t stand being in this town anymore. Everyone knows I’m just your little agent. People are afraid of me! Why? Because I’m Lilia Landvogt’s daughter.”
“A little fear is good for people. That’s no reason to turn on the person who has housed you and supported you and loved you!”
“Loved me?” Tina choked out a laugh. “Loved me? Is that some kind of a joke? You don’t love me. Ever since Yelsa got out you’ve hated me!”
The Crocodile blinked at her. “I haven’t hated you …”
“Well, you’ve never forgiven me!”
The Croc shrugged and let out a little sigh. “Well, it was unforgivable. You should’ve been more responsible.”
“I was ten years old!”
“Still.”
Tina slid down the wall onto the floor. She wrapped her arms around her legs, buried her face in her knees, and burst into tears. And while she’s rocking back and forth, sobbing, the Croc gives her a disgusted look and says to me, “Well, I guess you’re off the hook.”
I felt like kicking her leg. And standing there listening to her daughter’s heart break while she sat there shaking her head made me want to yell at her about Mrs. Graybill and where a lack of forgiveness had gotten her.
But then I realized I wasn’t dealing with Mrs. Graybill. I was dealing with a crocodile. A cold-blooded reptile with her very own cross-referenced blackmailer’s bible.
I followed as she rolled over to the front door and opened it without a word. I stepped out, then turned and faced her from the porch. “I don’t expect thanks, Mrs. Landvogt. I just expect to be left alone. And in case you ever get the idea that maybe you’d like to try blackmailing me again, well, don’t.”
She gave me a condescending little smile. “Oh, what’s this now? A threat? Really, Samantha, what could you possibly do to me?”
I gave her a condescending little smile right back. “Let’s just say that if my grandmother or I should ever run into difficulties with any sort of authorities, or if anything should mysteriously happen to either of us, this will become a very public document.” I held up the black book and said, “You won’t live to tell your side of it.”
I think she swallowed her tongue. She choked and sputtered and her mouth went up and down like a seesaw. Finally she got right out of her wheelchair and started after me, but I was already gone. I was feeling so light and moving so fast that nothing, not even a posse of crocodiles, could’ve caught me.
TWENTY-ONE
I started reading the book that night. Among other things, I found out that the Gypsy was right about Mr. Petersen—he was in with loan sharks way over his head, and it turns out that Paula Nook’s ex was one of them.
It was fascinating reading, but the deeper I got into it, the more I knew that there was only one thing I could do with the book. I had to burn it. It felt radioactive—like the longer I was near it, the more it would rot me from the inside out.
Hudson didn’t even ask. He just opened the door at seven in the morning and lit me a fire. And when the book was done smoking its way up the chimney, he pointed to the three pages I had left in my hand and said, “I sense that’s an insurance policy.”
“Not for me. These two are for Mrs. Hallenback, and this one’s for Officer Borsch.”
Hudson raised an eyebrow. “Your pal on the force?”
I snorted, “Some pal,” and was in the middle of telling him how Ol’ Borsch-head wasn’t even willing to try to help me trap Heather when all of a sudden I remembered I’d never gotten Rudy a present for the exchange party. “Oh no!”
“What’s the matter, Sammy?”
“What am I going to do?”
“About Officer Borsch?”
“No!” I looked at him and asked, “You got anything that a guy who likes dirt might want for Christmas?”
Hudson gave me a worried look. “Dirt?”
“I’m Rudy Folksmeir’s KK, and we’re having an exchange party at the end of the day. I completely forgot to get him something.”
“But dirt?”
I laughed and said, “He’s way into dirt bikes.”
“Ah … dirt bikes.” He rubbed his chin a minute. “Why don’t we check in the garage.”
Hudson’s garage is like a little operating room for his car, Jester. Jester’s a 1960 sienna rose Cadillac that you’d better never describe as lavender. Jester doesn’t drip oi
l or water or any other bodily fluids, and there’s not a scratch on it.
Hudson flipped on the operating lights. “How about an oil can?”
“An oil can?”
“Any biker worth his dirt is going to appreciate one of these.”
I was expecting a container of oil. Like what goes in an engine. What Hudson got down from a shelf, though, was a shiny copper can that looked like a cross between an inkwell and a candle holder. He handed it to me and said, “Most folks don’t use them anymore, but I haven’t found anything better for lubing joints and getting into tight places. Trust me, your friend Rudy will like it.”
I laughed. “If you say so.”
He winked at me. “I say so.”
So we gave it a real festive wrap in a paper sack, and as I was stuffing it in my backpack he noticed my present for Heather, wrapped in shiny red paper. His eyebrows popped up a little. “For someone a little less dirt-conscious …?”
I laughed, then showed him how I’d wrapped the lid separate from the box and how Grams’ old kitchen timer was sitting inside. He rubbed his chin a bit, so I gave the timer a twist, then put the box together. “It’s for Heather.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Her tell-tale heart!”
I ran down his steps calling, “Wish me luck. I think I’m going to need it!”
The last day of school before Christmas vacation is probably the best day of the whole school year. You don’t do anything academic—most teachers are smarter than that. Everyone’s in a good mood because vacation’s coming, Christmas is coming, and sugar is everywhere.
And at William Rose Junior High, they don’t even make you go back to class after the gift exchange. You just hang out in the cafeteria for a while and then you get to go home.
Anyhow, by the time the gift exchange rolled around, Marissa, Holly, Dot, and I were so hyped up on candy canes and chocolate that we were actually excited about making idiots of ourselves in front of the whole school. And while the rest of the kids piled into the cafeteria to watch our vice principal, Mr. Caan, play the role of Santa, we snuck into the bathroom to get ready.
Holly and I checked the stalls to make sure there were no smokers standing on toilets waiting to flick their Bics, while Dot pulled out a tube of white face paint and Marissa emptied a sack of robes. She held one up and said, “Is this what you had in mind, Sammy?”
I couldn’t believe it. “Those are perfect!”
She giggled. “I know!”
Holly put one on and flipped up the hood. “Where in the world did you find these?”
“My cousin Brandon. I guess at the high school they do this thing every year during Red Ribbon Week where the Students Against Drunk Driving dress up as Death. It’s supposed to demonstrate how often people get killed by drunk drivers.”
I put mine on and said, “These are way better than I expected.”
Marissa grinned. “You wanted black, you got black.”
Dot smeared our faces with white paint and then put heavy black circles under our eyes. Then she decided she wanted to paint our hands white and put some black around our fingernails. When we finally looked at each other in the mirror we jumped back a little. We looked scary!
I turned Grams’ timer on and stuck it in the red box while Holly and Marissa got their empty presents ready. When we were done, Dot lined us up and said, “You guys are the scariest Three Kings I’ve ever seen!”
I laughed and said, “Remember, we have to take ourselves seriously or this will never work. We sure look like Death. Now all we have to do is act like Death and think like Death.”
So we all practiced looking real serious and, you know, like Death. And after a few minutes of practicing, I said, “Okay, Dot, you better wait by the front doors on the off chance Officer Borsch decides to show up.”
She nodded and said, “If he comes, I’ll get him to the cafeteria,” then looked at her watch. “If you told him twelve-thirty we better hurry. It’s twelve-thirty now.”
The teachers in the cafeteria were so busy laughing at Santa Caan be-bopping to “Jingle Bell Rock” that they didn’t even notice us walking by.
Heather didn’t notice us either. We circled around her so that we could maneuver her toward the door, and it wasn’t until we were about ten feet from her that Monet grabbed her arm and said, “Look!”
We didn’t say a word, we just came at her, three across, with me out front a little. All of a sudden, “Jingle Bells” quit rocking and the cafeteria went quiet. I held my little red box out to Heather, and it seemed really loud, ticking away.
She took a few steps back and tried to laugh. “You guys are crazy …!” But we kept coming at her, slowly, with empty eyes.
Panic skated across her face, and I figured it was now or never. I held the box a little higher and said in a real monotone voice, “Heather Acosta, your time has come.”
Heather put her hands up and said, “You guys have taken this way too seriously! It was just a prank, okay? Get over it!”
We kept coming.
“Hey, Sammy, back off! What are you doing? I’m sorry, okay?”
I kept coming at her.
She blinked a bunch, then looked over her shoulder for a place to run.
That’s when she saw Officer Borsch. That’s when I saw Officer Borsch. And for a minute I almost forgot I was playing Death and smiled. Heather took one last look at me, then charged over to him screaming, “Stop them! They’re trying to kill me! They’ve got … they’ve got a bomb!”
Officer Borsch just stood there, rock-steady, not saying a word.
“Stop her! Oh my God, why don’t you stop her!”
I kept coming.
He looked down at her and said, “Heather Acosta, your time has come.”
She looked at him in disbelief and then got down on her knees and hugged his leg. “I didn’t mean any harm! I said I was sorry! What more do you want?” She started crying. “You can’t let them kill me over a few stupid cats!”
I took off my hood and smiled at Officer Borsch. “She’s all yours.”
Heather looked at him and then at me, and you could see it sinking in. I took the lid off my box and said, “I’d give you this as a gift, but really, I’m not your KK. I’ve heard Cindy Ruiz is. Besides, I’ve got to get this timer back to my grandmother. She’s got pies to bake.”
By now Mr. Caan had shown up, and he escorted us out of there. And while Heather was blubbering all over our jolly old vice principal, trying to convince him what a terrorist I was, I thanked Officer Borsch for showing up and then said, “What are you going to do with her?”
He shrugged. “Ruffle her feathers some. Introduce her to a horse—show her how heavy they are. I don’t know. I have to give it some thought.” He chuckled and said, “I really didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to do anything, but I’m glad I decided to come.”
“What changed your mind, anyway?”
He looked away, and I realized he wasn’t turning red from anger—he was blushing.
“What? What happened?”
He shrugged. “Debra overheard our conversation and accused me of being an old fart.”
“Debra?” I almost blurted, You mean the Vagrant Dodo? but instead, I buttoned my lip, swirled my hand around my head, and said, “You mean the lady with the … um … the hair?”
He nodded, then said, “And here I thought I’d be going back with proof that this was the wackiest idea anyone had ever come up with.” He said through a chuckle, “You always manage to surprise me, Samantha.”
I laughed, then said, “Oh! By the way … is the guy that’s been roasting you at work named Andy Hicks?”
Officer Borsch squinted at me. “How do you find this stuff out?”
I shrugged. “Elyssa’s mom said something about it.”
Officer Borsch scowled. “He’s the one, all right.” He hiked up his gun belt and said, “I know you probably think I have no sense of humor, but you’re wrong. I’ve just got no sense
of humor where Andy Hicks is concerned. He’s a bad seed.”
“Like crooked?”
He hesitated, then decided to tell me. “Jim Keltner and I tried to prove it a few years back, but we got nowhere.”
I dug out the page from Mrs. Landvogt’s bible and gave it to him. “Well, Merry Christmas.”
The more he read, the more bridgework he showed. Finally he whispered, “Where did you get this?”
“Let’s just say I snatched it from the jaws of a crocodile.” I smiled at him. “It’s all yours. Have fun.”
He just stood there blinking at me, so I laughed and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a gift to deliver.”
Now, Santa Caan was not about to let me scoot off without an explanation. He corrals Officer Borsch and the rest of us together, and for once, I let Officer Borsch do all the talking. And when he had straightened everything out, the three of us charged off to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
When we returned to the cafeteria, it was like nothing had happened. People were laughing and dancing and sucking on candy canes, and over in the corner I spotted Rudy Folksmeir with a couple of his buddies, talking dirt.
I gave him the brown bag and said, “Merry Christmas, Rudy.”
He opened it up kind of suspiciously, but all of a sudden his face broke into a giant smile. “Cool! Wow, guys, look at this!” He turned it over a couple of times and said, “Sammy, this is way cool!”
His friends put down their plastic canes of M&M’s and said, “Dude, check it out!”
I laughed and said, “Glad you like it,” and all of a sudden it felt like Christmas inside—warm and happy and kind of peaceful.
Then there was this little voice behind me, saying, “Sammy? Sammy, here. This is for you.”
I turned around, and there, smiling at me through her bangs, was Cassie Kuo. She pushed a shiny red package into my hands and said, “Merry Christmas.”
“You’re my KK?”
She nodded and asked, “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Oh! Oh, sure.” So I ripped off the wrapping and popped open the box, and what I pulled out of the tissue paper was a round ornament that spelled SAMMY around the top hemisphere and SAMMY upside down around the bottom hemisphere. It was glittery white and dangled from a red velvet ribbon, and the whole thing was made out of macaroni. I held it up and said, “Cassie, I can’t believe this. Where did you get it? Did you make it?”