Spiritdell Book 2 Page 4

  Some people are talking about the murder and telling stories about the times they went into the creepy pawn shop. Several kids say they'd been planning to go there that very afternoon, but somehow their plans had changed and they hadn't ended up going.

  Yeah right, I think when the tenth person says the same thing. Is everyone's life so boring they have to make up stories about almost being at a crime scene? Some of the girls get so worked up they start sobbing right in class.

  “You so narrowly missed being killed too,” a girl whose name I don't know says to another girl with red hair.

  “We all could have been murdered,” the redhead says with a sniff. “Life is so precious.”

  Word has not gotten around that it was actually me and Julie who stumbled upon the body, and thank goodness, or by the end of the day we'd probably find ourselves at a candlelight vigil, surrounded by hysterical kids talking about seizing the day.

  At lunch, I enter the office timidly, trying to appear innocent. The school secretary, Denise, a perky little blonde, greets me with a smile. She's new here, just started in September, and she's way nicer than the woman who just retired.

  I feel terrible about what I'm about to do to sweet Denise, which is lie. I've been deliberating about this all morning, and I've decided a little white lie is almost nothing compared to murder, and I am trying to solve a murder, which should balance out about a hundred lies.

  “What can I do for ya, sweetie?” she asks, loudly chewing her enormous chunk of pink gum and grinning, her face full of dimples and trust. Denise and I are the only ones in the office, as most of the faculty is at lunch in the teachers' lounge. The room itself, with its long, high counter and lack of warmth seems designed to inspire fear, to dispel attempts at lying or cajoling by students.

  Even the artwork is intimidating. On the wall behind Denise is a framed print of someone staring at the viewer, using binoculars. Next to it is a print of rotting sailboats, washed up on the shores of an island surely named Desolation.

  On the counter top in front of me, there's a piece of laminated paper taped to the surface, bearing an image of a bull taking a dump, with a line crossing through the image. B.S. Free Zone, the sign reads.

  I tell myself I'm not doing anything wrong by asking a simple question as I say to Denise, “I'd like to know which students were absent yesterday and this morning.”

  She chomps the gum slowly. “Why ya want that?”

  I catch myself tugging at my left ear and order my hand down, covering the B.S. Free Zone sign casually. “I'm just … curious?”

  “Not good enough. Tell me why.” The mood in the office gets a little more serious along with her expression.

  I decide not to go with the science fair project story, but the more socially-admirable lie, hoping the goodwill points will carry over. “I'm, er, volunteering to bring homework for people. From some of the teachers.”

  Chew, chew.

  “So people don't get behind just because of a flu or cold,” I say.

  Chew, chew.

  “It's a pilot project.”

  She narrows her eyes. “I can't give out that information.”

  I deflate and look down at my shoes. “Thanks anyways.” I turn and start to leave the office. I should have gone with the virus story and my noble efforts to locate patient zero of the sore throat epidemic.

  Denise calls after me, “You might check with your friend, Raye-Anne Donovan. She wasn't here this morning. Might have caught the same thing Shad Miller had yesterday. And Rosemary Stonehurt.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” I'm calm on the outside, but doing jumping jacks on the inside.

  “Zaniel, would you do me a favor.”

  I turn, barely able to make eye contact. “Yes?”

  “Two pumps. Of the antibacterial hand sanitizer that's in every hallway. We can't be too careful!”

  “Yes, Ma'am.”

  * * *

  I know why Raye-Anne Donovan wasn't at school this morning, and it has more to do with party fun than viral infection. At the Halloween party, while I was bored senseless listening to Julie complain about guys saying one thing but meaning another, Raye-Anne was trying to get everyone to limbo with her. She wore a grass skirt and a coconut bra top, which earned her a lot of evil glares from the girls, and limbo-stick-holding volunteers from the guys.

  Someone brought tequila for the limbo contest winner, and wouldn't you know, even with the coconut boobs threatening to topple the limbo stick, Raye-Anne kept winning.

  Her absence this morning is due to margarita madness, I suspect.

  I used to have a crush on Raye-Anne, with her tiny mouth and just-right-sized everything else, but now she's a friend—one of the gang—though she doesn't know the full story about my powers.

  That leaves Rosemary and Shad, and now that I think about it, Rosemary wasn't in English this morning. She's so small, and usually quiet, so it's no wonder I didn't notice her absence until now.

  I saw her downtown yesterday, too, with Shad, before they showed up at the party. Could they have seen something suspicious?

  Armed with my hot new leads, I walk out to the back steps of the school to where a lot of kids eat their lunches on sunny days. I scan the crowd for Shad Miller.

  He's easy to spot, with his bright red hair, not to mention his height of six feet four inches. Yesterday he was dressed as a fisherman, and today he's wearing a shirt with a fish on the front. Under the fish illustration, the caption reads: A shad is a bony fish, rich in Omega 3.

  As I walk over, I say, “Hey, Shad,” carefully pronouncing his name properly. He hates being called Chad and will give people a five-minute speech if they make the error, even if they're teachers.

  He's popping a little hacky sack back and forth between his knees, and he doesn't look sick at all, considering he missed school yesterday. He was well enough to come to the party, which was not something Gran would let me get away with.

  Shad's face is very pale, from being a redhead. His lips are rather pink compared to other people's, and the line where his lips meet his face skin is almost red. I wonder what it feels like to be so pale, and if the same sun that shines on us all is less hot on his radiant skin. I bet he burns easily.

  Shad-not-Chad squints at me, keeping the sack going back and forth. “Zan, dude. What's up?”

  “Since last night? Not much. How about you?”

  “Hey, your girlfriend never came to the party last night. Is she real?”

  “Quite real, I assure you,” I say.

  “Sweet. Can your old lady girlfriend hook us up with beer, like, on a regular basis? I used to have a place, but they're carding now.”

  “I could ask,” I say levelly, keeping my annoyance in check. Austin's a few years older than me, but she's no old lady.

  I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to question him about the murder at the pawn shop, so I wing it. “Where were you yesterday during school hours?” I ask. “We could have used you in gym. You're the only one who can dunk.”

  Shad's face flushes and he drops the sack. He steps in close to me and whispers, “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “Never mind,” he says, shaking his head.

  “I guess you had one of those twenty-four hour stomach bugs.”

  “You have no idea,” he says, his pink-rimmed eyes darting left and right.

  “Try me.”

  He glances around again. James and Julie, eating their bagged lunches at a table a dozen feet away, give us a twin wave.

  Shad grimaces. “Those two are megacreepy,” he says.

  “No, they're not.” And furthermore, he didn't think they were megacreepy last night when he was at their house, eating all their free food and drinks. I don't say this, though, because I'm trying to keep my potential witness cooperative.

  Shad scoops up the sack and bounces it off my chest, catching it on his knee. He tries the move again, but this time I'm ready and snatch the ball in mid-air.
>
  I say, “I'll give this back if you tell me where you were yesterday.”

  He laughs, showing off about a hundred big, square teeth. “Why do you care?”

  “I'm a details kinda guy. I didn't care, but now that you won't tell me, my curiosity is piqued.”

  “You're megacreepy,” he says, but he's still smiling, not angry.

  “Sounds like you were up to something really cool, and I wanna know. I'll give you the sack back, I promise.”

  “I'll think about it, man.” He walks away, leaving me holding the little blue and red hacky sack.

  You think about it, Shad, while I find out about it.

  Rosemary's not around today, but if Shad really does have something to hide, I bet I find out in less than a second, as soon as Rosemary pokes her finger in my belly button. Then, all will be revealed.

  * * *

  I keep listening for clues all afternoon at school, but nothing's jumping out at me. Spiritdell's got more residents than the kids in my high school, so I'll have to expand my observation area. I should start canvasing for witnesses around the pawn shop. Ugh, that sounds like a lot of work.

  I wonder what Austin will think of all this. I've messaged her a few times today and asked about hanging out tonight, but she's claiming to be too tired. I want to push for a commitment, but she did have major surgery not long ago, and I suppose it would take time to recover. I ought to be patient. Still, being patient doesn't make me miss her any less.

  I've got the necklace I bought her back at my house, but I don't mention the gift in my text messages, because I don't want to guilt her into seeing me if she's not up for it. She is going to love the necklace, though, especially because it's vintage. Austin's really into fashion and mixing all sorts of patterns and clothes from different eras, like hippie skirts from the 1970s with denim jackets, or any two colors you wouldn't think go together, like bright blue and lime green.

  I thought her fashion sense might rub off on me, but the other day I wore a V-neck shirt underneath a green V-neck sweater and Julie giggled and made me change in the bathroom, turning the t-shirt around backwards. She said it was fine the colors didn't match, but you can't wear a V under a V, even though you can wear a circle-necked thing under another circle-necked thing.

  How am I supposed to know about double-V-necking? Who makes these rules, and how do I get a copy?

  Maybe I'll get some expert fashion advice from the shops on Chesapeake Avenue when I go there after school today for the next step in my first murder investigation.

  Chapter Five

  After school, instead of heading home, I take my planned detour downtown. The weather's nice for the first day of November and I unzip my windbreaker.

  The sun is glinting off our tallest building, the Hotel Doccione, where Gran and Rudy will be having their wedding. The hotel is new, but they've added some Old World touches to class it up. At first, I thought Doccione was a type of coffee, but it's actually the Italian word for gargoyle. The hotel uses a drawing of a gargoyle on its signs and stationery, and they had carved stone creatures added to each corner of the building, near the roof.

  I stop on the corner and squint up at the stony monsters. Are they dragons, or dogs? I can't tell from here. They aren't even real gargoyles, either, because they don't spout water. Non-functional decorations like this are technically called grotesques, but I suppose Hotel Grotesque wouldn't draw the tourists.

  Continuing down the street, drawing closer to the pawn shop, my stomach pinches and the memory of the dead body in a pool of blood surges back, unwanted.

  I need to stop remembering and feeling, and try using my eyes and ears and brain instead of my temperamental guts, which are telling me to turn around. I force myself to step off Dixon Street, onto Chesapeake Avenue.

  The sidewalks are busier here, with people window-shopping, walking and talking in groups, or sitting on little chairs outside cafes.

  If we were in England and not America, Chesapeake Avenue would be called a high street, I think, because it's one of our few shopping areas for the town that isn't a mall. Rudy calls this section the main drag, which seems rather old-fashioned, but that's Rudy for you.

  The busiest part of Chesapeake Avenue are the six blocks between Dixon and Milos. In that stretch, we have four banks, a dozen clothing stores, two Starbucks locations, and two coffee places for people who don't like Starbucks. One of the independent cafes is The Bean, a tiny place with a green wooden door, where Austin works the occasional shift.

  The construction here is a mix of older, brick low-rise buildings and taller, modern glass storefronts with apartments above. Some of the town's original character has been preserved, including a recently-discovered ghost sign. When the little movie theater was torn down earlier this year, the wrecking ball revealed a hand-painted advertisement for shaving cream on the side of the neighboring building. The billboard had not been seen by human eyes for at least eighty years, and people thought that meant something, so the plans for the new building were modified. Now part of the sign will remain visible forever.

  I know about ghost signs and gargoyles and other things because Gran works in administration at City Hall. Gran assured me the ghost sign's been covered with an anti-graffiti coating to protect against vandalism. The sign is not unattractive as art, but mainly people adore the quaint idea of someone hand-painting an advertisement instead of it being printed and glued up. Some people feel older is always inherently better. I wonder if, in the future, when all billboards are digital, people will be restoring and preserving our tatty paste-ups for energy drinks and cell phones.

  Besides the shaving cream sign, I don't notice anything else ghostly or unusual about Chesapeake Avenue today.

  I walk past the jewelry store I visited yesterday. There would be no point asking in here, since the guy inside was helping me pick out a necklace at the time of the crime and probably didn't see anything across the street. I pop into the next shop, which is a place that sells shoes. Nice shoes. I pick up a pair and have to tell my face to be cool when I see the price tag. As Gran would say, I should hope they're nice for that price!

  A hip-looking guy of about thirty strikes up a conversation with me about the weather. I tell him straight-up I can't afford to buy anything, and he says in a light-hearted, joking way, “That's fine, look around. I get bored, so you can ask me anything. Retail people are humans too, you know.”

  “So, what you're saying is you're people? Just like teenagers?”

  His eyes crinkle up behind his thick-framed, retro glasses. “You get it, man. Hey, do you know where I can score some weed?”

  “No.”

  “Hey, that's cool. I didn't mean anything, just all my friends are married. With kids. But I like working here, it's cool, you know. Yup. It's cool.”

  I pretend to look at some random items as I edge my way closer to the exit. “So, I guess there was a shooting across the street yesterday. Crazy stuff. Did you see anything?”

  He backs away from me. “You're not a cop, are you?”

  “You're kidding. I'm seventeen. I go to high school.”

  “I knew that,” he says.

  “So you did see something yesterday?”

  “Heard it. I was out front cleaning the windows and I heard the shots. Thought it was kids with fireworks in the alley at first, but I had this spooky feeling. I'm quite psychic at times, you know, it runs in my family. Anyways, I came inside here and called it in.” He points through the shoe display in the window to the closed pawn shop across the street. “If I'd have known, I would have had my eye on that front door.”

  “You did enough, calling it in.”

  “I could be a hero,” he says. “I could be a cop, even, if I wanted. Just doing this shoe gig until I get a little cash saved up.”

  He looks down and my gaze follows his, to his feet, which are clad in inexpensive-looking, scuffed shoes. I don't need psychic powers to know two things: this adult man desperately wants me to think he'
s cool, yet even with his staff discount, he can't afford to buy the shoes in the store where he works.

  I thank him and make my way back outside, the fresh air a calming antidote to the plastic smell inside the store.

  My stomach grumbles. I'd like to go home now, but I have to canvas more businesses for clues.

  * * *

  Two hours later, I'm at a dead end, metaphorically.

  Talking to people inside the rest of the businesses along the street has gone about as well as the shoe store. Nobody even questioned why I was so curious; they all welcomed the opportunity to talk about the biggest thing to have happened on the street in years.

  The man at the barber shop said he used to cut Newt's hair, but the hair grew so fast Newt had to come in once a week. The girl at the import candy store mentioned he had a taste for those little candies that smell like perfume and taste like soap. The woman at the convenience store said he went through a lot of milk. None of these people seemed affected either way by Newt's death, nor concerned the killer might be coming for them next.

  I did discover one interesting fact: while the newspaper articles implied the shooting may have been a robbery gone wrong, the police confidentially assured all the members of the local business association that no cash or valuables seemed to have been taken from the premises. An unsecured cash drawer at the front counter was untouched, and all the high-value items matched the inventory.

  I had figured Newt's murder wasn't a plain old robbery gone wrong, but now my suspicions have been confirmed.

  Before I go home, I should take one last look at the place and see if the visual triggers any ideas. From across the street, I look at the storefront and compare it to the others on the same block. The shop is about twenty feet wide, and if the buildings are the same depth, it's got to be the same size as the big-name sportswear shop next door. On the other side is a nice-looking designer sunglasses and eyeglasses store. Newt's seedy little pawn shop really was the black sheep of the neighborhood. Perhaps the local business association had him offed for the crime of being tacky.