Behind the Curtain Page 13

  “Yeah.”

  “Then remember this—officially closed means my mind is still open.” His voice got gentler. “In case you’ve got anything new to tell me.”

  “Please, Ingrid,” said Mom.

  Meaning even Mom didn’t believe her. Lying put you on a tightrope. Ingrid understood that. But now telling the truth was putting her on the tightrope too. Her chin tilted up in that new aggressive way. She said nothing.

  Mom wrote Ingrid a note—Please excuse my daughter Ingrid’s tardiness—she was home with my permission—and dropped her off at school. She walked up to the wide glass doors. On the other side, Mr. Porterhouse was standing by the drinks machine, a volleyball under his arm. Ingrid paused. One more step and the doors would slide open and Mr. Porterhouse would glance over to see who was coming in.

  Ingrid couldn’t take that step. This wasn’t about Mr. Porterhouse. Mr. Porterhouse was okay. In fact, despite his mumbling, that class about steroids had been pretty helpful, had got her thinking about—

  Bzzz. Inspiration, coming out of nowhere. What were those kidnapping motives again? Ransom, sickos, enemies—none of them right in this case, a big reason why no one believed her. But what about steroids? Could there be a connection between the kidnapping and steroids? How would that work, exactly?

  A soda can banged down into the slot. Mr. Porterhouse took it and walked off. Ingrid started backing away from the school.

  Suppose the kidnapper had something to do with steroids. Why kidnap her? Was she a threat, an enemy after all, category three? Steroids were an illegal drug, meaning that someone was making money, probably lots of it, from selling them. That would turn anyone who knew what was going on into a threat. But what did she know? Nothing, really. It was all suspicion.

  Ingrid crossed the parking lot, passing all the teachers’ cars, modest cars with positive bumper-sticker messages, no HELL ON WHEELS stuff here. She remembered about not going places alone. Did that still apply? No way. The case was closed. She was on her own. Ingrid kept going, walking speed normal, mind revving.

  All she had was suspicion, but maybe whoever kidnapped her didn’t know that. Maybe whoever kidnapped her thought she really knew something, something threatening. But why her in the first place? She hadn’t told anyone.

  Ingrid turned onto High Street. Home was miles away—3.4 to be precise, measured by the odometer in the TT—and she’d never gone on foot before, but all she had to do was follow the bus route. High, Spring, Bridge, Avondale, Maple Lane, nothing to it. The stores, houses, gas stations went by in a blur. She had a motive!

  Plus what about this? She’d told no one about her suspicions, but what was stopping her now? Not a damn thing. The moment she got home, she’d call Chief Strade. How was that going to feel? Great. Chief Strade was smart. He’d get to work right away, probably starting with—

  Uh-oh. Ty.

  Oh my God.

  The chief would want to talk to Ty. Not just talk, but question. Ingrid could picture two forks leading from that conversation. One, maybe the most likely, started with Ty denying everything and ended with him never speaking to her again. The other had the chief breaking Ty down, ended with Ty getting kicked off the team, maybe even going to trial and getting sent to some kind of youth prison, life over.

  Sometimes Dad talked about win-win situations. This was lose-lose. And maybe even worse than that—what if the chief didn’t buy her story, right from the get-go? Was it possible he’d think this was just another scheme of hers, like tossing duct tape down the hill off Benedict Drive? Oh, yeah, real possible. This was lose-lose-lose.

  Where did that leave her? Ingrid had no clue. She came to a stop, looked around, her surroundings slowly unblurring. Hey. What was this? She was standing right in front of Moo Cow. How had that happened? Moo Cow was on Main Street, way off the bus route. But now that she was here…

  Ingrid shrugged off her backpack, felt inside the Velcro pocket. Sometimes Mom packed her a lunch. Other times she sent cash. Today? Cash. Cafeteria lunch cost $1.50, but Mom usually made it $2. And could there even be some loose change down there? Yes. Ingrid counted the money—$3.11. More than enough. She opened the door and went inside; tinkle-tinkle of a little bell.

  Moo Cow looked like an old-fashioned country store. Candy and chocolate counter on the left, ice cream on the right, everything made on the premises, big ceiling fan spinning slowly, the place empty now except for a guy with a gray ponytail halfway down his skinny back. He stood behind the counter, stirring up a cauldron of chocolate, the rising smells heavenly.

  “Hi,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

  “Peanut almond mocha swirl,” said Ingrid.

  “Small, medium, or large?”

  “Small.”

  “Cup or cone?”

  “Cup.”

  “Toppings?”

  “Jimmies.”

  “Two ninety-five.”

  Sixteen cents to spare. Ingrid knew Moo Cow.

  She sat at a little round table at the back. The ponytail guy came over with her ice cream, plus a napkin and a glass of ice water. Moo Cow had class.

  “Enjoy,” he said, and returned to the front of the shop, trailing a little chocolate breeze.

  Peanut almond mocha swirl—a Moo Cow exclusive. Ingrid took that first bite, a perfect cross section with jimmies on the top and swirl on the bottom. Ah. She glanced over at the ponytail guy, back at the chocolate cauldron. How did you get a job like that, anyway? Imagine a life that revolved around Moo Cow instead of school—inventing new ice cream combos, dickering with the jimmies salesman, sampling jujubes from around the globe.

  But that wasn’t her life. Her life was about somehow turning lose-lose-lose into win-win. Ingrid took a pen from her backpack, smoothed out the napkin, wrote a big ? at the top.

  Suspicions, all she had. Could she tell Chief Strade about them? Not without landing Ty in a big mess. Ratting out her own brother was unthinkable. If the situation were reversed, he’d…

  Actually, Ingrid didn’t know what Ty would do, but he’d never rat her out and anyway it didn’t bear thinking about because the situation could never be reversed. Anything that put zits on your back was obviously off the table. It was like a sign from above. How much warning did you need?

  Ingrid wrote telling chief S and drew a line through it. Telling the chief was out. Unless…

  Unless…Was a fresh idea hovering somewhere in her mind? Ingrid felt it, like a pressure behind her forehead. Would another spoonful of ice cream help her think? She took one. And yes, right away, like magic, a thought took shape.

  If there were some kind of steroid network in Echo Falls, then Ty was only one little part down at the bottom, a consumer. Her suspicions had begun with Ty, but was there any reason you had to begin there? No. You could begin anywhere, put the pieces together, end up diagramming the whole thing. And then you could go to the chief and say Look what I found, chief! This is why they came after me. Ty would be safe, out of the picture.

  Did this sound like a plan? You bet. Ingrid wrote suspicions and drew a line through that too. Suspicions were no good to her. I can only work off facts, the chief had said. That meant she had to move beyond suspicions to real facts. She wrote facts.

  What were the facts? Fact one: back zits plus rapidly increasing strength. Fact two: the medicine bottle from Mexico, in the tree house and then not. Fact three: Ty’s DVD player, first in Sean Rubino’s room, then back in Ty’s. Fact four: the $1,649, first in Sean’s baseball glove, then not. Fact five: Carl Kraken the third, seen with Sean…and later seen at the hospital. Ingrid pictured the door to the storage room banging open, Carl the third and that other guy, the orderly with the gold tooth, turning toward her—and a bunch of pills spilling on the floor. And then—that look of recognition dawning on Carl’s face.

  Fact five, Carl the third and the orderly had nothing to do with Ty. Wasn’t that the place to start?

  At that moment Ingrid remembered “The Five Orange Pips” a
nd maybe the most important thing Holmes ever told Watson: the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

  Now Ingrid knew she was on the right track. She started scribbling all the facts on the napkin, the words getting tiny as she crammed them in. She didn’t really register the bell tinkling as the door opened, was only half aware of a customer ordering chocolate, kept writing until a shadow passed over the table.

  “Ingrid? Is that you?”

  Ingrid looked up: Julia LeCaine, wearing those cool European shades, a white Moo Cow bag in her hand.

  “Um,” said Ingrid. “Hi.”

  That little smile, so intelligent, flickered across Julia’s face. “Playing hooky?” she said. She took off her shades, exposing those green eyes, so green they were almost like shades themselves.

  “Not, um, really,” Ingrid said.

  Julia laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, her glance going quickly to Ingrid’s napkin. “Mind if I join you?”

  eighteen

  “I PLAYED HOOKY ALL THE time,” said Julia LeCaine.

  “You did?” Ingrid said.

  “Oh, I was terrible.” Julia raised her hand, ordered a glass of milk. “This place is a real find. I’m going to miss it.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  The ponytail guy came over with a tall glass of milk. Julia took a long sip. “Ah, milk,” she said, “so wholesome, just as they say. I can never get enough.”

  Ingrid drank milk only under duress. “You’re leaving?” she asked again.

  “Correction: If I ever do,” Julia said. “I misspoke. The fact is I’m loving this little town.” She drank more milk, looked at Ingrid. “Although I gather it may not be quite as idyllic as it seems.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ingrid.

  “I’ve heard rumors,” said Julia.

  Ingrid said nothing.

  “Excuse me if I’m being too personal,” Julia said. She smiled her little smile. “The fact is you remind me of how I was at your age.”

  “I do?”

  “Very much. That’s why I sympathize with what you’re going through.”

  “I’m fine,” Ingrid said.

  “Really?” said Julia. “I got in a similar situation once, where no one believed me. I remember being terribly upset.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just one of those hackneyed high school stories,” Julia said. “I was accused of cheating on a test.”

  “And you were innocent?”

  “Of course,” said Julia, looking very surprised. “Why would I cheat on a test?”

  Ingrid had never actually cheated—unless you counted happening to notice completely by accident the words Fort Ticonderoga on a recent history test of Mia’s, an answer she herself would have come up with sooner or later—but she could think of reasons for doing it, such as getting a good grade or just plain passing.

  “There was that pep talk you gave us,” she said. “‘Whatever it takes.’”

  Julia’s voice sharpened. “I had no reason to cheat,” she said. “I was always the smartest kid in the class.”

  “Oh,” said Ingrid.

  “I assume you are too.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “No?” Julia took a sip of milk, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “The point is I know the feeling of no one believing you when you’re telling the truth.”

  “Thanks.” It seemed like the polite thing to say.

  “If you feel up to it,” Julia said, “I’d like to hear what really happened.”

  “Yeah?” said Ingrid. “How come?”

  Julia smiled. “If not the smartest, then you’re close,” she said. “Let’s put it this way.” She pointed to the big ? at the top of Ingrid’s napkin. “Finding answers to tough questions is what I do.”

  Ingrid felt Julia’s eyes on her. Green eyes, plus that love of milk—easy to think of Julia as a kind of cat. Ingrid was a dog person herself. She folded the napkin and slipped it in her pocket.

  A dog person, not a cat person. Plus there was the whole vice presidential rivalry thing with Dad. And the weird way that long kick of Julia’s hit Coach Ringer in the—

  “One thing I’ve been feeling bad about, by the way,” Julia said, interrupting her thoughts, “is Coach Ringer.”

  “Yeah?”

  “In all that chaos, I can’t be sure, but it might have been my ball that hit him.”

  Hey! So close to the last thought in her own mind.

  “He’s all right, thank God—safely back home,” Julia said. “I called him last night to say how sorry I was.”

  “You did?”

  “Guess what he said,” said Julia. “‘That’s the way the cookie bounces.’”

  Ingrid laughed. That was Coach Ringer. Julia was laughing too. She was smart, no doubt about that. Bringing up the whole steroid thing, out of the question, of course, because of Ty, but what harm could there be in going over the kidnapping? Maybe, solver of tough problems like she was, Julia would see something everyone else had missed.

  Ingrid told Julia the kidnapping story—garage, car trunk, escape—and the aftermath—no duct tape, no sighting by Mrs. Grunello of a car outside 99 Maple Lane, no credibility.

  “This kidnapper,” Julia said, “did you get any impression of him at all?”

  “No,” said Ingrid. “I can’t even say for sure it was a him.”

  Julia gazed at her glass of milk, almost as though it were a crystal ball. Ingrid could feel her thinking, the pressure wave crossing the table and touching her own brain. When Julia spoke at last, her question took Ingrid by surprise.

  “How is the famous Grampy taking all this?” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your grandfather,” said Julia, looking up. “Aylmer Hill.”

  “What did you mean, the famous Grampy?”

  “No disrespect intended,” said Julia. “The opposite, in fact—isn’t he one of Echo Falls’s leading movers and shakers?”

  “Oh, no,” said Ingrid. “Mover and shaker? That’s not Grampy.”

  “I’m sure you see another side of him,” Julia said, picking up the glass. “In his reaction to all this, for example.”

  “I don’t think he even knows about it,” Ingrid said.

  “He—” The glass somehow slipped from Julia’s hand. It seemed to hang in the air, then shot down to the floor and smashed, spraying milk and glass bits all over the place.

  Julia peered down at the mess as though unsure of how it had happened, her skin going pale. Then she gave herself a little shake and said, “How clumsy.” Her eyes, now on Ingrid, widened slightly. “Don’t move,” she said. “There’s glass in your hair.”

  Ingrid didn’t move. Julia reached across the table, plucked a shard of glass from Ingrid’s hair. She held it so Ingrid could see—a really sharp shard, one edge all jagged.

  “Ouch,” said Julia, dropping it on the floor. “God damn it.” A drop of blood appeared on the ball of her thumb, a round, quivering drop. She licked it off.

  By then, the ponytail guy was hurrying over with mop and broom. “Not to worry,” he said. “Happens all the time.” He had it cleaned up in seconds. “More milk?” he said.

  Julia checked her watch. “Some other time.”

  He returned to his chocolate cauldron.

  Julia laid some money on the table and rose. “Glad we could have this chat,” she said. “Hang in there, Ingrid.”

  Ingrid gazed up at her. Hang in there. “Does that mean you believe me?” she said.

  Julia met her gaze. She smiled that little smile. “I’ve got your back,” she said.

  “Thanks,” said Ingrid.

  Julia walked out, sat in the Boxster, drove away. Ingrid went back to her ice cream, kind of runny now. But still, so perfectly deli—

  Something crunched between her teeth, something much harder than a jimmy. Oh my God.
Glass. Ingrid spat the whole mouthful into her cup. Whew. A close call.

  To thoroughly understand one link in the chain:

  Ingrid bicycled up the hill to the hospital. Actually, she biked until it got too steep and then walked the rest of the way. Bike racks stood near the emergency entrance. Ingrid locked her bike and went inside.

  The emergency waiting room was deserted except for a nurse—not Mrs. Rubino—at the desk. She was busy at her computer and didn’t even look up. Ingrid crossed the room without making a sound and went through the door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  She entered the long corridor with its harsh white light. No one around. She passed the lounge—a nurse sat in a chair with a paper cup in her hand, staring into space—and came to the door marked STORAGE. Last time it had hung open an inch or two; now it was closed.

  Ingrid stood there for a moment, unsure. She reached into her pocket to consult that napkin. Fact five: Carl the third, the orderly with the gold tooth, pills spilling on the floor. Ingrid had remembered fact five, of course, but somehow seeing it in writing—even though it was her own writing, nothing official—gave her strength. If there was a chain, fact five had to be a link. She turned the knob and opened the door.

  Nobody there. Ingrid went in, the door closing behind her with that compressed-air hiss. The storage room had open shelves from floor to ceiling on both sides, plus a cabinet with steel drawers at the end. What was she looking for? Evidence. Evidence that would prove there was a steroid network in Echo Falls, a network that knew she was onto them.

  But what kind of evidence? Best would be a signed confession from all the perpetrators. What a wacked-out thought, of no use at all. Get it together, Griddie. Think of those pills spilling on the floor.

  Yes. What were those pills? Data. Holmes was very clear about data. In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” he said it was a capital mistake to theorize without data, because you ended up twisting facts to suit theories instead of the other way around. But she had those pills for data, so maybe it was okay to come up with a little theory. Such as the steroids got stored inside the hospital.