Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye (8 page)

“Admit it,” Austin says, rushing to keep up as I hurry down the hall on my way to find Danigail. “You couldn’t have solved it without me. Your biggest case yet, and if it wasn’t for me—”

I spin around and stop in the middle of the hallway, causing him to smack into me, which shuts him up pretty fast. “Your mouth is doing a lot of talking, Phelps, but I can’t understand a word of it, because last I checked,
I
was the one who solved this case. The only one.”

He holds up a finger. “But if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have had the clue that put it all together.
You
were going to leave Connor’s note on the floor and not even bother with it. You made fun of me for bagging it up. You said we don’t have a high tech crime lab here.”

“Your point?”

“Your recklessness would have done you in.” He grins. “You needed me on this one, just like Dodge said.”

“Watch it, Phelps. You’re getting
this close
to—”

A cranky, nasally voice interrupts me. “Hall passes, please,” Mrs. Hollister snarls. I had her last semester for Being Quiet, and everyone—even if they haven’t been in her class—knows she’s counting the days until retirement. There’s even a big poster on her classroom wall of the around the world cruise she plans to take once she’s free. She says “please” in the rudest way possible, like she’s already made up her mind that we’ve got no business here. No one ever said she taught manners, that’s for sure.

Her lip curls in a disappointed sneer when I hold up my
carte blanche
, something she’s pretty familiar with. I’ve one upped her, and she doesn’t get to terrorize me today—kinda makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

But not Mrs. Hollister. She glares at Austin like she’s going to find a way to punish him for both of us. “You each need your own pass.”

Austin’s hands shake as he pats his pockets, pretending like he’s misplaced something. “I… I’m sure it’s here somewhere.” But his voice is shaking worse than his hands, and it’s too high-pitched. He’s a terrible liar.

Mrs. Hollister smiles, like catching students breaking the rules will make her retirement countdown that much shorter. “Where are you supposed to be right now?” She’s already taking out a pad of paper and a pen. “I’m going to have to write you up. Skipping class, that’s at least three days of detention.”

Austin opens his mouth to protest, and Mrs. Hollister’s sinister smile deepens, probably hoping he’ll talk back and she can make it a whole week. Austin crumbles under her authority and swallows back whatever protest he was about to make. He turns to me, a hand over his chest. “Just go. Don’t worry about me. Justice waits for no one.”

Yeah, sure. It’s not how I would have put it, but he’s right about one thing—justice needs to be done, and there’s not a whole lot of time to do it in. There’s a lot of messed up stuff going on around here, and someone’s got to make it right. And fast.

“You wanna tell me what’s so important?” Danigail asks, one hand on her hip. “I had to tell Mrs. Diggs my
brother
was out in the hall, that it might be some family emergency. If she finds out I lied, it’s going to be on your head when I get expelled.”

“Sorry, DG, but I already used up all my vacation time—save the guilt trip for someone else. It’s your fault you didn’t ask for a pass first.”

“I’m missing the explanation of the essay we’re supposed to write. Believe it or not, I’m actually trying to improve. I might get a second chance at this, and I’ve decided… I’ve decided I’m not going to waste it.” She shakes her head, casting a quick glance over her shoulder towards the classroom. “Plus, last time I asked for a hall pass, I said I had to go to the bathroom and never came back. My privileges in this class have been revoked, so you’d better tell me why you couldn’t wait ten more minutes for the bell to ring. A hint?” She narrows her eyes at me. “It had better be good.”

As if it’s my fault she has a history of skipping class. “That’s no way to treat the detective who just solved
your
case.”

She blinks, too dazed to talk at first. Then she bites her lip, a skeptical frown lining her forehead. “I don’t buy it. If I was off the hook, that would be good news. You don’t look like you’re here to give me good news. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I’m giving you a heads up before you hear it from someone else. You’re not going to like it.”

She gives me this look, like
You think
? Out loud she says, “Harper. The clock. It’s
ticking
.”

There’s no easy way to say it, so I go for the blunt approach. “Alexis hired Connor Mills to make sure Veronica had an unfortunate accident, one that left her unable to perform the lead in the play.”

“
No
. She wouldn’t.”

“It was the only way she was going to get her moment in the spotlight and her chance to go to that school. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and it was going to just pass her by. She couldn’t let that happen, so… Maybe she didn’t mean for Veronica to actually get hurt, but Alexis paid off Connor Mills. Five hundred dollars.”

Danigail lets out a yelp, then covers her mouth with her hands. “Are you nuts? Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“I have proof, back in my office.”

She presses her palms to her forehead, her face pale. I haven’t seen her this freaked out since Oliver’s accident. “No, no, no. You think Alexis has
five hundred dollars
? And that she’d give it to Connor Mills?!”

When she says it out loud, it sounds kind of ridiculous. “I know Alexis would have had to sit back and watch a huge opportunity go down the drain while the girl who should have been her understudy hogged center stage. And I know money changed hands between her and Connor.”

“That’s not proof,” Danigail says. She brushes her hand across her eyes. “Alexis is my friend—she wouldn’t lie to me! This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you about her trying to get into that school. You think Connor’s involved? Big surprise. You think he’s involved with
everything
. He’s a jerk, and he should have paid for what happened to Ollie, but that doesn’t make him evil.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “I thought you of all people would be on my side. He
hurt
Oliver.”

She looks away. “I wasn’t there that night, Harper. I don’t know what happened. Yeah, I want to blame it on someone, but…” She shrugs, a tear running unchecked down her cheek. “But maybe it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe these things just happen, and both of us have to deal with that and let go. You want to punish Connor for what happened, but you’re only punishing yourself. And now you want to drag Alexis into it, too. She’s my friend—probably my only friend right now—and you come to me with some crazy story about her paying your worst enemy some huge amount of money? And lying to me about it?”

“Danigail, I’m your friend, too.” The words are surprisingly hard to get out. My throat is dry and my voice cracks a little, like it hasn’t been used in years. But it’s the truth. Maybe we hadn’t spoken in months before she stepped into my office on Monday, but our friendship has roots. We go way back, and something like that doesn’t just disappear.

But Danigail’s shaking her head. “Alexis trusted me, and I trusted
you
.”

“Danigail, listen, I—”

“I have to go find Alexis. I have to… I don’t know. I have to figure this out.” There are tears streaking down her face as she darts off down the hall.

The classroom door opens and Mrs. Diggs steps out, frowning at all the commotion.

“Family emergency,” I explain.

“Riiight,” Mrs. Diggs mutters, sounding a little sympathetic, but mostly just skeptical.
Really
skeptical, and I can see why, since the last time she let Danigail leave before class was over, she never came back.

I slip the
carte blanche
hall pass from around my neck and hand it to her, my fingers trembling. “It’s okay, though,” I say, my throat going tight. “She had a pass. She was supposed to give this to you, but she wasn’t thinking straight.”

Mrs. Diggs takes the laminated card from me, blinking at it and turning it over in her hands. When she sees Dodge’s signature on the back, she loosens up and nods her approval. “Okay—I’ll send her things to the office.” She opens the classroom door to go back inside, the hall pass still in her hand. “She’s a good girl, deep down,” she says, pausing and giving a wistful look in Danigail’s direction. “I hope everything’s okay.” She’s probably thinking of Oliver and everything Danigail’s already been through and how it changed her, not for the better.

“Me too,” I say, and then the door bangs shut behind her as she goes inside, my
carte blanche
hall pass disappearing along with her.

Principal Vickers taps her fingernails against the edge of her desk. She has long, fake nails painted dark blue with little fake jewels at the ends. I don’t have to be a detective to figure out she’s not happy to see me. Her mouth is twisted, her lips pulled together into a thin, angry line. She looks like she’s clenching her jaw something fierce, her teeth slowly grinding together.

And I haven’t even told her why I’m here yet.

“Well, well, well,” she says, her British accent making her sound more in charge than I’d like and her nails tapping extra loudly, so that each word has a sharp
click
to go with it. “I never expected to see you again. Unless of course you’re here to admit defeat and formally remove yourself from the case?” Her eyebrows go up, hopeful.

There’s something I don’t like about the way she says “admit defeat,” but it might be because there’s no way I’m going to. “Just the opposite,” I say, glaring at her from my seat on the other side of her desk. I jiggle my foot, restless and kind of wishing I was closer to the door. Sitting here, with her staring down at me, makes me feel like I’m a lab rat running a maze. I don’t want my cheese—I just want out.

“The opposite,” she repeats slowly, tasting the words in her mouth and apparently finding them disgusting.

“I’ve solved the case. So it looks like you’re not going to be expelling Danigail.” Not this time, anyway.

“I see.” She picks up the phone on the edge of her desk and starts dialing.

I think maybe she didn’t hear me, so I repeat myself. “I said I solved the case.”

She lets out a short laugh through her nose—it comes out as
hmmpf
. “That’s precisely why I’m making this call.” She holds up a finger and says into the receiver, “Yes, it’s me. Could you put me through to Martin please?”

She’s calling Dodge? A cold stab of fear slices through my stomach.

“You see,” she says, cupping her hand over the receiver, “he’ll want to know if he’s losing his job or not. Because whatever you say next is going to have a big influence on his career. If you want to play detective, if you want to get
involved
and meddle in affairs that are none of your business, then you’d better be absolutely one hundred percent right when you come into my office and tell me you’ve solved the case. I can’t have my vice principal vouching for students who are only playing games. It’s unprofessional.”

I swallow. If I’m wrong about this one, Dodge loses his job.

If
I’m wrong, which I’m not. I’ve got proof, right? I’ve got a little slip of junk mail with Connor’s handwriting on it and a bunch of weird symbols and Alexis’ name. It
means
something. But… does it mean what I think it means?

I shut my eyes, pressing my thumbs into the sockets and taking a deep breath. Danigail’s voice echoes through my head, telling me Alexis is her friend, that she wouldn’t hurt anyone. I only have one shot at this. Time is running out and I don’t have room for second-guesses.

It’s just that, if I’m wrong, Danigail gets expelled and Dodge loses his job. No big deal.

“I’m waiting,” Principal Vickers says, her nails picking up the pace and clacking faster and faster against her desk. “Oh, hello, Martin,” she says into the phone, shooting me a grim smile. “I have Harper Madigan in my office. He’s about to tell me something very important.” She presses a button, switching it to speaker phone. “Go on,” she says. “Let’s all hear it.”

“Madigan?” Dodge’s voice sounds tinny coming from the speakers. “This better be good.”

“I…” I pause to clear my throat. Sweat prickles up and down my back, and I rub my palms against my pant legs. It’s now or never, and I
have
solved the case. There’s no backing out. “I’ve figured it out. The attack on Veronica was a joint effort. It was—”

A knock on the door interrupts me as the secretary from the main office pokes her head in, her face pale, like she’s going to be sick. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but this is urgent.”

Principal Vickers scowls at her. She stops clacking her nails and folds her hands in front of her. She raises her eyebrows, signaling for the secretary to get on with it.

The secretary takes a deep breath. “Another student’s been injured on school property. Alexis Briar was pushed from the bleachers, out by the track. The nurse is having a look at her. We don’t know all the damage yet, but it looks like she’s at least going to be on crutches for a while.”

Principal Vickers bites her lip and mutters something about lawsuits.

“She was
pushed
?” I ask.

The secretary nods. “There was a witness, but she didn’t see who did it.”

“What was her name?” Dodge’s tinny voice asks from the speaker phone.

But I don’t have to hear it. My gut clenches up and I already know the answer, even before the secretary says, “Dani something? Her last name’s Bates, like that boy who was injured last year.”

“Danigail,” Principal Vickers and I say at the same time.

Vickers glares at me. “And I suppose you’re still going to tell me she’s innocent?”

My mouth falls open a little, but I say nothing.

The secretary wrings her hands together. “Now both the lead and the understudy for the musical have been hurt. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We might have to cancel the play. All that time I spent sewing costumes…”

Principal Vickers ignores her and looks at me, tilting her head just so, giving off this
I told you so
vibe. “Well? You solved the case, didn’t you? We’re still waiting to hear it.”

Like that’s going to happen. Not now—not when someone’s just thrown a wrench in my big theory. “I… I have to go,” I say, bolting for the door, pushing past the bewildered secretary. Not exactly my most graceful exit, but it gets the job done.

“Madigan!” Dodge’s voice screams from the speaker, but I ignore it. He’s going to be in trouble, but not as much as he would have been if I’d just given Vickers my theory that Alexis is behind it all.

On my way out, I notice a woman sitting in one of the chairs for people waiting to see the principal. Her blond hair’s pulled up in a bun and she’s dressed up, all businessy, like she has a really important job and just came from work. There’s a security badge clipped to the front of her jacket, but instead of the badges that say GUEST like most parents get when they have to come to the school in the middle of the day, it says PTA.

She’s also wearing an oversized red, white, and blue campaign button that says
Mills for Mayor
.

A bad feeling squirms its way up my spine, and my stomach clenches when she calls my name. “Harper Madigan, right?” She has this broad smile on her face, but it looks fake to me. There’s something sinister hiding behind it, or maybe that’s just my paranoia getting the better of me. “I believe you know my son. You’re one of Connor’s
friends
, right?”

The way she says “friends” makes it clear that we’re anything but. It can’t mean anything good—not for me, not for Danigail, not for anyone else. And neither can that campaign button. A member of the PTA running for mayor? And not just any member. Connor’s
mom
. I shudder just thinking about what could happen if she wins. As if the PTA doesn’t already have enough control over this town.

As if Connor’s not already the equivalent of Bright Oaks royalty.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she says. I don’t doubt it. I just doubt it could have been anything good.

There’s got to be a reason she’s waiting to see Principal Vickers, and I can’t help thinking I wouldn’t like the answer if I knew. Connor’s mom gets out of her chair, probably looking to the rest of the world like an ordinary mom saying hello to her kid’s friend. Maybe to everyone else she looks like she means it, but no matter how happy she looks to see me, no matter how big the smile, her eyes are cold and hard, and there’s a slight curl to her lip, like she’s holding back a snarl. I don’t know what she wants with me, but something tells me I
don’t
want to find out. I back away from her, accidentally slamming into a teacher coming in from the adjacent lounge. She’s got a cup of hot coffee in her hand that sloshes all over when we collide.

But I don’t stop to survey the damage or even to apologize. I just get out of there.

As I escape into the hallway, the door closing behind me, I hear Connor’s mom call out one more thing. “Oh, and Harper? You might want to check in on your little friend Austin. I think he has something really important to tell you.”