I picked up the hall pass from Joey’s envelope, opened the top left drawer on my desk, and pulled out the hall pass that Vinny had given me yesterday. Both signatures were supposed to be Mr. Allan’s, the school’s lone Science teacher. All it took was a glance to tell that the same person had forged both of them. Whoever did them was smart to use Mr. Allan, since his signature would work across all grade levels. I picked up the phone and called Vinny.

  “Hey, it’s Matt.”

  “Hi, Matthew. Shame about Joey.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a bigger shame than you think. He didn’t do it.”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “Play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. What do you think?”

  “Nikki? Are you sure?”

  “Close to it. Listen, that hall pass you gave me yesterday, where’d you get it?”

  “What hall pass?”

  “The one you gave me so that I could ‘eat my lunch in peace.’”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You know, the fake hall pass.”

  “Do you always accuse your clients of illegal activity?” he asked, his voice full of understated menace.

  I almost answered, “No, just the guilty ones,” but stopped short. It rarely happens, but sometimes my survival instinct is able to leapfrog my smart-ass instinct. Vinny wasn’t fond of being linked to illegal activity, even in a phone call, at night, nowhere near school property. I beat a hasty retreat. “My mistake. Can I meet with you at some point tomorrow? I have some things about the case I’d like to discuss.”

  “Oh, we’ll meet, Matthew. But I’m not sure you’ll like everything I have to say.” He hung up.

  I felt a tingle on the back of my neck, which was my body’s way of telling me that I just screwed up. It’s never a good sign when your client threatens you, especially when that client is Vinny Biggs.

  I tried to put all that out of my head for now. I pulled the surfer girl figurine out of my pocket. It had been scratching my leg all day.

  “You’re a good luck charm? So far, I’m not impressed.”

  Her mute smile seemed to say, “Well, you haven’t been hit yet.”

  I put her back in my pocket. She had a good point.

  I picked up the two fake hall passes and stared at them, looking for any pattern that would help identify the writer. I reached into my filing cabinet and pulled out my report card from last year. On it was Mr. Allan’s real signature. I compared it to the two fakes. The only thing that gave the fakes away was the loops in the letter “L.” They were a little bigger than the authentic ones. Fantastic. The key to the case was bigger “L” loops. All I needed were handwriting samples from the entire school and I’d have this case solved by the time I graduated high school. I sighed and checked the clock: 6:10. I went out the cellar door, grabbed my bike, and rode toward Sal’s.

  Sal Becker was a classmate of mine who ran a little place where kids could grab a sandwich and a soda, without all the hassles kids face in grown-up establishments. It was just an old tool shed, but Sal and his dad spent one summer putting in a bar and some tables. They made it look nice, not too showy, just a simple place where kids could unwind after a long day. The menu was pretty limited: either a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (strawberry or grape) or a toasted cheese, washed down with either a root beer or a cream soda (the good kind in the glass bottles). Two sandwiches and a drink would run you just three bucks. Not bad on a kid’s salary.

  The cool air felt good on my face as I pedaled. It wouldn’t be long before you’d see piles of leaves in people’s yards, pumpkins on their steps, and cardboard monsters on their doors. You could already catch a hint of wood smoke in the air, like a whispered promise of things to come. That smell always reminded me of the clearest memory I had of my father. I was seven at the time. We were outside at twilight, laughing as I tried unsuccessfully to catch a football. My dad would throw it, I’d open my arms, and the ball would sail past, my arms not even close. Or the ball would bonk me on the nose. It was one of the foam ones, so it never hurt.

  “Hell of a catch, there,” he’d say, then we’d laugh hysterically. Someone walking past might think that he was being cruel, making fun of his young son. They would be missing the mark. It wasn’t my ability to catch a ball that we were bonding over, it was my ability to catch his sarcasm. He refused to talk down to me. He was telling me that the intellectual playing field between us was even. When I threw the “Hell of a catch, there” back at him as he dropped a couple of passes, he’d wince and laugh, and shoot me a look that told me I had gotten him. I loved him for that.

  We tried to get as many throws in before Mom called us for dinner. It was a perfect evening, and as you get older, you start to realize just how few of those you have in your life. Don’t get me wrong—life is full of really great moments. But the number of perfect ones, where all the colors and sounds and smells combine in a way you can’t quite believe is real, but wish would last forever: Those moments are much more rare.

  By December, my dad had vanished. Over the years, my memories of him have gotten fuzzier and fuzzier; all except for the one of us playing ball and goofing on each other. I relive that memory every fall, when the air gets a little chilly and someone in town lights up their fireplace for the first time.

  When I got to Sal’s, I dropped my bike and waited a couple of minutes before going in. The brisk air had made my eyes tear up. I wiped them on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, took a deep breath, and walked inside.

  Sal’s place was just the right temperature to take the chill out of you, all thanks to the two portable heaters he had going. The place smelled like toasted cheese and tree sap, a combination that I wouldn’t necessarily think to put together, but it worked just fine. I climbed onto one of the bar stools.

  “Hey, Matt.”

  “Sal.”

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Two cheeses and a cream soda.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  He put my sandwiches in the small toaster oven he kept behind the bar, popped the top on my soda, and put it in front of me. I took a swig, then turned and looked around the room. The walls were natural wood paneling, covered with posters of local sports heroes. The floorboards were a few shades darker than the walls, due to age and heavy traffic patterns. A couple of floor lamps gave the room a warm glow that was easy to settle into.

  Being that it was a school night, the place was pretty quiet. My only company was a pair of eighth graders sitting at a table in the corner. They looked like they were lamenting a test they had taken earlier in the day. Sal came by and put down my sandwiches. I thanked him, then checked my watch: It went from 6:19 to 6:20. As it did, the door to Sal’s opened and in walked Jimmy MacGregor. He was tall for a fourth grader; unfortunately, he was in seventh. His hair was black and sat in tight curls on his head. His skin was light brown and looked like it had been hit with a freckle stick. He walked briskly and sat on the stool next to mine.

  “Hey-Sal-what’s-shakin’-I-needa-root-beer-and-an-sbpbj-no-crust-lightly-toasted-thanks-man! Hey-Matt-what’s-the-story-kid-you-gotta-photo-for-me-to-peep-or-what?” When Jimmy was anxious, he talked fast, like a hyperactive kid on a soda bender. I passed the torn news photo over to him. He studied it for a second.

  “That’s from an Ellie paper.”

  “When?”

  “Fifth, I’d guess.” Sal came over and put Mac’s sandwich down in front of him. “Thanks, Sal.” Sal nodded and walked away. Mac took a bite, then looked at the photo again. “I remember this. Spring of fifth, right before we moved on to the Frank. They had some kind of end-of-school dance to celebrate us leaving.”

  “The Spring Fling.”

  He snapped his fingers. “The Spring Fling! Right! I was there doing a little ‘Smile here!’ and ‘Look casual,’ trying to get some stuff for the paper. Total fluff, man, and on the front page. Well, to be fair, there wasn’t much to report on in Ellie. First through fifth is a total snooze-fest, news-wise.”

  “Who was in the missing half?”

  “Don’t know. I remember the circumstances, not the details. I don’t even think I took that picture. Plus, Joey was a total hound back then. A different girl every day.”

  “Him?”

  “Yeah. Chicks dig the bad boy. Plus, the dating scene in Ellie is totally different than here, right? ‘Going out’ meant you might hold hands on the playground. Pff. Big deal. It didn’t mean anything then … not like it does now.”

  “Right. You think you can find the other half of this?”

  “Sure … sure. I’ll have to do a little digging, but I think so.”

  “How long?”

  “Couple of days, tops.”

  I grimaced. Two days might be too long.

  He read my expression. “Could be quicker than that,” he said. “But it may not. I’ve got to search through some boxes in the garage. Why, what’s the matter?”

  “I don’t figure Joey for the Nikki hit.”

  I got a good view of Jimmy’s half-chewed PB and J. “Joey didn’t do Nikki?”

  “No, and keep it down, would ya?” I said.

  “Why? As far as everyone’s concerned, the story’s as cold as frozen tater tots. Cut-and-dry case of school-yard justice.”

  “Right. And everyone thinking that is just fine with me. Allows me to work under the radar for a while.”

  “Gotcha … gotcha …”

  “But I’ve got to move on this quick. It’s already Tuesday. I’ve got three more days to solve this thing.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Come on, Mac. You know as well as I do that in the Frank, the weekend’s like a reset button. If this thing drags out ’til Monday, I might as well just let the assassin go.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Good point. So where’d you get your info?”

  “Joey told me, right before his number came up.”

  “Hardly a reliable source,” he said, and took another bite of his sandwich. “Whatcha think, he was just gonna confess?”

  “Well, yeah. I went at him because I had an eyewitness who fingered him at the scene. My theory was pretty simple …”

  “He took out Nikki to take her place.”

  “Right. Except when I put it to him, he denied it. Then he gave me that photo, along with these.”

  I slid over the note and the hall pass.

  “‘Do it or get out of the way,’” Mac read. “Any chance he …”

  “Wrote that note himself, concocted the whole story, just to take himself off the hook?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not that smart. Plus, it doesn’t make sense. You know Joey, right?”

  “Yeah. He freaks me out.”

  “Yeah, he freaks everybody out. He’s really cocky … was really cocky. If he did Nikki, there’s no way he’d deny it. In fact, you’d have a hard time shutting him up about it.”

  “Well, maybe afterward he lost his nerve.”

  “You’re telling me he worked up the nerve to take Nikki Fingers out, but lost it when it came time to take credit?”

  “Yeah. I see your point.” He looked at the note again. “Who’s ‘B’?”

  “Some girl Joey used to see. If Joey was as big a hound as you say he was, it’s going to be hard to track her down. The other half of that photo is the best lead I’ve got.”

  “I’m on it.” He took his last sip of soda, then slid off the stool.

  “And listen,” I said, “you can’t run this yet.”

  He looked at me as if I were slow in the head. “This isn’t amateur hour,” he said. “If I run this story now and it turns out to be bunk, I look like a jerk.”

  “That hasn’t stopped people before.”

  “Yeah, I know … Grab the readers now! Who cares if you make a mistake and ruin some kid’s life? Apologize for it later! And those apologies usually end up on page eighteen, in type so small you’d need a telescope to read ’em. Other kids may feel okay doing that, but not me.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  “Then why say anything?” he asked, but he wasn’t really mad. He was smiling. I returned it. Mac was honest, and at the Frank, that was as rare as a decent lunch from the cafeteria. “Just promise me the story when it’s done.”

  “Who else would I go to?”

  “Good point,” he said. “Listen, I still have an hour before my dad gets home. I could root around the garage for a while without having to play Twenty Questions.” He threw three bucks on the counter. “See ya, Sal,” he said as he strode out the door.

  “Later, Jimmy.” Sal was now sitting with the two morose eighth graders, sulking right along with them. Whatever they had was contagious.

  I finished my sandwiches, put some money on the bar, said my good-byes, and left. I rode home slowly, running the whole scenario through my head as I pedaled.

  Our mystery player “B” wanted Nikki taken out, but didn’t necessarily want to get her hands dirty. So first she contacted Joey, an old flame who usually had no problem whacking kids. Except this time he does. It might be too generous to credit Joey with having a moment of clarity. It seems more like an animal instinct for self-preservation. So, in that moment of self-preservation, Joey says he needs some time to think about it, which in his line of work is a way of saying no without actually saying no. It’s like your mom saying “we’ll see” when you ask her for ice cream after dinner. So as he’s thinking about it, “B” sends him a few mementos, hoping to persuade him through his heart. No dice. So “B” goes through with it on her own, but tries awfully hard to pin it on Joey. She was pretty successful. But why did she send the envelope if she was prepared to do it herself? She might have been a little nervous, sure … but to leave incriminating evidence seemed sloppy to me. But who was I to say? So far, I was the only one who cared about this case enough to still be working on it. Maybe she had counted on that. She had to know that most kids around here hated Joey and wouldn’t care what happened to him. Or maybe she was just sloppy. People are sloppy all the time. The more I thought about the possibilities, the more the answers seemed to slip away.

  When I got home I was pooped, but still had some work to do. As I was unlocking my office door, the phone started ringing. I got to it on the fifth ring. It was Kevin.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he barked.

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  “You know damn well who it is. What did you say to Vinny?”

  “I told him the truth. I don’t think Joey popped Nikki.”

  “You know how that makes me look?”

  “Yeah, like an idiot.”

  “You don’t get it, do you? If Joey didn’t do it, I’m screwed.”

  “Well, whose fault is that? Huh? You’re the one who went off half-cocked and took out the wrong kid.”

  “You have proof?”

  “Maybe.”

  “This isn’t a game, Matt!”

  “I’ve got a lead. That’s all I’m going to tell you, so you might as well stop asking.”

  “Bury it.”

  “What?”

  “Bury it. Get rid of it. I know we haven’t been the best of friends lately, but we used to be. So please, in the spirit of that …”

  “This is the second time you’ve brought up our old friendship. You must really miss me.”

  “Damn it, Matt, Joey was scum! He may not have deserved it for this hit, but—”

  “—he deserved it for others,” I finished. “Yeah, I got that memo earlier today. What about justice for Nikki, huh? Or is that not as important as saving your own skin?”

  “She’s already gone. She can’t come back. Don’t send me along with her.”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “C’mon, Matt! Don’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Maybe. Maybe you shouldn’t stay awake too long tonight. Your mom might have a later night than usual.”

  “What? You son of a—” But I was talking to an empty phone line. I yelled at the dead receiver, sputters and grunts and enough curse words to make my principal’s head explode. I dialed Kevin’s number. The click of the phone being answered was like a sprinter’s gun: I heard it and took off.

  “If you do something to my mom, I swear to God—”

  “Matt?” It was Liz on the other line.

  “Is Kevin there? I have to talk to him.”

  “No, he just ran out. What’s wrong? What were you saying about—”

  “Nothing,” I said abruptly. “Forget it.”

  “Don’t snap at me.”

  “Liz?” a shrill voice called out in the background. “What are you doing on the phone this late?” It was her mother.

  “I have to go,” Liz said.

  “Get off the phone!” the voice cried out. “Now!”

  “Just give him the—” I tried to say, but the phone clicked before I could finish. I put the receiver down, sat behind my desk, and stewed. The restaurant was too far away. By the time I got there, whatever was going down would be over. I could call. But what would I say? Pretend I was sick? When my mom got home, then what? Sorry you didn’t make enough money to pay our bills, but I had to fake being sick because Kevin was going to get you in trouble. That would bring up more problems than it would solve. I would just have to stay awake and wait, like a prisoner in his cell, paying for his crime.

  my mom came in at 4:30 A.M., I was more asleep than awake.

  “What happened?” I mumbled.

  “Vat of cooking oil fell over in the kitchen, right as we were heading out the door. Total mess,” she said, her voice filled with exhaustion. She kissed my forehead and stumbled off to her room.

  I wasn’t sleepy anymore. I could see Kevin’s face in my mind, smirking at me. Two hours later, my alarm was going off. It wasn’t going to be a good day.

 

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