The Cat's Paw

by Kat Shepherd

  Ouch. Evie sat back, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. This was going to be harder than they thought. Where was Sophia when they needed her? Sophia was totally immune to cutting remarks; they were like a second language to her. Evie looked back at Vishal and Zach. Vishal’s composure seemed to be waning, and Zach was hunched over, scribbling something on a pad. They obviously weren’t going to be any help.

  “Um, yeah,” Evie finally said. “I get it. Nobody likes having their day interrupted.” She shrugged. “So maybe if you just answer our questions, we can be on our way.”

  “What questions?” Gideon said peevishly. “You haven’t asked anything.”

  Oh, right. Evie’s cheeks were on fire now. This whole interview had gone dramatically off the rails. She couldn’t even remember what questions they wanted to ask. Why wasn’t Sophia here? Why hadn’t they made a plan?

  Behind her, Zach cleared his throat. “Thank you for bringing that to our attention,” he said smoothly. “Question one: What were you and Dr. Chang arguing about at the donor dinner?”

  Gideon scoffed. “What are you talking about? We didn’t have an argument.”

  Zach continued as though Gideon hadn’t spoken. “The argument took place between approximately”—he looked down at his notebook—“six fifty-five and seven ten p.m., is that correct?”

  “I told you, there wasn’t any argument!”

  Zach smiled. “There were witnesses. And it was corroborated by your fiancée, Abigail Morris.”

  Vishal had caught the rhythm now. “Wanna try again?”

  “Fine,” Gideon huffed. “But it wasn’t an argument; it was a small disagreement. It was barely worth mentioning, hardly a big deal.”

  “But a big enough deal that you left early, missing the chance to meet an amazing rhino,” Zach said.

  “Like I said, animals are Abby’s thing, not mine.”

  “But didn’t you want, like, live tigers at your wedding?” Vishal asked.

  Gideon flushed. “That’s different.”

  “As I was saying,” Zach said, elbowing Vishal sharply, “you left early, leaving your fiancée at the party alone, and the reason you gave for leaving was”—he looked down at his notebook again, milking the moment—“that you were upset about the argument. Is that correct?” Zach kept his face composed, but his insides were dancing with excitement. He was enjoying this. Before Gideon could deny it, Zach smiled again. “We have the texts.”

  Gideon briefly bared his teeth like a cornered dog. “Fine,” he said tightly. “Yes, we had an argument, and yes, I was upset about it. But it wasn’t about anything important.”

  “If it wasn’t important, then why wouldn’t you tell Abby what it was about?” Evie asked sweetly. A confession was so close, she could almost taste it.

  “Because she wouldn’t understand. Look, it was stupid, okay? We’re funding the new orangutan exhibit, and trust me, kiddo, it’s not cheap. So I figure I’m helping out the zoo, why not let the zoo help me?”

  “Help you what?” Vishal asked.

  “Advertise,” Gideon said, unable to believe that the kids had not figured this out for themselves. “I mean, orangutans are monkeys, right?”

  “They’re apes, actually,” Evie said, surprising herself. Wow. Sophia really was rubbing off on her.

  Gideon ignored her. “So why not use this donation as a chance to advertise our new app?”

  Zach blinked. “So you and the zoo director got in a heated argument over whether or not he would name the new orangutan exhibit after Monkeyfarts Mayhem?”

  “We wanted to call it Monkeyfarts Manor, class it up a bit. Just think of all the publicity it would give us, not to mention all the attention it would bring to the zoo. We could leverage that. It’s a win-win!”

  “Yeah, I’m guessing that was a hard no from Dr. Chang.” Vishal snickered. “But I’m not gonna lie. That would have been awesome.”

  Gideon relaxed. “See? That’s a kid who gets it.” He stretched back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “That zoo director’s lack of vision was gonna lose me the potential to reach a brand-new audience. Of course I was mad!”

  “Mad enough to steal a red panda?” Zach asked.

  Gideon laughed and turned back to his computer, dismissing them. “Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but I wouldn’t know a red panda if one came up and smacked me in the face!”

  Evie folded her arms. “Oh, cut the crap, Gideon. That’s obviously a lie.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  Evie pointed to Gideon’s monitor. “Your desktop pattern is literally a red panda.” Vishal and Zach stood up to see.

  “What? No, you must be mistaken.” A flustered Gideon quickly pulled up his web browser to hide the panda on the screen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He clicked frantically around, trying to open a new window on the screen.

  Vishal pointed to the pull-down menu of bookmarked sites. “And RedPandaFanda is one of your favorited sites, dude.”

  “Fine, okay? Fine!” Gideon snapped. “Yes, I just so happen to love red pandas, but who wouldn’t?” He pulled up the RedPandaFanda site, which was littered with adorable photos. “Look at them! Look how cute they are with their little noses!”

  “Right?!” Vishal cried. “You just want to boop those little noses, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Gideon squealed. “I absolutely want to boop those little noses.” He suddenly remembered himself, and his tone turned serious again. “But that has nothing to do with why I left the donor dinner early. Being a red panda superfan isn’t a crime, you know.”

  “But stealing one is, and it sounds like Dr. Chang knew it. I heard him tell you that what you wanted was illegal and out of the question,” Evie said. “I don’t think your argument had anything to do with naming the orangutan exhibit.”

  Gideon sighed. “Whatever, fine, so I lied about the argument. But that was because I knew that if you found out what it was really about, I’d just sound guilty. And I’m not! I had nothing to do with Marvin’s disappearance!”

  “The argument was about Marvin, though, wasn’t it?” Zach asked.

  Gideon nodded. “It was stupid and embarrassing.” He looked down at his perfectly manicured nails. “I wasn’t lying when I said that the zoo is more Abby’s thing than mine. I’d never really given the zoo much thought until she took me there back when we first started dating. And so when Dr. Chang offered us an Adopt an Animal package along with the other perks of our donation, I jumped at the chance to adopt Marvin.”

  “Oh, no,” Evie said. “You didn’t.”

  Gideon continued. “I mean, who could possibly know that when you ‘adopt’ an animal at the zoo, you don’t really adopt it?”

  “Literally everyone,” Evie said.

  “I asked Dr. Chang when I could take Marvin home with me, and he looked at me like I had crawled out of a dumpster. I’ll never forget that mix of pity and condescension in his eyes. So I pushed it a little bit, trying to make a deal. I pulled out my checkbook and asked if for an extra five grand, I could just take Marvin home for the night. Not five grand to the zoo. Five grand to him.”

  Evie whistled. “Wow. You tried to bribe the zoo director. No wonder he was furious.”

  Gideon wilted. “And then when that didn’t work, I threatened to cancel our donation.”

  Evie looked shocked. “You would do that?”

  “I was obviously bluffing!” Gideon cried. “But he didn’t fall for it.” He put his head in his hands. “Now do you see why I couldn’t tell Abby about it? She would think I was the world’s biggest idiot. I honestly wonder sometimes why someone as amazing as her would ever want to be with me.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Evie muttered.

  “So, just to recap here,” Zach interjected, “you and Dr. Chang have an argument about whether or not you could keep Marvin. You then try to bribe him to let you take Marvin home for a night. Then you threaten the zoo. And then, coincidentally�
�—Zach hit heavy on the word coincidentally—“he goes missing that same night, huh? Interesting.”

  “And let’s not forget you were completely alone for the exact window of time that Marvin was kidnapped,” Vishal added. “So that gives you a huge motive and no alibi.”

  Gideon leveled his gaze at the three accusers, and when he spoke, his voice was razor-sharp. “Are you forgetting that I was driven to the zoo entrance by a docent? She dropped me right at my car and saw me get in. Ask her if you’d like. Her name is Robin.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And if that’s not enough for you brats, you can check the security footage. It will show that I never came back into the zoo. That should be enough of an alibi.”

  “You could have driven your car out of sight and hopped the fence,” Zach said. “No one would have seen you.”

  “But I didn’t,” Gideon insisted. “And I can prove it. Do you remember what I was wearing to the donor dinner?”

  Zach’s face fell. He knew where this was going. “A white suit.”

  “Exactly,” Gideon said. “A white suit. If I hopped the fence, broke into Marvin’s exhibit, and somehow managed to hop back over the fence carrying him, my perfect white suit would have been a mess. Did Abby mention anything about my clothes being dirty when I picked her up?” He shoved his phone at them. “Here. Call her and ask.”

  Zach pushed the phone to Evie, and she stepped out of the room. A few moments later, she returned and handed back Gideon’s phone. “He’s telling the truth,” she said.

  “I told you I was innocent,” Gideon insisted. “So why don’t you kids quit harassing me and let me get back to work?” He waved his hand dismissively at the door. “Besides,” he sneered, “if I really wanted a red panda that bad, I could just buy one on the internet.”

  “What are you talking about?” Evie asked. “That’s illegal.”

  “Is it?” Gideon pulled up a website. “See for yourself.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  The three friends sat huddled together on the bus, talking quietly about the classified ad Gideon had shown them. “That illegal website has a red panda listed for sale, and the posting date is the day after Marvin disappeared!” Vishal said. “The panda in the ad has to be him!”

  “So Marvin wasn’t kidnapped because somebody wanted him; he was kidnapped for money,” Evie said with disgust. Just wait until Sophia heard about this.

  “We have to tell the police,” Zach said.

  “You’re right,” Evie said. “Call Detective Bermudez and let him know we’re on our way.” She pulled out her own phone. “But there’s someone else who needs to hear this, too.”

  ***

  Sophia was in bed, blankets wrapped around her like a shroud, and streaming old detective shows when she heard her phone buzz. She dug through the mountain of throw pillows and fished it out to check the screen. Evie was calling. Sophia almost answered it, but instead she shoved the phone back under the pillows and let it go to voice mail.

  Sophia had always been a confident person. An only child, she had spent her life around her parents and their sophisticated friends; she had never been one of those kids who was shy around adults, shunted off and relegated to some kids table at the holidays. Sure, she hadn’t played with many children her own age, but she’d never really noticed. Sophia hadn’t much liked the girls at her old school, but it wasn’t like she was a kid who sat alone at lunch or anything like that, and she kept herself busy with activities and art classes the rest of the time. Sophia would never have considered herself a lonely person.

  But then she’d met Vishal and the twins. Suddenly there was a whole new world of texts and adventures and inside jokes with them. She had become a part of something, and she liked feeling as though she belonged. She didn’t just have someone to sit with at lunch; she had friends to sit with. Best friends.

  Or so she thought.

  But then she saw the look of surprise on Evie’s and Zach’s faces when she called them her best friends. The twins had recovered quickly enough, but whenever Sophia thought of that moment, she felt such a sharp pang of embarrassment that she wanted to twist into herself and squeeze the memory of it out of her head forever. She should have known better. After all, they were always yelling at her, telling her she was being rude or acting like a spoiled brat. They obviously didn’t really like her. Why had she said such a stupid, stupid thing?

  The phone buzzed again. It was Evie calling a second time. The pull to answer it was strong, but Sophia couldn’t bring herself to. What could she say, anyway? At least if she was a good detective, they might want to keep her around. But practically every idea she’d had about the case was wrong. She was wrong about Jersey. She was wrong about Abby. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Just like in their last case.

  Evie switched to texting. Sophia heard the chime and told herself not to read it. There was a second chime, and she couldn’t help herself. Had they solved the case without her?

  Sophia’s stomach sank. They obviously had. She really wouldn’t have expected it to be Gideon; he didn’t seem the type to plan a theft that complicated. Plus, he was wearing a white suit that night. What kind of dummy would wear a white suit to commit a crime like that? It would have gotten filthy. She was curious in spite of herself. Her phone chimed again.

  Sophia wanted to go. She really did. Maybe they had already found Marvin. Maybe she would get to see him returned to the zoo. That would be nice. She picked up her phone.

  But then she would have to sit and listen to how the Gemini Detective Agency cracked the case without her. They would all be laughing together, sharing that moment when, without her there to interfere, they realized the true solution to the mystery. Ugh. No thanks.

  A glimmer of hope rose in Sophia’s chest. Maybe they hadn’t solved the case after all? They needed her help? She tapped out one last text.

  Sophia leapt out of bed and grabbed her shoes. “Edgar!” she shouted as she ran down the stairs. “We need to get to the police station!”

  ***

  Sophia burst through the police station’s front door at a full-on run, but stopped short when she saw Vishal and the twins waiting on the reception area’s hard wooden benches. “Oh. Hi.” She smoothed her hair and looked down at the floor, trying to seem like someone who always came bursting into buildings, and definitely not like a person who was just really excited to see her friends and hoped that someday they would like her as much as she liked them.

  “Are you okay?” Zach asked. “You ran through the door like there was some kind of emergency.”

  So much for that. Sophia tried for a casual laugh that sounded more like a dying turkey. “Oh, you know what they say. Crime is always in a hurry, so we should be, too!” She literally had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I’ve never heard that, have you?” Vishal said to the twins. They shrugged and shook their heads.

  “Me neither,” a voice said from behind the counter. Sophia recognized the round-bellied cop who had been at the desk when they had visited the station a few months earlier. He was painstakingly pecking away at an ancient computer keyboard, just like last time. Sophia wondered if he was still working on the same report.

  “Uh, I think it was in a . . . New Yorker article I read once.” Her parents had a stack of those magazines piled under a coffee table, but she’d never seen anyone actually reading them. “Anyhoo, what’s up?” Sophia cringed inwardly as soon as the words came out of her mouth. When in her life had she ever said anyhoo? That’s the kind of thing the regular Sophia would make fun of mercilessly.

  Evie gave her a strange look, like she was going to ask her something but then thought better of it. “We’re just waiting for Detective Bermudez. He should be out in a few minutes.”

  “Cool, cool.” Sophia sat beside her, fully aware that the facade of casual nonchalance she thought she could carry had utterly unraveled at her feet. “So it wasn’t Gideon, then, after all?”

  “Nope,” Evie said.
“It turns out he did have a huge motive and solid opportunity, but he didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?” Sophia asked.

  “Well, for one thing, his white suit was still spotless when he picked up Abby.”

  “Totally makes sense.” Sophia smiled in spite of herself. At least she wasn’t wrong all the time. “What else did you learn?”

  Evie filled her in on everything they had discovered, with Zach and Vishal jumping in for some dramatic reenactments from time to time. Sophia found herself laughing when Vishal told her that the whole interrogation had almost fallen apart until Zach had saved the day with his little notebook.

  “I was sitting there, sweating bullets because it was going nowhere fast, and then Zach jumps in like some kind of professional asking all these detailed questions.” Vishal slapped Zach on the shoulder. “Dude, it was sick! How did you do it?”

  Zach shrugged. “Well, while you were all busy winging it and flopping all over Gideon’s couch, I used that time to make a plan. You know, like how I tried to do before you ditched me in the elevator and made me run after you?”

  Vishal grimaced. “Fair point.”

  “Sounds like classic police strategy.” Detective Bermudez’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. He wore dark slacks and a blue Oxford with the sleeves rolled up, his coppery forearms bulging with muscles.

  The group followed him along the winding cubicle path to his desk. Zach expected to see his bulletin board full of evidence of Marvin’s kidnapping, but then he remembered that the city still thought the culprit was B-17. Instead the board was covered with photos of some artwork and a Fabergé egg. Boring. Well, all that would change as soon as they told him everything they had uncovered.

  A short time later, after they had told their tale, the four young investigators stared at Detective Bermudez in surprise. “What do you mean, you don’t think there’s anything you can do? Don’t you believe us?” Zach asked.