Rafe was nodding in agreement, but Charley could’ve said we’d start by lighting my physics text on fire and roasting marsh-mallows over it and he would’ve agreed. Now she checked my reaction. “Did I sound scary?”
“Absolutely,” I said, not wanting to disappoint her.
“I’m totally getting the hang of this parenting thing.”
“Sure,” I said. “And studying isn’t a bad idea. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“I don’t think you understand what you’re up against. Natalie called me a ‘scientific black hole’ today.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it? It means you suck up information,” said Charley.
“It means I suck up information and vaporize it. You could crack open my skull and there’d be nothing inside.”
One of the things I like about Charley is that she can be stubborn and flexible at once. So instead of insisting on doing things her way, she asked, “What do you suggest, then? We can’t just let you flunk.”
“I suggest we concentrate on T.K., because she’s the only person who can get me through the class and she’s also the only person who can get me out of it. Not that she ever would, but maybe all of the foreign travel she’s doing will broaden her perspective.”
Charley thought this over. “Fair enough,” she said. “As long as you pass your next quiz. And almost passing won’t cut it. I can push Dr. Penske just so far before he blabs to Patty.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “So long as you realize my best is seriously awful.”
“Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
Rafe was as ready to agree to this new plan as he’d been to agree to anything else Charley said. He set his briefcase on the big table in the middle of the room and pulled out a roll of butcher paper. “I thought it would be useful to summarize the status of the investigation on a single page, but it required a somewhat larger surface than a legal pad,” he explained.
“You’re like the Jack Kerouac of private eyes,” said Charley. And then, when neither of us responded, “On the Road? A defining work of the Beat Generation? Typed on a continuous scroll more than one hundred and twenty feet long?”
Rafe’s scroll was only seven or eight feet long, and he unfurled it across the table as Charley and I anchored the corners with the salt and pepper shakers and a couple of bottles of hot sauce. He’d used a different colored marker for each aspect of the case, showing the potential connections with a rainbow’s worth of arrows and interlocking circles.
Where most people would see chaos, Charley saw art. “Rafe, it’s beautiful!” she said. “I didn’t realize you had such a well-developed aesthetic sense.”
This launched him on a fresh wave of blushing and stammering, so I left them to it and examined the list of suspects, written in bloodred ink at the center of the page.
At the top of the list were the members of EAROFO, a shady political action committee comprised of the chief executives of just about every major American oil company. EAROFO was an acronym for End American Reliance on Foreign Oil — which opening up an enormous new source of oil would definitely accomplish, whether it was legal or not.
A couple of months ago, T.K. heard a rumor through one of her environmental groups that EAROFO might be up to something questionable in Antarctica. She’d contacted the organization with what she’d thought was a generic request for information, but apparently it wasn’t generic enough since we were pretty sure that’s what raised the alarm on their end and set the plot against her in motion. We’d turned up evidence of our own pointing to EAROFO, too, but the clincher had been when the brown-haired woman I’d spotted leaving the offices of Navitaco, one of the EAROFO member companies, tried to lure me into the path of a speeding SUV.
So we were fairly confident EAROFO was behind everything — the group had the motive, means, and opportunity, which Rafe said were the three critical pieces of the puzzle. But we still didn’t know who, specifically, within EAROFO was masterminding the operation, and given the power and resources of its members, figuring this out was going to be a challenge.
The list didn’t end with EAROFO, either. We’d identified a couple of more secondary suspects as well. One was Thaddeus J. Wilcox IV, the chief operating officer of T.K.'s company, TrueTech. I’d always thought Thad was a weasel, and he’d done some strange things since my mother disappeared, like erasing the hard drive on her computer and trying to get Patience to sign papers giving him control of the company. Of course, Patience would never give up control of anything willingly, and she’d stymied him. But when I’d asked Thad point-blank if he was in on the whole conspiracy, he hadn’t denied it — he’d only told me to “stop nosing around in other people’s business” in a way that managed to be condescending and menacing at the same time.
So I wouldn’t mind if we found out Thad was an evildoer. In fact, it would be fine by me. I felt a lot less fine, however, about our other suspect, since he was Quinn’s dad, Hunter Riley. Hunter ran a hedge fund that traded energy stocks, and though he’d already made piles of money, he could make even bigger piles of money if he had advance knowledge about changes in the market for oil. He also had Trip Young, Navitaco’s CEO, on his speed dial, which seemed excessive since Hunter’s office was only a few floors above Trip’s in a midtown skyscraper. They could’ve easily gotten together in person whenever they wanted to chat.
For obvious reasons, I was not so secretly hoping Hunter was innocent. After all, neutralizing Quinn’s father wouldn’t be the healthiest thing for our relationship. And with two kisses that definitely counted added to the one that possibly counted, I was starting to believe I could call it a relationship, which was a stunning thought all by itself.
Anyhow, we had our suspects, even if I did feel deeply conflicted about one of them. The catch was that we couldn’t just organize a trip to Antarctica to get the evidence we needed, because it turned out that was a good way to get people interested in killing you. And going after any of the evildoers directly would be tough, especially if we didn’t want them to know what we were trying to accomplish.
It took a while to come up with a plan, but we ultimately decided the best place to start was with the original crew from the Polar Star, to learn who had negotiated their replacement.
“I’ll leave for Argentina tomorrow,” Rafe said, rolling up the butcher paper and returning it to his briefcase. “Your mother will be able to tell me how she found the ship’s captain initially, and I’ll try to track him down.” Rafe had a supersecret way to get in touch with T.K. — so secret he wouldn’t even tell Charley and me, because he thought it was safest for us not to know. Which was frustrating, though he was probably right.
“And I’ll see what I can learn from my sources, too,” said Charley.
“What sources?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said mysteriously. “Sources.”
“Fine,” I said. “But what do I do while you’re talking to your sources and Rafe’s talking to his?”
Charley glanced at Rafe before answering. “Delia, you’ve got a lot going on already. Why don’t you sit tight and let us take care of things for now?” Then, without pausing for breath, she changed the subject. “I don’t know if you two are hungry, but I’m starving, and I’m thinking Wiener schnitzel and maybe spaetzle from that new Austrian place. They do make their waiters wear lederhosen, which seems cruel and possibly constitutes creating a hostile work environment, but maybe we can overlook that if the spaetzle’s any good, because good spaetzle is hard to find, and perhaps you can’t get good spaetzle without the lederhosen, which would also explain why anyone wears lederhosen in the first place. What do you think?”
I thought sitting tight was the last thing I intended to do, with or without spaetzle, and that Charley, of all people, should know that.
But I just said, “Austrian sounds great.”
Three
We ordered in Wiener schnitzel and spaetzle
and also apple strudel, because Charley said one slice of strudel counted for at least two servings of fruits and vegetables. Then, when the delivery guy arrived and Charley decided he looked like Steve Sanders, Rafe made the mistake of asking if Steve Sanders was a friend of hers. Apparently he’d never watched the original 90210, though it was syndicated in Colombia.
He had no idea what he was in for. Charley had the DVDs for all ten seasons, and she made us watch the pilot while we ate, providing commentary throughout. She even made Rafe promise he’d take the rest of the first season to watch on his flight to Argentina.
After dinner, as we were putting the dishes in the dishwasher, the phone rang — not Charley’s cell or mine, but the landline in the loft. “Shall I?” offered Rafe, since Charley and I both had our hands full.
“No!” we yelled in unison. Besides telemarketers, only one person used that line, not that Charley had authorized her to do so — it was still a mystery how she’d obtained the unlisted number.
The answering machine picked up, and a moment later Patience’s voice sliced through the room.
Charity, I know you’re screening this call, and I find it inexcusable that a grown woman, however emotionally immature, is incapable of mustering the simple courtesy to speak to her own flesh and blood —
“As if there’s anything but Ketel One flowing through her veins,” said Charley.
— and instead cowers behind a mechanical device. What was Temperance thinking? The deplorable example you’re setting for Cordelia —
“Deplorable,” I agreed, and Charley shot me a look. I shrugged.
— I shudder to think. Now, Cordelia is expected for dinner on Thursday evening. Every child needs exposure to a wholesome family environment —
“Wholesome?” said Charley. “Has she ever met her kids?”
— and we have a responsibility to provide that for her. You are expected as well. Dinner will begin at half past seven, and I expect you to arrive on time and in appropriate attire. As a reminder, appropriate does not — not! — include midriff-baring garments, garments that sparkle, overalls, or anything made of pleather. And don’t bother to call with an excuse — I will not believe for a second time that you have a previous engagement with your macramé instructor.
Patience hung up with a brusque click, and Charley turned to me. “We certainly have our work cut out for us. It won’t be easy to find midriff-baring sequined pleather overalls on such short notice. We might have to get them custom-made.”
“I have ze perfect tailor!” announced a disembodied voice.
I shrieked, Charley jumped, and Rafe lunged for a weapon.
In a distant corner of the loft, an old sofa sat facing the windows. Now a head appeared above the sofa’s back.
Charley let out a long, slow breath. “Dieter, what are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I vas attempting ze nap,” Dieter answered, as if napping in other people’s homes when they were completely unaware of your presence was the most natural thing in the world. “Zere is construction in my flat. But vith all ze talking and ze television, it is no better here. And zen, vith ze angry voman on ze phone, I give up.”
“You know this man?” Rafe asked Charley, still brandishing the spatula he’d grabbed from the kitchen counter.
It’s sort of hard to describe what, exactly, Charley does, since she’s done so many things, but most recently she’d been starring in and coproducing Dieter’s independent film. “Dieter’s a director,” Charley explained as she introduced him to Rafe. “His creative vision is absolutely revolutionary.”
“I prefer cinéaste,” Dieter said. “Ze term director, it is so bourgeois.” He was examining his reflection in the window, patting his spiky blond hair into just the right state of careful disarray and adjusting the drape of his scarf.
“And he has a key?” asked Rafe.
“But of course I have ze key,” Dieter said.
“From when we were shooting up on the roof,” Charley added, though she probably didn’t even realize Rafe’s initial alarm was rapidly giving way to jealousy.
Meanwhile, now that my pulse had returned to normal, I was worrying about what Dieter might have overheard. I’d thought only six people on this continent knew T.K. was alive: Charley, Rafe, Natalie, Quinn, the psychic I’d consulted, and me. But it looked like we might be up to seven. “Dieter, were you listening to everything this whole time?” I asked.
“Not everyzing,” he said. “I vas dozing. But I zink you are vight to ask ze mother in Buenos Aires about ze ship captain. Zat is ze logical place to begin.”
We had to ply him with leftovers, which led to a lengthy discussion of Austrian schnitzel versus German schnitzel and a dog he’d once had named Spaetzle, who had a penchant for Dadaist cinema, but Dieter ultimately seemed to recognize the importance of not sharing what he’d learned with anyone outside of the room. And though we didn’t have any brilliant ideas about how best to deploy a cineaste, he was also eager to help.
“Zere must be a vay to harness ze power of visual media to furzer zis effort,” he said, simultaneously stroking his goatee and furrowing his brow.
“We’ll let you know if we think of anything,” Charley told him. “But until then, not a word to anyone. And I still want my key back.”
At school the next morning, it seemed like more people than usual were standing in little clumps out front before the bell rang, speaking in low, secretive voices, and then they were doing the same thing in the hallways between class periods and in the cafeteria.
“What’s with everyone?” I asked Natalie at lunch.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Haven’t you noticed the secretive whispering?”
Natalie’s normally exceptionally perceptive, but now she looked around the cafeteria and then blankly back at me, like she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “It’s high school, Delia. What do you expect?”
She was totally oblivious, but she had a good excuse: A guy she’d met at one of those science fairs Charley had been threatening to send me to had texted her. She tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but as soon as I asked for the details it was like a dam broke. She couldn’t stop gushing.
It was nice to hear Natalie obsessing about something other than what type of graduate degree she should pursue after college or which tech start-ups had the most family-friendly employment policies. For once she actually sounded like a regular, non-genius person. But after a half hour of gushing, my attention started to wander, and that’s when I noticed the poster on a wall nearby: Prescott’s annual Homecoming weekend was less than two weeks away.
West Palo Alto High had Homecoming, too, every fall. There’d be a football game against North Sunnyvale, with a tailgate party before and a dance in the courtyard after. I’d gone last year with friends, but it wasn’t like I’d had a date. I’d never had a date of any sort back home.
But now I had Quinn, and that changed everything. Immediately, I started wondering if he’d ask me to the dance and, if so, what I should wear. I’d need to tell Charley — she’d want to make sure we found just the right outfit, and that meant shoes, too —
Natalie snapped her fingers in front of my face. “If you’re thinking Quinn Riley is Homecoming King material, you are deeply, deeply confused,” she said with a dismissive nod at the poster. “He’s not exactly the school spirit type.”
There was a segment of the student population Natalie had labeled the Apathy Alliance, because they weren’t interested in much of anything except, as she put it, “acting bored and spending their parents’ money.” She’d explained this on my first day at Prescott, citing Patience’s kids, Gwyneth and Grey, as charter members. And I had to admit, in their case, it was pretty accurate. Personally, I called them the Ennui Twins, which was still a lot kinder than what Charley called them.
Of course, Natalie had also identified Quinn as the Alliance’s de facto leader. And though Quinn did have a certain following among
Alliance types — hence the minions — Natalie didn’t know him the way I did. She’d never seen him rehearsing Romeo and Juliet or teaching his little brother and sister how to surf. Besides, anybody who kissed the way Quinn kissed me couldn’t be apathetic. He might even be into the whole Homecoming thing.
Anyhow, Natalie eventually agreed to disagree on that topic so she could get back to gushing. Then the bell rang, and I spent the next two class periods trying to figure out an incredibly subtle way to bring up Homecoming when I saw Quinn in drama. But once class arrived, I was thwarted by Mr. Dudley, our drama teacher.
Usually Mr. Dudley waits until the final latecomer has straggled into the auditorium before he begins class. He perches on the edge of the stage with his leather portfolio open before him, pretending to be thinking deep, artistic thoughts or studying a script, but everyone knows he’s really either texting his agent or admiring his latest headshots. He does happen to be unbelievably good-looking, but he also talks a lot about “channeling the Muse” with a phony British accent.
Today, however, he started class in a crazily punctual manner. We were due for new assignments, and I’d been hoping he’d pair me with Quinn again in more Romeo and Juliet. Instead he callously handed me Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking rant, the one where she’s having nightmares about not being able to get the blood off her hands. He assigned monologues to the other juniors in the class, too.
So that was already sort of odd, though it’s not like Mr. Dudley’s mind functions in the most predictable way. But then, after essentially sentencing the juniors to solitary confinement, he cast all of the seniors, including Quinn and Gwyneth (who only takes drama because she’s in love with Mr. Dudley and not because she’s particularly interested in self-expression), in a scene from The Crucible.
And Then I Found Out the Truth Page 2
