Uncle and Ants

by Marc Jedel

  I smiled quietly to myself. Kids always seem to fear school officials. Mrs. Quarles had seemed a little prickly, but school administrators could overwhelm a young student not used to dealing with other adults in positions of power. Skye’s absence had undoubtedly worried Mrs. Quarles, too.

  When we pulled up to the school, Skye shrank into her seat hoping her disappearance would go unnoticed. I let her wait in the car and this time I remembered to tell the Rover car to “stay.” Maybe marketing had a good idea after all.

  I opened the door to the school office and saw the school secretary standing guard behind the counter. “Hello, Mrs. Quarles. Good to see you again. I’m Megan Tran’s uncle and I’m here to pick her up early today.”

  Mrs. Quarles sniffed. “School is not yet over.” She looked down at her papers as if that ended the discussion.

  “Yes, I know. Like I said, I need to get her early today.” I started to get annoyed. I had to get to Laney’s house, help Mace with his investigation, and hadn’t received a job offer at DroneTech today. Megan could survive missing an hour of elementary school so I didn’t have to return in a few hours to pick her up.

  Mrs. Quarles frowned. “This is highly irregular.”

  “What? Having a student leave a little early?”

  “Students need to stay in school until they are dismissed. That’s not for another hour and fifty-two minutes.” Mrs. Quarles checked the clock on the wall to confirm. Without further consideration, her eyes moved back to her papers.

  “I understand, but today I need to take her out early.”

  “Why?” Rather than wait for my response, she found a piece of paper urgently in need of filing. She turned her back to me and walked across the room to deal with it.

  Why? “I am on her pickup list. I am here to pick her up now.” I spoke in a loud voice with careful enunciation to make sure she heard and followed my line of logic despite having her back turned to me.

  “No need to yell. It is not yet time to pick up students. School is still in session.” Mrs. Quarles had not followed. She huffed loudly and walked back to the counter where I stood. Recognizing that her tactics of mystifying and evading the foolish uncle hadn’t driven me from the building, she faced me head on.

  I hoped she didn’t have a secret room with bright lights and a hard chair for a more intensive grilling. Seeing her frown deepen, I didn’t want to find out what might be hiding behind the closed doors in the office.

  “Look.” I sighed, not knowing how to resolve this. Sergeant Jackson told me to get to Laney’s house right away and I was wasting time arguing with a school secretary. A metal nameplate reading “Irene Quarles, Secretary” faced me on the counter. “Irene, right?”

  “Mrs. Quarles,” she corrected with a fastidious sniff. She tilted her head to the side as she squinted at me through her thick, black plastic glasses.

  “Ok, sorry, Mrs. Quarles,” I said, careful to pronounce her name just as she had, before continuing, “I need to get Megan early today because of my schedule. I can’t take the time to bring Skye home and then come back in an hour for Megan. I just want to pick up Megan a little early today. Could you please call her to the office?” Telling Mrs. Quarles that I’d left work early myself didn’t seem like my best path forward. I might learn which room hid the interrogation chamber after all.

  Mrs. Quarles’ eyes narrowed at Skye’s name. “You have Skye? She should be in school too. Are you turning in a signed Unexcused Absence form for her now?” Mrs. Quarles stretched out her bony arm in anticipation.

  “No. Sorry, I’ll have to do that later. But I’d really like to get Megan now.” Pretty please.

  “This is highly irregular,” she repeated. Her voice got shriller and more staccato with each syllable. “Students may only leave early for doctor’s appointments or if they get sick in school. Otherwise, it is an unexcused absence.”

  I didn’t know what else to do.

  I got flustered.

  My options extinguished, I lied. “Um, sure. Well, I should have told you that I need to pick up Megan to take to her doctor’s appointment. And Skye turned out to be sick today too. I had forgotten earlier. I’m also bringing her to the doctor.” Not my best moment, but no one was there except for the two of us.

  Mrs. Quarles stared at me without speaking for several long breaths.

  I could feel the disapproval crackling through the air. I squirmed and started sweating.

  Finally, she harrumphed. “Are you a regular rule violator, Mr. Golden?”

  Shocked that she remembered my name, I didn’t answer her hopefully rhetorical question. Telling the truth now wouldn’t help me get out of here and over to Laney’s house any faster.

  Mrs. Quarles huffed. “If you don’t follow the school guidelines properly, then we will have to remove you from the approved pickup list.”

  Can I be removed? I hadn’t even known I’d made the list before this week. Now I didn’t want to lose my privileges, such as they were. I doubled down on my lie. “I’m sorry for the confusion. I do need to get Megan to her doctor’s appointment soon. Could you please call her?”

  Again, the long stare. With a little muttering under her breath, Mrs. Quarles turned and picked up an old-fashioned, handheld microphone wired into an old-fashioned switchboard, flicked a switch on the switchboard, and announced, “This is the school office. Please send Megan Tran to the office right away. Thank you.” The microphone’s feedback screech as she signed off may have woken the dead. At least it should bring Megan to me.

  She turned back to me with an imperious glare. “Be certain to send a copy of the Excused Absence form, signed by a doctor to school tomorrow.” Wiping her hands of me, she returned to her filing.

  Relief poured through my body. I had successfully extracted Megan from school a whole hour and fifty-two minutes early. Only one slight hitch. I had to get a doctor to sign the girls’ forms before tomorrow morning without Laney finding out. Detention seemed like a distinct possibility for me. Could I get expelled from a school that I didn’t attend? Maybe Sergeant Jackson could sign my excuse form after I checked out Laney’s house.

  A few minutes later, Megan peeked apprehensively through the office glass door. Her worried face turned into a smile when she saw me in the office. I wondered what she’d done in the first few weeks of a new school that had garnered her an opportunity for an up-close-and-personal interaction with Mrs. Quarles.

  When I told Megan we were leaving early, she took my hand, rushing me out of the office with a quick backward glance over her shoulder. As we speed-walked back to the car, I asked, “Why did you look worried when you first came to the office to see Mrs. Quarles?”

  “I didn’t do it,” said Megan.

  “Do what?”

  “Nothing.” She ran and jumped into the car while I decided to let our conversation end there. I had enough to worry about with Laney without delving into Megan’s shenanigans.

  At least the Rover hadn’t disappeared. And neither had Skye. When we got in, Skye looked expectantly at me. “How was Mrs. Quarles?”

  “Let’s just say I’m surprised she’s not named Mrs. Torture.”

  20

  Thursday Midafternoon

  Mrs. Kim clapped her hands gleefully when I brought the girls to her apartment a little earlier than planned. Despite our early arrival, she’d already set out teacups and cookies neatly on plates on her table. No one noticed when I took my leave to head over to Laney’s house.

  The cops had departed from Laney’s house and no fancy crime scene tape blocked the door. Vaguely disappointed about not getting to slip past police tape, I stopped dead in my tracks as soon as I walked in her door. I’ve never pondered the phrase, “getting tossed,” but Laney’s house defined it at a glance. Clothes from the dressers had been thrown on the floor, drawers were pulled out, and everything in her closets had been shoved to a side or the floors. The bookcase had been pulled over with the books strewn on the floor. The kitchen cabinets we
re open but nothing looked broken. Fortunately, most of her stuff still sat in sealed boxes in her garage or her house could have been much worse.

  I hated to think of her walking into this mess. This week added to her pain. Laney had suffered enough with her husband dying a slow, painful death from cancer when they lived in Spokane. She’d had to get the girls to school, make sure they had food, and keep them positive, all while taking care of her husband. She even managed to come up with new dream ideas for Megan each night. At least she hadn’t needed to deal with Mrs. Quarles at the same time.

  Although it went against a long-established, ingrained habit from my childhood, I began to clean up. I couldn’t put everything back where it belonged, however, I could get things generally in the right place and not looking like the aftermath of a burglary. I kept an eye open for any clues that could help Mace and me figure this out.

  As a child, I’d mastered the concept of cleaning barely enough to pass my mother’s muster. It’s all about the small details that catch the eye when you walk into a room. Moving messy papers into a drawer, placing the blanket neatly over an unmade bed, and straightening items on top of all surfaces were all secrets to my success in avoiding parental complaints of untidiness.

  Now that Mace had told me that he’d have extra security guarding her room, my fears had calmed a bit. Besides, what older brother wouldn’t enjoy messing with his younger sister a little? If a sweater ended up in her sock drawer or a book of Megan’s landed on Laney’s nightstand, I considered that simple payback for something Laney must have done in the past. It kept me alert while I tried to remember if anything was missing in the mess.

  While straightening up some papers on a side table in her living room, I got a paper cut. I’ve never been big on pain, even small pain, so I looked for a Band-Aid to put on it. Laney’s bathroom didn’t have any or at least none I could locate. Perhaps the thief had stolen her supply of medical basics. It didn’t make any sense that a thief would steal only her Band-Aids.

  The girls’ bathroom looked like a disaster zone with hair doodads and other unknowable supplies strewn everywhere. It hadn’t improved at all since I’d last seen it on Monday afternoon when the girls packed to come with me. Opening drawer after drawer, I finally found the only Band-Aid in Laney’s house.

  Pink. Careful not to ruin it, I placed the pink, yellow, and purple Princess Band-Aid over my cut on my pinkie finger. The girlie Band-Aid wouldn’t bother me. I was no longer in elementary school. My coworkers wouldn’t make fun of me, or at least not too much. A pink Band-Aid worked fine.

  Returning to the living room to continue cleaning, I sighed. Laney had so many paper files laying around. She was so old-fashioned. Keeping all your bills and records electronically takes up no physical space and was so much more logical. Now that Laney had moved to Silicon Valley, I’d have to show her how to enter the modern age and eliminate the dangers of paper cuts forever.

  When I moved into Laney’s bedroom, I picked up a picture from the floor in her closet. I had no idea why she had this particular framed picture of both of us from high school. Perhaps she kept it so she could secretly laugh at my frosted tips and Birkenstock-covered feet every night. Of course, Laney’s own outfit, including a plaid flannel shirt, smiley face slap bracelets, sparkly hair scrunchie, and Doc Martens shoes looked no less ridiculous to modern eyes. I didn’t remember any of these fashion trends even surviving past our high school years. I almost threw it away. I could have blamed it on the burglary. But I decided to set the picture in a prominent position on the shelf in their living room. I hoped to see Skye’s reaction when she saw it.

  After a while, an odd regularity of the mess in the rooms struck me. Almost everything I picked up from the floor belonged to someplace clockwise along the room. It was as if the burglar had trashed her place room by room, methodically tossing items on the floor to their left, leaving space for the thief to rotate clockwise to the right through each room. The thief had been meticulous in trashing her place in a circular pattern. That didn’t sound like any normal thief, at least from my vast experience watching thieves on television.

  The break-in didn’t make any sense to me. Mace was right that the thief hadn’t taken Laney’s jewelry or valuables. An emergency cash supply even lay untouched in a drawer. I didn’t remember anything else expensive that Laney owned. Unless the burglars had stolen her bandages or an old, plaid, vintage shirt from her closet, I discovered nothing missing. It looked like whoever had broken in had gone through all the rooms systematically searching for something. Since all the rooms had a similar clockwise pattern of disarray, it didn’t look like they’d found what they were after.

  I stretched for a bit and scratched my head.

  Then it struck me. Laney’s briefcase lay under my desk in my apartment, not here. Maybe the thief was looking for something important in her briefcase. I needed to get home to search through it.

  21

  Thursday Late Afternoon

  Eager to take a closer look at her satchel, I locked up Laney’s house and took a Rover car back to my place. When I got back to the building, I picked up the girls from Mrs. Kim’s apartment. Although it was already late afternoon, she was reluctant for me to take them. Again, the girls brought their teacups and an extra cookie back to my place. I’d have to remember to return Mrs. Kim’s teacups before they all migrated down the hallway to my apartment.

  Once in my apartment, the girls sat at the table while I went into my home office and pulled out Laney’s satchel. I’d looked in her computer before, to no avail. As an engineer, if something’s not on my computer, then it doesn’t exist. Maybe HR consultants don’t live and die by their computers.

  Her briefcase contained almost nothing, perhaps a sign of a new consultant with only a handful of clients. One pocket contained a small box of unopened Milk Duds. Next to them rested their friend, a package of emergency cashews. Another pocket held a few receipts. They seemed to have no value other than for Laney to use in her expense reports.

  The main section of her satchel held a notebook and some old newspapers from Spokane. Laney and her husband had lived in Spokane for fifteen years before she’d moved to the Bay Area a few months ago. I set the old newspapers aside and picked up her notebook.

  Rifling through her notebook uncovered one startling fact. Laney kept notes for work. By hand. She must have started this notebook when she moved here a few months ago and returned to her HR career. One page listed the companies where she’d wanted to contact their HR departments. I wondered if any of these needed a good software engineer. I’d come back and look at her list again later.

  Laney had a few sparsely filled pages for several clients. I flipped through, searching for notes on the clients she had scheduled for Monday. The page on Jean Rollag listed his phone number and several questions to ask him about David Saunders. A page mentioned the NorCal Water Agency, but only listed last Friday’s date and “Exec Meet and Greet.” Underneath that, she’d written “Gonzaga.” Nothing else. No mention of Meghan, her harassment complaint, or anything else useful. Laney hadn’t taken detailed notes from any of her client meetings.

  Fernando got his own page. A small shudder ran down my spine when I saw she had written “drugs?” on the page. Raj had cautioned me about Fernando’s relationship with his drug lord father. I hadn’t believed him. Laney didn’t list any more details on Fernando, with the rest of the page filled with oddly shaped, repeating doodles.

  More of Laney’s doodling splattered across other pages, but none that I’d deem worthy of calling a drawing. Clearly, our mother’s artistic skills had skipped a generation and landed in Laney’s girls. Neither Laney nor I could sketch anything more complex than stick figures. Skye and Megan, on the other hand, exhibited far superior skills. Several impressive pictures by the girls decorated the walls in their bedrooms and their refrigerator. Perhaps they’d craft a special picture to thank their Uncle Marty for staying at his apartment for a week? Well, an uncle ca
n always hope.

  Frustrated by not finding anything useful, I put down the notebook. My fifteen minutes of wasted time had only earned me an encounter with lots of bad doodles and a few meaningless notes on Laney’s clients. I didn’t find anything that would make her a target.

  Idly, I picked up and flipped through the newspaper clippings. Although not usually a packrat, Laney had twenty-year-old copies of the Gonzaga Bulletin, the university newspaper, in her satchel. First, she’d written Gonzaga in her notebook and then these old newspapers. She probably felt homesick for Spokane.

  She’d circled articles with a marker. Pink. Why is everything in their house pink? The stories read like the typical collegiate newspaper articles I remembered from my day, with complaints about the administration and stories about the sports teams. One article focused on an underground Greek fraternity that had gotten into trouble for a wild party, which the cops had to break up. What a shocker. The school couldn’t ban an already-banned fraternity so they’d resolved their dilemma by expelling a dozen students.

  The final paper’s front page highlighted a large fire in the Bulletin building caused by a spark in the printing machines. The fire had destroyed much of the printing equipment and supplies. That explained the sparseness of this edition. Although most of the staff had escaped unharmed, the editor-in-chief had rescued a female student trapped under a fallen roof beam. Laney had circled this story also. An accompanying picture showed the heroic editor, with heavily wrapped hand, his arm around a pretty girl and her arm in a sling. Dazed and disheveled, both kids looked quite the worse for wear. The caption read “Editor William Robert Allen saves colleague, Nancy Trumbull; loses part of right thumb.” Whoever had managed to publish this paper after that fire must have some pretty impressive crisis management skills.