The Underdogs

by Sara Hammel

  He was right. Things around here were definitely not always as they seemed.

  After

  My mom spit her coffee out on the shiny granite. It wasn’t long after dawn the next morning, maybe six thirty a.m., and she and I were alone at the front desk. She’d just gotten hold of the latest St. Claire Bee.

  “It’s about time!” she exclaimed as she wiped up the coffee with a paper towel. She read aloud the front-page headline: “Cops: Annabel Harper Was Murdered.”

  The real bombshell was in the second paragraph: “Police said the victim appeared to have drowned in chlorinated pool water, likely from the pool she was found next to, although tests are still being conducted.”

  “I would’ve sworn that poor girl was strangled,” Mom said. “I would’ve bet the house on it.”

  I knew what she meant. I remembered what Ashlock had said that first day about how Annabel’s hair was dry and perfectly styled when she was found, and how could a person drown without getting her hair wet? But Ashlock—all of us—had been wrong.

  * * *

  Later, Lucky walked up to the front desk where Evie, my mom, and I were hanging out. He leaned on the countertop with his chin resting on his folded arms. “What do you think the mystery item is?” he asked my mom.

  “What?” she responded, not bothering to look up from changing the radio station.

  “In the St. Claire Bee. The ‘item’ they mention.”

  She reached under the desk for the newspaper, incredulous. She checked the front page again, then flipped to the jump page.

  “It’s terrible,” Lucky said. “I have a daughter myself, you know? It really makes you think.”

  “Oh, I know you have a daughter,” my mom said, briefly meeting his eyes. “I’m just not sure you know.”

  Lucky almost looked hurt.

  Suddenly my mom’s eyes went silver-dollar wide. “How did I miss this?”

  I had a peek. I could see how it had gotten past her—strangely, the Bee had put the detail in question in a separate box with just two brief sentences, below the main story about Annabel’s death. Maybe the editor was out sick that day.

  My mom read aloud: “A source close to the investigation into the death of local teen Annabel Harper tells the Bee that police are focusing on a ‘missing mystery item’ that could lead investigators to a suspect in her killing. No further details were available at press time.”

  Mom squinted and read it again, then looked up at Lucky, who was now yawning. “So? What is it the cops are looking for?”

  “I thought you might know.” Lucky shrugged. Then he wandered away, leaving us to guess into the wind about the Bee’s tantalizingly vague clue.

  Before

  “Come on,” Evie said, brushing her hair vigorously again. “Why is my hair so flat?” She bunched it up with her hands, but it went dead and fell unevenly past her shoulders.

  She looked at me. “I need a haircut.”

  I agreed. She really did. We were hanging out in the locker room while Evie got ready. Lucky was taking the older tennis camp kids to the movies and Evie was allowed to join them because he was her dad, and plus the movie was rated PG, so it wasn’t just for the older kids—thus the hair drama. She sighed and combed her hair back up into a ponytail. I knew she was nervous about tonight. As she wrapped a scrunchie around her hair, she said to me, “You’re the only real friend I have, Chels. But sometimes I need more, you know?”

  I knew. My feelings weren’t hurt because we were the best of friends and always would be. But man, was I worried about her. On top of everything else, her mom had skipped calling this week. It wasn’t that Evie had illusions that she was going to come rushing back to St. Claire and move them into a house with a white picket fence and start taking her to dance classes, oboe lessons, or what have you, but a phone call now and then wouldn’t have hurt.

  Evie checked herself in the mirror one last time, sighed, and then we headed out to the lobby. We ran smack into the tennis people sitting around the elites’ table waiting for Lucky, who’d be driving them to the movies in the club’s beat-up old white utility van. They were all freshly washed and could’ve posed for a J.Crew catalog. Nicholas appeared and walked up to the table in vintage Levi’s.

  “Where’s your sister?” Patrick asked him. I noticed that in the face of a six-foot-one protective older brother, Patrick acted like he was inquiring about a library book, not like he was flirt of the year.

  Still, Nicholas bristled. “She’s not here,” he said testily. Patrick put his hands up defensively. Mr. Perfect, Nicholas Harper, was not in a good mood. It was rare, I had to admit, but he had his moments, like anyone else. He took a seat and there was a tense silence. Perhaps that was the moment more people started to get it. Because here’s the thing: Who else was missing? That’s right: Goran Vanek.

  Celia noticed us then and beckoned us over. “Hey girls, come on over here.”

  I smiled and went over to her. She put her arm around me and squeezed. “Where were you all day? Your mom asked me to keep an eye on you, but you were running all over the place.”

  Patrick leaned over and said to Evie, “Sorry about tonight. I’m afraid you’re a little too young for this one.”

  Evie shook her head. “No. Jump Town’s only rated PG. I checked.”

  “This is true,” Patrick admitted. “But we’re seeing Die, Die, Die. It’s an R.”

  Lisa, sitting as close to Patrick as she could get, said to Evie condescendingly, “It’s way too old for you. You can stay here with Beth and Chelsea.”

  Ouch. Evie would be so hurt to be left out—again. But at least now we could hang together tonight until Lucky got back from the movies. I wasn’t invited, of course, because they’d never let me in to see Die, Die, Die. Celia was hugging me a little too hard, so I pulled away. She was checking Evie out with concern. She was one of the few people who treated my friend like a normal person, and she happened to be a legend around here. Nine out of ten tennis experts agreed: Celia Emerson could have been the next Martina Hingis. Celia was classically pretty, delicately slender, and moved like silk on the tennis court. But to the extreme consternation of her coaches, her ambition had never matched her talent. They’d winced when she talked about applying to Princeton next year instead of going pro—without so much as a blink. Now, not everyone loved Celia. She had no time for fake people, the type who happened to be drawn to her. Some believed she was a colossal snob; I would say she had a silence about her, and when you wrapped that in a package as attractive as Celia’s, you were going to get misunderstandings. I always thought that was one reason she and Annabel had become friends.

  Celia put her arm around my friend’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

  I went along because I wanted to know what the deal was. We followed Celia, who was now locking eyes with my mom as she approached the front desk. Celia gave her one of those knowing looks grownups are always exchanging, and tilted her head subtly in Evie’s direction. Mom seemed to get it right away. Her face went from confused to—bam—wide-eyed, and then she grimaced.

  Celia brought Evie back behind the desk. “Doesn’t she look nice all dressed up?” she said to my mom.

  “Absolutely,” my mom said, nodding energetically.

  Evie looked to me for help, as if I’d know what the heck was happening here. Celia led us into the glass office behind the desk and slid the door shut.

  My mom cut to the chase. “Evie, kid, let’s take a little field trip tomorrow, okay? I’ll take you shopping at Macy’s. Say, lunchtime?”

  Evie was as confused as I was. “What for?”

  “Honey,” Mom said with as much subtlety and gentleness as she was capable of, “it’s time you started wearing a bra.”

  Celia broke in. “You know, I was your age when I got my first bra. It’s kind of fun…”

  Evie crossed her arms and hugged herself. A slow wave of burgundy crawled up her face. They were right, though. My friend was growing into a woman before ou
r eyes, and she needed some support—stat.

  I could see Evie thinking. The girl wasn’t stupid. She’d read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret a bunch of times. She said, “Um, Beth … I don’t have any mon—”

  “I’m paying, don’t you worry,” Mom said, waving her hand as if to shoo away a fly.

  She winked and went back to her stool to monitor the comings and goings of the club. Celia waited a sec with Evie. “You know what? Don’t worry about tonight,” Celia told her conspiratorially. “There are lots of good movies coming out this summer. I’ll make sure you get to come with us next time.”

  Evie smiled. “Thanks, Celia.”

  We looked up as Lucky bounced over to the desk, clearly unshowered. His blond hair was sticking out from under the bandanna, but at least he’d had the decency to change into jeans—and the same purple tie-dyed shirt he’d had on at the pool party. He dangled the van keys in front of my mom and Evie.

  “Let’s move it out, people!”

  Evie, arms still crossed over her chest, said, “Dad, you told me we were going to see Jump Town.”

  Lucky put on a sympathetic face, as if he had no control over anything, and wasn’t it awful his daughter would be left out yet again. “Hey, the gang wanted to see Die.” Lucky shrugged. “What was I gonna do? I’m outnumbered.”

  Although it shouldn’t have, Lucky’s cluelessness shocked us yet again, and Evie’s mouth was agape, while Mom had steam coming out of her ears. He seemed to pick up on this and added, “Another time, okay?”

  Evie shrugged. “I don’t mind seeing Die, Die, Die.”

  “Mmm … Sorry, honey, you know what your mom said. Absolutely no R-rated movies or it’s my butt in a vise.”

  “Yeah, well, she said a lot of things.” Evie frowned. “You’ve ignored most of it.”

  Lucky looked at her sharply. “What was that?”

  “Nothing…” Evie gave in and accepted her fate for the night. She watched them file out the front door, and then she turned to walk back to the smelly storage room to sulk, and I went with her.

  After

  Something was afoot. Evie and I were following Ashlock again, and he’d slipped into the men’s locker room. He had to be cutting through to get to the pool. We hotfooted it to the women’s locker room, zipping through to the other side. Yep. The pool.

  Luckily, our pal Harmony was on duty this evening so we could easily have a legitimate reason to be out there. It was that quiet time of day; the sun was on its way down.

  We saw then exactly what Ashlock was up to. He was standing over Joe Marbury, who was in the steaming hot tub, which was sunken into the ground off to the left of the lifeguard’s perch. We slipped in next to Harmony on the bench. He greeted us with a distracted hello because he was busy guarding the pool like a hawk.

  Evie elbowed Harmony and pointed toward Ashlock. Harmony mouthed Wow to us, and quickly turned his iPod off. We all sat there like robots, not moving, not making a sound, staring at the pool and trying to pretend like we couldn’t care less about the hot tub.

  “You’re a hard man to find,” Ashlock was saying. “We’ve been leaving messages at your place of work for over a week.”

  “I don’t like to stay in one place for too long,” Joe Marbury told him. “I’m like a shark.” He flattened his palms together and made a swimming motion in the air.

  Marbury smiled, his smoker’s teeth stained and oversize and off-putting. Joe was a fixture around here, a longtime club member who was also an investor, so we couldn’t really get rid of him. He’d made his fortune in land development or construction or some such.

  “So I’m here now. Shoot,” Marbury said to Ashlock.

  Not everyone knows this, but water carries sound like nobody’s business. So while those two clearly thought they had the bubbling water to mask their conversation, they actually had nature’s own amplifier. Ashlock was on his haunches. He adjusted his fedora, which was in danger of slipping back on his head. The steam from the tub was making his already shiny face positively nuclear.

  “Mr. Marbury,” Ashlock said in a measured tone, “you can either get out of the hot tub now, or we can bring you down to the station for questioning.”

  Marbury shuddered with mock fear. “Well, if you put it that way.” He stepped out and grabbed his towel off a nearby sun lounger. It was about time Joe Marbury was questioned.

  * * *

  The first and only time Evie and I ever saw him interact with Annabel gave me the creeps. She’d headed over to the hot tub one day in July for a relaxing soak. I’d seen her nose wrinkle as she stepped in and adjusted to the heat, her eyes closing slowly as she sank down and lay back against the tub. When Joe walked into the pool area and caught sight of her in her modest pink bikini, he whipped off his T-shirt and splashed into the tub next to Annabel in two seconds flat, leaving only about three feet between them. Her eyes flew open and her peaceful expression evaporated.

  “Hey,” he said. I wasn’t even sure they knew each other. She’d given him a tight smile in return and shifted another foot away from him. He sidled closer to her. “Your dad should be very proud to have a daughter like you. You sure are a pretty thing.” When I saw her clutch her dog charm as if it could somehow protect her, I went over and sat on the edge between the two of them. The look of relief on Annabel’s face when she saw me told me how ill at ease she’d been. “Hey, sweetie,” she said to me, her eyes thankful. “Of course I’ll come hang out with you.” With that, she’d sprung out of the hot tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and walked out with Evie and me.

  * * *

  “I understand you’re acquainted with the victim’s father?” Ashlock was wiping sweat off his forehead. Marbury’s hairy gut was spilling over his trunks as he slouched with a towel around his neck, water still dripping off his body onto the deck. We could hear easily now, as Harmony had shut off the bubbles when Joe got out.

  “We did some business together,” Marbury confirmed.

  “What kind of business?”

  Marbury gave him the stink eye. “We both have an interest in real estate,” Joe finally replied when Ashlock didn’t flinch. “He sells, I buy. We know each other peripherally.”

  Ashlock flipped open his notebook, which was growing fat with dog-eared corners. “How well did you know Annabel Harper?”

  Joe thought that was hilarious and broke into a smoker’s laugh, all choky and coughy. “I knew her from around.”

  “You ever harass her? Try to get close, maybe?”

  “Of course not. Next question.” His tone suggested he was possibly lying.

  Next to us, Harmony’s jaw clenched and his fingers were digging into the wooden bench. I was equally tense. Besides Marbury’s obvious offensive characteristics, something else about that guy, something less tangible, gave me the willies.

  “You don’t believe me?” Marbury babbled. “Please. That brother of hers would kill anyone who touched a hair on her head.”

  “What would you say if I told you we’d found a very distinctive button from a pair of men’s jeans at the crime scene? We found it in the dirt right near the body.”

  What? Evie raised her eyebrows at me, like, Get it? I got it—Of course! The item Ashlock had carried like a baby chick out of the pool area that day. It had been a button.

  “And what if I told you there were only a few pairs of these very expensive designer jeans sold in the state of Massachusetts this summer?”

  Joe said, “Then I would tell you I haven’t worn a pair of jeans since 1972. In my line of business it pays to dress to intimidate. Ain’t nothin’ intimidating about jeans.”

  Ashlock abruptly stood up to leave. Marbury looked confused. “Thanks for your help,” the detective said, clearly not meaning it. “Don’t leave the area without letting the police department know.”

  After

  We held our breath when Nicholas came back to work for the first time since his sister died. He walked into the club just before nine in
the morning and people parted for him like the Red Sea, if the Red Sea had been made up of nervous human beings clustered together in a health club lobby. With each step he took, people moved, in sync, farther away from him, clearing his path to the men’s locker room.

  They were looking up, down, away—anywhere but at Nicholas. My mom, who was at the front desk, had no choice but to face the music. She blurted an overly chirpy, “How’s it going, Nicholas?” then picked up the phone to make an imaginary call.

  Wow, I thought. Gene was right with his whole Love Circle thing. People really didn’t know how to handle grief, or grieving people. I came out from behind the desk and greeted him with the same big grin I always had. He hugged me, and I swear I felt some of his pain transfer to me. And I could take it; I was strong, and Nicholas was carrying too much. He whispered in my ear, “You have the world’s best smile, you know that?” And he let go of me.

  Lisa chose that moment to run up to him, apparently oblivious to any sense of occasion. You would’ve thought she was meeting him for a big date from the way she was staring at him and playing with her hair. “Hi, Nicholas,” she said in this sultry voice I’d never heard her try before.

  He looked startled, but said stiffly, “How’s it going?”

  She smiled. “It’s nice to have you back. I’m so sorry about…”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot.” He looked longingly toward the locker room. “I better get going. I’m guarding in, like, five minutes.”

  Lisa nodded, and then reached out and did that thing she does with men’s biceps, a lingering touch or even a squeeze. Slowly, Nicholas looked down at her hand on his arm, then again, very slowly, he looked right at her. She smiled up at him flirtatiously. Nicholas’s expression changed then, and it was like he became a different person at the snap of a finger.

  “Please get off me,” he growled, and those of us who could hear it were shocked. Now the people who’d avoided his gaze were watching him. Lisa recoiled and scurried back behind the front desk. He stalked off, head down, scowling.