Pushed

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “Let’s hit it.” Olivia started walking, and the rest of us fell in around her.

  When we reached Kmart we took the escalator to the second floor, then found the electronics department. “Okay, here’s the plan,” Olivia said. “Shay and Alex, you stage some kind of distraction. Whatever you think would be fun. And, Joe, when everybody’s attention is on those two, you grab me one of those Sony Cyber-shots. Eli and I will run interference if necessary. Got it?”

  Alex, Shay, and Eli nodded. I was amazed at how willing they were for Olivia to hand out orders. I guess she took care of them, in her way—like teaching me to pickpocket so I’d have money to eat, and giving me and Frank the tip about the Haven.

  But I really did not want to steal a camera—or anything else. I knew I’d worked it out for the man whose wallet I stole to get it back, but the wallet had a name and address inside, so the cops could find the owner, no problem. The camera was a different deal.

  “Questions, Joe?” Olivia asked. “The camera’s small. You should be able to shove it inside your jacket. Just be casual. Don’t bolt as soon as you have it stowed. Take your time, look around. Maybe even buy a little something. A candy bar or whatever. You have money?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “But . . . won’t the camera have a sensor on it? The alarms will go off as soon as I get to the door.”

  Shay looked me up and down. “You’re in good shape. I bet you can run pretty fast.”

  Olivia laughed. “Yeah, Joe. Afraid of a little exercise?”

  “No. Definitely not,” I said quickly. I needed to have some time around Olivia to figure out what the deal between her and Mark was. If I didn’t steal the camera, I doubted she’d be very interested in having me in her sight.

  “We’ll meet up in the Astor Place subway,” said Olivia. “Uptown side.”

  “That’s the one with the big black cube near it, right?” I asked.

  “Right.” She turned to Alex and Shay. “You’re up. Make it good.”

  Alex and Shay walked over to the aisle that was one over from the cameras. “Get ready,” Olivia told me.

  My heart was doing a drum solo in my chest as I walked over to the display of cameras. I made sure the one Olivia wanted was just a quick grab away.

  Even though I wasn’t going to steal it. I couldn’t.

  “I saw you flirting with that redhead!” I heard Shay shout.

  “You’re so paranoid,” Alex yelled back.

  The distraction had started.

  “I’m not paranoid. Don’t try to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me when you’re the total dog!” Shay shrieked. She was really getting into it.

  “What’s the problem?” I heard someone else say. “We can’t have this kind of commotion in the store.”

  I figured it had to be a security guard or a clerk talking. This was my shot.

  I snatched the camera and shoved in under my coat. I had to. I was sure Olivia was watching.

  I walked down the aisle, pretending to browse, but I felt like there was a big blinking sign over my head. A sign that said THIEF! RIGHT HERE! THIEF! with a big arrow pointing down at me, in case anybody didn’t get it.

  Suddenly I heard Frank’s voice in my head. There’s always more than one possible action in every situation.

  My heart rate slowed down a little. I could handle this. I just needed to think. Okay, so I’d proven to Olivia that I was on board. She’d seen me take the camera. I was sure of that.

  But if I happened to drop the camera on my way out . . . in a place where a security guard could see me . . . well, that wouldn’t be me going against Olivia’s plan. It would just be me being clumsy.

  I strolled over to the escalators. Perfect. A security guard was coming up on one. He could see me. But he couldn’t get to me too fast. There was a lady with a baby strapped to her in one of those baby slings.

  I took a deep breath and let the camera slide out from under my coat. When it hit the floor, I saw the guard’s head snap toward the sound. “You! Stop right there!” he yelled.

  Right. I was going to stop right there and let him call the cops. I raced around to the down escalator. Jammed with people. But I didn’t have time to look for an alternate route. I jumped on.

  “Carl. Stop that kid in the tan jacket,” I heard the security guard yell from above me.

  A second later I saw another security guard appear at the bottom of the escalator. He grinned at me. He could see I was trapped. There were a bunch of people behind me now too. The escalator was going to drop me at the guard’s feet.

  Unless . . . I looked over the edge of the escalator rail, estimating the distance to the ground. It was a drop. But I thought I could take it.

  I swung myself over the railing and shoved off. Wind rushed against my face as I fell. I landed hard on one knee, but I ignored the bolts of pain. I shoved myself to my feet and ran.

  The pounding footfalls of the guard were right behind me. But I really wasn’t afraid of a little exercise. I put on the speed, my eyes locked on the big sliding doors of the exit. Just a little farther, just a little.

  And I was through. I didn’t know if the guard would come after me or not. I didn’t slow down to find out. I dodged around the other people on the sidewalk. When I spotted the black cube, I finally let myself take a look behind me. No guard.

  I still didn’t ease up. I ran over to the stairs leading to the subway station and flew down them.

  Safe. I was safe. Unless Olivia figured out I’d dropped the camera on purpose.

  11.

  DEAD

  I knew what Joe would tell me to do in this situation—flirt.

  The twentyish girl with the curly black hair manning a bank of phones in Mr. Davis’s campaign headquarters was looking at me. But I wasn’t sure if it was in an interested way. Or in a what are you doing here way.

  I heard Joe’s voice in my head. Smile, dummy.

  I smiled. The girl smiled back. The smile created dimples in both cheeks. I guess I could say something about the dimples, I thought. That was sort of flirty—unless it was sort of pathetic.

  I couldn’t just stand there staring at her, so I walked over. “I like your dimples,” I said.

  It definitely sounded pathetic coming out of my mouth. And I felt my face get hot. I’d better not be blushing, I thought.

  “Thanks. I’ve had them my whole life,” the girl answered. “So what can I do for you? I’m Nora, by the way.”

  “Here’s the deal. We’re doing this project in social studies where we’re supposed to find out about a profession we’re interested in.” It was the best thing I could think of. But the project sounded more like something you’d do in the fourth grade than in high school.

  “And you’re interested in being a volunteer phone answerer for a mayoral candidate?” Nora teased. “It is very exciting. But I wouldn’t exactly call it a profession.”

  “I was thinking more of a politician. I don’t really know much of what the day-to-day job is. But I think it’s probably one of the best careers to have if you really want to make an impact on the world,” I told her.

  “I’m sure Mr. Davis would be happy to take a few minutes to talk to you, but he’s not here right now,” Nora said. “Let’s go into his office and check his appointment book. He has to have a free spot somewhere.”

  Score! I thought. Mr. Davis’s appointment book was exactly what I needed. I wanted to find out where he was when Evan was killed.

  Nora stood up and I followed her into a little office. This was clearly where Mr. Davis really lived. Unlike his perfect living room, his office was cluttered. There were food wrappers on the desk, stacks of papers on both of the chairs in front of the desk, and a map of Lake Ronkonkoma on the wall with red and blue thumbtacks all over it. I was thinking they represented Republican and Democrat areas.

  “It’s always almost impossible to find anything in here,” Nora complained as she rooted around on the desktop. “Here it is.” She pul
led an appointment book out from under a stack of magazines and flipped it open. “Mr. Davis puts everything in here. He hasn’t quite entered the electronic age. No Blackberry or anything like that.”

  She scanned the book. “Wow, he’s truly overscheduled. But how about next Tuesday? Around lunchtime? He doesn’t have anything written down, which means he’ll be eating right there.” She pointed to the chair in behind the desk.

  “Uh, actually, this project, it’s due tomorrow. I kind of procrastinated a little bit,” I said.

  Nora shook her finger at me. “Too busy having fun, I bet.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I admitted.

  “Just don’t let it drag your grade point average down. It gets harder to get into a good college every year. I barely squeaked into Hunter,” said Nora. “So do you have a second choice to do your project on? I can still tell you all about being a volunteer phone answerer.”

  “We had to sign up for the career when the project was assigned. I already told my teacher I was doing politician,” I answered. “Do you think it would be okay if I just flipped through the appointment book, maybe? That would give me some idea of the kind of thing Mr. Davis spends his time doing. I can probably fake the rest.”

  She hesitated. I smiled at her. She smiled back. “All right, but only a quick look, okay? The head of us volunteers will be back any minute. I’m not sure if she’d be okay with it.”

  “Five minutes, tops,” I promised. “You should get back to your phones. I don’t want you to get in trouble for abandoning them to help me.”

  “Yeah, I have to get back out there. I’m getting college credit for this. I can’t slack.” She hurried out of the office, shutting the door behind her.

  I immediately flipped back in the appointment book to the day Evan died. Mr. Davis was supposed to have given a speech at the Kiwanis Club at lunch. Evan had died at about one o’clock. That meant if Mr. Davis had shown up as scheduled, he couldn’t have killed Evan.

  Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have paid somebody to do it—maybe whoever left me and Joe that threat.

  I’d been in the office by myself for only a couple of minutes. I decided I should be able to take a few more without Nora checking on me. I sat down in front of the computer and logged on. I’d seen a Bank of America a few blocks from the campaign headquarters. And the center was pretty close to Mr. Davis’s house.

  The odds seemed good that he had an account there. People usually go to the nearest bank. I quickly found the Bank of America site. Now the tricky part. I needed Mr. Davis’s ID and password to log on.

  I remembered my dad giving Aunt Trudy a hard time for just using her first and last name as her ID on some online site. Mr. Davis wasn’t Mr. Electronics. Maybe he didn’t think too much about computer security.

  I typed in martindavis for the ID. Now the password. Mr. Davis had little notes to himself on Post-its all over the desk. It didn’t seem like he was the kind of guy to keep things in his head.

  I scanned the desk, looking for anything that seemed like a password. I saw a short grocery list, the name and author of a book. There was one Post-it that just had the word “shirts” on it.

  I thought that was probably to remind him to get his dry cleaning or something, but I typed it in anyway. Nope. No go.

  But as I’d typed, the keyboard had slid forward a little, revealing . . . bingo. A Post-it with “balloon17” on it. That sounded very password. I typed it in. Another bingo.

  If Mr. Davis had hired somebody to kill Evan, he would have needed to pay out a big chunk of money. I scrolled through his checking account entries for the past three months. Then his savings account info. No withdrawals or checks for anywhere near what it would take to have somebody killed.

  It looked like Mr. Davis was clean.

  No, there was an assumption in there. I reminded myself that just because Mr. Davis had an appointment in his calendar didn’t mean he’d kept it.

  I figured Nora could help me out with this, too. I walked out of the office and over to her desk. “Did you get enough to scrape by on your project?” she asked.

  “I think so,” I answered. “There was one thing I didn’t get. Mr. Davis was scheduled to give a speech at the Kiwanis Club. I don’t even know what a Kiwanis is.”

  “I’m not exactly sure myself,” Nora admitted. “And I was at that speech! It’s some kind of community service organization or something like that.”

  “You were there?” I asked.

  “Yeah. The volunteers take turns going to events with Mr. D. Just in case he needs anything. He was amazing. He got a standing O,” Nora said.

  He’s also got an airtight alibi, I thought.

  “So that’s one suspect off our list,” I told Joe as we walked toward the Haven. We were both stuffed full of Gray’s Papaya hot dogs.

  “That’s a good day’s work,” Joe said. “Unlike mine. I didn’t find out any details about why Mark was so angry at Olivia. I didn’t find out any new info about Mark at all.”

  “You managed to keep Olivia as a contact, though,” I told him, “without stealing anything. That’s not too shabby. I think Olivia might really have a piece to this puzzle. I’m not sure what it—”

  The sound of Joe drawing in a sharp breath stopped me. “What?” I asked.

  Then I saw what he’d seen. Halfway down the block, a stretcher was being wheeled out of the Haven. The body on the stretcher was completely draped in a white sheet.

  Dead.

  12.

  THE MORGUE

  Frank and I pounded down the pavement to the Haven. “What happened?” I called.

  It was Lily who answered. “Mark overdosed,” she said, so softly I almost couldn’t hear her.

  “He was doing so good, too. He’d been going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting every day for months,” Erin added. She gave a limp, helpless shrug.

  “He was an addict. Addicts relapse,” Josh told her.

  I heard the doors of the paramedics’ van slam. I turned my head in time to see the van pull away and disappear around the corner. And that was it. Mark was gone. None of us would ever see him again.

  I kept staring down the street, like I expected the van to pull up in reverse and Mark to jump out, alive and well. “An overdose. Man.”

  “Have you thought about the timing? It’s the definition of convenient,” Frank noted when we were out of earshot from the others.

  I forced myself to start thinking like a detective. “Ultraconvenient, because he’d just had major fights with two of our main suspects for killing Evan.”

  Frank pulled in a deep breath. I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing myself. “You think maybe somebody murdered Mark, too? And made it look like he OD’d?” I asked.

  “I absolutely think we have to investigate the possibility,” my brother answered.

  “Maybe we split up again,” I suggested. “Try to talk to as many people as possible. Find out who found the body and all that.”

  “I think there’s something we should do first,” said Frank. “I think we need to make a trip to the morgue.”

  “The log book said Mark’s corpse should be in room B,” Frank said. “I want to get a look at the coroner’s notes. They should be in there too.” We quickly walked down the cracked linoleum of the morgue building. A quick search on the Internet had told us where bodies of victims from the Haven’s police precinct were brought. We thought we’d waited long enough for the coroner to have done his stuff.

  “That’s room A,” I pointed out. “So after a series of calculations, I hypothesize that the next one is room B.” My jokes get a little stupider when I’m nervous. And I admit, being in the morgue was minorly creeping me out. I felt like I was in the beginning of a zombie movie or something.

  “Your hypothesis is correct.” Frank stopped in front of the next door, which was labeled ROOM B.

  “So what are the coroner’s hours?” I asked softly. “You think anyone’s in there? Anyone
alive, I mean.” And the bad jokes keep on coming.

  “I’m going to open the door a little. Try and get a look inside,” Frank instructed.

  He cracked the door and I pressed one eye against the narrow opening. I saw the end of several metal tables. A big metal ventilation hood near a double sink. A couple of scales. No people, corpse or animate.

  “We’re clear,” I said.

  Frank swung the door open wide and we ducked inside. “We need to find the paperwork on Mark,” he told me.

  I spotted a clipboard on one of the metal tables. I hurried over and picked it up, then flipped through the pages. “Got it.”

  Frank looked over my shoulder as I started to read. “There were abrasions on his knuckles,” he pointed out. “Sounds like he was doing some fighting today.”

  “Abrasions on the roof of his mouth, too,” I commented. “And bruises around his lips.”

  “So maybe somebody forced the pills on him,” said Frank.

  “Scraping up the inside of his mouth and bruising him in the process,” I agreed.

  “And he got his knuckles messed up fighting them off,” Frank guessed. “He—”

  “Wait. I think I hear someone coming,” I interrupted. We both froze, listening.

  “You’re right. We can’t get caught in here,” Frank whispered.

  I put the clipboard back on the table. My eyes swept over the room, looking for a hiding place. “The drawers,” I said, as in, the big metal drawers where the bodies are stored.

  I slid open the closest one. Empty. I sucked in a deep breath and climbed in. I slid the door almost all the way closed, leaving a crack for air. You’ve got plenty of O2, I told myself. Plenty.

  The metal slab under my body was cold, and the coldness seeped through my clothes. Through my skin. Until it felt like my bones were sticks of ice.

  I tried to concentrate on the sounds in the room. Voices. A thump. Wheels. But my thoughts kept circling around what this drawer was used for. Who had been in it before me. I admit it, I was freaking myself out a little.