“Not yet,” Stacey answers. “It’s possible that our suspect changed his—or her—shoes after committing the crime.”
“What about the handwriting?” Muriel asks Mason and Nathaniel.
The two of them are hunched over the suspects’ tests, comparing them to the photograph of the mustard message. “Notice how round Jonah’s B is,” Nathaniel is saying. “The B in the mustard message is way more angular.”
“Maybe that’s what happens when you use a mustard container for a pen,” Mason points out.
Samantha and Lloyd are circulating quietly in the lab while we analyze evidence. “You guys are making excellent progress,” Samantha tells us. “Thanks to Muriel and Tabitha’s findings, we seem to be narrowing our field of suspects. Now you are going to have to continue working as a team if you want to identify our vand—”
A low buzzing noise interrupts her. The sound is coming from Muriel’s backpack, where she keeps her cell phone.
Maybe the dognapper is phoning.
The five of us all turn to Muriel. Stacey’s hand is over her heart.
Except for the buzzing cell phone, the room has gone totally quiet.
“Don’t you want to check who’s calling?” Lloyd asks Muriel.
“Nah,” Muriel says nonchalantly. “It’s probably a telemarketer.”
Stacey drops her hand back to her side.
The buzzing has stopped, but a moment later it starts up again. Whoever it is really wants Muriel to pick up her phone.
Samantha raises her eyebrows. She must have noticed all of us turning to look at Muriel. “Is something going on here that Lloyd and I don’t know about?”
“Of course not,” Muriel says.
“No way,” I add.
“Hey, aren’t third-year forensics students supposed to know everything?” Nico asks. For once, his corny humor comes in handy. Samantha and Lloyd look at each other and chuckle. The buzzing finally stops, and the uncomfortable moment is over.
NINETEEN
I almost forget to eat my lunch because Muriel is setting up a meeting with a guy who might be our dognapper.
He wants to meet her at eight tonight at a small park on Lansdowne Avenue in Westmount.
Stacey shakes her head. “At night in some deserted park? I don’t like the sound of it.”
“Is he bringing the Chihuahua?” Nathaniel asks.
Muriel rolls her eyes. “Of course he’s bringing the Chihuahua. The reason I’m meeting him is so I can decide about the Chihuahua.”
Muriel’s phone jiggles on the picnic table when it vibrates to indicate there is a new email. “Is it him?” we all ask at the same time.
Muriel reads us the new message. “If you decide you would like to take the dog, I will require payment in cash. It’s two hundred dollars, and the price is not negotiable. Hope that’s okay. Please confirm that you will be at the park at eight tonight.”
“Where am I supposed to get two hundred dollars from?” Muriel asks.
“You’re not going to need the money,” Nathaniel tells her. “We’ll catch the guy before he can ask for the cash.”
Stacey pushes her baby carrots away from her snow peas. “Catch the guy? Are you nuts?” she says to Nathaniel. “What if he’s armed?”
“Relax,” Nathaniel tells her. “This guy won’t be armed. He’s a dognapper, not a serial killer.”
“I agree with Nathaniel,” Muriel says. “A serial killer would not say, Hope that’s okay. This guy’s polite.”
Stacey rolls her eyes. “When was the last time you hung out with a serial killer, Muriel?”
“Okay, you two, calm down,” Nathaniel says, coming to stand between the two cousins. “Stacey, you seem to be forgetting that we have a secret weapon.”
“A secret weapon?” I ask.
“Yeah, your dog. Roxie, right? Well, Roxie’s coming.”
“I told you, I don’t know if that’s—”
Nathaniel does not let me finish my sentence. “I thought we were a team,” he says, looking me in the eye.
None of us can argue with that. Not me, and not even Stacey. We might all be very different, but Nathaniel’s right—we are a team.
Stacey lives around the corner from Lansdowne Avenue. She and the twins will tell Stacey’s parents they are going to meet up for ice cream with friends from forensics camp. “I’m going to leave a note on my pillow saying where we’ve gone,” Stacey says. “In case something goes wrong.”
Nathaniel waves his hand in the air. “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”
Mason will come to my house at seven twenty. He’s going to suggest we take Roxie for a walk, and then we’ll head for the park too. We should make it there by ten to eight.
“My parents might get suspicious if they see me hanging out with you of my own free will,” I say, but Mason is too busy peeling the lid off his applesauce to be insulted.
Muriel uses Google Street View to show us what the park looks like up close, and Mason makes a sketch of it in his notebook.
“All six of us can’t show up at the same time,” Mason points out, “because if this guy really is up to no good, he might take off. I’d say there should only be a couple of us at the park. The rest need to hide out in the vicinity. Let’s zoom in to scope out possible hiding spots.”
Nathaniel says no one at his house will even notice if he slips out. I wonder what that would be like. “It’d be different if my grandpa was around,” he mutters.
We only get half an hour in the forensics lab after lunch before we have to be at the pool for afternoon swim. The footwear impressions are beginning to dry. Some spots have turned a dull gray.
We all put on our rubber gloves. Muriel and I take another look at the coffee cup.
“Can I see it?” Stacey asks. I expect another lecture about the evils of plastic, but instead she turns the cup slowly in her hand. “It’s marked 3S,” she says, showing us a notation someone has made in blue pen on the side of the cup.
“Maybe it’s the coffee drinker’s bra size,” Nico calls out.
“Three S? That’s not even slightly funny,” Muriel tells him. “Plus it shows how little you know about girls.”
“It stands for three sugars,” Nathaniel says. “That’s how my grandpa took his coffee.”
Stacey sniffs at the cup.
“What are you smelling now?” I ask her.
Her nostrils twitch like a horse’s. “Mustard,” she says.
“Well, that’s not a surprise,” Mason says. “Muriel and Tabitha found the cup next to the mustard container.”
Stacey’s nostrils twitch again. “What’s surprising is that the mustard smell is coming from inside the cup.”
“Let me see it,” Mason says. He is the one who spots the tiny yellow fleck on the inside of the cup. “Mustard!”
“Not so fast,” Lloyd tells us. “You’ll need to confirm that substance is really mustard. You can try breaking down the cup to look at the yellow substance and compare it with a known mustard sample.”
“But wouldn’t breaking down the cup be tampering with the evidence?” Mason asks.
We all look at Lloyd. “You have several good photographs of the coffee cup,” he says. “You’ve dusted it for prints. In some cases, evidence needs to be broken down for further examination. I’d say this qualifies as one of those cases. You with me, Samantha?”
Samantha gives Lloyd a thumbs-up. “I’m with you,” she tells him.
We use scissors to cut the cup into pieces. I can feel my heart pumping as we examine the yellow fleck under the microscope. We are getting close to solving our case. “Definitely yellow,” Muriel says as she looks through the microscope.
Nico pushes her away so he ca
n take a look. “It’s more like yellow-brown than yellow,” he says.
“Maybe it’s from that crusty bit at the end of the squeeze top,” Mason suggests. “Or maybe it’s just because it’s dried up.”
“Maybe it is.” I need to stop agreeing with Mason.
Lloyd sends Mason to the small kitchen at the back of the forensics department. “I’m pretty sure I saw a squeeze bottle of yellow mustard in the fridge,” Lloyd tells him.
When Mason comes back with the mustard, he squeezes a little out and puts it on a glass slide.
“What do you think?” Lloyd asks when Mason compares the two samples.
Mason does not answer right away. But when he finally says, “I think we’ve got a match!” the rest of us clap.
That means we now have a direct link between the mustard container and the coffee cup. Whoever wrote the mustard message must have also touched the coffee cup. But where did the coffee cup come from?
The cafeteria isn’t open, but there is a coffee shop on the ground level of the sports complex, and we all decide to go down there together. The coffee shop must be on summer hours too, because it wasn’t open the other day. When we get there, people are lining up for their coffee. I spot the orange running shoes first. Leo Tessier is buying coffee, and Amelia Lester is with him. She has a sour expression on her face, which makes me wonder whether they have been arguing again.
I point them out to the others.
“The cafeteria coffee must suck,” Nico says. “Why else would those two buy their coffee someplace else?”
“They really shouldn’t be using cups with plastic coating,” Stacey mutters. “I’m going to talk to the manager and suggest they offer a discount to people who bring reusable mugs. They’d end up saving money, and it would help the planet.”
Muriel and I must be thinking the same thing. “C’mon. Quick,” she says, grabbing my elbow. “Let’s go see how sweet they like their coffee.”
But just as Muriel and I are rushing over to the counter, the fire alarm sounds. It’s as if the whole sports complex is clanging—the windows, the walls, even the floors. Nico blocks his ears.
“We need to get out of here now!” Lloyd’s voice echoes through the lobby of the sports complex.
“I don’t smell smoke,” I hear Stacey saying. “I’m sure it’s just a fire drill.”
“Either way, we’re outta here now!” Samantha is gesturing for us to follow her.
Muriel and I look at each other. Is there time to get to the counter?
“Out of zee way!” It’s Leo, with Amelia close behind him. They are leaving the building without their coffee.
TWENTY
Stacey was right about the fire alarm. It’s just a drill. Even so, the university staff is taking it seriously. A woman outside the sports complex is timing how long it takes for everyone to get out. The guy from building services—the one we met at the cafeteria the other day—is directing us away from the building and onto the lawn. “Leave room for the fire truck,” he bellows, even though we all know no fire truck is coming.
We all head for our usual picnic table. I wonder why people are so quick to form habits. Maybe it’s because the world around us is always changing, and habits are a way to hang on to things we’re familiar with. Maybe even grownups have trouble with change. Maybe that’s why Mom is so fixated on security, and Dad can’t handle mess.
Today is the second-to-last day of forensics camp, and when it is over, I am going to miss it and the friends I have made here. Nico and Muriel will fly home to Vancouver on Saturday. But they will be back next summer, and I hope I will still see Stacey and Nathaniel around. I bet Patti will like them. Even Mason is not as bad as I thought. Maybe I just resented being forced to hang out with him all these years, and I couldn’t see that he has some good qualities—though I’d rather not admit that to him. Besides, I’ve spent so many years giving Mason a hard time, I can’t really imagine treating him any differently. Another example of a habit.
Lloyd and Samantha debate what to do with us for the next half hour. Lloyd thinks there is no point going to the pool, since by the time they let us back into the building and we get changed, there will be hardly any time left for swimming. Why am I not surprised when Samantha suggests we do jumping jacks? I think she likes keeping us busy.
Mason groans when he hears about the jumping jacks. “It’s much too hot for vigorous exercise,” he says. “Jumping jacks could cause heat stroke.”
In the end, Lloyd wins and we get half an hour of free time. Muriel checks her cell phone to see if there are any new emails from the dog guy, but there aren’t. Stacey goes to talk to the manager of the coffee shop, who is having a cigarette under a birch tree.
Mason and Nathaniel are sitting across from each other at the picnic table. “What made him so special?” I hear Mason ask.
At first I think they are talking about the Pomeranian, but then I hear Nathaniel say, “I guess it’s that he really got me. Like nobody else.”
Mason does not say anything—he just nods and takes in what Nathaniel has said. Which is when I have another realization: Mason may not be a scintillating conversationalist, but he knows how to listen.
“It’s different with my dad,” Nathaniel says. “Sometimes I get the feeling he’s evaluating me. Wondering if I’m tough enough to be a cop like him. Grandpa never made me feel like that. Not even once.”
“Do you really want to be a cop?” Mason asks.
“I dunno. I think so. I thought so.” Nathaniel kicks at the grass underneath the picnic table. “My grandpa was a science teacher. He would’ve thought forensics camp was cool.”
When a cop car turns up outside the Life Sciences Building, I figure it has something to do with the fire drill. So I’m surprised when Nathaniel’s dad comes striding out. When he stops to survey the scene, I notice he has perfect posture. Maybe they teach that at police academy. His eyes land on Nathaniel and Mason, and he curls his index finger to signal that he wants to talk to Nathaniel.
“Crap,” Nathaniel mutters. “What’s my dad doing here?”
I am wondering that too, only I am too far away to hear their conversation. I have to settle for observing from a distance. Nathaniel’s dad appears to be asking Nathaniel something, and Nathaniel is shaking his head. Now his dad is wagging his finger. I can tell he is upset.
Samantha goes over to them and shakes Nathaniel’s dad’s hand. It looks like she is asking if there is something she can do to help. She does not seem intimidated about talking to a cop. Maybe forensics students take courses about dealing with the police.
Nathaniel’s dad puts his hands on his hips. Now it looks like he is upset with Samantha too. And then he is raising his voice, and I can make out a few words. Willy. Wedding. Grandpa.
Nathaniel keeps shaking his head. When he tries to speak, his dad jabs his finger in Nathaniel’s face. I don’t think I would like having a cop for a father. Or this particular cop anyway.
Nathaniel’s dad points at the police cruiser. Samantha says something, but Nathaniel’s dad ignores her.
When Nathaniel comes back to the picnic table, we are all hoping that whatever the problem is, it’s fixed. But Nathaniel hangs his head in a way I have never seen him do before. Like he is defeated. This is not the Nathaniel I am used to.
“Everything okay?” Mason asks.
“No.” Nathaniel grabs his backpack from under the bench. He does not look at us when he speaks. “My dad thinks I had something to do with Willy’s disappearance. He’s taking me home. He says he won’t let me leave until I tell him where Willy is.”
“On the double now!” Nathaniel’s dad calls out. “You know how I feel about waiting!”
Nathaniel runs back to his dad. His shoulders are slumped.
“That’s
the dumbest thing I ever heard,” I say. “Why would someone dognap their own dog?”
“Technically, at least, it’s not his dog. It was his grandfather’s dog,” Muriel says when Nathaniel is out of earshot.
“You don’t really think he did it, do you?” I ask Muriel.
“He might’ve.”
“Anything is possible,” Nico adds.
“But why?” I ask.
Stacey picks up a plastic wrapper from underneath the picnic table. “He told us he’s upset with his grandmother for falling in love with that guy from the bereavement group. This could be his way of getting back at her.”
“I honestly don’t know what to think,” Mason says.
I turn to look at Mason. “I thought you two were buds.”
Samantha and Lloyd come to sit down at the picnic table. “It’s too bad Nathaniel had to leave,” Samantha says.
“You don’t honestly think he’s a dognapper, do you?” I ask Samantha.
Samantha tucks some red hair behind her ear. Nathaniel’s dad was rude to her, and I wonder if for once she is going to show some emotion.
“I haven’t seen any evidence. But I will say Nathaniel’s dad seems pretty certain Nathaniel did something with his grandmother’s dog.”
TWENTY-ONE
Dad is surprised when I tell him Mason has dropped by so we can take Roxie out for a walk after dinner. “I was under the impression you don’t really enjoy spending time with Mason,” he says when I come back inside for my hoodie. Though it got hot again during the day, the air tonight has turned chilly. It reminds me that summer will not last forever.
“I don’t. I mean…I didn’t. He’s not as bad as I thought.” As the words come out of my mouth, I realize something. I mean them.
Mom looks up from the book she is reading. “That’s lovely news,” she says. “I had a hunch it might happen one day. Don’t forget to reactivate the alarm on your way out.”
Forensics Squad Unleashed Page 11
