Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter

by Beth Fantaskey

  Then I resumed chewing what was left of my pencil’s eraser, which was a poor substitute for most gum—not counting the disgusting kind that adults chewed when they had queasy stomachs. I’d found a piece of that on the doorstep, in a frozen glob, like somebody’d spit it out into the wrapper, tossed it down, and stepped on it.

  Getting a little excited, I wrote,

  Chewed up, squished down piece of Beeman’s Original pepsin gum—NOT covered with snow.

  “Isabel, where’s your money for today?” my mother asked, just when it seemed that I might be onto something important. I would’ve been mad if I hadn’t suddenly realized that I was in big trouble. “Did you put it in the jar?” Mom added. “Because it doesn’t seem like there’s more this evening.”

  My mother always knew to the penny how much was in that jar, and there was no sense in trying to pretend that I’d added my share for the day. I looked up to see her buttoning her wool coat, her head down, so at least she wouldn’t notice me cringing with guilt when I half fibbed. “I didn’t sell enough to make any money today.”

  Because I was running around pretending I was Detective Culhane—or a star crime reporter.

  Mom raised her face, and all at once I felt sick to my stomach. Honestly, I could’ve gone for some pepsin gum. Though I might’ve been helping Miss Giddings, I’d clearly let my family down. “Really, Isabel?” Mom asked. “Nothing?”

  She didn’t sound angry. Just disappointed.

  “Sorry.” My cheeks got warm, which always happened when I wasn’t exactly honest. “It was a really cold day, and nobody was stopping . . .”

  My mother resumed buttoning her coat, getting ready for work, and it struck me how rough her hands looked, no doubt from cleaning. Her hair—naturally frizzy, like mine—was showing some gray, too, and she was getting wrinkles around her eyes. Not from laughing, either.

  “I’ll work double hard tomorrow,” I promised. “I’m sure I can make up for today.”

  “It’s not your fault, Isabel,” Mom reassured me, so I felt even more guilty. “You can’t force people to buy newspapers.”

  No, I couldn’t. But I could at least stay at my corner.

  My mother came over to the table and turned her head sideways, trying to see my composition book. “What are you writing?”

  I pulled the book closer to myself, blocking her view. She would definitely ask questions if she read the words shoot and at close range, not to mention a strange man’s name. And given that I wasn’t a very good liar, it probably wouldn’t be long before I spilled the beans about being kind of involved in a murder and getting questioned at a police station.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, placing my hand over my notes. “Just stupid ideas I have.”

  Mom stepped back so she could meet my eyes. “Don’t ever say that, Isabel. You’ve always had a talent for writing, just like your father.” She frowned. “And maybe someday—”

  She was going to say that maybe someday I’d go back to school, but we both knew that probably wouldn’t happen, at least not any time soon, and I interrupted her, closing the notebook. “You want me to make you a sandwich or something? To take with you?”

  “No, thanks.” Mom leaned over, squeezed my shoulder, and kissed the top of my head. “Keep the door locked, and don’t let anybody in.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll lock up.”

  My mother left then, and I was glad she hadn’t said anything about me staying home, because a few minutes after she was gone, I did lock the door—but behind me, so I could keep one more promise I’d made the night before. A pledge I had to keep, even though, when I stepped outside, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going.

  Chapter 24

  I EXPECTED ONE OF TWO SURPRISES WHEN I FOUND ROBERT Giddings’s house again.

  Either I’d be good surprised to find him at home or I’d be bad surprised to find the house empty. I didn’t know where his aunt lived, and—though I’d found a shortcut so the walk from my house wasn’t as bad as the first time—it was still freezing outside. I really wanted a chance to warm up.

  I never, ever expected the shock I actually got when somebody, thank goodness, did open the door, swinging it wide so I could see the whole parlor.

  “Jeez, Louise!” I blurted. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter 25

  “ISABEL, WHAT IN THE WORLD . . .” MAUDE COLLIER SOUNDED CONFUSED—even a little worried—as she stepped back and started to ask why I’d shown up at Robert Giddings’s house when most kids were getting ready for bed.

  But Detective Culhane seemed—big surprise—irritated to see me enter the cozy parlor. He crossed his arms, demanding, “Why are you here—again?”

  “I told Robert I’d check on him,” I informed them both, looking from one to the other until I almost got dizzy. Maude was settling into the floral chair where I’d sat the night before, opening her notebook, and Detective Culhane stood in the middle of the pretty hooked rug.

  Are they teaming up against a poor, crippled kid?

  Because that would be really wrong.

  Then I noticed Hastings warming himself by a radiator and brightened up a little. “Hey, Detective Hastings! How are you?”

  “Why, I’m just . . .” Poor Hastings started to answer, then glanced at Detective Culhane and muttered “fine” without meeting my eyes again.

  Apparently, talking to me was against the rules or something.

  “Isabel, this is not a good time.” Detective Culhane moved toward me, as if he was going to grab my arm and toss me out, but I stomped the snow off my boots and sidestepped him. I’d finally gotten a good look at Robert. He was lying very still on the sofa, under a blanket, and his face was even more pale than usual. In fact, I’d been so surprised to see Maude, who was sitting close to him, that I’d almost overlooked him.

  “Robert, are you okay?” I asked. Before he could answer, I turned and glared at Maude and Detective Culhane, my fists balled up like I was Flora Bessemer, itching to fight. “Are they bothering you?”

  “Isabel, calm down,” Maude urged in a soothing voice. “Don’t make things worse.”

  “What’s bad to start with?” I asked, looking around at everybody.

  That was when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the gun on the coffee table.

  Chapter 26

  “WHY IS that HERE?” I ASKED, POINTING AT THE GUN—which was pointing back at me. Nobody was holding it, but somehow that didn’t make it much less scary. Probably because I’d seen that hole in Charles Bessemer’s head not too long ago. I looked at Detective Culhane. “Is that the—”

  “It’s time for you to leave, Miss Feeney,” he said, cutting me off. He took my shoulder and started guiding me to the door. Twisting, I slipped free. “Isabel . . .”

  “Robert, what’s going on?” I demanded, addressing the ghost that hovered under the blanket. The bluish ghost. “Are you cold or something? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m okay, Isabel,” he reassured me. But his voice was soft and wheezy. “Sometimes the cold bothers me if I go out too much—like to my aunt’s.” He paused to get some air. “It gets hard to breathe. It’s from having polio, you know . . . It happens to a lot of kids . . .”

  So Robert really had survived polio. I could hardly imagine that, although the disease scared the bejeepers out of me every summer. Some people said that if you ate peach fuzz, you’d get it. Which really made things difficult for me because I loved a good peach.

  “Miss Feeney.” Detective Culhane spoke firmly—and used my last name again—so I knew I was going to get kicked out and miss whatever the heck was happening.

  Then, just as I was turning to go, Maude surprised me, saying quietly, “James. Why don’t you let Isabel stay? You’re almost done here, and I think Robert could use a friend.” She rested one hand on Robert’s shoulder, addressing him. “You’d probably like some company your own age, right?”

  Robert nodded. “Yes. Please.”<
br />
  Maude didn’t say anything else. She just turned her dark, confident eyes on stone-faced James Culhane, and the second I looked at him, I knew she was going to get her way. He didn’t melt like a snowman in August, but his shoulders slumped, just a little. “Fine,” he agreed through gritted teeth. “She can stay.”

  Wow. Either he really liked her or Maude Collier was just a woman who got what she wanted. It was probably a little of both.

  I looked at Maude, mouthing, Thanks.

  She winked at me, and I once again wasn’t sure if we were friends or enemies in this whole mess.

  Could we be both?

  Then, because I knew Detective Culhane’s rules for me—sit still and shut up—I climbed onto the pretty high-backed chair that matched Maude’s and buttoned my lips. I actually made a buttoning motion, so he’d know I understood what was expected of me.

  Detective Culhane was already done with me, though. He was pulling the rocking chair across the floor and sitting down close to Robert, so they were more on the same level. Then he reached to the coffee table that was between them and picked up the gun. “You are certain that you can’t tell me if this was your mother’s or not?” he asked. “Because she is having a very difficult time identifying it too.”

  Detective Culhane obviously believed that Miss Giddings was not really having trouble at all.

  Meanwhile, I believed Robert when he shook his head, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “No,” he choked out. “I swear. I told you. She never let me touch it!”

  “Plus, all guns kinda look the same, don’t they?” I interjected.

  Detective Culhane turned slowly to me. “No, Miss Feeney. They do not.” He kept staring at me, as if he was waiting for something. I finally figured out what, and buttoned my lip again. He turned back to Robert. “Why did she have a gun? Where did it come from?”

  Robert stared down at his covered-up legs. Why isn’t he at his aunt’s house? I wondered. Then he picked at the blanket, muttering, “It was my father’s. He left it behind when he left.”

  I really wished I could see Robert’s face better, because he sounded not just polio sick, but heartsick and bitter all at the same time.

  Was Robert angry at his father? Was his dad still alive?

  I glanced at the mantel and noticed that there weren’t any pictures of a man there. My mother kept three photographs of Dad in our small parlor. And she had their wedding picture next to her bed.

  Had there been any photographs like that next to Miss Giddings’s bed?

  And why, now that I thought of it, was she Miss Giddings?

  My mother still went by Mrs. Feeney . . .

  “James.” Maude’s quiet voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned to see that Hastings was sneaking in a nap, right on his feet, now that he was behind Detective Culhane, out of his boss’s sight. Then I noted that Maude was frowning, and for a second, I thought she was going to step in to help Robert again. Maybe tell Detective Culhane that he’d upset a frail, wheezing kid enough for one night. But that didn’t happen. Instead, she asked, “Were Miss Giddings’s fingerprints on the trigger?”

  I was starting to learn that being a reporter meant you couldn’t always be kind. That sometimes you had to ask hard questions, even if some kid was under a blanket struggling to breathe.

  Could I really do that job?

  “No, but she could have started to wipe the gun clean,” Detective Culhane said. “She had plenty of time to do that before the police came.”

  Maude shifted to meet my eyes. “Isabel, did you see anything?”

  “No. She wasn’t cleaning the gun when I got there!” I cried, grateful to finally be allowed to talk. “I swear!”

  Of course, Detective Culhane wasn’t impressed, although he did speak to me almost like I was a human being. “You weren’t there right away, Isabel. You told us that you had to run from the corner.”

  “Yes, but . . .” That was true, but I had more to say. “I found this footprint . . . And a doorway . . .” I started to pull my composition book out of my coat, which I was still wearing, since nobody’d suggested I take it off. “And trash cans with lids . . . and gum . . .” The stuff I’d found in the alley had made some sense to me, even if I hadn’t pieced everything together yet, but sitting there with Detective Culhane staring at me, I found myself babbling. I tried to appeal to Maude, who was watching me with her head cocked, clearly confused, which didn’t help me sort out my thoughts. “Gum . . .” I said weakly, holding up my notes. “I found this gum—”

  “We are talking about guns, Miss Feeney,” Detective Culhane interrupted. “With an n. Not gum, with an m.”

  “Hey,” I snapped, getting mad. “I might not go to school anymore, but I know how to spell! I’m not stupid!”

  That woke up Hastings, even. He grunted and snorted, and his eyes flew open—while Detective Culhane reared back in his chair, as if I’d hit him. There was a big silence, and I thought he was going to really give it to me. Maybe pick me up and toss me out in the snow.

  But that didn’t happen. Instead, he got a funny look on his face. “I’m sorry, Isabel,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”

  What?

  I probably should’ve told him that it was okay. That I accepted his apology. But I was so stunned that I just sat there, until Maude finally spoke, in her quiet way that somehow worked better than my loud outbursts. “James, I think it’s time we let Robert rest. Is there really anything else you can learn here?”

  “I suppose not,” he agreed, still watching me. Just when I was getting uncomfortable, he stood up and asked Hastings, “Are you awake enough to deliver Robert to his aunt?” He jerked his thumb at me. “Then take her home?”

  Did Detective Culhane see everything? Did he have eyes in the back of his head? I was sure he hadn’t turned around once to catch Hastings napping and that he’d been completely focused on me, Robert, and Maude.

  Beleaguered old Hastings didn’t try to pretend he’d been awake. And I liked him even better when he walked over to the couch and held out his arms. “Come on, pal. You look like you need a ride.”

  But Robert shook his head. “No. I’ll stay here.” He glanced at me. “I have to stay here.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I told him, thinking he felt that he had to stick around because I’d come to visit. “I’ll come back again.”

  But Robert wasn’t staying for me. He picked at the blanket again. “No, it’s not that.”

  “Robert . . .”

  I looked over to see that Maude, who was near the door putting on her coat, wasn’t being a reporter right then. She was just a nice lady worried about a sick kid. “Why not stay with your aunt?” she asked.

  Robert kept shredding his blanket. “It’s not good for me to go outside. I told you. And she shares a house with some other ladies. There’s no room for me. She’d rather just take care of me here. She’ll probably be here soon. She said she’d be late.”

  “I really don’t mind carrying you,” Hastings offered again. He smiled. “I bet those ladies at the boarding house would like to help you out until your aunt can take over.”

  “No!”

  We were all surprised by how he barked at us. “Robert?” Maude asked uncertainly.

  Robert finally raised his face, and I saw two small pink blotches on his cheeks. He wasn’t feeling better, though. He was angry. “I can’t go to my aunt’s, okay?”

  Maude gave Detective Culhane a worried, confused look, then asked, “Why not?”

  I was pretty sure that Robert—who probably didn’t go to school either—was as smart as I was, if not smarter. But he obviously didn’t always think before he spoke, at least around police, and Detective Culhane nearly dropped the gun that he was slipping into a big tan envelope when Robert said, “Aunt Johnene says she’s not disrupting her ‘respectable’ house with the mess Mom made, because she knew Mom would get into some kind of trouble!”

  Chapter 27

  �
��WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” I ASKED ROBERT AFTER THE adults had left—without me, although I’d really wanted that ride. But how could I leave a breathless, upset, and for once too talkative kid alone? “Did that polio get your brain or something?”

  Robert jerked upright. “Hey!”

  I didn’t apologize for mentioning his disease. I felt sorry for Robert, but I didn’t understand why people always pretended they didn’t even notice the bad stuff that happened to you. He’d had polio, for crying out loud, and not talking about it wasn’t going to change anything. Just like everybody avoiding talking about my dad wouldn’t make him any less dead.

  “Why did you say that about your mom?” I groaned, plopping down on the rocking chair Detective Culhane had just been using—and the chair tried to kick me out too, like he’d left it with orders. I got it steadied and asked, again, “Honestly, why?”

  Robert shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know. I just got angry.”

  “At your aunt or your mom?”

  Robert started plucking at threads again. “Both.”

  “I am gonna rip that blanket off you if you don’t leave it alone,” I warned him. “You are making me crazy!”

  Robert stilled his hands and gave me sad eyes. “Why are you being so mean tonight? I thought we were . . .”

  Friends.

  I avoided saying the word too. Was that because we were so used to not having any? But I did simmer down. “Sorry. My mom says I get ‘wrought up’ easy. I just don’t understand why you’d give Detective Culhane and Maude—”

  Robert gave me a funny look. “Maude?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t feel like explaining that complicated relationship, so I turned the conversation back to the stupid thing Robert had just said. “I don’t understand why you’d give them more reason to think your mother’s guilty.”

  Robert’s eyes got wide. “Did I do that?”

  I gave him a weird look. “Uh . . . yeah.”