The Dead Girls Detective Agency

by Suzy Cox

  “Charlotte, did you take that?” Lorna asked, standing beside me. “It’s way cool. He doesn’t look like an idiot in it at all.”

  “No, I guess not, he—”

  Thud!

  I whirled around to see a pile of pictures cascading out of Mina Anderson’s hands and spreading like a fan as they fell onto the gray tiled floor. She bent down quickly and started to pick them up in a panic.

  “David!” she said. “You scared me. What are you doing in here? Oh …” She stopped bobbing and scooping for a beat—long enough for her gaze to move from David’s body to my photograph on the wall. “I guess you came to see that.”

  “Sorry, who is this girl again?” Nancy asked.

  “One of Charlotte’s friends from the photography club,” Lorna whispered, like Mina could hear her. “She came to the funeral. She sat just behind lovely Ali.”

  “Wow, were all your friends this cool, Charlotte?” Tess asked, eyeing Mina’s calf-skimming skirt.

  Ignoring them, I strode over to where Mina was half crouching and started to help her pick up the pictures.

  “Really, you don’t have to do that,” she said in a small voice. “I can clean up my own mess and …”

  I stopped short. The pictures. They were all of me. Me in Club. Me waiting for David outside class. Me trying to get into my locker. David and I sitting on the lawn. I recognized them—they were the prints from a portrait shoot we’d done for a school project. Miss Peters had paired us up and told everyone to “try to catch your subject off guard—so it’s natural.” I remember thinking Mina had done a great job when I saw her prints. I’d had no idea she was snapping away. I just hadn’t seen all of them before. I didn’t know she’d taken so many.

  “What the …?” Nancy said.

  “Looks like someone had a girl crush on you,” Lorna whispered.

  “No, no, it wasn’t like that,” I said in David’s voice.

  Mina looked at David strangely and quietly picked the remaining photographs up. She gently carried them to the table. “I guess you think I’m strange,” she said quietly. “I was just making copies of these ones. Charlotte told me she really liked the shots, so I wanted to have more.” She stopped suddenly, realizing how that could sound. “No, I mean I … I thought maybe Mr. and Mrs. Feldman would like to see them. To have their own set.” She looked up and shyly made eye contact with David. “If you don’t think that’s out of line, that is. Or it’s not too soon.”

  I’d always had Mina pegged as a kid I’d never hang out with outside club—she was so quiet she made Maggie Simpson look vocal—but maybe I’d been wrong? After all this was a super-cute thing for her to do.

  “I’m sure they’d love it,” I made David say. Lorna and Nancy nodded while Tess rolled her eyes. “But maybe take Ali with you. You know my, I mean, Charlotte’s friend?” Mina nodded. “They’ve never met you before after all and you don’t know where the Feldmans live.”

  “Good idea.” She carefully packed the photographs flat in her red tote. “It’s so easy to get lost on the Upper West Side.” She looked down at the final picture of me she was holding in her hands. “She had such a lovely smile. I’ll just never understand why this had to happen, will you?”

  “Oh, please can we get out of here before she starts a collection for the Charlotte Memorial Lab?” Tess said.

  “No,” I said to Mina, turning my back on Tess. “Right now I don’t know why this had to happen. But if I have anything to do with it, that won’t be the case for very much longer.”

  Chapter 23

  I’D LOVE TO SAY SAINT BARTHOLOMEW’S cafeteria wasn’t a high school cliché, but that would be an out-and-out lie. Where you sat said just as much about you as what you wore and who you dated.

  The best tables were right by the sliding doors that led out onto a small courtyard where we could eat lunch in the summer. So obviously Kristen and the Tornahoes bagged them. But, come May, that all changed. The cool kids moved outside and those next down the pecking order could move a table closer to the doors, so us mere mortals could watch Just-Call-Me J and Kaitlynnn flirting with whatever boy they were into that week.

  The windows were like some TV screen onto the life you could have had. If only your parents earned more, your hair was less blah, or you didn’t still need braces.

  David used to say we should study the cafeteria in biology, because it was a great example of the animal pecking order brought to life. I used to think that was clever. Now, I had a sneaking suspicion that—were I not possessing my ex’s body at the very moment—he’d be sitting by the doors. And freaking loving it.

  Air, sunlight, and cheerleaders’ saliva being well-known cures for grief and all.

  By the time you hit the area past the cash registers called SS (Social Siberia), there were no windows and the only audible noise was the hum of the backup refrigerator. Which was where Lorna was pointing to now.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! There’s that weird kid,” Lorna said, bouncing.

  “Which weird kid?” I asked.

  “You know”—she put her hands on her hips—“the weird kid who was watching cheerleader practice yesterday.”

  I shook my head.

  “He was sitting on the benches. To the right of you. You probably didn’t notice because you were talking to Ed—”

  Nancy turned around. “Head? Charlotte was talking to head?”

  “Oh, she’s always talking to herself in her head, haven’t you noticed?” Lorna said. “Sometimes, when Charlotte goes quiet and looks all moody, I ask her, ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ And she’ll say, ‘No, Lorna, thanks for asking but I’m just talking to myself in my head.’”

  Call the drama teacher over, we have a new winner for Ad-libber of the Year.

  Tess looked at us as if we were certifiably insane. “And again, which weird kid, Lorna?”

  “That one.” She pointed at the back of the room again and mouthed a “sorry” at me.

  Phew. She might not be loving the fact that Edison seemed to want to be my new BFF—or whatever he was—but at least Lorna wasn’t about to issue a press release about it to Nancy.

  I scrunched up my eyes and tried to focus on SS. Nope, no one there but a couple of the science club geeks getting off on their homework assignments. No, wait, there was a kid behind them: Brian.

  “Yeah, he is strange-looking,” Tess said as Brian took his unidentifiable wheat sandwich apart, filled it with potato chips, and poured sugar on top. “Why would he have been at cheerleader practice? Do you know him?”

  Oh good, because Tess needed even more ammo from my relationship résumé to beat me up with.

  “Yeeeessss,” I admitted. Nancy looked at me expectantly, like Brian could be the break we’d all been waiting for. I was sooo going to have to level with them. “About ten years ago, we kinda might have dated for a minute.” I closed David’s eyes and waited for the shitstorm.

  “You dated him?” Lorna asked, shocked. It was like someone had just told her that American Idol was a fix.

  “Well, there’s quite a lot of him to love,” Tess said, giggling.

  “Charlotte, why don’t you go talk to him and check out why he was watching the cheerleaders,” Nancy suggested. “We should be looking for anything out of the ordinary after all.”

  Course. I could do that. Go talk to Brian. Who I hadn’t even locked eyes with in the hall since we were, what, eight? Brian wouldn’t think there was anything weird going on if David—who he never spoke to either—just walked on over to shoot the breeze.

  “You don’t seriously think Brian is in any way responsible for my death?” I asked.

  Nancy gave me her best have-I-taught-you-nothing? look. “I don’t know, Charlotte,” she said. “He was your very first boyfriend. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about him before. You said you didn’t have any exes …”

  “OMG, I dated him for, like, a week when I was still a fetus! Plus he’s not an ex—he’s … Brian.”

&n
bsp; A guy who was currently adding ketchup and mustard to his sugar sandwich.

  “We still needed to know about him,” Nancy said. “What if he never got over you and couldn’t handle seeing you so happy with David every day?”

  OMG. “Wait, he did say something strange yesterday,” I said, remembering. “When I was by the bleachers. He didn’t know I was there of course, but when Kristen was ragging on me, he made this super-weird comment about how he thought I was ‘smoking hot’ and he wished he could have told that to me.”

  Lorna’s eyes grew wide. “I think he was totally still into you, Charlotte. What if he was so, like, consumed with jealousy and rage about you dating David that he pushed you under the F train? Like, if he couldn’t have you, then no one could. What if he’s secretly this brilliant criminal mind and he’s been plotting your murder every day since you spurned him when you were six? What if it’s made him hate all women, so now he’s stalking Kristen too? What if she’s next?”

  We all looked over at Brian with a new respect.

  He dropped his open sandwich on the floor, ketchup and butter side down, sighed, and put it back together again without even checking for floor fluff.

  “Get a move on, slow butt,” Tess said. “Your Key may await.” She Jabbed David hard in the ass.

  Hmmm, I wonder who taught her that trick?

  I stumbled forward, tripped over a chair and just pulled up David’s body before he nose-dived into Drama Drew’s lunch. Alanna, who was sitting with him, raised her eyebrows at me in disgust. Who knew they were friends?

  A couple of kids behind me giggled.

  Whatever, I strode over to Brian’s table and manfully (I hoped) put my hand on one of the many empty chairs.

  “Dude, is this seat free?” I asked.

  Dude? Dude? Where had I gotten “dude” from? David may be male but he was not a stoner surfer. He did not say “dude.” Okay, so very occasionally he did, but it was one of those things about him that I tried to ignore. Like the fact he had a Kelly Clarkson album on his iPod.

  I straightened up, coughed, and very deliberately looked at the chair and back at Brian again. I wasn’t asking twice. Guys did not beg.

  “Sure,” Brian said. His voice was a lot lower than it had been in second grade. Which is down to something called puberty, Charlotte.

  “Take a seat.” Brian pointed. “Why not?”

  I sat. Right, now what? Just roll on in with a stalked any good girls recently? Which was Tess-level rude. And he had bought me a pack of Hershey’s Kisses as a present once. Thankfully instead of the real thing.

  “So, dude,” I said. Must stop that. I was one testosterone hit away from grabbing my crotch and asking if he thought Megan Fox was “smoking” too. “I saw you at the cheerleading practice today. You a fan of the blues and yellows?”

  “Ha!” Brian laughed and sprayed the table with a few choice pieces of the sugar, potato chip, and (yep, that looked like …) turkey sandwich he’d been eating.

  Lorna made a dry-heaving noise.

  “Of course I’m a fan, man, if you know what I mean.” He leaned over the table and nudged David in the ribs. “Just never thought there would be any point hanging out near women that fine”—he somehow made fine last for three syllables—“because they’d never be interested in someone like me. I’m hardly their type.”

  Fair point.

  “Thought I’d be stuck with the likes of that.” He pointed at Mina, who was heading, lunch tray in hand, in the direction of Ali’s table. “But since last Monday, well, a whole load of us back here are wondering whether all that’s changed,” Brian said sleazily.

  Um … what?

  “Dude … You are a Legend,” Brian said as he leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms behind his head. He was wearing a T-shirt with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog emblazoned across the chest (along with a light splattering of sandwich juice). I silently thanked myself that I had no idea what that was.

  “Seriously, we—every guy who dines in SS—salute you.” Brian belched.

  “Hey, that’s really nice of you, man, but mind telling me why?” I asked. Maybe I was being slow, but what had David done to get such props?

  “Why? Why?” Brian laughed. “It’s like the cheermeister doesn’t even know what he’s achieved,” he said to himself in awe under his breath.

  Delighted he could shed some light, Brian straightened up to explain. “So we all thought you were just another pretentious loser.”

  Good thing David couldn’t hear this because that would ouch.

  “But recently we are loving your work,” Brian said, punching David’s arm. “You have gone from zero to hero, remedial to Romeo.”

  Hey!

  “Your girlfriend died, sorry about that, by the way. Charlotte was really cool—and definitely smoking—and you somehow persuaded the hottest girls in this school—in this city—to hook up with you. Respect does not even begin to cover it,” Brian said.

  Oh my.

  “So you were watching the cheerleaders yesterday because …,” I prompted.

  “Because if someone like you can get three Tornadoes to date them, then there’s hope for the rest of us,” Brian said. “Seriously, ever since you’ve been walking around here looking all vulnerable, there’s been a sea change. It’s out with the meatheads who’ll get into a college just because they can throw a ball and in with homo sensitivus. Guys like us! Those women cannot get enough of you. Which means it’s only a matter of time before they can’t get enough of us too.”

  And again, oh my.

  “So you were hanging out at cheerleader training because you think the fact I’ve hooked up with a couple of hotties means you now have a chance with them too?”

  “Freaking yes!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Brian said in the most serious voice he could muster with a mouth full of sugar sandwich. “You’ve paved the way. You’re like Bill Gates with Windows One-point-Oh. Yesterday, I was in the science lab and Jamie didn’t pretend to barf when I asked if she needed help with her assignment. She actually smiled at me, dude. Do you have any idea what that means for geek-slash-hot girl relations? You should be knighted for services to guykind.”

  And if that happened, Brian should be crowned Earl of Disillusion.

  “Hey, well, I’m glad I helped,” I said, standing up.

  “Sweet. Hey and, dude, we’re all going to vote for you for Scream King too. It’s the top story on my blog and Anthony over there tweeted the entire Dungeon Master group last night.” Brian actually winked at me. “It’s a slam dunk. You have to win. We’ve gone viral.”

  “No, really, don’t do that,” I said. “I’m not the Halloween dance type.” And I really didn’t want David to be.

  “Dude, you’re not getting this,” Brian said, exasperated. “None of us are the Halloween dance types—this is why we have to get you crowned. To make a point. Show those lax boys who’s boss.” He looked over at a group of jocks braving the October courtyard in their shorts. What was that supposed to prove anyway? They were, like, tougher than the weather? “Plus, they’ve booked the ballroom of that hotel uptown—what’s it called?—the Sedgwick. It’s going to be awesome—it’s where they filmed Ghostbusters, you know the scene where they catch the Slimer for the first time?”

  Trust Brian to be the only person in my class to know that. I slowly walked David’s body out of the cafeteria and down the hall to his locker.

  I could feel the other dead girls’ presences trailing behind me.

  “We can cross Brian off the list too,” I said. “The only person he’s likely to stalk is Chris Pine at a Star Trek convention.”

  I opened David’s locker and grabbed a pen. “Don’t forget about Shylock and Spencer,” I wrote on a piece of paper taped to the inside of the metal door. “And sorry about your head.”

  “What are you doing?” Nancy asked. “That really is not necessary.”

  “I know, I just feel …” I l
ooked at my new friends—and Tess. “… like I need to get out of this boy now.”

  I stepped back and jumped clear out of David’s body. He shuddered like a cartoon character who’d had a bucket of water thrown over him.

  “Hey, David, it’s only October, man. If you’re so cold maybe you should start wearing more clothes,” Leon Clark, the lacrosse captain, said as he walked past with one of his jerk-off friends. All wearing shorts. Of course. “Or you could just man the hell up.” They belly laughed.

  David looked around in confusion, like he’d just been woken up from a really deep sleep and even his mom couldn’t make it better. I guess the last thing he could remember was getting ready that morning—before I possessed him.

  The bell rang and David jumped. He looked at the clock on the wall. Three p.m.

  “What the …,” David said, suddenly realizing that he’d lost six and a half hours and stumbling slightly.

  “Are you enjoying this as much as I am?” Tess asked. “Because if I were you, I would be squeezing every last drop of F-you out of the situation.”

  David looked at his open locker—which he couldn’t remember getting to, much less opening—and started piling books out of his bag back into it. He was officially having a mind-freak of a day. He looked up to see the note about Shylock and Spencer, screwed up his eyes trying to make sense of everything, and ran his hand through his dirty blond hair. As he did, he touched his forehead and flinched, sucking in his breath in pain.

  Yep, that would be the library-door injury. Oops.