Out of Tune

by Norah McClintock

  “It can’t be that bad,” I said.

  She fixed me with a frank, somewhat superior look. “Really? Do you think I would be talking to you about this if I had parents who were one hundred percent in my corner?”

  “What about your friends? They must believe in you.”

  “Tina and Desiree? Maybe. But what are they going to do about it? Nothing. It would never occur to them to do anything.” Her eyes searched mine. “Will you help me?”

  What did she think I could do that the police weren’t already doing? Or was she scared of tunnel vision—of the cops building a case against her based on their suspicions instead of on the facts? Everyone knew that happened sometimes.

  “You said the police questioned you.”

  She nodded.

  “I want you to tell me everything they said to you and everything you said to them.”

  Another curt nod.

  “Who questioned you?”

  “Taylor’s dad.” Taylor Martin goes to our school. Her dad is Josh Martin.

  “Was he alone, or did he have another detective with him?”

  “Your aunt was there too.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if she didn’t hold it against me that my aunt was trying to put her in prison. “But Taylor’s dad did most of the talking. He was kind of annoying, you know, the way he wouldn’t let your aunt say anything.”

  No surprise there.

  “What did he say?”

  “At first he was kind of like a priest or something. He kept telling me that I would feel much better if I got everything off my chest and told him the truth. But I was telling the truth. I had nothing to do with what happened to Alicia.”

  “He didn’t believe you?”

  “He kept trying to get me to say that I was jealous of Alicia. And he said that he understood how I felt because he’d heard about the competition and he knows how important it was to both of us to win, and what a blow it must have been to come in second. He did all that psychology stuff, you know, trying to convince me that he was on my side. He said I probably didn’t mean to kill Alicia. I probably lost my temper and just lashed out at her, and he understood that. He said it would be best for everyone, especially Alicia’s parents, if I told the truth. He said it would help them find closure.”

  “Were you jealous of her?”

  “Of course I was. Anyone who says they weren’t jealous of her is lying. Everything came easy to Alicia. Everything. But I was angrier with Mr. Todd. Alicia was his pet. She only got the spot because he promoted her to the selection committee. I told her if she was as fair as she always pretended to be, she would ask for a reaudition for both of us without Mr. Todd.”

  “And?”

  “She said, and I quote, I don’t think that will be necessary. And, yeah, I lost my temper. I shoved her. I wanted to do worse. I knew it was wrong when I was doing it, but I couldn’t stop myself, even though I knew someone was watching us. That friend of yours. Ashleigh Wainwright. I guess she ratted me out to the police.” She looked me square in the eye. “But I didn’t kill Alicia.”

  “Do you have an alibi for when she was killed?”

  She shook her head. “If I’d known I was going to be accused of murder, I would have made sure I was out in public making a spectacle of myself so that dozens of people would have remembered seeing me. I was at home. My parents weren’t. They didn’t get back until late. I didn’t talk to anyone, and no one saw me. I just did my homework and practiced. As usual.”

  One more strike against her.

  “Did Taylor’s dad mention physical evidence or anything else?”

  She gave me a blank look.

  “Fingerprints on the murder weapon, the victim’s blood on your clothes, a footwear impression in the woods—stuff like that. Did he mention any physical evidence that puts you at the scene of the crime?”

  She shook her head, but I knew that cops like to play their cards close to the chest, and they always hold something back. Always. So just because they didn’t mention something, that didn’t mean they didn’t know about it.

  “But he did keep asking me about time,” she said. “What time did I leave school? What time did I get home? How do I know for sure that it was before five o’clock? How do I know it wasn’t later? Could it have been a few minutes later? Well, sure, I guess. I mean, I knew I got home around four thirty, because I’d been home for a few minutes before I decided to microwave a snack. That’s when I saw the time. Well, then he wanted to know exactly how long I’d been home. Was it five minutes? Ten? Could it have been fifteen?”

  “So he was really focused on five o’clock?” I wondered what he was basing that on. Alicia’s watch, which had been broken? An eyewitness? Some other information that the police were keeping quiet about for now?

  “Was he ever.” She shuddered. “He can be really scary too. I mean, at first he was kind of nice, telling me he understood how it must feel to be constantly outdone by someone, how hard it is to be passed over. But later on he started to get kind of mad at me.”

  “What about witnesses? Did he mention or even hint that they have someone who might have seen you following Alicia or seen you go into the woods the day she disappeared?”

  Anger sparked in her eyes. “Well, that would be impossible,” she said. “Because I didn’t follow her. I didn’t even set foot in the woods. So anyone who says they saw me anywhere near there—and as far as I know no one has said anything like that—is lying.”

  “Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Do you know anyone else who had a grudge against Alicia or was mad at her for some reason?”

  “Little Miss Perfect? You’ve got to be kidding. Everyone treats her as if she’s an angel come down to earth.”

  “An angel who someone bludgeoned to death,” I pointed out.

  Carrie looked down. “I know it doesn’t sound good, but will you help me?”

  I told her that I would think about it.

  I got to school late—no surprise there—suffered Mr. Chen’s sarcasm, picked up a late slip and was on my way to my locker when the class-change bell rang. Amid the sudden flood of students in the halls, I glimpsed Aunt Ginny. She and Josh Martin were marching up to the third floor with Mr. Chen. Two uniformed officers followed them. What was going on?

  I wasn’t the only person asking that question. The four cops drew a lot of attention. One by one at first, and then bunch by bunch, students trailed them, until a sizable crowd filled the hall outside the cops’ final destination—the music room. Aunt Ginny, Josh Martin and Mr. Chen entered the room. The uniformed officers were stationed outside the door to make sure no one interfered.

  “There’s nothing to see here, people,” one of the uniforms said. “Go back to your classes.”

  No one moved. We had a fifteen-minute break before the bell rang again.

  The uniform, whose name was Sharpe, had to be close to retirement age. Aunt Ginny had once pointed him out to me as the worst kind of cop—the kind with no ambition. He stood with his hands on his hips and an exasperated expression on his face. “Come on, people. You heard me. Back to class.”

  I had wormed my way to the front of the crowd, directly under Officer Sharpe’s nose. I glanced over my shoulder. Nobody dispersed.

  Officer Sharpe reached for his radio handset, but he didn’t get a chance to use it because just then Detective Martin and Aunt Ginny emerged from the music room with Mr. Chen. Aunt Ginny was holding something in her hand—a sheet of notebook paper that had been slipped into a plastic evidence bag.

  “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.” The voice, sharp-edged with frustration, grew louder and louder until finally Mr. Todd, the music teacher, successfully elbowed his way to the top of the stairs and to the front of the crowd.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Chen. “Here’s Mr. Todd now. He should be able to answer your questions.”

  I stepped aside to let the music teacher pass. Well, actually, he pushed me out of his way. That’s when Aunt Ginny spotted me. She shot me the e
vil eye. I pretended not to notice.

  “What is going on?” Mr. Todd demanded. “Mrs. Dekes informed me that you were searching my classroom. Really, Mr. Chen, you should have called me first.”

  “Would you please step into the music room, sir?” Aunt Ginny asked.

  Mr. Todd glared at her. “And you are?”

  “Detective McFee.”

  “Well, Detective McFee, I am not at all happy with your performance. Surely you’re obliged to notify the appropriate parties before you conduct a search.”

  “I did.” Aunt Ginny’s tone was curt and peeved. “Mrs. Dekes is responsible for this school and its facilities.”

  “But she is not, I assure you, responsible for my music room and its instruments, which had better not have been damaged…”

  Aunt Ginny shook her head wearily. Doubtless she had dealt with people like Mr. Todd before, and clearly it was not her favorite part of the job. But she said nothing and looked to Mr. Chen for help.

  Mr. Chen touched Mr. Todd’s arm. “Richard, we need you inside the music room.”

  Mr. Todd opened his mouth, probably to protest, but then seemed to think better of it. He glanced at the students massed behind him and, without another word, followed Mr. Chen into the music room. Detective Martin and Aunt Ginny went with them. They were still inside, behind closed doors, when the bell rang and we all had to leave. We had no choice, not after Mrs. Dekes appeared at the bottom of the stairs and issued a warning that anyone late for the next class would get a detention.

  Who knows how news gets around as fast as it does in a school? Who knows how much of it is true? By lunch, everyone was talking about what the police had supposedly found in the music room and what it meant. When Ashleigh arrived at my locker, she was bursting to share what she had overheard in the second-floor girls’ washroom.

  “Carrie’s nowhere near as smart as you think she is.” She was gloating, as if she was about to prove conclusively something she’d been saying all along. “You know why the cops were called? Because someone found a note.”

  Charlie showed up just then.

  “What note? What are you talking about?” he asked. He was clutching an oversized brown paper bag. Charlie brought his lunch every day—delicious homemade sandwiches on homemade bread (Charlie’s mother loved her bread maker), veggies, a piece of fruit and some other homemade treat. Charlie’s lunches were always, always mouth-watering. His mother was an excellent cook who had taken more first prizes in the preserves and baking categories at the annual agricultural fair than anyone else in town.

  “The cops were here,” Ashleigh said. “You didn’t know?”

  I grabbed my lunch and closed my locker. We started for the stairs.

  “Let’s eat outside,” I said. It was a sunny, unseasonably warm day.

  “What about the cops?” Charlie asked. “What did they want? Was it about Alicia?”

  “It sure was,” Ashleigh said.

  I pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, and we stepped out into the sun at the rear of the school.

  Ashleigh eyed Charlie’s lunch bag. “What kind of sandwich did your mom make today?”

  “Roast beef.”

  “Mustard or mayo?”

  “Honey mustard.”

  Ashleigh licked her lips. Whenever Charlie’s sandwich sounded or looked especially delicious, she shamelessly begged for half or a quarter or, if Charlie held firm, which he usually did, just a single bite.

  “Give me half of your sandwich and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Riley will tell me for free.”

  “Sorry, Charlie. I don’t know the whole story. Ashleigh was just about to tell me.”

  Ashleigh smiled triumphantly and stuck out her hand for her bribe. Charlie tightened his grip on his lunch bag.

  “I don’t think I care that much,” he said.

  Ashleigh crossed her arms over her chest. “In that case, no one hears the whole story.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “Fine with me too,” I said. “I might be able to worm something out of Aunt Ginny, especially if I bribe her with homemade pie.” I had started making pies during the summer, when there was plenty of fresh fruit available. Aunt Ginny went positively weak at the knees when I pulled one out of the oven and served it à la mode.

  Ashleigh’s gloat turned into a pout.

  “You guys are no fun!” She glowered at us, especially Charlie. “Okay, fine. Lydia Teasdale—do you know her?” Charlie nodded. I had no idea who she was. “She’s in junior band,” Ashleigh said. “She plays trumpet. Anyway, Mr. Todd handed out music for a piece they’re supposed to learn. Lydia and a guy, I think it was Anthony Fairburn, were in there on a spare, practicing, and Lydia found a note inside her music. It was about Alicia, saying she was a stuck-up bitch and—get this—that the person who wrote the note wanted to kill her. And the kicker? It was written the day after the announcement about the youth orchestra and the day before Alicia was killed.”

  “How do they know that?” I asked.

  “Because the idiot who wrote it put the date at the top. I heard there was a dagger drawn around it, with blood dripping off it.”

  “Next you’re going to tell me that the note was signed,” I said.

  “It was!” When Charlie and I both stared at her, stunned, she said, “Well, sort of. There was a big C at the bottom of the note.” She paused to gauge our reaction. “Don’t you get it?” she said. “It was Carrie. Carrie wrote the note. Carrie admitted she wanted to kill Alicia.”

  “She probably didn’t mean it,” I said.

  “Funny, though, that Alicia got killed the next day, don’t you think?” Ashleigh said.

  “Maybe someone else wrote the note and signed it with a C,” Charlie said.

  Ashleigh gave him a sour look. “For what possible reason?”

  “I don’t know. To get Carrie in trouble?”

  “They took the note to the office,” Ashleigh said. “They compared it to Carrie’s signature in the files. And the C in the files looked just like the C on that note. They’re going to send it to a handwriting expert for confirmation.”

  “How do you know all this?” I hadn’t yet gotten over how much information Ashleigh was able to tap into, and how quickly.

  “How do you not?” she asked. “It’s all over the place. Everyone’s on it.” She gazed longingly at Charlie’s lunch bag. “I’m starving,” she groaned. “I have to get something to eat. I’ll be right back.” She went inside, and I heard her feet on the concrete stairs leading down into the cafeteria.

  “It doesn’t sound right to me,” Charlie said. “If you’re actually going to kill someone, why would you advertise that in advance by leaving a dated, signed note lying around?”

  It was a good question.

  FIVE

  When Ashleigh returned with a tuna-salad sandwich and some carrot sticks from the cafeteria, we decided to do what a lot of other kids were doing—eat on the bleachers at the side of the school athletic field. It was fairly quiet outside, despite the whoops of a bunch of guys tossing a football around at the far end of the athletic field and the rhythmic thunk-thunk-thunk of a hammer being wielded by one of the school maintenance staff, who was down on his hands and knees near the farthest edge of the schoolyard. Each strike of the hammer made a dull echoey sound, as if he was hitting wood against wood. All around us were small groups of lunchers, each group just far enough from the others to foil eavesdropping—assuming no one shouted like Ashleigh did when I had finished telling her and Charlie about my encounter that morning with Carrie.

  “So you’re telling me that the reason you were late for school today was because Carrie Denison asked you to help her prove to the cops that she didn’t kill Alicia Allen, despite overwhelming evidence proving it was her?”

  “Except for the last part, yes.”

  Ashleigh shook her head in disgust. Charlie stopped munching his sandwich and stared wide-eyed a
t me.

  “Do you believe her, Riley?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” That was the truth. “But she’s scared, and I think she feels that everyone is against her. She says her parents are acting like they think she did it.” I had no intention of betraying Carrie’s confidence about Marion and Edward not really being her parents.

  “That should tell you something,” Ashleigh said. She turned to Charlie for confirmation. “She probably freaks out on them the way she freaked out on Alicia. If her parents don’t already know she did it, they must suspect. Otherwise they’d be mortgaging the house to hire the best criminal lawyer they could find.”

  “What are you talking about?” Charlie asked. “What do you mean, Carrie freaked out on Alicia?”

  Ashleigh filled him in.

  That reminded me. “She says she saw you, Ashleigh.”

  “How come you never mentioned it the whole time we were looking for Alicia?” Charlie sounded hurt by her omission.

  “Because I didn’t think anything had happened to her. And I had no idea that you were in love with Alicia.”

  Charlie’s cheeks reddened. “I wasn’t in love—”

  “Or whatever.” Ashleigh waved a hand to dismiss the topic.

  I hesitated before I asked, “Did you tell the police what you saw?”

  Ashleigh sighed. “I thought about it. But it felt so much like tattling. Do you think I should?”

  “You have to,” Charlie said.

  “Somebody else already told them,” I said. “Carrie says the cops asked her about it. Was anyone else there, Ashleigh?”

  “Just Tina. But she wouldn’t rat out her best friend.” She paused. “Would she?” She let out another long sigh. “There was no one else around, Riley. And I swear I didn’t tell the cops. If Tina did, it’s probably because she thinks the same thing I do—Carrie did it. No one else had a motive. No one else actually hated the perfect Alicia Allen.” She looked me over as she peeled the plastic wrap from her sandwich. “You’re going to help her, aren’t you?”