In the Hall with the Knife

by Diana Peterfreund

  Was it too late to change his mind now?

  “Oh, man, Finn, I’m so sorry!” Scarlett exclaimed. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “To lose all your work like that.”

  He nodded miserably. “I—I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Well,” she said, squeezing his shoulder, “the first thing we should do is make sure no one else has had anything stolen, and that this guy has fled the premises. Right?”

  Yes, probably. Wait, was it? This was where things began to get twisted in Finn’s mind.

  If he were a looter, say, who’d already scored thousands of dollars from the headmaster’s lockbox, and had accidentally murdered a guy to boot, would he honestly stick around to swipe a student’s laptop and a digital scale?

  “It’s so strange,” Scarlett said. She still hadn’t removed her hand from his shoulder. It was starting to feel heavy. “That a looter, having already gotten all that money from Headmaster Boddy, would endanger himself by waiting around here on the off chance he could fence a digital scale.”

  A chill stole over his body as she looked at him. Her gaze was steady and intent.

  They’d always had this talent, like they knew what the other person was thinking. They could anticipate each other’s needs. It’s what made them such an unbeatable pair.

  He should have known it would get him into trouble.

  “Well,” he said lamely, “it cost about three thousand dollars.”

  “Could a thief sell it for that much?” Scarlett asked him. “Would he even know what it was?”

  Finn was pretty sure that if he did have his digital scale with him in this moment, they’d find that Scarlett’s hand on his shoulder weighed at least half a ton.

  He squirmed out of her grip. “We should search the rest of the house. If he hasn’t gone, there’s a chance we could get all our stuff back.”

  There, that seemed to work. At the very least, Scarlett didn’t say anything else as they left the billiards room and headed for the conservatory.

  The room was still very cold, which was probably a good thing, given that they were storing a dead body in it. Scarlett again manned the door while Finn made a show of checking behind potted plants and under the shelves where Mrs. White kept her orchid collection.

  “Don’t forget the closet!” Scarlett called.

  Finn checked the closet.

  “Anything in there that looks like it could be your stuff?” she asked.

  No. He hadn’t hidden it in the closet. He stood there, just inside, peering into the darkness and looking for clarity. Scarlett was his best friend. They’d trusted each other with so many schemes in the last few years. Things that could have gotten each of them in a world of trouble. Maybe, just maybe . . . he could trust her with this?

  “Hey, Scar?” he began.

  “There you are, Scarlett.” Beth’s voice. Every muscle in Finn’s body pulled tight. Not Beth. Not now. “We’re done with the attic. There was nothing there but boxes and old dress forms and some broken furniture.”

  “Oh, Peacock!” Scarlett called merrily. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Finn melted farther into the closet, relieved. Scarlett had a new target. After all, Beth was her number one suspect.

  Or at least, she had been five minutes ago.

  He crouched in the shadows and peeked out through the gap between the door and the frame. Beth was standing next to Scarlett in the doorway, towering over her, as usual. In her hands, she held some type of long metal object.

  “You know,” Scarlett went on, “I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . Word on the street is that you had a bit of a run-in with Headmaster Boddy the other day, before the storm.”

  Okay. This was according to plan. Scarlett would get the intel they needed on Beth.

  “Word on the street?” Beth echoed sardonically. She turned the metal thing over and over in her hands. Finn peered closer. It was a lead pipe. “You mean, Finn told you?”

  “Um,” said Scarlett. “I don’t know. Might have been Orchid.”

  Beth snorted. “Whatever. Doesn’t really seem to matter now, in light of everything.”

  “Did you get in a fight with him?” Scarlett pressed. “Did you . . . Did you throw something at him?”

  “Do you think I killed him?” she shot back, as if it were one of her lethal volleys. “Man, you two really are something. There is no low you won’t sink to, is there? Even accusing me of murder.”

  Finn didn’t know what he did then. He wasn’t sure if his knees gave out, or his heels dropped, or his hand on the door slipped, but he must have made a sound, because suddenly both girls turned his way.

  “Finn?” Beth called. “Is that you? Get out of there!” Finn hesitated.

  “NOW.”

  He emerged from the closet, head hung sheepishly.

  “Go ahead,” Beth said, her chin raised. She pointed the lead pipe at him like she was a queen with a scepter. “Call me a murderer to my face. I dare you.”

  “Beth,” he started, “all I said is that you’re the only one who seemed to be on bad terms with the headmaster—”

  “His corpse is lying right behind you,” Beth cut in with a sneer. The pipe sliced through the air as she gestured wildly with it. “Do you think I stabbed him? Are you going to stand here and tell me I plunged a knife into his heart?”

  Finn shrank away from her. He looked to Scarlett for help, but she stood with her arms crossed, looking at him smugly.

  And that’s when he realized: She had never bought it. Not once.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t believe what Finn tells me,” said Scarlett.

  “You definitely shouldn’t. He’s a liar.”

  “Is he.” Scarlett clucked her tongue.

  “Oh, please!” Beth said. “You know how he is. Don’t pretend.”

  “Yeah,” Scarlett said. “I know. But I never thought he’d lie to me.”

  “Been there,” Beth said. “You two deserve each other. Excuse me, I think I’ll go murder a few more people this afternoon. I hear it’s aerobic.”

  She stomped off down the hall. For a long moment, Finn and Scarlett just stared at each other.

  “Scar—”

  “Maybe she’s right,” Scarlett said. “Maybe we do deserve each other. Because, in all honesty, Finn, I can’t tell right now if you’re lying to me about something stupid or if you killed that man under that tarp.”

  Uh-oh. And to think he’d imagined he could rely on her.

  “But you’re lying about something.”

  Okay, she was serious.

  “No—” he tried.

  “No, you didn’t kill him, or no, you aren’t lying?”

  “No, it’s not something stupid.” He looked down at the floor. But maybe he was just being stupid about it. After all, he may not be in the clear yet. Not even with the flood. Not even with the headmaster being dead.

  She looked at him and shook her head, a deep sadness overcoming her face. “I’ve told you everything.”

  “Yeah.” He wanted the floor to swallow him up. He didn’t know if Beth had killed Headmaster Boddy, but he kind of hoped she’d come back and kill him.

  “Everything,” she repeated. “You could destroy me with the stuff I’ve told you.”

  He knew all of that.

  “Does it have to do with why you were in the office that day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  He raised his head and met her eyes. “Yes.”

  Her arms were still crossed tight over her chest. “You stupid boy. Whatever it was, we could have fixed it. That’s what we do.”

  “Okay!” He held his hands out. “Let’s fix it. I’ll tell you everything, and then you tell me how to fix it, because I’ve already screwed up on my own.”

  “No way,” Scarlett said. “Fix it yourself. I have a killer to catch.”

  “Please, Scar?”

  “No! You don’t get to treat me like this. We’re suppo
sed to be a team, Finn. But you blew it. Just like you blew it with Beth.”

  “Beth was different.” Beth had been his girlfriend. His real girlfriend.

  “Not that different.”

  He clenched his jaw. “You’ll be sorry, Scarlett. You’ll be sorry if you don’t help me and I have to do this on my own.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right. Like you’ll be able to manage anything without me. Good luck with that. I’m off to finish searching the house. I assume I don’t have to worry about your missing items?”

  “You don’t have to worry about anything of mine,” he snapped.

  “Fine!” She turned on her heel and marched off.

  He watched her disappear down the hall. It was empty now, with no sign of Mrs. White or the other students, but Finn closed the door anyway.

  “Just in case,” he explained to the corpse under the tarp.

  Headmaster Boddy had wanted to see what he was up to, after all. Poor man. Now he never would. Finn supposed he should be relieved, but he wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. Relief would probably come later. He was still in shock.

  One thing he would never deny : he owed so much to Headmaster Boddy—all those hours in the chem lab freshman and sophomore year, all that careful attention to and encouragement of Finn’s work.

  Finn’s work. That’s what he had to keep in mind, every time he started feeling a twinge of guilt. His.

  He turned to the row of orchids lined up against the far wall, and with a flick of his fingers against the under-side of a shelf, released the latch to the secret passage.

  They’d been rumors, but only Finn had cared enough to track them down, to perform the meticulous trial and error on every book in the library, every brick in the wall. Not even Scarlett had bothered. Anything that wasn’t a threat to her fell completely off her radar.

  Pity, really. Then again, her lack of curiosity had helped him in his quest, just like Mrs. White’s strict curfew rules. He’d only pretended to leave the house after their study sessions. It had taken many nights in Tudor House to learn its secrets, but it had paid off. After a few moments in the passage, his eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he saw his masterpiece. Still there. Still safe.

  Still all his.

  15

  Mustard

  The biggest thing Mustard had discovered in their search of the second floor of Tudor House is that he really needed to up his game when it came to decorating his dorm room. Back at Farthing Military Academy, they were each given a two-foot-by-two-foot bulletin board upon which they were allowed to put photos from home or other personal items. Here, every room in Tudor House was wall-to-wall posters, gauzy curtains, knickknacks, basket chairs, throw pillows, and stuffed animals.

  Not that Mustard was about to cover his spartan dorm room with a collection of teddy bears. But he wouldn’t mind one of those down comforters. It was freezing here.

  The second thing he discovered was that his partners in this search, Karlee and Kayla, were basically useless.

  “Ooh, look at all this electronic equipment!” Karlee exclaimed when they checked Scarlett’s room. Mustard noted that Scarlett, at least, had not been subject to any looting, and swiftly looked in her closet, behind her desk, and under her bed for any intruders. All clear.

  “Does she podcast or something?” Kayla asked, examining a microphone on her desk. “Have you heard her podcast?”

  “No!” exclaimed Karlee. “What is it, school gossip?”

  “Probably, knowing Scarlett.”

  “Let’s try the next room,” Mustard said brusquely as he ushered them out. Scarlett also had a top-of-the-line gaming computer. It would be worth good money to a thief.

  This looting theory didn’t hold water.

  The other rooms on the floor—to which they’d been granted access, care of Mrs. White’s “borrowed” skeleton key—were similarly filled with luxuries large and small, and also similarly devoid of unexpected persons or any signs of theft. The bathroom was a bathroom, and Mrs. White’s room, where the two girls had spent the night, was neat as a pin, except for the items he instantly tagged as belonging to Karlee and Kayla—he didn’t think Mrs. White went in for glittery lip gloss. There was a small, old-fashioned television, a sewing basket, some antiques, and, on the far wall, several rows of framed photographs in grainy, faded colors.

  “Who are these people?” Mustard tapped a frame.

  “Probably reform school ladies,” Kayla said. “But they don’t look that rough.”

  “No,” Karlee said. “They weren’t gang members or anything. Mostly girls who partied too much, sent here by their parents who didn’t want to deal anymore.”

  Mustard nodded in understanding. Sometimes the kids at military academies had been sent away for troublemaking, too—for values of troublemaking that included such high crimes as graffiti, or taking the car without permission, or dating the wrong person.

  “What happened to the reform school when Blackbrook bought Tudor?” he asked.

  “I think it was shut down by then,” said Karlee.

  “Or maybe they just enrolled the girls at Blackbrook,” said Kayla. “Isn’t that when it went co-ed? Mrs. White would know.”

  They moved on to a storage closet and the second bathroom. No sign of an intruder. Which was what Mustard was afraid of.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the look Peacock had been giving the headmaster last night in the kitchen while she’d been chopping vegetables. As if she’d love it if the headmaster were a head of cabbage. And then this morning, all that stair running, even as the rest of them wiped the headmaster’s blood off their shoes. As if she hadn’t been as shocked and appalled as the rest of them.

  “Did you guys notice any strange behavior with the others this morning?”

  “Aside from one of them being murdered?” Karlee asked. “No. I mean, that kid Vaughn is always strange . . .”

  “He’s cute, though,” said Kayla. “I liked his song last night.”

  “And Orchid,” Karlee added. “Like, if the police ever asked about her, everyone would go, ‘Quiet loner, keeps to herself . . .’” She snickered.

  “It’s just that I was thinking that Peacock didn’t seem too upset about the headmaster,” said Mustard. She’d been more interested in her workout than a man’s death.

  “Duh,” said Karlee. “Word is she tried to brain him last week with a candlestick in his office.” She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Wait, do you think she tried again, and actually did it this time? Oh. Em. Gee.”

  Kayla looked doubtful. “Headmaster Boddy was killed with a knife, not a candlestick.”

  “That’s not what I mean!” Karlee rolled her eyes at her friend.

  Mustard leaned in. “What do mean she tried to brain him last week?”

  “Oh, it was the hot gossip on campus before the storm. Finn Plum saw Peacock in Boddy’s office, shouting at him and throwing anything that wasn’t tied down.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, she wasn’t practicing her serve, that’s for sure. What did she say to him?” Karlee thought for a moment. “‘You’ll live to regret this.’ That’s what they said she said.”

  “See?” said Kayla. “She said, he’ll live.”

  “Yeah,” said Karlee. “To. Regret. It.”

  “And you said Finn saw this?” asked Mustard. He’d rather get a firsthand account than—well, than whatever one might choose to call this conversation.

  “Yeah, and Orchid,” said Karlee. “But good luck getting her to talk. She wouldn’t even let us do her hair.”

  As they exited into the hall, he saw Orchid, Vaughn, and Peacock descending the pullout stairs that led into the attic.

  “All clear up there,” said Vaughn. “Unless you think Boddy was murdered by a mannequin.”

  Mustard did not.

  “I think I need to wash up, though,” Vaughn added blithely. “You guys have hot water, right?”

  “Not really,” said Orchid. “You’l
l have to use the kettle on the stove.”

  “Great. Excuse me.”

  Peacock flipped a short length of lead pipe from one hand to the other, with the ease that came of spending half your life playing with a racquet. She, Karlee, and Kayla followed Vaughn down the stairs, but before Orchid could follow them, Mustard got her attention.

  “What’s up?” she asked when he pulled her aside.

  “Karlee told me a story that Peacock got in a fight with the headmaster in his office last week. And that you were there.”

  “Oh yeah, that.” Orchid sighed. She looked down the landing to make sure Peacock and the others were out of earshot. “I keep thinking about that, too.”

  “Did she really try to hit him with a candlestick?”

  Orchid pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The door was shut. We heard a thump, and then, when I went inside, the headmaster was picking a candlestick up off the floor. It’s possible it just fell over.”

  “But they were screaming at each other?”

  “Well, Peacock was screaming,” Orchid said. “She looked really upset. Headmaster Boddy was trying to calm her down, and then she said—”

  “‘You’ll live to regret this’?”

  Orchid flinched. “That sounds really bad, doesn’t it?”

  Mustard had to agree.

  “If it helps, it was like a response, you know?” Orchid added. “‘You will regret’ whatever.” She smiled weakly. “Delivery matters, right?”

  “Do you think she killed him?”

  Orchid hesitated a long moment. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the fight was about.”

  What did it matter what the fight was about, if she was angry enough to get violent? People had been killed over parking spaces.

  “Hey,” said Peacock, and Orchid jumped a mile. Interesting. She may not be able to say whether she thought the athlete had killed the headmaster, but she wasn’t comfortable with having her back to Peacock, either.

  Especially the Peacock who came toward them, still brandishing the lead pipe. “Are we done with this whole search thing yet? I want to get an afternoon workout in if I can.”