Framed & Dangerous (9780545443128) (5 page)

Things
with Darcy weren't exactly back to normal. We hadn't made up. But we were at least working together on this one last case. I was glad she could put her feelings aside to help me. Zane didn't deserve what was happening to him.

As planned, I arrived at school early Wednesday morning. Darcy was already there, staring at a plaque on the wall by the gym.

I approached her. “So what's the plan?”

She started slightly, like she'd been deep in thought. “Oh. Hi. Um, they usually hang out at Hunter's locker in the morning until the bell rings for homeroom. We'll be waiting there today, and we'll ambush them.”

Them
, meaning Hunter and Slade. They were our top suspects as of our meeting last night, and the only people we could think of who might be holding a grudge against Zane. We'd most recently solved a case, and it had ended up involving Hunter, Slade, and Slade's older brothers. I thought we had ended things on a good note, but maybe the boys were looking for vengeance.

My eyes went to the plaque Darcy had been so entranced by. “What were you looking at?” I asked.

She ran her fingers over the letters. “Did you ever notice that this says the school gym was built in 1948?” Darcy said.

I'd walked by the plaque a million times but had to admit, I'd never stopped to read it. “Not before now. Why does it matter?”

“It's interesting because our school was built in 1938…” Darcy said, trailing off to let me fill in the blank.

“They wouldn't have gone without a gym from 1938 to 1948,” I said. “The gym must have been … rebuilt.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps after a fire?”

Of course —
The Prom Killer!
“But wait,” I said.
“Why would the high school hold their prom at a middle school?”

Darcy grinned. It felt good to see her smile at me again, even if she was clearly just excited about the case. “Good catch. But this didn't become the middle school until the town grew and they needed a bigger high school. In 1948, our school
was
the high school.”

That was right! I remembered seeing photos and trophies in the big glass case in the lobby, back from when our school was a high school. An idea came to me. “How much time do we have?”

Darcy glanced down at her watch. “They should be getting here any minute. Why?”

“I want to make a quick detour.”

I hoped it was still there. I led Darcy down the main hall and toward the giant glass case. It took up almost the entire wall and was full of trophies and plaques from years past. One of the more eye-catching displays was a giant poster with small photos showing each year's prom king and queen. I remembered Fiona once laughing at some of the styles of decades past.

I put my hands up to the glass. “It's still here.”

“What?” Darcy said, but then she noticed it.

The most recent prom king and queen photo was from 1964. That was the last prom held here before they built the high school. The prom queen wore a frilly, long dress and white gloves and the king had a skinny black tie. In the '50s the prom kings had white tuxes, and the girls wore dresses I'd only seen in those black-and-white movies on TV, with big puffy skirts and ribbons around their waists.

My eyes searched backward each year: 1951, 1950, 1949, 1947… I stopped.

Darcy must have seen it at the same time. “Nineteen forty-eight isn't there,” she said.

“They had no prom king and queen in 1948.” I looked at Darcy. “The Prom Killer story might be real.”

The sound of kids' footsteps dragged us out of our trance, and we remembered why we'd come to school early in the first place.

“We have to get to Hunter's locker for the ambush!” Darcy said, and broke into a jog. I followed, thoughts of the Prom Killer swirling through my head, and we were at his locker only a minute later.

Darcy straightened. “Here they come.”

I wrung my hands nervously. I was all for getting answers, but I wasn't good at the confrontational stuff.

“Hey, jerks, come here!” Darcy called.

She didn't have much of a problem with confrontation.

Slade rolled his eyes, and he and Hunter sauntered over. They were both equally tall and broad-shouldered, the biggest kids in our grade, but you could always tell who was who from a distance because of their hair. Slade had a buzz cut. Hunter had a big mop of black hair that hung down so far it almost covered his eyes.

“What?” Slade snapped.

Darcy stepped forward. “We need to talk to you.”

Hunter looked at Darcy with a confused expression. Maybe even a little hurt. “I thought we had a truce.”

“Funny,” Darcy said. “So did we.”

I cleared my throat. It was easier for me to explain why we were there rather than get up in their faces like Darcy was. “Zane has been framed for the field house fire. Someone dropped his wallet at the scene and e-mailed him, telling him he'd be blamed. He's been suspended. The police are getting involved and everything.”

“And so,” Darcy cut in. “The only people we could think of who might want to do something like this to Zane would be …”

Slade tilted his head, trying to figure things out.

But Hunter cried, “Us? You think
we
set the fire in the field house and framed Zane?”

Darcy crossed her arms over her chest. “That's what we're asking.”

Slade shook his head. “It wasn't us.”

“No way,” Hunter insisted. He roughly shook the hair out of his eyes. “Maya can vouch for me. I walked to school at the same time she did Monday morning. The field house was already on fire when we got there.”

I was surprised by how angry he looked. He seemed almost as mad as I was.

Hunter took a few deep breaths and his face reddened. “Look,” he said. “I used to think Zane was nothing but a goody-goody teacher's pet.”

“Don't hold back,” Darcy quipped.

“But I've gotten to like the kid,” Hunter continued. “Slade and I don't want revenge. We're thankful he — and you — helped us.”

“What about … the others?” I asked, meaning — for the most part — Slade's nasty older brothers.

Slade's mouth turned down. “No. They're not out for vengeance either. They're scared of you guys.”

My eyebrows rose. “Us?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “After you found out their secret with your last case, they just want to lie low for a while. It's not them.”

Which made sense, but left
us
… without a suspect.

 

By
lunchtime, tons of people were whispering about Zane's suspension. He'd told a few of his friends, we'd told Hunter and Slade, and the news grew from there. I imagined Zane at home, all alone in his room, looking depressed and hopeless. My heart ached.

I'd tried to call him the night before, but his mom answered and said he wasn't allowed to come to the phone. Not only was he suspended, he was majorly grounded. No phone, no e-mail, no nothing. And I felt useless because I had no idea what to do next.

I brought my tray over to our usual table and sat down with a sigh. It was pasta day, my favorite, but I just pushed the spaghetti around with my fork. I wasn't hungry.

Darcy slumped down beside me and tore open her brown bag. “This stinks,” she muttered. “I've been
running over everything in my head. We need a clue. But we have nothing.”

I grumbled in agreement. I should've at least been happy that Darcy was sitting with me, like old times, but I reminded myself that things weren't back to normal. We were only sitting together for the sake of the case.

Mrs. Wixted, our school librarian, came over to the table with a bright smile. “Hey, girls.”

“Hi, Mrs. Wixted,” I answered gloomily. “Are you a lunch monitor today?”

“No, I'm actually here for Darcy.”

Darcy looked up from her sandwich.

Mrs. Wixted said, “I found out the answer to that question you asked me yesterday about the Danville newspaper. The town public library has it on microfilm. So you'll be able to find old copies there.”

“Thanks,” Darcy said and took a bite.

Mrs. Wixted scrunched up her forehead, probably wondering why we were both so miserable today. Then she shrugged and walked off.

“What's a microfilm?” I asked.

“It's a machine,” Darcy said around a mouthful of turkey on wheat. She finished chewing, then added,
“Some really old newspapers aren't online, so they have scans of them. Like little photo negatives. And you put it in the microfilm machine, which blows it up big like a projector, and then you can read it.”

Still confused, I asked, “Why do you want to read old Danville newspapers?”

“Research for the Prom Killer,” she answered. She gazed down at her sandwich. “I don't have to work on that case, though. Not now that Zane's in so much trouble.”

Strangely, I kind of wanted to work on the old case, too. I was intrigued. And I could tell that Darcy was getting totally obsessed. We could work on both mysteries. Plus, if she was making a semi-truce with me to help Zane, I could do the same for her and help with the Prom Killer case. And maybe, as we spent more time together, we'd find a way back to being friends.

“No, let's do it,” I said. “We can head to the library after school. Who knows, maybe researching that old case will give us an idea for how to help Zane.”

Maya laid her tray down across the table from me. “Gosh,” she said. “I was last in line for the hot lunch and now I'll barely have enough time to finish it.”

It looked like Maya hadn't heard about the latest development. She gazed at Darcy, then at me, and asked, “What?”

Darcy asked, “Monday morning, did you see Hunter walking to school?”

Maya thought for a moment as she unfolded her napkin. “Yeah. That was the morning of the fire. He was walking in front of me, I think. And then we got to the school and saw the flames.”

“Did you see Slade?” I asked.

She chewed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “Yeah, he got there right after us. Then you came and I waved you over.”

So it was true. Hunter and Slade were innocent. Darcy and I shared a look.

It stunk that we had no leads, but at the same time I was glad Hunter and Slade weren't guilty. Maybe there was hope for them yet.

“I figured it wasn't Hunter,” Darcy said. “He's … not so bad.”

I slowly blinked. Twice. Darcy had never said anything even slightly positive about that boy before. Interesting.

Maya said, “What's with all the questions?”

“It's Zane,” I said sadly. “He's been suspended.”

Maya gasped and dropped her fork. “What for?”

While I filled her in on the details, she covered her mouth with both hands. Zane had been so kind to her. He lived a couple houses down. When she first moved in, Hunter had started teasing her while they walked home from school. So Zane began walking with her so Hunter would leave her alone.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Why would someone do that to Zane? Everyone likes him.”

“I don't know,” I said. Thoughts churned in my head as I studied the crowd in the cafeteria. The e-mail had been sent from the computer lab. It must have been one of our classmates. But who?

My eyes went from table to table, watching people eat and chat with their friends. I scanned each face and stopped when I got to Violet. She was scowling at me from across the room.

Sheesh! What was her problem? She really had to get over this Dance Committee thing.

“Well, the good news,” Maya piped up, “is that Mr. Gray is awake and he's going to be fine.”

I turned back to Maya and sighed in relief. The school janitor was such a nice man. I was glad he was going to be okay.

“How do you know that?” Darcy asked, one eyebrow raised.

Maya spun long strands of spaghetti around her fork. “My aunt works at the hospital.”

“Has he been released?” I asked. For the first time today, my voice had a hint of hope instead of gloom. Darcy and I exchanged a look, totally thinking the same thing. Mr. Gray might have seen something that could help us prove Zane's innocence.

Maya dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “No, he's still in the hospital, but he's going to be all right. He's just recovering from smoke inhalation and a sprained ankle.”

“Do you think your aunt could get us in to see him?” Darcy asked with a gleam in her eye.

Maya looked at the both of us, catching on. “I'll ask.”

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, and I'd only eaten two bites. But now that we had a lead I was hungry again. I shoveled two giant forkfuls of pasta into my mouth.

“I'll catch up with you later,” Darcy said. “Remember — the library after school.” She didn't say it in her regular breezy tone. It was more businesslike. Yet another reminder that we were just working together.

After Darcy left, I scarfed down one more big bite of pasta. Maya was staring at me.

I wiped my mouth and stood. “I know, I'm acting like a pig. But I hadn't eaten at all and then —”

“It's not that,” Maya said. She stood up and carried her tray to my side of the table. She looked around suspiciously, then back at me. I saw her swallow. She was clearly nervous and trying to decide whether to tell me something.

“What, Maya? If you know something, please tell me,” I pleaded.

“It's not something I know. It's just something I thought of. But it's probably not true.” She shook her head. “No, it can't be.”

“What?” I said loudly.

“Are you and Darcy not in a fight anymore?” she asked, her eyes anxious.

It pained me to answer. I sighed. “Well, no … we're still technically in a fight, I guess. We were
only sitting together because we're working on Zane's case.”