The Ghost of Gruesome High (11 page)

A part of me was deeply moved by the depth and sincerity of Mr. Greenwald’s conviction—and maybe he was absolutely right. But another part of me wasn’t convinced by that argument. It was all well and good for Mr. Greenwald to say— and to honestly believe—that August Wallenberg wouldn’t take the coins and run away because he just wasn’t the type of person to do something like that, but do any of us really know what another person is thinking? Do any of us really know what another person might do under difficult circumstances?

I mean, maybe Mr. Greenwald was right. Maybe August Wallenberg wasn’t the type of person who would rob a store and disappear—but maybe there was another side to August Wallenberg that Mr. Greenwald and his family never suspected. After all, half a million dollars is a big temptation, even for a good and devoted family man.

I looked at Mr. Greenwald’s hands and I could see that he was still gripping the steering wheel about as hard as he could. The muscles on his arms were hard as rocks, and his face looked hard as well. “What do you think happened to Mr. Wallenberg, then? Where’d he go?” I asked the question as matter-of-factly as I could; I knew I was walking in a mine field by talking about this at all.
 

He took a moment to answer me. He slowed the car in traffic and looked me right in the eye as he said: “I think he was murdered by Thompson and his body was hidden somewhere to throw suspicion away from Thompson.”

I was so stunned by what he said, and by the coldness I felt in his voice, that I missed telling him where to turn for my house. “You mean Mayor Thompson killed him to make it look like he robbed the store?”

“Exactly,” Mr. Greenwald answered, turning his eyes back to the road. “Only he wasn’t Mayor Thompson back then. He was just a small businessman who was about to be wiped out and needed a convenient robbery to save his own skin.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No.”

We drove in silence for several seconds. I was trying to absorb what he was telling me and think of a way to prove or disprove what he was saying. Suddenly I realized we had passed the turn to get to my house.

“Uh, Mr. Greenwald, my house is back there,” I said hesitantly. I could tell he was still upset.

He made no move to turn. In fact, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me at all. “My father had no doubt whatsoever that Thompson killed my cousin. But he couldn’t prove it, either. And each year that passes makes it more difficult to prove.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, hesitantly.

“What do you mean?” he asked, glancing at me as he finally turned the car around, taking a back road that I wasn’t familiar with.

“Well,” I said slowly. “Each year that passes without anyone finding your cousin makes it look more and more like he didn’t just run away. I mean, sooner or later someone would see him no matter where he was hiding.”

Mr. Greenwald looked at me with a slight frown on his face. O.K., so that wasn’t a very good piece of evidence. I started to feel a little foolish, then suddenly I brightened. “What about Mr. Bell’s gold coin?” I almost shouted.

Mr. Greenwald turned the car down another street that emptied into the housing track where I lived from the back side; I didn’t even know this road existed. But then I won’t be able to get my driver’s license for seven months, two weeks, and three days—but who’s counting?—so I wasn’t really familiar with all the streets around here. He stopped the car at a curb and turned to look at me.

“What gold coin are you talking about?” he asked, genuinely interested.

So I told him all about Mr. Bell. I told him that Mr. Bell admitted to being a well-known alcoholic ten years ago, yet Mr. Thompson hired him to be the night watchman when the school was built, and that Mr. Bell had found the coin during one of the first sightings of the ghost at the construction site.

Mr. Greenwald looked excited. “I’ve studied my father’s notes on the case and I’ve read the court transcripts several times, but I don’t remember reading anything about a Mr. Bell. Perhaps if we could get him to testify that—”

“I don’t know if he’d be good on a witness stand,” I said, hating myself for saying so.
 

“Why?” Mr. Greenwald asked as if he was expecting a big shoe to drop.

“Well, ten years ago, when all this happened, he was an admitted alcoholic.”

“Which might be why my father never used him as a witness,” Mr. Greenwald filled in.

“And now, well, his whole house is set up to talk with space people and he wears an aluminum-foil satellite dish on his head.”

Mr. Greenwald gave me a tight-lipped smile and started the car. “It seems like no matter what I do I can never quite corner that murdering slime. Thompson just keeps slipping through my fingers . . .” He let his thoughts trail off.
 

I pointed to the left. “Turn here,” I said. “I live just down there.” There were a few seconds of silence. Finally I said: “What exactly would we need to catch Thompson?”

“It’s gonna be tough,” Mr. Greenwald said with a slight snort. “Thompson’s crafty, and now that he’s Mayor I think he’s managed to destroy any evidence that linked him to the case in any way. I guess finding the coins might lead us to Thompson. Finding my cousin’s body might do it. I’m not sure. Why? Have you got an idea?”

I surprised even myself when I said: “Yeah. I think I know how we can catch Mayor Thompson.”

Mr. Greenwald screeched the brakes and stopped his car in the middle of the street about half a block from my house. It was obvious he wasn’t thinking about driving at all. He turned to me and put one of his hands on my arm and looked deep into my eyes.

“I don’t want you to do anything without clearing it through me,” he said. “If I’m right, Thompson has already killed once. Killing you to protect himself from being caught would just be considered a cost of doing business to Thompson. Whatever your plans are, I want you to tell me right now and let me handle everything.”

A car came up behind us and honked its horn. “My house is that one right there,” I said, pointing. “You can pull in the driveway behind my mom’s mini-van.”

Mr. Greenwald pulled forward into my driveway, then stopped the car and turned to face me. “Now tell me what your idea is,” he said earnestly.

“I don’t have it all worked out yet,” I said, looking down. The fact was, I didn’t have anything worked out, really. I just had a feeling that I was about to get an idea. That’s the way my mind works. I’ll get a feeling that I’m about to solve a problem or whatever, and pretty soon, I do. I’m always saying things that surprise me because I don’t really think them through or plan them or whatever—but then, in the end, what I say always comes true. I know it’s weird, but that’s just the way my mind works.

And I could feel a plan about to form to catch Mayor Thompson. I think what happens is that the subconscious part of my mind just knows somehow when it has enough information to answer a question or solve a puzzle — but it takes the rest of my brain a little longer to realize it and put it all together in a way I can talk about.

That’s what was happening now, and Mr. Greenwald looking deeply into my eyes, almost pleading with me to tell him my plan, just made things worse. I couldn’t tell him anything yet because I didn’t completely know what I was thinking yet. But then, out of the blue, my mind made one of those weird leaps that I can’t explain but which I have learned to trust. Without thinking about why I was saying it I said: “Do you know if there are any plans for the school’s tenth anniversary?”

Mr. Greenwald sat back and looked at me from under furrowed brows. “Not that I know of,” he said, perplexed. “Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

“The school is the key,” I said, still not knowing what I was talking about. “The ghost only shows up at the school. Mr. Bell found a gold coin that probably came from the robbery at the school. And,” I said suddenly, smiling and nodding as my mind started making the connections that I’d been waiting for, “the school used to be a cemetery!”

“What does that have to do with anything,” Mr. Greenwald asked, shaking his head.

“Don’t you see?” I asked, sitting forward and starting to bounce a little in my seat I was so excited. “Remember that Edgar Allen Poe story, the one about the letter that was hidden?”

“The Purloined Letter?” he asked. “What about it?”

“The letter in the story was hidden in plain sight with a bunch of other letters! Don’t you see? What better place to hide a dead body than an old cemetery that’s already full of dead bodies!”

Mr. Greenwald seemed to relax a little and frown. “That’s pretty weak, I’m afraid.”

“When I interviewed the Mayor he got really cagey when I asked him why he underbid every other contractor by so much to get the job. It was as if he had to get the job because he couldn’t take the chance that another contractor would dig up something that was buried under the construction site. Something like a dead body. Or the stolen coins.”

I was really excited! For the first time things really felt like they were coming together. The pieces of the puzzle were snapping together perfectly! I could see Mr. Greenwald’s eyes beginning to soften as he sat there and thought about what I was saying.

“Yes,” he said finally. “That could make sense. But why did you ask if the school was having a ten-year-anniversary ceremony?”

I opened my door and got out of the car. My mind was racing a million miles an hour but I knew the way it worked, and it would take me ten times as long to figure everything out if I tried too hard before my brain was ready. Besides, Wesley’s red bug had just pulled up and parked at the curb and Wesley and Jason were getting out. “Tell the principal that you want to bury a time capsule at noon this Friday,” I said. “Tell him you’ll plan the whole ceremony. And everybody will be invited— especially the Mayor! But,” I yelled as an after-thought, “don’t announce it—even to the Mayor—until noon on Thursday! Remember, don’t tell anyone about the ceremony until noon on Thursday, O.K.?”
 

“A time capsule?” he yelled as I closed the door of the car and began to walk around to the driver’s side so I could talk to him through the window. “What does a time capsule have to do with any of this?”

“You’ll see!” I yelled as I ran toward Jason and Wesley, who were standing in the middle of the front lawn, not sure if they should interrupt me and Mr. Greenwald or not. “Tell him the ceremony will be one week from tonight!”

I didn’t look back to see what Mr. Greenwald’s reaction was. I wanted to get away as fast as I could because I didn’t really know yet what I was talking about and I didn’t want to have to explain anything.

Because I couldn’t.

At least, not yet.

I ran up to the guys standing on the lawn. Jason had one eye on Mr. Greenwald, whose car was still sitting in my driveway; he started to open his mouth but before he could say anything I grabbed his arm and began pulling him toward Wesley’s car. “Come on!” I said forcefully. “Hurry. We gotta go somewhere.”

I really didn’t give the guys any chance to complain or ask questions; I literally dragged Jason to the car. Wesley followed without saying a word. I guess the guys had gotten used to my somewhat unpredictable behavior over the years. Anyway, for whatever reason, we were all in Wesley’s car and the engine was started in less than two minutes.

I looked back at Mr. Greenwald. He was just starting to get out of his car, obviously preparing to run toward us and stop us. “Hey!” I heard him call. “Patsy! Miss Hoyle! Wait!”

“Floor it!” I yelled at Wesley. “Get us out of here!”

Without a word Wesley did as he was instructed. The little bug’s engine raced, the tires spun and squealed, producing a small cloud of black smoke, and then the little bug took off as if it had been shot out of a slingshot.

And I wasn’t entirely sure where we were going.

Chapter 18

I don’t know!

“Wait a minute,” Jason said crossly. “Stop the car. Stop the car!”

Again, Wesley did as he was instructed. Jason turned and looked me in the eye. “What’s going on, Patsy? Why was Mr. Greenwald at your house and why are you in such a hurry to get away from him? What the hell is going on?”

We were only about a block away from my house. I looked back and could see Mr. Greenwald backing out of my driveway. I didn’t want to have to answer any of Mr. Greenwald’s questions right now, because I wasn’t sure of any answers yet. I hit Wesley lightly on the back of the head.
 

“I’ll explain everything as soon as we get to Jennifer’s. Get going. Now!” I yelled.

Again, Wesley complied without a word. He floored the bug and the little car took off once again in a cloud of black and blue smoke. The acceleration forced Jason to sit back in his seat. He glared at me once, then folded his arms and turned his body away from me. It’s one of the more mature things he does. That and sticking out his tongue when he doesn’t get his way.

I was really beginning to wonder what I saw in Jason. He was good-looking, but good looks only go so far. I was beginning to realize that I was a lot more mature than Jason, and I was discovering that I had less and less patience all the time with immature behavior.

It was time for Jason to grow up. The maturity clock was definitely ticking.