The Odds of Getting Even (18 page)

Dale looked at us.
“Right?”

Dale can outstare eternity.

Harm took a deep breath. His bow tie had gone crooked, but his dark eyes held steady. “It's hard to actually see that as a given, Dale. I mean, I say we keep searching, but so far all the clues lead to Macon.”

“Because somebody's making it look that way,” Dale said. “Tell him, Mo.”

Right, or kind, or both? I went for both.

“I'm keeping an open mind, Desperado. But the truth is, all the clues
do
lead to Mr. Macon. And there ain't another suspect in sight. I mean that in the kindest possible way,” I added.

Even to me it sounded lame.

The red started at Dale's collar and drifted up to his
ears. “I thought you two were with me,” he said. “Lying to your best friend isn't kind.”

“We
are
with you,” Harm said, very fast.

Dale's stare diced my heart into slivers. “Do you believe me about the footprints being fakes?” he asked. I bit my lip. “No. About the wallet being planted? No. About Daddy being too professional to steal a collection plate from a church?” He shook his head. “You're thinking like an Azalea Woman, Mo. You're thinking like Attila.”

I gasped.

“You take that back!” I shouted, and Harm grabbed my arm.

“I won't take it back,” Dale said, his voice dead as the leaves under my feet. “You think Daddy's guilty because he's always been guilty. Just like the night you saw somebody outside Lavender's garage and said it was him. That isn't right. Right's bigger than Daddy. Right's bigger than you getting even.”

Then came Shock Number Three, the jaw-dropper of my lifetime.

Dale slipped the note into his pocket. “You're my best friends and I love you,” he said. “But you're fired.”

Fired? From my own detective agency?

“This is my case now,” Dale said, and he walked away without looking back.

8 PM

Dear Upstream Mother,

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today Dale fired me from my own Detective Agency—which if you'd asked me if that was possible, I would have said no.

He owes me an apology and I'm waiting for his call.

Mo

PS: We missed you at lunch today.

9 PM

Dear Upstream Mother,

I have checked my phone and I
do
have a dial tone.

Mo

At 9:12 my phone rang—not that I sat clock watching. “Desperado Detective Agency, I accept your apology.”

“Hey,” Harm said. “I take it Dale hasn't called.”

“No,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “He's being stubborn.”

“Right,” Harm said. “There's a lot of that in Tupelo Landing.” He sighed, and I could picture him leaning against the counter in Grandmother Miss Lacy's neat-as-a-pin
old kitchen, his arms crossed and his dark curls glistening in the soft light. “Have you called him?” he asked.

Me call Dale? Is he mad?

“Dale owes
me
an apology, not the other way around.”

“Well, I think I made a mistake,” he said, “letting Dale think I agreed with him about something this important, when I didn't. I don't feel easy inside. And who knows? Maybe Dale's right. I mean, he usually is, isn't he? If it's not about school or girls.”

He had a point. Dale's good at the Big Picture, it's the details that tangle him up.

“Plus, suppose life shifted sideways, so we stood in Dale's place and he stood in ours. What then?” He sighed. “Anyway, let me know if he calls, Mo. If he doesn't, I'll call him in the morning.”

Dear Upstream Mother,

Sideways . . . Suppose I thought
the Colonel
was innocent, and Dale let me think he believed me when he didn't. Suppose I had to stand up for the Colonel
alone.
What would my heart say then?

Do you ever think sideways of me? It's trickier than it sounds.

Mo

That night I slept a roller-coaster sleep, plummeting into dreams, jerking up to wakefulness, free-falling into a different dream.

In my dream, Miss Retzyl taps her pointer against the blackboard. “You can't solve the problem without the right givens. Wrong givens, wrong answer.”

I stare at the word problem on the board
. If the crime spree travels east at 200 miles an hour and Mr. Macon has twelve dollars in change but no nickels, how many guineas does it take to stop a crime wave if you aren't sure of the clues?

Attila raises her hand. “Given: Mr. Macon's guilty. He always is. Everybody knows it. Even Mo-ron.”

Dale looks at me. “You're the smart one, Mo. Think of something.”

Harm pushes his hair from his eyes. “We get the good grades, Mo, but Dale's usually right about big things, isn't he?”

I sat up, my heart pounding. Sweat trickled down my back.

Maybe Dale
was
right. Maybe I'd grabbed the wrong given. Maybe Mr. Macon really
was
innocent. Maybe
the Big Picture's different than the get-even landscape in my heart.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Dale's number, hoping Miss Rose wouldn't answer. “Dale. Desperados. 'Lo?” Dale whispered. Dale doesn't wake up good.

His phone clattered to the floor. Queen Elizabeth growled into the mouthpiece and the phone bounced back up the side of his bed. “Hello?” he said.

“Dale, it's Mo. I think I missed the Big Picture, and I'm sorry.”

“Mo?” he said, his bed creaking. “Where are we?”

“Earth,” I replied. “Dale, I was wrong to assume Mr. Macon's guilty. It's just he usually is guilty, and I hate him, and I'd like to get even. But you're right. It has to be somebody else because Mr. Macon's mean as a snake but he ain't that flat-out stupid.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “That's what I've been saying in daytime without waking up friends.”

Some people say things to make you feel guilty. Dale just says things. You do the guilt work yourself.

“I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner,” I said. “And I'm sorry I didn't level with you before.” I heard his bed springs squeak as he leaned to tap out a midnight snack of bugs for Newton.

“That's all right, Mo,” he said. “You can't help it if you're slow.”

Slow?
I counted to ten.

“I want back on the case,” I said. “We'll start over.”

He rustled a potato chips bag. “I unfire you,” he said. “Harm too.”

Unfired.

The comfort of the familiar settled over me warm as Miss Lana's quilts. “Thanks, Desperado,” I said as he crunched a chip.

“You're welcome,” he said. “You and Harm can be lieutenants, but I'm still in charge of the case.”

Dale's in charge? I'm a
lieutenant?

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

On the other hand, why not? We'd gone worse than nowhere with me calling the shots.

“I'll bring the evidence box to you tomorrow,” I said.

“No,” he said, very quick. “I forgive you, Mo, but my heart needs time.”

And he hung up the phone.

Friday Night Miracle

The next afternoon—Friday—I biked over to Grandmother Miss Lacy's. “Complimentary leftovers,” I said, dangling a takeout bag.

“Right on time, LoBeau,” Harm said, grinning. “We just finished moving my things over. I'll be a town kid for a while—until Gramps finishes renovating, anyway.”

We settled in the kitchen with turkey sandwiches. “Good news,” I said. “We're unfired.”

“I know. I called Dale this morning, to apologize.”

He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. He's easy to look at, in a city-boy way. “So, Dale's our new leader. Fascinating.”

The boiler clunked and the guineas screamed past the window. Grandmother Miss Lacy closed her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I wore hearing aids just so I could turn them down,” she said.

“Got any darkroom work I can help with?” Harm asked me.

“I got a ton of possible evidence photos to develop,”
I said. “Dale will want to see them. And I thought you'd never ask.”

My phone rang at midnight—late for a kid, but not too late for a client in distress. “Desperado Detective Agency. Your tragedy is our delight. How may we help?”

“Puppies. Now,” Dale said, and hung up.

The phone rang again. “Parking lot. Now.” He hung up.

Puppies! At last!

I scribbled a note for Miss Lana, grabbed my camera, and flew out the door.

A few minutes later Grandmother Miss Lacy dropped Harm and me off at Dale's. “Take plenty of photos,” she called, and roared away.

Me and Harm walked briskly up the steps, the cold nipping our faces.

In the distance, wild howls and high-pitched yips echoed along the edges of the dark forest.

“Coyotes,” I said.

Harm gulped. “How many?”

I knocked. “That's the genius of their howl. You can't tell. You only know you're surrounded.” Miss Rose swung the door open. “Congratulations on the pups,” I said, stepping inside. “Blessed Event photos are a specialty of mine.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “But . . .”

A river of sound flowed from Dale's room. He strolled past the open doorway, his guitar strap over his shoulder, his hair tousled. The lamp's warm light glanced off his pale blue pajamas and red rubber boots.

Red rubber boots?

Harm cocked his head, listening. “That's Patsy Cline's slinked-up version of ‘Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey.' We've been working on it for parties.”

Dale's crystal voice floated to us: “Won't you come home, Queen 'Lizabeth, won't you come home. I moan the whole night lonnnnnng . . .” He saw us and stopped playing, his last note hanging like a foot reaching for a drifting boat.

“Where's Liz?” I asked, uneasiness tiptoeing across my shoulders as we entered his room. “Where are the pups?”

“I didn't have a chance to tell them, baby,” Miss Rose said. She put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Queen Elizabeth is gone.”

“Gone?” My stomach dropped like an anvil.

“We've searched everywhere,” Dale said, his eyes filling with tears. “Barn, stable, smokehouse. . . .”

That explained the red boots.

Outside, the coyotes howled. They're hunting, I thought. They surround quiet as velvet, howl, and jump anything that moves.

Liz wouldn't stand a chance.

“She'll come home,” Miss Rose said in the same fake-calm voice she used the day Dale and me went sledding off the stable roof.

I clicked into Head Detective Mode. “We'll search. Miss Rose, you pass out the flashlights and the puppy treats and get me some graph paper. I'll make a search grid. Harm, you call Skeeter and Sal. And Thes.”

“Not Thes,” Dale directed. Then he sagged. “Yes. Thes too. Everybody. Tell them to come.”

In the distance the guineas chuttered like tree frogs.

“I'll need pencils, preferably number twos,” I told Miss Rose, who, for some reason, had not budged. “All right everybody, chop-chop.”

Dale, Harm, and me sprang into action.

“Freeze,” Miss Rose barked.

We froze.

“Mo, we don't need to wake up all of Tupelo Landing. We need patience and common sense.”

“But I don't have any patience,” I replied. “I got to move.”

“I appreciate your willingness to lead, Mo. But the first element of leadership is a sense of direction. Obviously Queen Elizabeth's doing a good job of hiding:
We
couldn't find her. But we do need a plan, in case the coyotes come near.”

“Mama's right,” Dale said. “I wish we had the shotgun to scare them away, but we don't.” He frowned and tapped his chin. “Let's go to the kitchen.”

A snack? Now?

“We can pass out the pots and pans,” he added, looking at Miss Rose.

She started to shake her head and stopped, staring at her son. “Good idea. Between the four of us, we can make enough noise to keep those coyotes at bay.”

“And I want to search again,” he added, his voice stubborn.

A shadow of doubt crossed her face. “Coyotes hunt in packs, Dale. They rarely attack humans—but they have. I don't think—”

“This is Queen Elizabeth,” he said. “This is family.”

Before she could answer, the guineas charged by and something bumped at our feet. “What was that?”

Bump. Whimper.

Dale slung his guitar onto his back and dropped to his knees. “Liz?”

Queen Elizabeth gave a soft whine from beneath the house and thumped her tail against a floor joist.

“Thank heavens,” Miss Rose whispered.

Dale sprinted to the front door. The reedy branches of the hydrangea rustled and his voice floated up through the floorboards. “Liz? Come out, girl.”

Instead she bumped and thumped her way nearer the center of the house.

“Dale, you get in this house and leave her be,” Miss Rose called, swishing to the front door. “If you worry her, she may move again.”

“Call if you need me, Liz,” Dale said, his voice soft. “I'm right here.”

An hour later we settled in Dale's room, pots and pans by the doors and PB&Js hand-squished flat on our plates. Miss Rose had turned on every light in the house and opened every curtain to the night.

Like most thieves, coyotes hate light.

Harm stood by the window, watching. “There's no point standing guard against coyotes,” I told him, sinking into the beanbag chair. “Coyotes are like ghost shadows. You won't see them coming.”

Dale picked up his guitar. “Talk about something else,” he said. “Let's sing something for Liz.”

We went through every Patsy Cline song we knew, my voice off-key and wild, riffing like a lovesick hound, theirs winding like vines along an invisible trellis.

We finally wound down, and Miss Rose headed for bed. “I've been thinking about a new plan for the case,” Dale said as he handed our covers around. “I say we give the last note we found to Starr, and get him to investigate.”

“Good idea,” Harm said, and I nodded.

“We got to think different to get different results,” he said. “We got to shake up our clues and pour them out again, without thinking in advance where they'll fall.”

He pursed his lips. “One more thing. I wanted to tell you Thanksgiving, but I fired you instead. I'd like you to be the pups' godparents.”

A smile spread across Harm's face. “Yes. Thanks, Dale. It's an honor.”

“Me too.”

I settled into the beanbag chair and pulled Miss Rose's handmade quilt to my chin. And I—Miss Moses LoBeau, cofounder of Desperado Detective Agency, lieutenant to Dale and godmother to new pups—drifted off to sleep.

C
reeeeeeeeeeak.

My eyes flew open. The glint of moonlight on a guitar, the aroma of earthworms.

Dale's room.

I squinted at his empty bed.

Harm curled in a sleeping bag, his eyes closed and his mouth half open.
“Snooooore.”

Where's Dale?

Step-step-step.
The front porch!

I padded to the window just in time to see Dale slip
past, his flashlight sending a narrow cone of yellow light flitting across the yard. The hydrangea rustled and I heard a soft bump beneath the house. Then a chorus of whimpers.

The puppies!

I tiptoed to Harm. “The puppies are here,” I whispered.

We settled on the rug and leaned against the side of the bed as Dale clunked and grunted his way beneath the house. His voice drifted up. “Liz? Where are you, girl?”

Queen Elizabeth stirred near the chimney and Dale crawled toward the sound. “Hey, Liz,” he said, clunking forward. “Oh Liz,” he whispered, his voice melting. “Six beautiful babies.”

The puppies mewed. “Liz, they're so soft and warm . . . Here's a boy. And a girl—she has your nose.” Queen Elizabeth whined and talked, her voice round and winding and full of love. Dale sang back so soft I almost didn't hear.

Harm's shoulder brushed mine. It felt good, being close and greeting new life.

“Are you hungry, Liz?” Dale murmured. “I'll get you some breakfast.” He bumped toward the crawlspace. Harm jumped up and held out a hand. We tiptoed to
the front door and into the cold. Morning's light just softened the sky.

“There he is,” Harm said, pointing to a flashlight beam jabbing from the crawlspace. We scampered down the steps.

Dale rolled out, stood up, and slapped the dirt off his pajamas. Then he pulled the waist of his pants out from his thin belly and wiggled his hips, letting the dirt fall out of his pants and onto his sneakers.

“Hey, Desperado,” I said. “That was nice, what you said to Queen Elizabeth.”

Harm shivered. “Yeah, sweet. Manly,” he added quickly, “but sweet.”

Dale turned to us and flipped his light up into his face—not a good look. “Those are the ugliest puppies I ever seen in my life,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

By breakfast time, Dale had dissolved into a full-blown funk. He sat at the table with his head on his place mat. Harm cracked eggs into Miss Rose's skillet as I set a plate of toast on the table.