Under Cover (15 page)

“Are they cute?”

“Maddie, they’re
killers.
”

“That’s according to Liam Penny. Do you trust
him?”

“That’s what I’m looking into. He’s too wimpy
to go to the police, so I have to do it. But I need some facts to
give them.”

She looked at me hard and said, “I’m worried
about you.”

“If you want to know, so am I. I just have to
count on my acting ability.”

I was grateful to her for not laughing.

She drove me home and made me promise I
wouldn’t make a move without telling her first. “So at least I’ll
know where you are and what you’re doing,” she said.

“I don’t know what I’ll be doing.”

“Think of me as your handler. Don’t spies
have handlers?”

“You’re not handling me.”

“Your anchor? Home base? Whatever.”

For a while I resented the interference. Then
as I thought about it, I realized it made me feel more secure to
have Maddie, if no one else, know what I was doing.

I still hadn’t heard from my dad, or seen him
since that time Liam and I came out of the basement. For all I
knew, he’d gone back to Borneo. At the very least, he’d have wanted
a ride to the airport. Unless he got Mrs. Mulvaney to take him.

Anyway, I didn’t think Liam was out of the
woods and that was why Dad came home. For one thing, if Liam were
out of the woods, then Austen would be in it. I’d find out more
about that on Friday, when I made my next trip to Hudson Hills.

I’d done the yearbook thing. Now I had to
come up with another reason for prowling around the school. I had
no desire to confront that guard again and have him recognize me. I
would have to stay outside.

What do we do with the outside of a building?
We take pictures! I didn’t have my Nokia yet, so I went to CVS and
bought a cheap, disposable camera.

I also bought a diet Coke and put it in my
bag. The bus had rules about food and drink so I had to wait till I
got to the high school. It didn’t take long.

I stationed myself where I would be visible
to anyone coming out the main door, and aimed my camera. I didn’t
snap it. No point in wasting film when the goons weren’t around.
The camera was only for show, like a theater prop. I took phony
pictures of the school, the river, the front steps as people began
to spill out.

They stared at me. Okay, let them stare. I
knew what I was doing even if they didn’t. I got so engrossed in
putting on a show, I never gave a thought when someone called,
“Hey, Peg!”

It took several shouts, each one closer and
louder than the last. Only then did it seep into my dull brain that
Peg was me, Peggy Mellin. I spun around.

Fred stood there twinkling.

“Oh, hi!” I said. Surprise, surprise.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m taking pictures.
I need something to orient myself.”

“Can I see what you have so far?” he
asked.

“Sorry, it’s a film camera. You’ll have to
wait till I get them developed.”

“Interesting.” He studied it as though he’d
never seen one before.

“It’s just the school,” I said. “I’m
familiarizing myself. Maybe I could try some river shots.” I
started toward the end of the school that looked out toward the
Hudson.

“How about inside?” he suggested.

“Not enough light.” I knew that much about
photography. I also knew there was a guard there who’d seen my very
questionable driver’s license.

We reached where the ground began sloping
toward the river. I asked Fred to pose for me.

“Oh, no,” he said.

“Camera-shy?”

“You could say so.”

I knew I couldn’t talk him into it and didn’t
want to, anyway. “What’s around in back?”

“Back’s not interesting. Neither is this here
front, for that matter.”

“Then I’ll take another of the river.” I
moved up a few feet. Now I could see more of what was down there. I
leaned forward and saw all of River Edge Park. It was too far away
for much detail, but I caught the shape of it. I thought of
snapping that, too, but not with Fred watching me.

We walked on around toward the back of the
school even though it wasn’t interesting. I offered him a sip of my
Coke. He refused. “Do you know how many bacteria there are in the
human mouth?” he said.

“Do you mean somebody
counted
them?”

“They estimated.” He named a humongous figure
and said his mother was a nurse. I felt bad for her having a son
mixed up with Austen Storm. But I was glad she’d cautioned him
about sharing drinks.

As he’d said, the back of the school wasn’t
much. It had several doors, a couple of dumpsters, and it smelled
of cafeteria. A few kids were hanging out, smoking. The school was
weirdly placed, perpendicular to the street instead of facing it
the way you’d think. It must have had something to do with the
shape of its man-made plateau. Still, it was an imposing structure
with a spacious lawn and nice trees.

“Don’t you have an athletic field?” I
asked.

“Yeah, about a block away. There’s no room
for it here. Too hilly.”

“That doesn’t seem very convenient.”

“It’s okay.”

What did I care? I wasn’t going to be there,
anyway.

We’d almost reached the street and I was
readying for a shot of it when two figures appeared in the
viewfinder. Somehow they looked familiar. They picked up speed
coming toward us, and quickly grew larger. Austen and Sam. In spite
of the warm day, Austen wore a long black raincoat.

“Did you take a picture just now?” he
demanded.

“No.” An irrational wave of guilt washed over
me. What did I have to feel guilty about? It was the way he said
it.

“I was still focusing.” I sounded as guilty
as I felt. “No pictures yet. I was aiming for the street. I didn’t
even see you.”

“Is that true?” He stood very close, invading
my space.

“Of course it’s true. Are you camera-shy,
too?”

He moved back just a little. “A camera can
steal your soul. Don’t you know that?”

“I thought it was mostly primitive people who
believed those things.”

“It’s true.” His eyes narrowed behind the
glasses. He wasn’t kidding.

This was all so crazy. How was I going to get
any facts?

He could plead insanity. Maybe he really
was—so insane he scared me.

“I’ll take that now.” He reached for the
camera.

I handed it over. “It’s not digital. You
can’t see what’s in there until they’re developed.” The same thing
I’d told Freddie. I held out my hand to take it back.

He tried to pry it open. If he succeeded, the
film would be destroyed by light. That might have been what he
wanted.

He slipped it into his pocket.

“Hey!” I said. “I paid for that.”

He dug into another pocket and handed me a
twenty-dollar bill.

“What—”

“Just making sure.” His smile was almost
friendly. He looked at Freddie and then at me. “Where are you guys
off to?”

Freddie had lost his twinkle and seemed wary.
“Nowhere. Just walking.”

Austen walked with us. I almost forgot Sam
McCallum was there, too. He never said a word. I finished my Coke
and was about to toss the can into a garbage basket.

Austen caught my hand. “Uh-uh. Recycle.”

His charm came and went. He was like those
days with swiftly alternating rain and sunshine. Grandma called
them stripy days.

“Where do I recycle it?” I asked.

He turned me around, took my hand, and we
went back to the two green dumpsters. One was for disposables and
one for recyclables. With a hand on my back, he guided me to the
second one. His other hand still held mine.

“Aren’t these things supposed to be clean?” I
asked.

“Do you think most of the stuff in there is
clean? The kitchen throws it out as is.” He brought my hand over
the dumpster, which was nearly full, and I dropped the can.

“You’re a good citizen,” I said.

“Yep, that’s me. Good citizen. Thank you for
cooperating.”

“You’re entirely welcome.”
Now can I have
my camera back?
I hoped he would think of it himself.

We walked on, all four of us, back around to
the front of the school. Not the street. No pizza this time.

Freddie had fallen back with Sam and was very
quiet. Austen still rested his hand on my shoulder. It felt warm.
Both his hands were warm.

The school did have a picturesque front. The
main entrance had steps on each side running up to what looked like
a terrace above the door.

“What’s up there?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Austen said.

“Really nothing?”

“You want to see it?” His hand went to my
elbow and he guided me toward the steps. He wasn’t being fresh. It
was more sort of—well, chivalrous.

Austen? Chivalrous? I remembered how he had
treated Liam. Not to mention Johnny Kinsser.

We all trooped up the steps. It really was
nothing, just as he said—a terrace with a low wall across the front
and two doors going inside, one at each end. To break up the
monotony of gray stone slabs were two rectangular pits, also
walled, but those walls were very low. I assumed they were meant to
be planters, though no plants were in them. Only a few cigarette
butts and gum wrappers. I wandered over to the front wall and
leaned on it, looking out. Austen followed.

“What do you think?” he said. “Unimpressive,
right?”

I gazed down at the river. “Nice view. Do
people hang out here much?” I could see they did, from the debris
in the planters.

He shrugged. “Now and then. It’s a good place
to smoke until a teacher comes along.”

“Do you smoke?”

His mouth twitched in a faint smile. He
didn’t answer.

I really wanted to start on my digging, but
didn’t know how. I had nothing planned. I’d wanted to test the
waters first and see what came naturally. Obviously it wasn’t going
to work that way. If I asked any questions it would be the same as
it was with Freddie. He’d gotten pissed but not as much as Austen
would. And how could I keep my face from going red with the lies?
Or purple, or even green. I’d told Maddie I was counting on my
acting ability, but where was it? Where was my
brain?

Austen backed me against the wall and studied
me. “What are you thinking?”

Could he see right into me? His voice was low
and velvety. I’d never given a thought to its sound before. I’d
been more concerned with what he said. The voice was—well, heck, it
was seductive.

“Not thinking anything in particular.” I said
it as casually as I could. Sam and Freddie came to perch on the
wall a few feet away.

To my surprise, Austen picked me up as if I
weighed nothing and sat me on the wall. He stood so close his knees
almost touched mine. “How can you think about nothing? Doesn’t
anything bother you?”

“Um—a little.” It was now or never. “Every
time I come here I can’t help thinking about that kid who was
killed.” I tried to say it as if it just occurred to me.

“Then why do you come here?”

“I told you. I get nervous starting a new
school. I wanted to feel more at home. Did you know him? The one
they found in some guy’s car?” I forced myself to look directly at
Aus. Into his eyes. He didn’t flinch or turn away. I almost
did.

“Yeah, I knew him. What’s it to you?”

“It’s nothing to me personally,” I said.
“It’s the sort of thing—you know—that sort of grabs you.”

“It doesn’t grab me.”

“I wonder how come?”

“How come it doesn’t grab me?”

“How come he’s dead?”

“Because he died.”

“Oh, funny.”

“What?” he said. “You think that’s tasteless,
making jokes?”

“I didn’t take it as a joke. In fact, it’s a
logical answer to my stupid question. I just wondered—I mean, if
somebody killed him, I can’t help wondering why they did it.”

“Why don’t you ask them?” He bumped gently
into my knees and then pulled back. So far he seemed fairly cool.
What if he didn’t stay that way? I slid off the wall just in
case.

“I can’t ask them if I don’t know them.” I
couldn’t meet his eyes. “I was mostly just wondering out loud.”

And making a mess of it.

I looked at my watch. Forty minutes before
the next bus.

My head kept spinning. I moved farther from
the wall and made a supreme effort to switch topics. “How about
trading my camera for a twenty-dollar bill?”

“Nope,” he said. “A deal’s a deal.”

“I didn’t make any deal. It was all
one-sided. And I’d really like those pictures, if they came
out.”

“Why wouldn’t they? Didn’t you know what you
were doing?”

“Not really. It was my first try at
photography.”

That gave him something to think about. I was
glad we’d gotten off the subject of Johnny Kinsser.

“Tell you what,” he decided. “I’ll develop
the pictures, two copies each, and give one set to you.”

Relief poured though me. I’d actually taken a
few and he would find he could trust me. “That would be lovely.
I’ll pay for my set.”

I wondered if he really would do it. There
was nothing incriminating on that film. No shots of Austen or even
Freddie. I knew very well why they didn’t want their pictures
taken. Criminals usually don’t.

Chapter
Fifteen

Maddie worked like a fiend all weekend and
got her project finished. For once, she didn’t have another to take
its place.

“I think my dad feels guilty about how hard I
work,” she told me over the phone. “He thinks I should take a rest.
Too bad I couldn’t get that sooner, on the weekend. We could have
done Hudson Hills and spent more time there.”

“Maddie,” I said, “I wouldn’t know where to
find those guys on a weekend. We have to catch them at school.” I
remembered that Austen said he lived on Jade Avenue. I wasn’t about
to go up and down Jade Avenue knocking on doors. He might not be
there, anyway.
He
wasn’t stuck at home with an ankle
monitor.