When Good Bras Go Bad (Myrtle Crumb Series) (2 page)

“Al!  Where’s your mother?  Does she know there’s a boy—
”

“Alicia.”  Sunny huffed
.
“Her name is Alicia, and her nickname is Al.”

“Oh
.
Well, I—
”

“Later, Mimi.”

And then, I’ll have you know, she hung up on me
.
I never thought she’d ever treat me that way!  We’ve always been so close.

Maybe Faye was right
.
Maybe Sunny did know something…and it was up to me to find out what it was
.
I decided right then and there to go undercover.

Mrs. Anderson, the secretary who ought to have retired two hundred years ago, sat staring at a computer screen
.
I cleared my throat, and she eventually looked up at me.

“How can I help you?” she wheezed, not an iota of recognition in her face even though I’d met her just last month.

“I’m here to see your resource officer,” I said
.
“Would you let him know Myrtle Crumb is here?”

I was glad I’d worn my gray trench coat because it apparently lent me an air of authority
.
Mrs. Anderson got right on the horn and told Officer Wilbur Brody that I was waitin’ to see him.

When poor ol’ Officer Brody ambled into the office, I could see why he didn’t inspire much respect or confidence, bless his heart
.
For the world, he reminded me of Oliver Hardy
.
Remember him?  He was the fat half of Laurel and Hardy
.
So here was Hardy in a brown and khaki police uniform. I half expected him to waggle his tie
.
No wonder thieves were pickin’ the school clean.

“Mrs. Crumb?” he asked.

“Yes,” I
said
.
“Is there some place we can speak privately?”

“Uh…sure
.
Come on back to my office.”

I followed
him
down the hall
.
I reckon if you were lookin’ for a good place to beat your head against the wall, Officer Brody’s office would be it
.
It was a little cube made of cinderblock
.
He’d tried to liven the place up a bit by taping up safety posters, but it came across as depressing to me…like the kind of place that’d make you want to beat your head against the wall. So there you go.

He sat down at a gray metal desk and motioned for me to sit in one of the straight-backed chairs opposite him
.
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Crumb?”

I sat, placing my pocketbook on my lap
.
“I’m here to help you, Officer Brody.”

“Huh?”

“I know about the robberies; and as a seasoned detective, I’m here to lend you a hand.”

“Thank you, but—
”

“What evidence do you have so far?”

“Look, I appreciate your—
”

“You’re welcome.” 
I waved away his gratitude
.
“
Now let’s get down to business before anything else gets stolen.”

“But, Mrs. Crumb, I can’t accept your help
.
I don’t—
”

“Of course, you can
.
Let’s put pride on the backburner now, shall we?  It won’t cost you a thing to have me onboard, and I’ll let you take all the credit
.
Where do you need me stationed…you know, to work undercover?”

Officer Brody sighed
.
“Try the cafeteria
.
See if they’ll let you
volunteer
in there
if you wanna work some place
.”

I pointed my finger at him
.
“You got it.”  I got up and headed for the lunchroom
.
Maybe havin’ me help solve this case would be a boon to Officer Brody
.
It seemed to me he could be a bit more aggressive…plus he could use all the self-confidence he could get.

I went down to the lunchroom
.
There was a woman there about Faye’s age.
She had light brown hair pulled back from her face and she was wearin’ one of them ugly Ruth-Buzzy-from-Laugh-In hairnets
.
She smelled like fresh bread.

“Hi,” I said
.
“Officer Brody sent me down here to work undercover
.
I’m tryin’ to help him catch ya’ll’s thief.”

The bread lady swiped her wrist across her forehead. “Fine with me, honey
.
We need all the help we can get.”

She took me to a supply closet and got me a pair of plastic gloves, a hairnet, and an apron that went from neck to knees
.
Now, the gloves and the apron were no problem, but I didn’t care a bit for th
at
hairnet
.
Not only was it ugly,
I knew that thing would tear my hair all to pieces.

“I…uh…just had my hair done down at the Tilt-A-Curl
yesterday
,” I said.

“Well, honey, if you’re gonna work here, you’ve gotta wear the hairnet.”

I sucked up my pride and put the darn thing on
.
Sometimes you’ve got to make sacrifices in the detective business.

They were making hamburgers and French fries for lunch
.
The rolls were fresh, but the hamburger patties and French fries came out of the freezer in bags
.
We were givin’ the young ‘uns canned peaches for dessert. Not a lot of cooking involved, but the students didn’t complain
.
I guess they were used to it
.
Most of them have probably grown up eating fast food and done-fixed, heat-em-up meals
.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling like these young ‘uns were getting gypped
.

I was spooning peach halves onto trays when I heard somebody say, “Good afternoon, Ms. Crumb
.
What a pleasant surprise seeing you here.”

It was Brandon Easton, Bettie’s grandson
.
You know who he reminds me of?  That Eddie Haskell from “Leave It To Beaver.”  Nice to your face and smarmy behind your back.

“Hello,
Brandon
,” I said
.
“For some reason I’d have pegged you for somebody who’d pack h
is lunch.”  I meant I figured he was too good to eat in the lunchroom with everybody else.

He smiled. “Not today when you fine ladies are serving an American classic.”

See what I mean about Eddie Haskell?

“Are you working here now?” he asked.

“No, not really
.
These
‘
fine ladies
’
were a little short-handed today so I volunteered to pitch in.”

“That was very magnanimous of you.”

“Thank you.” I
tried
to either come up with a big word of my own or to say something that would show him I knew exactly what “magnanimous” means
.
Before I could do either, I spotted Sunny coming through the line
.
And she spotted me
.
Normally, that would
be a good thing, but I could tell by the look on her face it wasn’t a good thing today
.

I put my head down and went back to slopping peaches on trays until she got to me
.
I let her speak first because I thought she might want to pretend she didn’t know me
.
Wasn’t that magnanimous of me?

“Mimi,” she said through clenched teeth, her eyes darting from side to side
.
“What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d volunteer at your school today.”  I smiled
.
She didn’t.

A girl behind her who had the too mature, too perfect look of a dark-haired Brit
ne
y Spears doll said, “You’re holding up the line, Crim.”

The starlet smiled at me, and I smiled back at her
.
“Are you a friend of Su—Crimson’s?” I asked.

Sunny hurried on down the line as the woman-child said, “Yeah. I’m new here, and Crim and I really bonded, you know?”

Then it dawned on me
.
“You must be Alicia.”

Another blinding smile—this time with a hair toss thrown in for good measure
.
“Al
.
That’s me
.
How do you know Crim?”

“I know her mother.”

Al nodded, took her tray, and moved along.

Near the end of the line trailed Claire, the girl who’d been Sunny’s best friend since they’d been in second grade
.
Poor little ol’ Claire looked like she’d lost her best friend…and she very well might have.
Unlike the diva Alicia, Claire was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a top that covered her entire upper torso.

“Hi, darlin’,” I said
.
“Something wrong?”

Claire shook her head
.
“Nah, not really
.
How’re you, Ms. Crumb?”

“I’m okay
.
Listen, do you have a few minutes after lunch?”

She lifted one shoulder
.
“I guess
.
I’m supposed to go to study hall, but if you need something—
”

“I’d like to talk with you a minute is all
.
I can have Officer Brody clear it with the study hall.”

“Officer Brody?  Am I in trouble?”

“No, honey
.
It’s just that he’s the only person I know here, so I thought I’d ask him to take care of it.”

“Okay
.
I’ll come back here right after lunch.”

A few minutes later, Officer Brody came through the lunch line
.
Would you believe he looked surprised to see me?

“Mrs. Crumb, what are you doing here?”

Then it hit me
.
He was trying not to blow my cover.

“I just thought I’d help out the lunch ladies for awhile today,” I told him
.
I winked to clue him in to the fact that I understood the undercover game well.

He still looked confounded
.
Maybe he was better at his job than I’d originally given him credit for
.
Sometimes first impressions can be deceiving…although I didn’t think my first impression of Alicia or “Al” was all that far off the mark.

I leaned closer to Officer Brody so I could lower my voice
.
“Claire Davies will be a little late to study hall today
.
Clear that with her teacher, will you?”

“Uh…sure
.
I’ll do that.”

I nodded and gave the good man an extra spoonful of peaches
.
I intended to get the scoop on “Al” from Claire
.
Somebody who could make Sunny ditch both her best friend and her grandmother couldn’t be a good influence.

When Claire came into the kitchen after she ate her lunch, I took her out the door where the trucks make their deliveries
.
We sat down on the stoop.

“How’s school goin’ so far this year?” I asked her.

She lifted a bony shoulder
.
“All right, I guess.”

“You don’t look like it’s all right.”  I brushed a strand of her blonde hair back off her face with my fingertips
.
“What’s the matter?”