by Eoin Colfer
“Ah, will you look who it is. Well, boys, any developments in the case?”
“We’ve established a link between the assault and the robberies,” replied Red. The exact words I had used with April.
“Well put,” I said.
Genie held out the stopwatch. “The clock is ticking, boys. Better get back to business. Red, you haven’t rehearsed since this mess started, and we have a title to defend.”
I followed Red into the house.
“Title?”
“School talent show. I was Elvis last year. The Early Years. This year I’m doing Vegas.”
I remembered. Another reason why the girls loved Red. He could sing, and even more important, he would sing.
When we reached the bedroom, my iBook’s browser was open on an Internet shopping page.
“Were you on the ’Net?” I asked Red.
Before he could answer, Genie pushed into the room past us.
“I was—just buying some clothes from Paris,” she explained, quitting the site.
“Don’t you need a credit card for that?”
“I have one,” she said, tossing me the plastic rectangle. “Maxed-out, I’m afraid.”
This didn’t bother me much, until I noticed the name on the card.
“That’s my dad’s!” I blurted. “You stole it from my room.”
“Hey, we’re family now, Watson. What’s yours is mine.”
“But this card is for emergencies only.”
Genie hopped up from the chair and grabbed my waving hands. She waltzed us both around the room. “It is an emergency, Watson. The autumn-winter season is upon us and I’m still wearing spring-summer clothes.”
I was still twirling when Genie sneaked out the door.
“You need to watch my sister,” commented Red, steering me to the chair. “She’d steal the ham out of your sandwich.”
I ran a quick virus sweep on the iBook and found that Genie had managed to infect the hard drive with a minor virus. I ran the disk repair program, hoping that none of my files had been corrupted. Red sat, watching the program run for about four seconds before his natural energy began bursting out through his extremities. First his knee began jittering, then his toes, then his fingers drumming a beat on the desk.
“Red, please.”
“What?”
“I’m working, here.”
“I’m not stopping you. Anyway, what work? You’re looking at a screen. How long are you going to be?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Why don’t you go play a game of hurling?”
Red elbowed me. “Someone stole my hurl, detective.”
I unstrapped my cast and laid it on the desk. “That’s right. How could I forget?” My arm was still bruised, but the pain only flared if I clenched my fist. So, I avoided clenching my fist.
Red’s entire being was eager for action. “There must be something I can do.”
I pointed at the mass of files on the floor. “Those are the September case files I have to go through. If you could weed out a few red herrings that would save us a lot of time.”
“Red herrings?”
“Our criminal is in there somewhere, but so is every other criminal in Lock. We’re looking for unusual crimes with no obvious motive, possibly teenage or young victims.”
Red thought for a second. “Okay,” he said, scooping the files into his arms. “Give me a few minutes.”
A few minutes? It had taken me hours to get through the first half of the pile.
“Good luck. But investigation is slow work. It could take a while.”
“We’ll see, Half Moon,” said Red, pulling the door closed behind him with his foot.
Red seemed to take the energy out of the room when he left. I suddenly felt incredibly tired. I felt as though I’d been beaten inside and out. Which of course I had. I put my head in my hands and tried to fend off thoughts of home. At the very least my family would be feeling as bad as I was. Was this what being a detective entailed? Where were the lightning flashes of intuition that I had expected?
The computer beeped and I sat up. All clear on the hard drive. I selected Office Works and began to work up profiles of each victim. Maybe once they were in print, then I could find some connection between them—assuming that Red wasn’t the connection.
I dedicated a page to each subject, filling it with every scrap of information I could find. I topped each page off with a photograph, which was surprisingly easy to find on the school Web site or local paper archives. I didn’t bother with a photo of myself, as I know what I look like, and I knew I wasn’t guilty.
I got one of Red from an Elvis impersonator competition publicity photo. I downloaded a photo of Maura Murnane from the local paper’s online archive from when she won Slimmer of the Year. MC Coy had his own Web Site, featuring blurry shots of himself in various tracksuits. And there was a lovely one of May and April on the school fun page.
Red barged back into the room. He had been gone less than twenty minutes. Poring over files was not for everyone.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Red pulled my chair away from the computer. “I think you better come now. Papa is solving your case for you.”
That got me out of my seat fast. I did want the case solved, but I was surprised to find that I didn’t particularly want anyone else to solve it. At the risk of sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger, this one was personal.
I spoke to my computer. “I’ll be back,” I said, then chuckled at the joke that only I understood. Which, I believe, is one of the first signs of insanity.
Papa was seated at the kitchen table with the files piled high in front of him. In one hand he held a statement, in the other a cell phone.
“Petey,” he said into the phone. “That tire job below in Doyle’s garage. I’m presuming that was you and the boys, was it?” Papa winked at me, which looked pretty much like a bear winking at a salmon. “I thought so. Why? Oh, nothing. I might be in the market for a few radials, that’s all. Talk later.”
Papa hung up, tossed the file into the garbage, and moved on to the next one. There were already several files in the garbage.
“Has Papa already phoned those people?” I asked Red.
Red seemed almost embarrassed. “No need. Papa knows exactly who committed those crimes. He was nearby at the time. Very nearby, if you know what I mean.”
I could guess. After all, some of those were the Sharkey files.
Papa was on the phone again. “JoJo. I see you’ve been up to your old tricks again. What do you mean what do I mean? The fruit truck in Wexford. You’re the fruit man in this county and everyone knows it. How about a few boxes of kiwis? I’m very partial to kiwis. Good man. I’ll be over tomorrow.”
Another file in the trash. Some files didn’t even merit a phone call.
“Jimmy. Bob Hooley. English Ned.”
All files in the trash.
This was not how Bernstein said things should be done. There was no proof, no secondary confirmation.
“Do you have a shred of proof?” I asked Papa. “Eh . . . No offense.”
Papa ripped a file in half. “Proof, Half Moon? Proof? Do you want proof, or results?”
I thought about the accusations painted on my head like a target. I imagined the hourglass of time running out, and I thought about my family, worried sick.
“Results,” I said.
“Good. Give me five minutes.”
Red threw together some sandwiches while Papa worked. We stood at the sink eating.
“What’s next, Half Moon?”
I chewed this over, along with a strip of chicken. “Next, I suppose, we find our mystery giant.”
“Shh, moron,” hissed Red. “Do you think Papa is going to let us run around town after a giant? Keep that to yourself.”
“Keep what to yourself?” asked Papa, who apparently could hear a whisper at the other side of the room.
Red tossed out a quick lie. “His bad language. Half Moon has a foul tongue
on him. You wouldn’t believe it.”
I smiled apologetically. “I’ll watch what I say.”
Papa pointed a finger the size of a Mars bar. “You better, kiddo. There’s a lady in this house, you know.”
I almost asked who, but remembered Genie just in time.
“Sorry.”
Papa spun a file along the kitchen table.
“One left. All the rest are accounted for.”
I was flabbergasted. “One? You cleared the entire month of September in ten minutes?”
Papa shrugged. “No court would convict, but they did the deeds, all right. This other one is a new player.”
I opened the first file and read the single typed page.
Incident Report
Subject: Isobel French (details below)
Miss Isobel French is a dance teacher from the town of Lock. On the evening of August eighteenth, at approximately eight PM, Miss French was returning home after a dance class in the community center. As per usual she had her personal CD player in her bag for the walk home. When Miss French put on her headphones and switched on the music, her head was immediately filled with noise of an unusually high volume. Miss French describes the sound as “like feedback, only a million times louder.” The sound was sufficiently loud to partially deafen Miss French for three days. Her sense of balance has also been disrupted. Miss French’s doctor advised her never to wear a personal CD player again, and to avoid loud noises for a period of eight weeks.
Miss French decided to sue the manufacturers, and took her CD player to an engineer. The engineer discovered that the headphones had been tampered with. The volume inhibitor had been removed and powerful micro speakers had been added. He concluded that person or persons unknown must have taken Miss French’s headphones and replaced them with this extremely dangerous pair. It was at this point, 5 September, that Miss French and her father, Mr. Frank French, reported the incident to the police.
I closed the file. A dancer unable to dance. The victim was older, true, but it was the same man, I could feel it. Our mysterious giant. But even though I knew this, it brought me no closer to him. He was out there, somewhere close, manipulating our lives with his unfathomable crimes.
I looked up. Red and Papa were looking back at me.
“What?”
Red patted my shoulder sympathetically. “You were talking to yourself, Half Wit, sorry, Half Moon.”
“I was not.”
Red allowed his eyes to glaze over. “It’s the same man. I can feel it.”
Papa’s shadow fell over me. “You said something about a giant, too.”
I thought fast. “It’s a quote from Arthur Conan Doyle. A metaphor for our problem.”
Papa squinted down from a great height. “So there’s no real giant?”
“No. This is some kid picking on smaller kids. A smart bully, that’s all. When we find out who it is, we ring the police. End of story.”
Papa folded his arms across his chest “Because I don’t want you boys putting yourself in harm’s way. Red can handle himself, but you, Half Moon, would be knocked over by a gentle breeze.”
Red hustled me out of the kitchen. “Harm’s way,” he scoffed quite convincingly. “Don’t worry about us, Papa. We’re not tackling anyone. As soon as Half Moon charts this new file, then he finds the connection and we’re on the blower to the police. Then he’s out of your hair and everything’s back to normal.”
“Back to normal,” sighed Papa wistfully. “I like the sound of that.”
Back down to the bedroom.
Red propelled me inside. “Okay. You’ve got everything you asked for. The files are sorted, you visited a couple of crime scenes, and you have your computer. So how long will you need, half an hour?”
I got the feeling I was beginning to outstay my welcome.
“Red. It’s not that easy. We’re not connecting the dots here.”
“Well, you better do something, Half Moon, because I don’t have a single clue what to do. Not one. If you can’t find something in those files, we’re up the creek.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re not sunk yet. I have a few ideas.”
Red ballooned his cheeks, blowing out a breath. “Good. I was beginning to worry that you weren’t as smart as you’re always saying you are.”
I shot Red with two finger guns. “Hey, don’t worry about it.”
“I thought we talked about the finger gun thing.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll give you an hour then. I know you brainy types like to be alone.”
“Appreciate it.”
The door closed and I was alone. Alone with my ideas, of which there were exactly none.
Alone in a strange room. With strange people outside the door. With Lock’s police force outside the walls. The future was bright.
I stood in that room, dizzy with failure. Everything I had learned had brought me to this moment, and now I felt useless. The badge in my pocket was just a lump of metal. It meant nothing if I couldn’t solve this mystery.
I had a bunch of files. Crimes that had been committed against the youth of Lock. The youth. That was the only connection, but it wasn’t enough. There were too many young people in Lock to check them all. Some of the victims were in the same school. Saint Jerome’s. But not all. Most were teenagers, but now Isobel French, in her twenties, came dancing along.
What else? There must be something else?
I wasn’t tall. I wasn’t cool. I couldn’t play sports. Being a detective was all I could do. All that made me different. I had to find a connection.
What was it?
I scanned over the files again. Running my fingers under each line. Checking birth dates. Addresses. Star signs. Anything. But I was wasting my time. It was impossible to group all the victims in one bunch. It was useless. I was useless.
Bernstein says: Sometimes you know things that you don’t know you know. Trust your subconscious. Let your instinct guide you.
This had always sounded a bit “Use the Force” for me, but I was desperate. Maybe my subconscious already knew what was happening here. All I had to do was let the knowledge flow through me. Somehow.
Count Albert Renard, the famous French criminologist, used several exercises to free his subconscious. One involved a map and a set of darts. When he couldn’t figure out where his prey was hiding, he would blindfold himself and throw a dart at a map of Paris. Very often the dart led the gendarmes to the correct address. Renard reasoned that his subconscious had already figured out the problem, and he didn’t have the time to wait for his consciousness to catch up.
Could this technique work on photographs?
I printed off letter-sized prints of the file photos and tacked them to the wall. The closest thing to a dart in the room was a school compass in my pencil case.
This is ridiculous, I told myself as I pulled a pillowcase over my head. It can’t possibly work.
I stood six feet from the pictures, peeking out from under the pillowcase until I had my general bearings.
Please don’t let Red come in now. Please.
I dropped the pillowcase over my face. All I could see was a pale disk of light from the bulb and the crisscross pattern of the cotton case.
I stood there for a minute, trying to summon my inner thoughts or my instincts or whatever, then pulled my arm back and fired. The compass bounced off the wall and whizzed past my ear. What was my subconscious trying to tell me? Give it up, you fool, before you lobotomize yourself.
I persevered, throwing the compass half a dozen more times until finally I scored a hit. The compass stuck deep, and was still quivering when I pulled off the pillowcase. The point was buried in April’s photo. It had amazingly missed April and May in the photo’s foreground and lodged in the forehead of a small girl by the school door. Another one of the victims. Mercedes Sharp.
“Ooh,” I winced, plucking out the missile. Lucky it was only a photograph. “Sorry about that.”
I examined the girl with the hole in her forehead. She was smiling, but it wasn’t the typical girl smile. There was something mean in the way those teeth were clenched.
You’re imagining it, I told myself. Seeing what you want to see.
I hurried back to the computer, using Photoshop to crop the picture until only Mercedes remained. She didn’t look so pretty, wearing a sneer. Her hair was jet-black and pigtailed, and she wore a belted blazer over her uniform.
Was there something about this photo? Or was this a monumental waste of time?
I poured over the picture looking for some clue. Any clue. Mercedes wore patent leather shoes, and a corduroy book bag slung diagonally across her chest. A single white headphone earpiece trailed from under the book bag’s flap.
Something. Give me something. Maybe I should throw the compass again. Keep throwing until there was more hole than paper.
“So,” said Red’s voice behind me. “Is this our giant?”
Red was back. My time was up. Nothing to do but admit defeat.
“Actually . . .”
Red leaned in over my shoulder. “Mercedes,” he sighed. “She’s pretty as they come, Half Moon. But not someone to tangle with.”
“Really?” I said, stalling.
“Roddy says she’s actually a terror behind all the pink business. She squealed on Roddy’s friend Ernie. He was expelled.”
Curiosity straightened my spine. “Expelled? For what?”
“Mercedes saw him selling an iPod that he’d stolen from one of her friends.” He shook his head. “Little Ern was always a bit light-fingered, although usually he stuck to sweets or cash to buy sweets. From iPod to cash to sweets would usually be one conversion too many for Ernie.”
Something invisible tapped on my skull. Helloooo, you’re missing something.
“An iPod? When?”
“Last week of school this summer. Don’t you remember?”
I did remember. Last week of school. Just about the time this fun day photo had been taken. Ernie Boyle. Expelled for theft. Not his first offense, either. I had a file on him.
I looked at the photo again. There it was. Snaking from Mercedes Sharp’s book bag: a white earphone on a white cable. Just like an iPod cable.
“Red,” I said. “We need to talk to this boy Ernie.”