Normally by this time I’d either have been on the phone to Lori or would have turned on the television. But I had a new lifestyle now, because of my promise to Mom and Dad. I wouldn’t allow myself to think of anything else but homework—not my thoughts about Mark or Scott, not even the fun I’d had with Ricky.
It wasn’t until much later, when I gave a happy sigh and tucked my last finished assignment into my notebook, that I realized there was something I should have thought about and hadn’t. Where was my cat?
Jumping up to let Pepper in when he scratches at the door is so routine, I do it automatically. But tonight Pepper hadn’t scratched at the door. I hadn’t opened it to let him in.
My heart pounded loudly, and I gasped for air as I threw open the back door.
“Pepper!” I shouted, but Pepper didn’t come.
I turned on the outside light, a glaring spotlight on the garage, and searched the edges where the light melted into the darkness. “Pepper!” I cried.
Grabbing Dad’s heavy-duty flashlight, I ran outside, hunting through both the front and back yards, stabbing the beam of light into all the darkest corners. “Please, Pepper, come home,” I called over and over again. “Please, please, please!”
I walked the length of the block and back, jumping at any sudden crack of a twig or rustle in the grass. Light shone in tidy squares and rectangles inside the houses that lined our block on both sides. I caught laughter from an overloud TV and part of a heated argument from the Snyders across the street. But I saw no sign of Pepper.
Sick and hurting, I made my way home.
The back door stood wide open. In my hurry, had I left it like that?
I locked the door carefully, turned off the kitchen light, and leaned against the wall, my face wet with tears.
“Oh, Pepper, Pepper, where are you?” I murmured.
A figure loomed before me, its whispered words raspy with rage. “Peaches and Pepper—they’re gone forever.”
CHAPTER
ten
My mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out.
“What’s the matter with you?” A voice croaked, as someone poked me with a cane.
“Mr. Chamberlin?”
“That’s a stupid question. You ought to know my name by this time.”
I took a couple of deep breaths. “What are you doing here?” I blurted out as I turned on the kitchen light.
“I saw you searching for your cat,” he said, “so I came to see what happened. Your door was open, and I walked inside. What did you do with your parents?”
“My parents went to a dinner at the country club,” I answered.
Mr. Chamberlin gave a snort of contempt. “Your mother said she’d help me, and a fat lot of good she did.”
“Now, wait a minute,” I answered defensively. “Don’t blame Mom for your cat’s being lost. She called the animal shelter and searched all over the neighborhood for Peaches. And I did, too.”
“Didn’t do any good,” he muttered stubbornly. He pulled out a kitchen chair and slowly lowered himself into it. “You didn’t find him that took the cats.”
I sat down opposite him. “What do you mean? Who took the cats?”
His mouth twisted. “That’s another stupid question. Don’t you think if I knew I’d tell you?”
“But you said someone took them. How do you know that?”
“Stands to reason. First one cat gone, then the other. Cats don’t wander off in pairs.”
“Maybe the tuna in the trash hadn’t been thrown out. Maybe it was used to lure Peaches.”
He leaned forward, his face thrust into mine. “Find him,” he said. “Find the one who done it.”
“Find who?” I asked. “You keep saying him. Did you see someone around here, Mr. Chamberlin?”
He slowly settled back, his eyes dull with fading comprehension.
“Who did you see?” I repeated.
Mr. Chamberlin suddenly slumped, as though someone had let go of a string that held him up. Tears ran down his face. “Peaches won’t ever come back,” he murmured.
I jumped to my feet and brought him the box of tissues that sat on the kitchen ledge, but even though I pushed the box right in front of him, Mr. Chamberlin ignored it. He ignored me, too, lost in his own mournful world.
“Did you see Pepper tonight, Mr. Chamberlin?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
I tried again. “Did you see anyone around our house—anyone who didn’t belong here?”
“Evil, evil in his eyes. I know evil. I can see it.” He continued to cry.
Poor old man. I snatched up a handful of tissues and pushed them at him. “Come on, Mr. Chamberlin,” I said. “I’m going to take you home.”
This time I locked the back door as I left.
AFTER I WALKED Mr. Chamberlin safely to his own house, I tested his alarm light to make sure it was working, and then I decided to search every inch of the ground between his home and ours. What was I looking for? I didn’t know. Anything out of the ordinary, I guess. But tonight there was no trash and no tuna.
Where had Pepper gone? What had happened to him?
The Maliks’ front door opened, and Mark stepped outside. “Jess, is that you?” he called. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for Pepper,” I said. “Pepper, my cat.”
Mark loped down the walk to join me. He glanced in the direction of Mr. Chamberlin’s house, then back to me. “Your cat’s gone, too? What’s going on around here?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Were they valuable cats? Would anyone want to steal them?”
“Peaches was a Persian, but she was an old cat, and Pepper was—is—nothing more than an alley cat.”
“Did Pepper like to go wandering?”
“Not often. He’s pretty lazy.”
“Has he ever disappeared before?”
I sighed. “When he was younger, he got trapped inside someone’s toolshed for a whole day and scared me to death, but during the last few years he’s been content to stick close to home. Mark, I’ve had Pepper since I was eight years old. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Without meaning to, I burst into tears.
Mark didn’t say anything. He just put his arms around me.
“It hurts,” I managed to say as my sobs turned to dry shudders.
“Of course it hurts.” Mark gently kissed my forehead, then both eyelids, and I felt as though I were wrapped in a caring, comforting cocoon. Mesmerized, I leaned against him and raised my face for what I thought would be his kiss on my lips, but he said, “I’m going to take you home, Jess. I’ll wait with you until your parents come back, if you want me to.”
It took a few moments to pull myself back to reality. “I’ll be fine by myself,” I told him. “But thanks for your help. I’m sorry I dumped all my feelings on you.”
Mark smiled. “Hey, what are neighbors for?”
I smiled back. “I thought neighbors were different in the Bronx.”
“Neighbors are neighbors everywhere,” Mark said. “I have to admit, though, I’d rather be neighbors with you than with Mr. Chamberlin.”
“I found him inside my house tonight,” I said as we walked to my back door. “I didn’t know he was there, and he nearly scared me to death. He said strange things, like ‘Peaches and Pepper are gone away forever,’ and he talked about ‘him that took the cats.’ ”
“What? Did he say he saw who took them?”
“He said he didn’t, and I know he doesn’t have any idea of what happened to Peaches. But he has it in his head that someone took the cats away. He talked about evil eyes again. Poor Mr. Chamberlin lives in a world of his own since he lost his family.”
I said good-night to Mark, locked the door, and double-checked the front door to make sure it was fastened. I searched each downstairs room carefully, feeling like a little girl who is sure a monster lives under her bed. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I found it when I climbed the st
airs and entered my bedroom.
A fishy odor drew me to the wastepaper basket next to my desk. Inside lay an open, nearly full can of tuna.
This was a message. I had no hopes of ever seeing Pepper again.
Numb with horror and fear, I picked up the can, took it downstairs, and wrapped it securely inside a plastic bag to block the smell. In the darkness I walked out to the garage and stuffed the bag down under the trash in the large plastic can. I. knew I should tell somebody, but I decided not to. The police wouldn’t get serious about a missing cat.
I lingered on the back steps, staring out into the darkness. “Whoever you are, you’re sick and you’re cruel,” I whispered, “but you’re not going to get away from me. I’m going to find you and stop you.”
CHAPTER
eleven
When Mom and Dad came home around eleven-thirty, I pretended I was asleep. I had too much to think about. I lay staring into the darkness long after my parents had climbed into bed and turned out their lights.
In my mind I had already tucked them in, as though they were loving children to be protected. I didn’t want to take any chance that they would restrict what I had to do by trying to protect me. That was why I’d decided not to tell them what had happened.
Step by step, I went over everything I could think about that tied into Pepper and Peaches. I ruled out our longtime neighbors as suspects. They’d been friends for years, and none of them would ever hurt a cat.
Mr. Chamberlin might have been in our house uninvited, but he would no more harm Pepper than he would Peaches, and it would have been difficult for him to climb our flight of stairs.
I couldn’t believe it could be Mark or his parents, the new neighbors, and even though Scott hated cats, what reason would he have for hurting the cats? No sane person would do it.
I shuddered, pulling the covers up around my ears. The person who had done this had to be mentally ill.
At the breakfast table I told Mom and Dad that Pepper had disappeared. I could see they were very upset, but they obviously wanted to reassure me.
“Remember the toolshed?” they said almost in unison.
“He’s probably trapped somewhere and will show up in a few hours, hungry and complaining,” Dad told me.
Mom gulped down her coffee and said, “We’ll hunt for Pepper, Jessie. I’ll finish getting dressed, and we’ll start right now.” She paused as she pushed back her chair. “It’s odd, isn’t it, how Peaches vanished one day, then Pepper the next? That seems like too much of a coincidence. I don’t understand it.”
Dad frowned and said, “Somewhere I read about stealing animals to sell to laboratories, but surely nothing like that would go on in our community.”
“Don’t talk like that, Phil!” Mom said, and threw a glance in my direction.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I thought about it, too.”
Mom patted my hand, then squeezed it. “Well, it didn’t happen to Pepper. We’ll find your cat, Jessie. He’s going to be all right.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, because she looked as miserable as I felt. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the can of tuna—the clue that Pepper was never coming back.
When Mark came by to walk with me to school, he didn’t mention Pepper, and I was glad. I guess we both knew the tears might start again.
But Mark told Lori, who gave me a quick hug. “Remember when Pepper was stuck in somebody’s toolshed?” she asked. “I bet he’ll come home sometime today.”
“I hope so,” I said. I had to keep the knowledge about the tuna can to myself.
Scott seemed upset by the news. He tried to hide his feelings, but I could see them, and they puzzled me. “I’m sorry, Jess,” he told me, but it wasn’t sorrow I saw in his eyes before he looked away. For an instant I thought it was fear.
I managed to get through most of the day by deliberately banishing Pepper from my thoughts and concentrating hard on what was going on in each class. The only bright spot was that when I tacked up my volunteer chart in social problems class, a lot of the kids signed up.
In journalism class Mr. Clark first handed back the papers and then went over the headlines we had written. I’d been given a B plus, and he’d written a note to tell me my third headline was “right on the button.” That should have made me feel great, but my brain felt like a big, blank hole. I couldn’t feel a thing.
I automatically took notes as Mr. Clark continued with his list of places where we could find public information about people.
It was boring until Robin asked, “Does anyone really use all this stuff to find out about people?”
“They do, or I wouldn’t be giving it to you,” Mr. Clark answered.
“Yeah, well, like, I mean not just for a test, but for real?”
Mr. Clark screwed up his forehead and rubbed his nose. I figured he was trying to keep his patience. Finally he said, “Journalists use these sources to gain information, Robin. So do private investigators.”
“Private eyes?” Robin said. “Cool!”
“How about computer checks?” Eric asked. “Isn’t it about time to go over all the things we can find out through computers?”
“We’ll touch on information we can get through computers,” Mr. Clark said, but then he returned to the point that Robin had asked about. “Do you understand the importance of being able to discover information about anyone in order to write an accurate, factual story?”
Robin nodded.
“I’m going to make this an extra-credit assignment,” he said. “For your own interest, those of you who want to can pick a well-known person and try some of these sources. See what you can come up with.”
Mr. Clark went on—but without me this time, because my mind was shooting off ideas like firecrackers. Okay, Scott Alexander, I thought, I’m going to see exactly how much I can find out about you!
* * *
AFTER SCHOOL I hung around, talking to some of the kids, until I saw Lori leave with Scott. They were heading for Lori’s house. That gave me the chance to follow Mr. Clark’s list from the beginning. First I’d talk to Scott’s aunt or to their neighbors. I headed toward the Heritage Place Apartments on Dale Street.
The building was a huge, brick-veneered complex that sprawled over an entire block. I opened one of the double doors that led into a small lobby, which was decorated in a muddy brown and yellow beige, and knocked on the door labeled Manager.
An orange-haired woman opened the door. “Yeah?” she asked, without really looking at me, and took a long swallow from a can of diet soda.
“I came to see a friend of mine, but I don’t know the apartment number,” I said.
“What’s the name?”
“His name is Scott Alexander.”
She shrugged. “Don’t have to look it up. We haven’t got any Alexanders registered here.”
As she began to close the door, I called, “Wait! Please! Don’t you remember a woman renting an apartment for herself and her nephew? It was probably just a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Edna Turner.”
For the first time she looked at me. “This Scott Alexander. Is he about your age?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s tall and blond. Probably seventeen.”
She nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I remember the kid, but his aunt’s a blank. He brought in the check for the first and last month’s payment. He said she was sick or something.”
“Her name would be on the lease, wouldn’t it?” I asked.
She yawned and burped at the same time. She rubbed the back of one arm across her mouth and frowned. “I’d have to look it up.”
“Could you? Please? Please?”
“What’s the difference what his aunt’s name is, if I give you his apartment number?”
I couldn’t think of a single good reason. “It’s very important to me,” I said, hoping that would be enough.
The woman looked at her watch. “Okay. Oprah won’t be on for another twenty minutes, and I got nothing muc
h else to do. Come on into the office.”
It took only a minute for her to pull out a large bound record book and look up the lease. “Edna Turner is her name, all right,” she said, “and I was wrong. They didn’t pay by check. It was a money order.”
Her lips twisted into a smile. “Kind of like him, do you? Want his phone number? Better look it up under Turner.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“Oh, sure,” she answered. She drained the last of her soft drink, patted her stomach, and burped. “Sorry,” she said, “but a good belch makes me feel better. There’s lots of stress on this job.”
“Does the lease give any other information? Like where Mrs. Turner and Scott came from?” I asked.
“Nope. We don’t require references.”
I studied the book, trying to read upside down, and thought about some of the things Mr. Clark had told us. “Don’t you ask for the names of your tenants’ banks? Or where they work? Or Social Security numbers?”
“Why should I tell you all that? What business is it of yours?”
“None, I guess,” I admitted. “It’s just important for me to know.”
“Not in my book,” she said, and tucked the large volume into one of her desk drawers.
“You didn’t tell me Scott’s apartment number,” I said.
“Two hundred and ninety-six, Building C,” she said. “Go out the glass doors on the far side of the lobby and turn right. Building C is between the swimming pool and the side street. Two ninety-six is on the second floor.”
“Thank you,” I said, and got up to leave. She didn’t have to give me the rest of the information I wanted. I’d been able to read it upside down. The bank listed was the one where Mom worked, and Edna Turner’s place of employment was Spradler’s Drugstore.
Scott had told us his aunt was looking for work, so maybe her job at Spradler’s had just been a temporary one.
The apartment manager didn’t move, so I let myself out of the office and closed the door behind me. I followed her directions to Building C. I took a look at the carport and saw an old, dark maroon sedan parked in the space numbered 296. So Scott’s aunt was home. Good. I climbed the stairs, walked down the outside, open hallway, and easily found the right apartment.
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