I would try to do this without asking Sonia. I right-clicked on the image of the tire and the computer in front of me brought up a new folder.
“The Atlas Road Warrior,” I said. “Very distinctive.”
I clicked again on one of the headings that said MATCHING VEHICLES.
The photograph displayed showed two riding machines—a mower and a compact bulldozer, much like the John Deere—but this one was dark gray with red lettering.
I ignored the mower and enlarged the dozer, then read aloud to Katie and Sonia.
“‘Atlas Road Warrior tires are compatible with all Atlas compact vehicles. We do not recommend any other brand for use with our machines.’”
“That will certainly narrow the search,” Sonia said, looking over my shoulder. “Atlas is a much smaller company than John Deere, so there are likely to be fewer of them out there. Good work, Dev.”
“What’s next?” Katie asked.
“I can call that sheriff for you,” Sonia said. “You know, one professional to another.”
I should have given Sonia cred for her years on the job, but we kids had formed a special bond.
“Thanks so much. I promised my mother I’d handle this for Katie and me. Mom’s working on my maturity, if you know what I mean. Accepting responsibility for things I do. She’s pretty tough about that.”
“Of course,” Sonia said, palms out in my direction as she backed away from us.
I dialed Kyle’s cell. When he didn’t pick up, I figured that he was out of range on the dig hillside, but would hear my message when he got back in town.
“Hey, Kyle. It’s Katie and me. Well, it’s me. Dev. You’re looking for a dark gray tractor that says ATLAS ROAD WARRIOR in bright red on its side,” I said. “If you find it, Kyle, keep the word under that big hat of yours until we talk. Bye for now.”
13
“Time to spare,” I said, checking the time on my phone, after thanking Sonia and retracing our steps. “No word from Sam yet, and Tapp’s for sure gone to lunch.”
“Now what?”
“Your turn to empower yourself, Katie,” I said. “Seat yourself in Sergeant Tapply’s well-worn chair.”
“What if he comes back?”
“What you’re about to do is perfectly legal,” I said.
“Sure?”
“I’d never mislead you, Katie. You’re my best buddy.”
Katie’s small frame seemed swallowed up when she sank into the soft cushion on Tapp’s chair.
“Type in CLEAR—in all caps. That’s the program you’re going to work in.”
“Don’t I need a password?” she asked.
“Tapp’s password is Lady Blue, for my mom. First woman commish in the long blue line of the NYPD.”
“Neat name,” Katie said. “Now what?”
“Search for Steve Paulson.”
“You don’t think he has a criminal record, do you?” Katie said, wrenching her neck to look back at me.
“CLEAR is a national log of personal information about people, from all kinds of sources—motor vehicles, employment, education. It’s not about arrest records.”
“So I won’t go to jail for looking at this, right?” Katie asked.
“Perfectly legal. It’s just too expensive for people to pay for this program on their home computers, or trust me, I’d download it tonight,” I said. “The only person who’d lock us up for doing this is my mom. So make it snappy.”
“I’m typing as fast as I can.”
“I just want to know more about everyone at that dig. I doubt Steve’s a perp-paleontologist.”
Katie typed in Paulson’s name. Several others spelled just like it popped up, but there was only one who lived in Bozeman and was an associate curator at the Museum of the Rockies.
“Scroll down,” I said.
“Forty-six years old,” Katie read out loud. “Married with three kids. He’s published two books about dinosaurs—and wow, about twenty-seven articles in magazines.”
“He drives a ’14 Ford Bronco,” I said. “Too bad you don’t need a license to operate a tractor or we’d have a head start looking for our Road Warrior.”
“It’s got his address and all his degrees,” Katie said. “But look at this, Dev. Steve Paulson was fired—from some museum with a Spanish name. I don’t understand it.”
“Really?” I said, looking over Katie’s shoulder to write down the foreign words in my NYPD steno pad.
“Doesn’t ‘terminated’ mean ‘fired’?” she asked.
“I guess so. I mean it could just mean the project he was working on ended, and that he completed it,” I said.
“Or else he was fired,” Katie said. “I wonder what he did?”
“Read that. It looks like whatever Steve did, he did it in Patagonia,” I said, “which is Argentina.”
“Actually, Patagonia is part of Chile,” Katie said. “My brother went there on a ski trip last year. It’s at the very southern tip of South America.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s part of both countries, but I’ll ask Liza,” I said. “She’ll know exactly where Patagonia is.”
I should have realized that mentioning Liza’s name would put Katie into a full-on snit.
“You don’t need Liza de Lucena for that, Dev. You just need Google.”
“Never mind. I’ll look it up when I get home tonight, Katie,” I said. “How about Chip Donner? See what you can find out about him.”
Donner was a pretty common surname. A list of hundreds of them rolled out on the screen, but none had the first name of Chip.
“Could be his nickname,” Katie said. “I keyed in Montana and dozens of Donners still spring up. Do I have to go through them all?”
“That will take too long for now,” I said. “We’ll come back to him if we have time. Maybe you can ask Kyle more about him. Why don’t we see whether Ling Soo shows up?”
“Here we go again,” Katie said. “That’s a really common Chinese surname. Do you know how old she is?”
“We don’t have her date of birth, but try someone who’s about twenty-two or twenty-three.”
“Where from?” Katie asked.
“I never asked her,” I said. “Type in Gobi Desert. We know she’s been there on a dig. I bet there aren’t many people who can claim that.”
“It worked, Dev! Look at this.”
The description sure sounded like our Ling Soo. She was twenty-five years old, born in a small city in China, educated in archaeology and paleontology at a university in Beijing, and author of a National Geographic article on juvenile duckbills.
“I’ve got to get busy and write up a piece on my clutch,” Katie said, clapping her hands together. “What if I could be published before I’m even twelve?”
“You’re going to be twelve on Saturday. You’d better hunker down and tell your story if you think that’s in the cards. When we see Ling—when she gets to New York—you can ask her for help.”
Katie buried her nose in the computer screen again. “Hey, Dev? Didn’t Ling tell us she was a grad student at Yale?”
“Yes, she did. Several times,” I said. “Why?”
“This page says she entered the graduate program in Yale almost two years ago,” Katie said. “But she withdrew in the middle of the last semester.”
“Withdrew?”
“Yeah, not terminated. Nothing like that.”
“Does it give any reason for the withdrawal?” I asked.
“Nope. That’s the last word on her page,” Katie said. “We’ll just have to ask her that when we see her.”
I didn’t want to blow the surprise about Katie’s party, but I was too excited to stay quiet. “That could be much sooner than you think!”
14
Katie and I were sitting on either side of Teddy Roosevelt’s desk�
��talking about his transition from police commissioner to Rough Rider during the Spanish-American War—when my mother and Sam returned from their meeting.
“Have you two been amusing yourselves?” she asked. “Keeping out of trouble?”
I got out of her chair, held it back for her to sit in, then threw my arms around her shoulders from behind her. “I’ve already got my gold shield, Mom. I’m moving on.”
“I think Devlin’s between cases, Commissioner,” Sam said. “The sheriff hit a dead end with his trespass investigation, so my sidekick will have to wait for her next assignment.”
Lulu had taught me that it was rude to correct intelligent adults, so I just let Sam’s verdict lie.
“Are we going out for lunch?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, darling,” my mother said. “Didn’t you see Tapp? He’s going to bring back sandwiches for you when his lunch is over.”
“He’d already gone out when we got back up here after our—um—after our tour.”
“One of the Staten Island ferries slammed into the dock. We’ve got to do a press conference on public safety with the mayor.”
“Anybody hurt?” Katie asked.
“Fortunately not. But Sam and I have to run out, so you two can just relax and take charge of my office,” my mother said.
She had the most engaging smile in the world. Most days I hoped that Sam noticed it, too. I knew that she needed a bodyguard, but I also wanted her to have someone to love, besides me.
“Ms. Quick,” Katie said, “my mom asked me to ask you something.”
“Go ahead, dear.”
“Well, all I’m allowed to know about Saturday night is that we’re celebrating my birthday. It’s a surprise, so she won’t tell me what or where,” Katie said. “I know you and Dev know all about it.”
“My lips are sealed,” my mother said.
“Well, we were wondering if it’s okay if I invite Natasha, too? I mean, my mom thinks we’d have more fun if our chaperone is—well—isn’t a mom.”
“She’s absolutely right about that.”
“So if I see Natasha this afternoon, I can ask her?”
“Of course you can.”
“I love that idea,” I said.
Not only would Natasha help me bake cupcakes, but she could be a great ally in the fun I was planning for the sleepover at the museum. Katie, Natasha, Booker, and a few of the Ditchley girls in the mix—my perfect posse of partygoers was growing nicely.
Shortly after my mother and Sam took off, Tapp came back with a supply of sandwiches and chips and soda.
“I hope you don’t mind that I used your computer, Tapp,” I said.
“You did? Thanks for telling me.”
“The confession of evil deeds is the beginning of good deeds,” I said, bowing at the waist to him, thanking him for our lunch.
“Where’d you get that line?” Katie asked. “Sounds kind of like your grandmother.”
“I was quoting Saint Augustine, not Lulu,” I said with a laugh. “If it’s not Lulu’s wisdom I’m relying on—or Miss Manners’s—it’s bound to be a saint.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Tapp asked.
“Mostly. We were trying to get some background on the nice people who ran our dig, so that Katie can write an essay about it.”
“Dev! Do not blame this on me,” Katie said.
“What’s to blame?” Tapp asked. “I’d like to read it when you’re done.”
“So we did fine on two of the first three people, but I may be able to get more information on another of the guys. Right now we just have his nickname,” I said. “And there are some grad students Katie should acknowledge, too.”
“And Kyle,” she said, going along with the program.
“I think you probably know everything about him that you need to,” I said to Katie, before turning back to Tapp. “Anyway, we might send you another name or two during the week.”
Tapp waved us off. “Go on, eat your lunch. I got you turkey sandwiches with all the trimmings, okay? Get me any names and pedigree information you have on them, and I’ll forward the results to you. Now I’ve got to get back to work.”
We ate our lunches, took a bunch of selfies at the commissioner’s desk, and then rode the subway back uptown to my apartment.
It was my turn to walk Asta. By the time we squared the block and got back upstairs, Natasha had come home from school.
“Are you busy Saturday night?” Katie asked her, after we told her some of the stories about our trip to Montana.
“No plans that are carved in stone. Why?”
“My mom has organized some kind of birthday surprise, and we’re going to need to have a grown-up with us,” Katie said. “I’d love for you to be the adult. It’d be much more fun than having a parent there.”
“I’m so flattered,” Natasha said, exchanging high fives with Katie. “Of course I’ll do it.”
Natasha went into her room, while Katie and I just hung out for a few more hours, Instagramming our photos from headquarters.
“Can you believe there are only five more days till I’m twelve?” she asked, when she got ready to leave for home. “I’m really excited about it.”
“Me too,” I said. “I’ve got swim practice tomorrow and Thursday. Maybe we can do something together on Friday?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t forget to call Kyle,” I said. “He has to help us with two things.”
“Two?”
“He needs to find us someone near the dig site, or in town, who has an Atlas Road Warrior,” I said. “And he’s got to find out Chip Donner’s real name and pedigree information.”
“Pedigree?” Katie asked. “Like a dog?”
I would have to stop rolling my eyes when I lost it with my friends. I knew it was a bad habit.
“In law enforcement, we use the word ‘pedigree’ to refer to the vital statistics of our witnesses and suspects. The more specifics you can ask Kyle to get about Chip and Steve and Ling and the rest of the crew, the more info we can gather. Dates of birth, addresses, cars they own—those things make up a pedigree. Get specifics, okay?”
“Got it.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, sort of distracted from what we had been talking about and feeling in a bit of a funk. We were walking to the door and saying good-bye.
“You seem kind of down, Dev. Is it—?”
“Nothing serious this time, Katie. I didn’t mean to go dark on you,” I said. “I’m just bummed since Sheriff Brackley closed the case today. I need something to do to keep me busy.”
“You know my mom, Dev. It’s only a matter of days until she loses an earring or leaves her iPad in a taxi. You’ll be up and running again soon.”
“Well, I won’t hold my breath waiting for bad things to happen to other people” I said.
• • •
I spread out on the living room floor, grabbing a pillow from the sofa and putting my hair up in an elastic to get it out of the way. I ignored the raindrops that were beginning to pound against the window. My mother had given me a three-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, insisting that I read the life story of the first presidential wife to have a career of her own. It was actually interesting from the earliest days of Eleanor’s childhood. I loved dense books that could hold my attention for days on end.
I was so deep into the story that I didn’t realize my mother had come into the apartment until she bent down and tugged on my ponytail.
“You’ve started the book?” she said, blowing me a kiss.
“I didn’t know she was TR’s niece,” I said. “And that her name was Eleanor Roosevelt—I mean, before she married Franklin—that’s the name she was born with. Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt. That’s weird, Mom.”
“Franklin was her cousin
. A distant cousin.”
“Even weirder, don’t you think?”
“It worked out just fine in the end, Dev.”
“You wouldn’t like it if I was Devlin Quick Quick, would you?”
“For entirely different reasons, dear,” my mother said. “You don’t really know all your distant relatives like I do.”
“Can we talk about that?”
“Someday.”
“That’s so parental,” I said. “‘Someday’ and ‘maybe’ are the two most common parental put-offs in the language.”
“How do you feel about pizza for dinner?”
“Excellent. Most excellent,” I said. “But you and Natasha like too many things on your pizza. Please get me some plain slices, will you?”
My mother and Lulu thought my picky eating was just a phase I would outgrow. But I didn’t like having things on my pizza like red peppers or veggies that cluttered up the cheese, and I really don’t like those wormlike creatures—anchovies—crawling around in my salad.
I kind of enjoyed this lazy week, more than I’d thought I would. I’d gone straight from the end of the semester to Ditchley’s summer school—with homework just like it was the real deal—and then right out to Montana without any kind of a break.
It was sweet to have dinners with my mom and Natasha, just sitting around the kitchen table, and Wednesday had been an especially fun night when we went out for thick juicy steaks with Sam. It wasn’t often that Mom could clear the decks of police emergencies and put together a string of family evenings.
On Thursday, Natasha roasted a chicken and made mashed potatoes—my favorite meal—and we waited till eight o’clock to eat, because my mother got called to a crime scene on the Lower East Side. She told us about the case—a home invasion—while I washed the dishes, and then we went into the living room to watch the ten o’clock local news.
“Are you going to be on TV?” I asked my mother.
“Not if I can help it, Dev,” she said, settling in on the sofa.
I stretched out on the other end and put my feet in her lap. “I love it when you look all serious and go ‘no comment’ to the newsmen.”
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