by Barrie Summy
“Like you should be giving me advice?” Leah’s voice drips with sarcasm. “What exactly are you doing to get over Josh?”
“I’m solving a mystery.”
There’s a long and awkward silence. I know Leah’s still at the table because the root beer smell is strong. I keep on eating my burger and fries. I said what I believed, and I don’t have anything to add.
“Sherry,” Leah says when I’m on my last delicious bite, “thank you for being so honest.”
I slurp the last drop of my soda.
“You’re absolutely right. I need to look around, get outside myself, get involved in other stuff. I need to stop dwelling on Michael.”
My mouth full, I give her a thumbs-up. I do love it when people listen to my wisdom.
“So, I’m on board. You have a crime-fighting partner. Me.”
Ack. Eek. Ike.
chapter
seventeen
The next morning, Junie, my dad and I eat breakfast across the street. I manage to sneak out of the hotel without bumping into Leah. I’m not up for a ghost shadow.
“I’m so hungry,” my dad says, “I could murder this bowl of cornflakes. Does that make me a cereal killer?” He slaps his knee and busts up.
It’s going to be a long day. I yawn.
“Sherry, come on. At least crack a smile,” my dad says. “My delivery was perfect.”
“Was the Comedy Club good?” I halfheartedly spread grape jelly on toast. I’m still pretty full from the burger and fries I chowed down only a few hours ago.
“Amazing.” Dad dumps a packet of sugar in his coffee. “I’m thinking I should try a routine at open-mic night at the Comedy Spot in Scottsdale when we get back home.”
Junie looks at me.
“Will you be using a fake name?” I take a mini bite.
He laughs. “You are a chip off the old block, Sherry. Quick with the witty comebacks.” He pours in so much half-and-half that his coffee turns a light, light tan.
After breakfast and many bad bacon-and-egg jokes, Dad heads off to his business meeting. Junie and I take a taxi to 863 Mollison Avenue, apartment G, home of Cameron Williams. Ex-con.
“You girls live here?” the taxi driver asks.
“Uh, no,” I say, handing him money. “We’re, uh, visiting people.”
“This isn’t a nice neighborhood.” He counts back our change.
No kidding. An ex-con lives here.
“Stay together. And walk out to the main road to find a taxi,” the driver adds.
Junie watches him drive off and gives a little shiver. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
We start across the potholed parking lot and up the cracked walkway to the two-story apartment complex. I hop over a flower struggling to grow through one of the cracks. Trash litters the dirt on both sides of the walkway.
A boy roughly Sam’s age whizzes out from the gap between two buildings. He’s going about a hundred miles per hour on a bright and shiny skateboard. The skateboard comes to a dead halt when it hits the dirt. The boy flies off and lands next to an empty In-N-Out Burger cup lying on its side.
Junie and I rush over. “Are you okay?” Junie asks.
He jumps up. “Of course. I’m tough. Like a superhero. A skateboarding superhero.”
“Do you know where apartment G is?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He flips his skateboard right-side up.
“Do you know the guy who lives there?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“What’s he like?” I say.
“He’s a really good skateboarder.”
“What else?”
“That’s all. I can’t think of anything else.”
“How about tacos? Does he like tacos?”
“No.” The boy spits in the dirt. “He’s so sick of tacos.”
“Very odd,” I say to Junie. “I’m questioning Detective Garcia’s skills more and more.”
“Where’s apartment G?” Junie asks.
“Follow me.” The kid hops on his board and disappears down the alley between the buildings.
By the time we get there, he’s nowhere in sight. We walk along, looking for letters on the unit doors. Some have letters; some have shadows where the letter fell off and the paint underneath is less faded. Most of the wooden doors are open, which means we have to go up close and peer for a letter through the screen door. Sounds from inside the apartments carry out to us: commercial jingles on TV, dishes clattering, voices.
We round another corner. And there’s the boy, standing on a stoop, arms crossed. The skateboard is propped up against his bare leg.
“We thought we’d lost you forever,” I say.
He stretches out an arm. “Welcome to apartment G. Pleased to meet you.”
I slap my palm against my forehead. I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming. It’s so eight-year-old boy.
“But you’re not Cameron Williams,” Junie says.
“Oh.” His face falls. “You’re looking for my uncle.”
“And you,” I say. “What’s your name anyway?”
“I can’t tell you.” He frowns at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re a stranger.” He picks up his skateboard, opens the screen door and shouts, “Uncle Cam! Some weird girls are here to see you!”
A man in a faded T-shirt and ripped jeans shuffles to the doorway. He’s balancing a drooling baby dressed in pink on his hip. Even with huge circles under his eyes, he’s easily recognizable as Detective Garcia’s ex-con suspect, Cameron Williams.
“Can I help you?” The baby squawks and he shifts her to his other hip.
“Hi, I’m—” I pause and count to three before spouting off the name of a burglary victim, “Melanie Grace.” I watch Williams closely for a reaction, but he looks blank. “And this is my friend …”
“Jocelyn Dixon.” Junie pronounces each syllable slowly and distinctly.
“Are your names supposed to mean something to me?” he asks. “Because they don’t.”
The boy is sitting on his skateboard, riding up and down a neighbor’s stoop. Each time he bounces down, he squeals.
“Stop, Alexander,” Williams says. He turns to us. “And why are you here?”
I smile wide and phony. “We’re volunteers with the American Blue Cross.”
Junie’s trying to copy my wide and phony smile, but she ends up looking more like a chimp.
“Blue Cross?” Williams frowns. “You mean Red Cross?”
“We’re like the Red Cross”—I smile ever wider, to the point of pain—“but we volunteer less often and do fewer good deeds. You know, like once in a blue moon. That’s probably why you haven’t heard of us.”
Junie launches into an explanation of a blue moon. She literally can’t help herself in these situations. It’s like she’s overflowing with trivia, and it just leaks out her mouth. Especially when she’s nervous.
The baby starts kicking her legs and screeching.
Poor Junie is forced to stop with the blue moon facts. She manages to squeeze in, “We can expect about fifteen blue moons over the next twenty years.”
“Does that mean I can expect to see you girls volunteering fifteen times over the next twenty years?” Williams smiles.
“Uh, no,” Junie says. “Those facts are independent of volunteering.” Apparently, she left her sense of humor in Phoenix.
I laugh loud enough for two people.
Alexander is back to thumping his skateboard on the stoop. That kid’s nonstop energy. Worse than Sam.
“Alexander, come inside for cartoons.” Williams rubs his eyes.
When the boy ignores him, Williams adds, “You can have a sucker.”
At the sound of that sweet news, Alexander stands and tucks his skateboard under his arm.
Williams pulls a rag from his jeans front pocket and swipes at the baby’s drool. He opens the door. “Come on, Alexander. We’re all going in.”
Ack. We haven’t even started our questioning.
&nbs
p; “Do you realize the fire department considers this complex a high-risk area for fires?” I babble.
One foot ready to cross the threshold, Williams turns back and looks at me. “Really?”
“Seriously, like one of the worst. Everything here could blaze to ashes”—I snap my fingers—“like that.”
Alexander drops his skateboard to the pavement and jumps on it.
“That’s why the, uh, American Blue Cross sent us to talk to you about fire prevention,” Junie says.
“If you’re looking for donations, you’re in the wrong neighborhood.” The baby pulls on Williams’s hair. “Most people will be tapped out until the beginning of the month.”
“No, no,” Junie says. “We don’t want money.”
The baby starts screaming. I tickle her tummy. She goes completely still and gives my gold hoop earrings a long, appreciative stare. A girl is never too young to enjoy decent bling. She reaches out her chubby arms for me.
“Can I hold her?” I say. “I’m good with babies.”
“Sure.” Williams looks relieved at the break. He passes me the baby, then the burp rag. He shakes out his arms like he’s been hanging on to her for hours.
Junie’s face scrunches up at the sight of the rag. She takes a step away from me and the baby. She will never be a popular babysitter.
Our best bet for keeping Williams out here and getting him talking is if he doesn’t have to focus on the kids.
“Hey, Alexander.” I raise my voice. “I have a brother your age. Eight, right?”
Alexander makes a face like I just force-fed him broccoli. “I’m nine! My birthday was yesterday. And my party was at Dave and Buster’s, right, Uncle Cam?”
Williams nods. “That was quite a party, wasn’t it, buddy?”
“Uncle Cam won over a hundred tickets. I bet you can’t do that.”
Williams was at Dave and Buster’s yesterday? When? For how long? It takes a while to win a hundred tickets. I make a talking gesture with my hand at Junie. As in, now’s the moment to trot out your precious fire-prevention trivia.
She looks blank, then straightens her shoulders. “So, when was the last time you changed the batteries in your smoke detectors?”
“You must have printed material, right?” Williams says. “Why don’t you give me that and I’ll read it in my spare time.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, all exaggerated sad. “We already gave away every last flyer. But Jocelyn has the information totally memorized.”
Holding the baby close, I walk over to Alexander.
“I absolutely could win over a hundred tickets. I rock at games,” I say. “I’ve had a birthday party at Dave and Buster’s too.”
“We stayed a really long time. Even though it was expensive. I bet your party didn’t go that long.”
“Probably not.” I sit down next to him and bounce the baby on my knees. “Who went?”
He reels off a bunch of names, ending with his mom and his Uncle Cam.
The baby twists and turns in my arms, trying to get down. I sit her next to me and let her play with the zipper on my purse.
“Was your Uncle Cam there the whole time?”
“Yeah, just my mom had to leave. She’s a waitress at Sloan’s.” Alexander flips over his skateboard and starts spinning the wheels with the palm of his hand. “And she can’t miss any more days or her boss will fire her.”
“Bummer.”
“Not really. Uncle Cam let us stay until closing. Which is one o’clock in the morning.” His eyes flash with excitement. “My mom never would’ve done that. Plus he gave me this skateboard.”
“Very cool. Does your uncle work at Sloan’s with your mom?” I ask, just to check Alexander’s reliability.
He shakes his head. “Taco Magnifico. The worst job, because he brings home tons of free tacos for us.” He fakes throwing up. “I’m sick of them.”
“Who babysits you?” I ask. “They could feed you mac and cheese or hot dogs, right?”
Alexander shakes his head. “No babysitter. Uncle Cam watches us during the day. My mom’s home at night.”
I don’t think Cameron Williams has time to get involved with the wrong side of the law. What with looking after his nephew and niece during the day and working the graveyard shift at Taco Magnifico.
Williams would probably fall asleep in the middle of a heist. Also, he definitely has an alibi for last night, when Dear Elle’s purse was stolen. He was bringing home extra tacos to feed the family. So they’re obviously hard up for cash. Am I one hundred percent sure Cameron Williams is aboveboard? No. But I’m sure enough.
I tap the top of Alexander’s head. “Why aren’t you wearing a helmet?” Once a big sister, always a big sister.
I walk over to Junie and Williams. I hand him back the baby. “You should cut way back on Alexander’s sugar intake. As in, don’t give him candy. I’m speaking from personal experience.”
I yank on Junie’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“I was just getting into carbon monoxide,” she grumbles as I wave goodbye.
chapter
eighteen
It’s after lunch. Junie and I are standing in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. To the left of us is Madame Tussauds.
“In about fifty years, they’re going to run out of concrete blocks for hand- and footprints,” Junie says.
I’m sniffing the air, trying to catch the scent of coffee. “I am so excited. My mom and I have talked about this place for years. And now we’re finally here. And together. Well, in an überweird sort of way.”
“You’re not going to mention the mystery, right?”
Ack. “Absolutely not. My mother would make me promise to stop working on it. She’d make me follow Mrs. Howard’s rules because she doesn’t realize how lame Detective Garcia is. And how I’ll never get off probation if I’m counting on that detective.”
“Text me when you’re going back to the hotel,” Junie says.
“You’re sure you don’t want to hang with us?” I uncap my lip gloss for a quick touch-up.
“You two need some mother-daughter time.” Junie pulls out a pen and notebook from her backpack. “I’m collecting info from the wax museum for an article.” She takes off.
I stare at the tall theater. It’s like a Chinese pagoda, with two red columns, wrought iron masks and a dragon above the doors. People laughing and joking in a bunch of different languages jostle past me. They pose and take pictures. We’re all happy to be in Hollywood, thrilled to check out how our hands and feet match up to those of the celebrities.
The strong smell of coffee wafts toward me. I want to break out in a tap dance of joy.
Hollywood! Movie stars! Me! My mother!
“Hi, Sherry,” Mom says. “Where’s Junie?”
“Madame Tussauds.” I scrounge around in my purse for my phone, then clamp it to my ear so I don’t look like a whacked-out crazy person carrying on a conversation with herself. I really need to save up for a Bluetooth. “Junie’s doing this in-depth article for the school paper about making the wax figures.” I shake my head. “I’m not sure she really has her finger on the pulse of middle-school students.”
“Oh, I’d give her some credit. She’s a pretty smart cookie,” Mom says. “Something I’d like the three of us to do is a tour of the stars’ homes. Junie could write about that for the paper.”
“Sounds great,” I say.
Mom brushes my hair behind my ears. “Sherry, how are you doing? Mrs. Howard was pretty harsh at our meeting by the pool.”
“She was hateful.” I’m scrounging in my purse again, this time for gum.
“She takes her job very seriously. And she’s not used to dealing with teens,” Mom says. “You’re following her rules, right? I want you off probation. I probably have one more assignment with the foreign Academy, then we could be working together again.”
This is tricky. I don’t want to lie, but I can’t exactly tell the truth. “We gave the photos from the Holly
wood Girl evening to Detective Garcia. Junie actually uploaded them onto the detective’s computer.” I pop a strip of gum in my mouth. “And I’m being really cautious in everything I do.”
“Great. I know it’s only a matter of time until the detective clears up the case. Then this whole mess will blow over, and we’ll be back to business as usual.”
I chomp hard on my gum, chewing words about the detective’s abilities into my molars. “How’d it go at the Hollywood sign with Peg Entwistle?” We’re walking along the uneven stones of the theater’s forecourt, dodging the other tourists.
“Very interesting.” My mom’s voice speeds up with excitement. “Peg is sure Marilyn Monroe’s ghost will make an appearance in the mirror at the Roosevelt’s Marilyn Monroe look-alike party on August fifth. It’s also the anniversary of her death. There’s bound to be lots of people there. And Marilyn always loved a crowd.”
“In the meantime, she’s just wandering around L.A. by herself ?” I say. “She must be lonely.”
“If she’s by herself,” Mom says matter-of-factly. “Marilyn had men falling all over her when she was alive.”
I balance in Hugh Jackman’s footprints.
“I would love to talk with her,” Mom says. “Imagine solving the mystery of Marilyn Monroe’s death, the mystery of the century.”
“Well, if anyone can ask her the right questions and get her to answer them, it’s you, Mom.” My mother was a fantastic detective with the Phoenix Police Department. She caught tons of criminals.
So strange that we’re both intent on solving mysteries this trip. Mysteries to do with famous people. But different mysteries and different famous people.
We’re by the front doors of the theater. The theater that hosts the premiere of many movies. I tingle all over.
“Look! Look! Look!” Mom’s squealing with excitement. “Marilyn’s stone!”
“We gotta see how I measure up to her,” I say.
We wait while people snap pictures of their feet and Marilyn’s feet. Of their hands and Marilyn’s hands.
Finally, it’s my turn. I crouch down. “Wow. Mom, my hands are almost as big as hers. And I’m still growing.”