Howard Wallace, P.I.

by Casey Lyall

  I straightened the papers Meredith had dislodged and tapped my pen against them. “I have to ask, why come to me?”

  “I can’t investigate it by myself. People would get suspicious.” Meredith paced restlessly in front of the desk. “And I’m not going to give in.”

  “Why not go to Mr. Vannick?” I asked.

  “And risk getting kicked out for losing the checks in the first place?” Meredith shook her head. “No way. I worked too hard for this. I’m the first seventh-grade officer on the student council in twenty years. Besides, everyone knows this is what you do. Can you help me or not?”

  Sure I could. The question remained if I would. Solving a big bucks case like this was prime publicity, but swinging through the top branches of middle school society was not my favorite activity. I’d been there before and had the splinters to prove it.

  Man up, Howard, I told myself. A job’s a job as long as it pays well.

  “It’ll cost you,” I said.

  Meredith snorted. “I figured.” She reached into her bag and pulled out another white envelope, slightly plumper than the last one. She tossed it onto the desk in front of me. “Will that do?”

  I thumbed through the small wad of cash inside and nodded. Just enough to cover my pride. “It’s a start,” I said as I stuffed the money into the recesses of my coat. “Got your eye on any possible suspects?”

  “Bradley Chen,” she said immediately.

  I paused in the middle of jotting down the name. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “He ran against me for treasurer and lost. Since then he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that I’m going to ruin the student council.”

  Sounded like Bradley was riding shotgun on the Bitter Bus. That was as good a motive as any. “Do you think he broke into your locker and stole them?”

  “No,” Meredith said, and a flush began to creep up her neck. “I think it might have been a bit easier for him than that.”

  “How so?”

  “Bradley’s always hanging around before our meetings,” she said. “He’s best friends with the president, Lisa Grantley—who also hates me, by the way.” Meredith reached down to heft her bag onto the desk. “Bradley and I have almost identical bags and he ‘accidentally’ took mine when he left before the meeting started. I didn’t notice until after we finished and he was in the hall with Delia.”

  “Delia?” The players in this game were multiplying.

  “My best friend,” Meredith said. “She always waits for me, and we walk home from school together.”

  “Meredith?” A small voice called from around the side of the equipment shed, followed by a petite blonde.

  “That’s her.” She waved her friend over and then pointed back to me. “Howard’s going to take my case, Delia.”

  “Oh,” Delia said. “That’s . . . nice.” A ringing vote of confidence like that could go to my head.

  The shrill sound of the bell rang out across the yard, signaling the start of the day.

  “Could you meet me back here after school?” I asked. The sooner I solved this case, the better.

  Meredith shook her head. “Can’t. I have dance.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then,” I said. “I’ll want to ask both of you some more questions. In the meantime, write down your locker number and the student council one for me. I need to check for signs of tampering.”

  Meredith scribbled down the numbers and passed them over. A line of worry dug deep across her forehead. “Is that going to leave you enough time? Are you sure you’ll be able to solve it by Friday?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I highly doubt there’s some sort of criminal mastermind behind this.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Meredith said. “I can’t afford for you to screw up.”

  With a case involving a Grantley, our student government, and five thousand big ones, neither could I.

  Chapter Three

  Wandering into my classroom, I ignored the chatter, my head still full of blackmail and intrigue.

  “Howard Wallace!” The sharp voice cut through my musings like a whip. “I have called you three times.” Ms. Kowalski, alleged seventh-grade teacher. I’d asked to see her credentials on the first day, and she’d refused to produce them. Our record of successful communication since then was low.

  I approached the bench. “Yes, ma’am?”

  She waved a familiar yellow folder at me. “What is this?”

  I carefully considered the safest answer. “It would appear to be a yellow folder, ma’am.” Ms. Kowalski sighed with gusto. It may not have been a sigh so much as deep breathing exercises to prepare her for the lecture to come.

  “This, Howard, is your ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation’ report. Please notice I said ‘report’ and not ‘essay,’ as the assignment dictated.” She opened the file and began to read. “10 a.m. Subject entered break room and consumed one coffee and one strawberry jelly donut. 10:15 a.m. Subject returned to desk. 10:16 a.m. Subject began typing reports. 10:18 a.m. Subject attempted to distract investigator with trumped-up filing assignment.” She flipped the folder closed and tapped the cover with one red-painted talon. “This is a surveillance report, Howard. Eight hours of minute-by-minute activity of a day at work with your father.”

  “I tried to be as thorough as I could, ma’am.” It was probably the best report I’d done yet.

  “You spent the entire summer at work with your father?”

  “Not every day,” I said, already annoyed by the judgment in her eyes. “Once I started my P.I. biz, I spent the rest of the summer on cases, but those files are classified.”

  “Classified,” Ms. Kowalski muttered as she stared at the clock on the wall. I wasn’t the only one counting down to the end of the day.

  “Redo it as a proper essay, or you fail the assignment. I want you to give this note to your parents. They need to sign off on it.” She held out the note and the file to me. As I took hold, she drew them closer and pulled me in until I could feel the heat of her dragon’s breath on my face. Icy blue eyes lined by spiky black lashes drilled into mine. “A proper essay, Howard. I mean it.” The woman had no appreciation of investigative excellence.

  I strolled back to my seat and whipped out my notebook. The piercing voice of Lisa Grantley came over the speaker as she began reading the student news of the day. The fifteen minutes for attendance and morning announcements was prime time for reviewing case notes. I tuned Lisa out and turned my attention to more pressing matters.

  Next on my list was Hillary Jenkins. She’d hired me on Friday to investigate the anonymous gifts someone kept leaving in her locker.

  “Psst. Howard.”

  Flowers and candy, mostly. She said she hadn’t minded at first, but the most recent one, a chocolate heart, melted all over her English paper. All of her suspects had alibis, so I was hoping a simple surveillance job would do the trick.

  “Psssst. HOW-ard.”

  I shifted in my seat and turned my back to the whispers jabbing at me from across the aisle. Last on the roster was Scotty Harris; a sad-sack sixth grader who’d hired me to track down his lost (probably stolen) trumpet. If he didn’t have it for band this week, he’d have to pay for the instrument . . . not to mention being bumped down to the recorder section, apparently a fate worse than trumpet player.

  A pencil winged across my desk and landed on my notebook. I brushed it onto the floor and made a note to check out the local pawn shop on my way home.

  “PSSSST! HOW—”

  “What? What? WHAT?” I whirled around in my seat and came nose to nose with Ivy Mason: new girl, approximately fifty percent hair, fifty percent freckled nose (which she’d been poking into my business ever since she started classes last week). Leaning half out of her seat, almost across the aisle, she had a second pencil at the ready.

  “What ’cha up to?”

  “Nothing that concerns you,” I said and turned back to my notes.

  She leaned over even further, her chair now b
alancing precariously on one leg. “Is it detective stuff?” she asked. “Are you detecting right now? Can I see?”

  “No,” I said. “Beat it.” There was precious little time to work in the morning and I wasn’t going to waste it explaining the finer points of “detecting” to a newb with a passing fancy.

  I heard the creak of her chair and looked in time to see Ivy pitch forward into the aisle. Shooting out a hand, I caught her and pushed her back toward her desk. For a second, I thought she was going to go too far and fall the other way, but after a couple of wobbles, her chair settled back into place.

  “Eyes on your own paper,” I said. My chair scraped across the floor as I faced the front, and Ms. Kowalski’s laser-beam sight was on me in an instant.

  “Howard Wallace,” she said. “Kindly stop disrupting my class unless you wish to remain after school for detention.”

  Mumbling an apology, I cast a sideways glare at Ivy. She sat perfectly upright with an angelic expression plastered across her extremely nosy face. Unbelievable.

  The rest of the morning passed without incident, and by lunch I was itching to get to work on Hillary’s case. I had the perfect spot picked out for my surveillance—the girls’ bathroom directly across the hall from Hillary’s locker. It was always empty at lunchtime. The girls seemed to prefer to pile into the one beside the caf rather than trek all the way back here. After scouting the hallway to make sure the coast was clear, I pushed open the door and lurched to a halt. Ivy stood at the sink.

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked.

  “Using the GIRLS’ bathroom,” she said, making a show of washing her hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working.” I moved down the stalls, pushing in each door to check for other lurkers poised to ruin my stakeout.

  Ivy turned off the tap and shook her hands in the air, sprinkling the counter with water. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that.”

  “Now’s not a good time,” I said and passed her a paper towel. “If you have a case, come see me during office hours.”

  “It’s not about a case.” She wadded up her paper towel and shot it at the garbage can. After hitting the rim, it bounced onto the floor. I kicked it out of my path and walked over to the exit.

  “Then could you please leave?” I asked. “I need to use this door.”

  Ivy’s eyes lit up. “What for?”

  I did not have time for this. “None of your business, that’s what for.” I said. “If you’re not gonna leave, stay out of my way.” Squatting on the floor, I peered out the grate at the bottom of the door. Nope, not the right angle. I lay on my stomach and pressed my forehead against the metal. Perfect. A direct line of sight to Hillary’s locker. All I had to do was wait for the mysterious gift-giver to show up.

  A flutter of movement to the left caught my eye, and I turned to see Ivy depositing herself on to the floor beside me. “Scooch,” she said. “I can’t see.”

  “You don’t need to,” I said.

  She wriggled over on her stomach and pressed her face against the grate next to mine. Piles of curly brown hair blocked my view and tickled my nose. “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  Extracting myself from the mass of hair, I tugged on my coat until my pocket came into view. I pulled an apple out and shined it on my sleeve before taking a bite. “A lovesick locker bandit,” I said.

  “Awesome, I like that. It sounds like—ew, are you actually eating in here?”

  “Yeah, it’s lunchtime.”

  Ivy wrinkled her nose and looked around. “But, it’s the bathroom.” I followed her gaze, taking in the water-stained ceiling, faintly snot-colored walls, and cracked linoleum floor.

  “Meh.” I shrugged. “I’ve eaten in worse places.”

  Ivy’s stomach rumbled as she gave my apple a considering look. I took a large bite out of it and raised an eyebrow at her. “Delicious,” I said, managing to get the word out around a mouthful of fruit.

  She scowled and looked back through the grate. “So this locker bandit, you got any suspects?”

  “None that have panned out.” I pushed Ivy’s curls out of the way and craned my head, trying to see as far down the hall as I could. “I’m here to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.” I turned to look at my intruder. “Which would be a lot easier if I didn’t have an interfering lookie-loo horning in on the job.”

  Ivy laughed in my face. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here,” she said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re totally missing him. It’s that guy right there.” She pointed and I pressed back against the grate to see Alan Furst poking around in the locker above Hillary’s. He pulled up the bottom panel and dropped a small parcel down into my client’s locker. After carefully setting the panel back in place, he closed up his locker and walked away.

  “Alan,” I said. “He wasn’t even on Hillary’s list of possible suspects.”

  “Aw, poor Alan.”

  I scrambled up to my feet and pulled out my notebook to jot down this new development for Hillary’s report.

  Ivy stood up and stretched. “We make a pretty good team.”

  “Hm?” I put away my notebook and scrounged around in my pocket for a granola bar.

  “Like partners, really,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I was sure I’d stashed a bar somewhere. Oh, there. I peeled off the wrapper and took a big bite, then nearly choked when Ivy’s words hit me. “Wait, what? What’re you talking about?”

  “I want to be your partner!” Ivy blurted out.

  I shook my head. “Private investigation’s not a team sport,” I said. “I don’t want a partner—I don’t need one.”

  “Hey, I just solved a case for you, man,” she said, her finger pointing in furious little jabs at the door.

  “I would’ve solved it on my own if you hadn’t distracted me.”

  “A partner would be a big help to someone who gets so easily distracted.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “A for effort, kid, but trust me, you don’t want any part of this.”

  “I think I can make up my own mind, thanks,” Ivy said. “C’mon, hear me out.”

  The bell rang, and I tossed my lunch garbage into the can. I’d already learned the hard way that partnerships were made to be broken. A wide-eyed tagalong wasn’t going to change my mind about that.

  “I know you’re new, so you don’t get it,” I said. “I’m the last person you want to be friends with at this school. Now quit doggin’ me.”

  Ivy stood rooted in place, blocking the only exit. Shouldering my way past, I heard her shout as I stalked out the door:

  “Who said anything about friends?”

  Chapter Four

  I found Hillary at her locker after school and brought her up to speed on the case, handing over a healthy bill. She was surprised to hear Alan was the culprit but not overly upset. Maybe the guy had some hope yet. With that one off the books, it was time to move on to new business. I fished the paper from Meredith out of my pocket and double-checked the numbers. The student council locker was around the corner, and Meredith’s was down the hall from it.

  Locker number one was clean as a whistle, and I quickly moved on to number two. Meredith’s locker looked exactly like all the others lining the hall: slightly bumpy door covered in industrial gray paint. No scrapes or bends indicating someone had tried to force it open. The lock itself looked intact. No visible signs of tampering. Maybe Meredith’s bag swap theory was right. I was definitely scheduling a chat with Bradley for tomorrow.

  I poked through my pockets until I located my pack of Juicy. Empty. That called for a pit stop at the office before making my way downtown. I headed out the door and across the yard. Next on my list was the case of Scotty and his missing trumpet. I had a feeling that one would be—

  “What took you so long?”

  I looked up to see Ivy sitting in my chair with her feet on my desk. She sported
a wide smile, more proud of herself than any trespasser had the right to be. I stared her down until the grin faded, then shot a pointed look at the boots on my desk. She let out a low whistle and set her feet on the ground. “You’re a touchy one, aren’t you?” she murmured as she sidled past. The wad of gum in her mouth snapped noisily.

  She’d been into my Juicy Smash stash.

  I gestured to the guest bucket, and Ivy took a seat.

  “This is quite the place you have here,” she said. “Interesting style. What would you call it? Urban casual? Bucket chic?”

  “What do you want, Ivy?” I asked as I settled myself behind the desk. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “I already told you. I want to be your partner.”

  “And I already told you, I’m not interested.”

  “I don’t really think you’ve given the idea a fair chance.” Ivy settled onto the guest bucket, getting cozy for the long haul. The girl was not giving up. Persistence in other people was always suspicious.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to be my partner? We barely know each other.” I dug through my desk drawer and pulled out a new pack. Three pieces missing. Apparently she was pushy and greedy.

  “I know enough,” she said. That’s when I saw it. A little smirk, there and gone in a flash but around long enough to set my teeth on edge.

  “Right.” Arms crossed, I leaned back in my seat. “Who put you up to this?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I’d seen far too many “innocent” faces in my lifetime to fall for Ivy’s. “This is a poor excuse for a prank,” I said. “Was it Tim? Miles?”

  Ivy held up her hands. “Who? Howard, I—”

  “What’s the punch line? I take you on, we get a fake case, and you guys have a good laugh watching me run around trying to solve it?” I laughed once, short and bitter. “I don’t think so.”

  “No. Jeez, Howard.” She shook her head vehemently. “Paranoid much?”

  “Then why?” My chair thudded back down on the ground as I jolted forward. “Why are you so hot to be a P.I.? Why do you want to work with me?”