I inched my way across the yard between our houses. The basement light was on, so I knew Darcy was down there, probably watching TV. Her finished basement was our hangout, and had been the headquarters of Partners in Crime. I went up to the basement door and stared at it. I usually just walked right in. But now … I felt like I should knock.
I lifted my hand, and right when I was about to beat on the wood, the door whipped open. I pulled my hand down quickly and thankfully avoided knocking on Darcy’s face. That wouldn’t be a great way to start this already awkward conversation.
“I saw you through the window, walking across the yard,” Darcy explained. Of course she did — it was just like detective Darcy to always be on guard.
I swallowed hard. It felt like there was an apple in my throat.
In a clipped tone, Darcy added, “So what do you want?”
Make that a grapefruit.
“I … I … was hoping we could talk,” I managed to say.
Darcy’s face softened a bit. “Come on in.”
I followed her into the finished area where she had a couch, a couple of beanbag chairs, a giant TV, and a Ping-Pong table. It was kind of chilly down here, but I was sweating. I sat on one end of the couch and Darcy sat on the other.
I took a deep breath. “Partners in Crime needs to solve one last case.”
Darcy’s expectant face dropped a bit, like she’d been hoping I was here to say something else. “Why should we?” she asked.
“Because this time, it’s personal.”
Darcy’s eyes widened to the size of golf balls while I told her about the threatening e-mail Zane received, perhaps not coincidentally sent the morning the field house caught fire. And how the wallet he lost sometime last week had ended up at the crime scene. And, despite Zane’s pleading that he was framed, Principal Plati didn’t believe him because he had said that terrible, dumb thing the week before.
I wrapped up with, “So he’s suspended now and the police are going to investigate. He could be in real trouble for this fire, Darcy.”
“Not just the fire, but Mr. Gray was almost killed!” Darcy shook her head in disbelief. “That would be attempted manslaughter, I think. Zane could end up in juvie for years.”
I rubbed my forehead. I didn’t doubt Darcy for a second. Her obsession with crime shows made her an expert at this stuff.
“We have to find a way to save him,” I said. “I know we’re not …” I swallowed nervously. “Us right now. But I’m hoping we can temporarily put that aside to focus on this case.”
Darcy agreed with a slow nod. “Do you still have the anonymous e-mail?”
“Yes. Zane forwarded it to me.”
She handed me her laptop. “Okay, log in and bring it up. Then I’ll see what my software can figure out.”
It felt both strange and not-strange to be here with Darcy, getting to work on a case. Things were still tense between us, but it was a relief to just be talking again. I opened her laptop. A Word document was already up on the screen. It looked like she had started a new case file.
“What’s this?” I asked, but I’d already started reading. The Prom Killer? “Wait, is this what Hunter and Slade were talking about in the lobby yesterday?”
“Yeah,” Darcy said. She reached over me to save the file and close it.
“What is that all about anyway?” I asked. I had to admit, I’d been a little intrigued when I overheard Hunter and Slade talking about it. No wonder Darcy had decided to look into it.
“It’s one of those things where, if you ask five different people, you’ll get five different answers,” she said. “But the main legend is that a long time ago, somewhere around here, someone killed everyone at prom.”
An involuntary shiver ran through my body.
Darcy continued, “After I heard those bozos talking about it, I decided to ask around. It might not be made up at all.”
“It really happened?” I asked skeptically.
“Sometimes true crimes are the basis for urban legends and ghost stories,” Darcy explained. “But the information — especially when it’s old — gets passed on from person to person and the facts sort of disappear and become myth.”
“How did the people at the prom supposedly die?” I asked.
Darcy looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “In a fire.”
My blood ran cold. But that couldn’t be true. If two hundred kids died in the same night, we would hear more about it than whispered stories.
“That’s the legend, anyway,” Darcy said. “But I’m looking for the truth underneath it. The real crime.”
I laughed nervously. “Maybe the arsonist came back and burned down the field house.”
Darcy snickered. “Or the ghosts of the Prom Killer’s victims did it!”
Even though whatever happened was long ago, I was starting to get freaked out. “Let me log into my e-mail,” I said, leading us back to Zane’s case. I double-clicked on the anonymous message and passed the laptop back to Darcy.
She looked at it and nodded. “I’ll get to work.”
I was nervous, so I busied myself by flipping channels, but nothing good was on. I pressed LIST to see if Darcy had anything interesting on her DVR, but it was only repeats of Crime Scene: New York. I’d complain, but my DVR at home was full of old episodes of The Universe. We all have our obsessions.
Finally, after several minutes, Darcy shut her laptop and leaned back against the couch cushions, a triumphant look on her face. “The address is fake,” she said. “It’s one of those free services. So anyone could have created it just to send the e-mail.”
I had pretty much known that already. Though I sensed a “but” coming.
“But …” Darcy continued, “using the IP address, I was able to track the ISP and the user’s location.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Translation?”
With a devilish spark in her eyes, she explained, “I don’t know who sent it. But I know where they sent it from.”
My heart started racing. “And?”
“The e-mail was sent from our school.”
After a shocked pause, I said, “Someone set the fire, dropped Zane’s wallet, then went inside and e-mailed him from the computer lab?”
Darcy nodded. “That is messed up.”
My chest felt tight. “We have to figure out who it is. But I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Let’s start where we always do.” Darcy reached into her backpack and pulled out the black notebook we used for Partners in Crime cases.
I was surprised she hadn’t just tossed it in the trash, with how easily she’d suggested closing the agency. The fact that she’d held on to it gave me a little hope.
Darcy opened the notebook to a new page and pulled out a pen. “Suspects.”
We sat silently, thinking for a few minutes, and came up empty-handed.
“I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like Zane,” I said. “He’s just so … nice! He doesn’t have any enemies.”
Darcy tapped the pen on her chin. “But just because he’s nice doesn’t mean everyone else is. Someone out there is clearly angry at him.”
“But what could they be mad at Zane for?” I threw my hands in the air in frustration.
Darcy stopped playing with the pen and stiffened.
“What?” I said, shifting in my seat. “You just thought of something.”
“Not something,” she said, meeting my gaze. “Someone.”
I grabbed her arm. “You have a theory.”
Darcy nodded. “Get to school early tomorrow morning. It’s interrogation time.”
Things with Darcy weren’t exactly back to normal. We hadn’t made up. But we were at least working together on this one last case. I was glad she could put her feelings aside to help me. Zane didn’t deserve what was happening to him.
As planned, I arrived at school early Wednesday morning. Darcy was already there, staring at a plaque on the wall by the gym.
I appr
oached her. “So what’s the plan?”
She started slightly, like she’d been deep in thought. “Oh. Hi. Um, they usually hang out at Hunter’s locker in the morning until the bell rings for homeroom. We’ll be waiting there today, and we’ll ambush them.”
Them, meaning Hunter and Slade. They were our top suspects as of our meeting last night, and the only people we could think of who might be holding a grudge against Zane. We’d most recently solved a case, and it had ended up involving Hunter, Slade, and Slade’s older brothers. I thought we had ended things on a good note, but maybe the boys were looking for vengeance.
My eyes went to the plaque Darcy had been so entranced by. “What were you looking at?” I asked.
She ran her fingers over the letters. “Did you ever notice that this says the school gym was built in 1948?” Darcy said.
I’d walked by the plaque a million times but had to admit, I’d never stopped to read it. “Not before now. Why does it matter?”
“It’s interesting because our school was built in 1938…” Darcy said, trailing off to let me fill in the blank.
“They wouldn’t have gone without a gym from 1938 to 1948,” I said. “The gym must have been … rebuilt.”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps after a fire?”
Of course — The Prom Killer! “But wait,” I said. “Why would the high school hold their prom at a middle school?”
Darcy grinned. It felt good to see her smile at me again, even if she was clearly just excited about the case. “Good catch. But this didn’t become the middle school until the town grew and they needed a bigger high school. In 1948, our school was the high school.”
That was right! I remembered seeing photos and trophies in the big glass case in the lobby, back from when our school was a high school. An idea came to me. “How much time do we have?”
Darcy glanced down at her watch. “They should be getting here any minute. Why?”
“I want to make a quick detour.”
I hoped it was still there. I led Darcy down the main hall and toward the giant glass case. It took up almost the entire wall and was full of trophies and plaques from years past. One of the more eye-catching displays was a giant poster with small photos showing each year’s prom king and queen. I remembered Fiona once laughing at some of the styles of decades past.
I put my hands up to the glass. “It’s still here.”
“What?” Darcy said, but then she noticed it.
The most recent prom king and queen photo was from 1964. That was the last prom held here before they built the high school. The prom queen wore a frilly, long dress and white gloves and the king had a skinny black tie. In the ’50s the prom kings had white tuxes, and the girls wore dresses I’d only seen in those black-and-white movies on TV, with big puffy skirts and ribbons around their waists.
My eyes searched backward each year: 1951, 1950, 1949, 1947… I stopped.
Darcy must have seen it at the same time. “Nineteen forty-eight isn’t there,” she said.
“They had no prom king and queen in 1948.” I looked at Darcy. “The Prom Killer story might be real.”
The sound of kids’ footsteps dragged us out of our trance, and we remembered why we’d come to school early in the first place.
“We have to get to Hunter’s locker for the ambush!” Darcy said, and broke into a jog. I followed, thoughts of the Prom Killer swirling through my head, and we were at his locker only a minute later.
Darcy straightened. “Here they come.”
I wrung my hands nervously. I was all for getting answers, but I wasn’t good at the confrontational stuff.
“Hey, jerks, come here!” Darcy called.
She didn’t have much of a problem with confrontation.
Slade rolled his eyes, and he and Hunter sauntered over. They were both equally tall and broad-shouldered, the biggest kids in our grade, but you could always tell who was who from a distance because of their hair. Slade had a buzz cut. Hunter had a big mop of black hair that hung down so far it almost covered his eyes.
“What?” Slade snapped.
Darcy stepped forward. “We need to talk to you.”
Hunter looked at Darcy with a confused expression. Maybe even a little hurt. “I thought we had a truce.”
“Funny,” Darcy said. “So did we.”
I cleared my throat. It was easier for me to explain why we were there rather than get up in their faces like Darcy was. “Zane has been framed for the field house fire. Someone dropped his wallet at the scene and e-mailed him, telling him he’d be blamed. He’s been suspended. The police are getting involved and everything.”
“And so,” Darcy cut in. “The only people we could think of who might want to do something like this to Zane would be …”
Slade tilted his head, trying to figure things out.
But Hunter cried, “Us? You think we set the fire in the field house and framed Zane?”
Darcy crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what we’re asking.”
Slade shook his head. “It wasn’t us.”
“No way,” Hunter insisted. He roughly shook the hair out of his eyes. “Maya can vouch for me. I walked to school at the same time she did Monday morning. The field house was already on fire when we got there.”
I was surprised by how angry he looked. He seemed almost as mad as I was.
Hunter took a few deep breaths and his face reddened. “Look,” he said. “I used to think Zane was nothing but a goody-goody teacher’s pet.”
“Don’t hold back,” Darcy quipped.
“But I’ve gotten to like the kid,” Hunter continued. “Slade and I don’t want revenge. We’re thankful he — and you — helped us.”
“What about … the others?” I asked, meaning — for the most part — Slade’s nasty older brothers.
Slade’s mouth turned down. “No. They’re not out for vengeance either. They’re scared of you guys.”
My eyebrows rose. “Us?”
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “After you found out their secret with your last case, they just want to lie low for a while. It’s not them.”
Which made sense, but left us … without a suspect.
By lunchtime, tons of people were whispering about Zane’s suspension. He’d told a few of his friends, we’d told Hunter and Slade, and the news grew from there. I imagined Zane at home, all alone in his room, looking depressed and hopeless. My heart ached.
I’d tried to call him the night before, but his mom answered and said he wasn’t allowed to come to the phone. Not only was he suspended, he was majorly grounded. No phone, no e-mail, no nothing. And I felt useless because I had no idea what to do next.
I brought my tray over to our usual table and sat down with a sigh. It was pasta day, my favorite, but I just pushed the spaghetti around with my fork. I wasn’t hungry.
Darcy slumped down beside me and tore open her brown bag. “This stinks,” she muttered. “I’ve been running over everything in my head. We need a clue. But we have nothing.”
I grumbled in agreement. I should’ve at least been happy that Darcy was sitting with me, like old times, but I reminded myself that things weren’t back to normal. We were only sitting together for the sake of the case.
Mrs. Wixted, our school librarian, came over to the table with a bright smile. “Hey, girls.”
“Hi, Mrs. Wixted,” I answered gloomily. “Are you a lunch monitor today?”
“No, I’m actually here for Darcy.”
Darcy looked up from her sandwich.
Mrs. Wixted said, “I found out the answer to that question you asked me yesterday about the Danville newspaper. The town public library has it on microfilm. So you’ll be able to find old copies there.”
“Thanks,” Darcy said and took a bite.
Mrs. Wixted scrunched up her forehead, probably wondering why we were both so miserable today. Then she shrugged and walked off.
“What’s a microfilm?” I asked.
“It’s a machine,” Darcy said around a mouthful of turkey on wheat. She finished chewing, then added, “Some really old newspapers aren’t online, so they have scans of them. Like little photo negatives. And you put it in the microfilm machine, which blows it up big like a projector, and then you can read it.”
Still confused, I asked, “Why do you want to read old Danville newspapers?”
“Research for the Prom Killer,” she answered. She gazed down at her sandwich. “I don’t have to work on that case, though. Not now that Zane’s in so much trouble.”
Strangely, I kind of wanted to work on the old case, too. I was intrigued. And I could tell that Darcy was getting totally obsessed. We could work on both mysteries. Plus, if she was making a semi-truce with me to help Zane, I could do the same for her and help with the Prom Killer case. And maybe, as we spent more time together, we’d find a way back to being friends.
“No, let’s do it,” I said. “We can head to the library after school. Who knows, maybe researching that old case will give us an idea for how to help Zane.”
Maya laid her tray down across the table from me. “Gosh,” she said. “I was last in line for the hot lunch and now I’ll barely have enough time to finish it.”
It looked like Maya hadn’t heard about the latest development. She gazed at Darcy, then at me, and asked, “What?”
Darcy asked, “Monday morning, did you see Hunter walking to school?”
Maya thought for a moment as she unfolded her napkin. “Yeah. That was the morning of the fire. He was walking in front of me, I think. And then we got to the school and saw the flames.”
“Did you see Slade?” I asked.
She chewed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “Yeah, he got there right after us. Then you came and I waved you over.”
So it was true. Hunter and Slade were innocent. Darcy and I shared a look.
It stunk that we had no leads, but at the same time I was glad Hunter and Slade weren’t guilty. Maybe there was hope for them yet.
“I figured it wasn’t Hunter,” Darcy said. “He’s … not so bad.”
Framed & Dangerous (9780545443128) Page 4