We followed Kerry out of her office and down the hall to the lab area. She walked us to her workbench and placed the old coin on a clean surface after wiping the area down.
She had a camera with a zoom lens and took several photographs of the front and back of the doubloon.
Then she sat down, picked up a sharp instrument, and carved a small slice of the hard polish from the surface of the coin. She lifted it up with a pair of tweezers and put it in a tiny manila envelope.
From her desk drawer, Kerry removed several cotton swabs with long wooden handles. She rubbed a swab against the bare surface of the coin, and put it aside. She repeated that step several times.
“Okay, team,” Kerry said, “now I’ve got to get to work to see if there’s a profile.”
She picked up the coin, slipped it into one of the manila envelopes—giving it a clean new home—returned it to me, and told us she would give us a call when she had something to tell us. Probably Monday.
“Thanks a million for doing this,” I said.
Kerry walked us to the elevator. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that I have to split the reward the lucky owner of the coin gives you with Officer Hadley,” she said, tugging on the strap of my bag.
“It better be worth a lot,” Booker said, “because we’re running up a big list of people who’ve helped us.”
I pressed the button and we both thanked Kerry for her lessons—in science and crime-fighting.
“Don’t you do anything wrong till I see you again,” Kerry said.
“Wrong?” I was puzzled. Was she talking about me not telling my mother? “Me?”
“Just joking with you, Dev,” Kerry said, pointing a finger at me and laughing as the doors started to close in our faces. “You’re in our DNA databank.”
I stuck my foot between the door panels and forced them open again. “What? What did you just say?”
“No big deal,” Kerry said.
“Not to you maybe,” I said. “But do you mean that I’m in that computer system along with every bad guy in America?”
“She’s just kidding,” Booker said.
“I’m not, actually,” Kerry said. “But I sure didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Then, then what?” I asked.
“Dev, your mom has the toughest job in this city. When the mayor appointed her to be the police commissioner, we had to take her DNA and yours, in case . . . well, in case you ever got lost or anything.”
My hand was shaking so badly I could hardly hold the door back. Booker grabbed it from me and pressed his arm against it.
“But I never gave you a sample. I never—”
“Your mom did,” Kerry said. “She gave us the wooden stick from a Popsicle you’d been eating, okay? No big deal. I did it myself. I took your DNA off the wooden stick that you’d licked, created a profile, and entered it in the databank so we’d always know how to find you.”
“They just did it to protect you,” Booker said to me. “It’s a good thing.”
Booker thanked Kerry again, let the doors close, and pressed the button for the lobby.
“I’m twelve years old,” I said to my best friend. “No one worries that I’m going to get lost.”
“You were younger when they did it. I’m sure they must have thought of everything, like you getting lost,” Booker said. “Why are you so upset?”
“Because the thing they must have been most worried about—my mom and the mayor and all the top guys in the department—was that I might be kidnapped because of my mom’s job,” I said. “That’s why they wanted to have a record of my DNA on file.”
I turned to look Booker in the eye. “I didn’t ever realize that until just now, and it’s a pretty scary thought.”
26
“Favor?” I texted to Sam.
“Anything for you, kid.”
“Tell Mom that Booker and I went to see Kerry at the DNA lab. Thx.”
“Smart girl. Let me tell her instead of you. Where now?”
“Going home.”
“Go straight there. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.”
I laughed at his Monopoly joke.
“What do you want to do now?” Booker asked as we rode the subway uptown.
“I just promised Sam that I’d go home,” I said. “I might as well start writing my paper about the experiment. I’ll have the fish scale results next Friday.”
“I can’t believe school starts again in two weeks,” Booker said. “Summer went way too fast. You want to hit some balls with me tomorrow?”
“Sure.” “We should do it late morning, before it gets too hot.”
“Good idea.”
“Meet you at the tennis courts in the park.”
“Perfect.”
We both got off the train at Eighty-Sixth Street and said good-bye. I started walking east and then I heard footsteps running up behind me.
“Just me,” Booker said. “I realize you’ve got the doubloon in your bag, and we don’t even know how many thousands of dollars it’s worth yet. I figure I’d better get you home.”
“No reason to worry,” I said. “If I disappear, just tell them to look in the databank.”
“Lighten up, Dev. If anything happens, there’ll be more people looking for the gold coin than there will be for you.”
“Of course you’re my best friend,” I said. “Who else would think that way?”
I waited for the light to change to green and started to jog across the street and south toward my apartment. “See you tomorrow,” I shouted back to Booker.
I unlocked the door and let myself in. Asta was delighted to see me.
“C’mon, buddy,” I said to him, scratching his wiry-haired head behind both ears, which he loved. “You can help me write my report.”
I sat in front of my computer and stared at the blank screen.
I picked up my phone and texted Sam. “Home. Cross-examining Asta for practice. Very tough witness. See you guys in a bit.”
Sam answered a few minutes later. “That dog knows more than he’s saying. Don’t quit.”
Sam could always make me smile. I got to work, trying to organize my thoughts and see whether there was a logical way to tell the story of my experiment without getting into the events that started when Zee pulled up the pail with the gold coin.
I drifted between my outline for the paper and watching the YouTube video of my mother, leading the hostage team this morning in her TALK-TO-ME jacket, shouting orders through her enormous bullhorn. Sometimes, she could just be fierce.
I was on the phone with my friend Katie Cion when my mother came home—five o’clock—earlier than usual.
I heard the front door open and went running to greet her. She had walked from the elevator in her bare feet, holding her heels in her hand.
“Bad way to go to a hostage situation,” she said to me, lifting the shoes over her head. “Always bring along a pair of flats in your briefcase, which I forgot to do today.”
My mother liked to give me practical life rules, especially tips for women in the workplace. I could have written a book already if I’d kept track of them all.
Sam was right behind her. In addition to her briefcase, she must have a lot of homework to do, because he was carrying a load of police reports.
“Mom, I took Booker to meet Kerry O today,” I said. “I told Sam to tell you.”
“It’s okay, darling,” she said. “Nothing wrong with that. There’s always something new to learn at the DNA lab. In fact, Kerry called me.”
“What? She snitched on me?”
“Of course not,” my mother said. “Kerry was afraid that she had scared you with the story about your DNA and the databank. She’d figured you already knew.”
I bit my lip and looked away. “I’m all right with it. You know what’s best for m
e.”
“Hey, Sam,” my mother called out to him as she disappeared into her bedroom. “Did you hear that? Devlin Quick just admitted that I know what’s best for her.”
“Breaking news, Commissioner,” Sam said. “Could be the morning headline.”
I followed Sam to the dining room table, where he stacked up the papers my mother had to review.
I started flipping through the case reports.
“Hands off, squirt,” Sam said. “Eyes only for the commish.”
“What’s for me?” my mother said.
She had changed into jeans and a white T-shirt that said DITCHLEY DOLPHINS, for my swim team. She was barefoot and had scrubbed off her makeup. Now she looked completely like my mom—not the boss of all those cops.
“The case reports of every major crime in the city for the last month,” Sam said. “To keep you out of the heat all weekend.”
“All I can think about now is dinner,” she said.
“What do you feel like eating?” Sam asked me. “I bet you don’t want any fish after collecting their scales all week.”
“Creepy thought. How about pasta?” I asked. “Especially if you promise not to take my fork and send it to the DNA lab after I finish eating.”
“Want my advice?” Sam asked. “Just order finger food.”
“Good tip, Detective Cody,” I said, heading into my room to get my bag and the doubloon. Nothing could be safer than a coin with its own professional bodyguard, I thought as the three of us left the apartment to go to dinner.
When we got home, I told my mother that I was playing tennis with Booker in the morning.
“Great. Sam’s picking me up at seven a.m.,” she said. “I have a planning session for the United Nations General Assembly meeting next month. But it should only take a few hours. Then I thought you and I might go shopping for some new fall clothes.”
“Very cool,” I said.
“We could have dinner at your grandmother’s apartment tomorrow night.”
“Lulu? I’ve been missing her so much,” I said. “That would be great fun.”
My dad’s mother was one of my favorite people on the entire planet. She was a little bit outrageous. She always told people exactly what was on her mind, for better or worse, which made it more fun than anything else to be around her.
“Good,” my mother said. “I’ll meet you back here at one o’clock.”
I said good night to Sam and my mom while they got to work at the dining room table, which usually served as her office. I read for a while—the classic Black Stallion was on my summer reading list—and I liked the story. My bag was under my pillow and Asta was curled up at my side.
Just as I was about to turn out my light, a text came in from Booker. “Can you talk?”
“Sure. Call me.”
I picked the phone up on the first ring.
“I just got the weirdest message,” Booker said.
I sat up straight in bed. “What? What is it?”
“It must be from Zee,” he said. “It came from his dad’s cell phone.”
“Is he okay?” I asked. “Is he still in Oak Bluffs?”
“Yes. His dad got there last night,” Booker said. “It says ‘THAW COINS SURPRISE’ . . .”
“Surprise what?” I asked.
“That’s the whole thing,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all there is.”
“Did you call Zee to ask him?”
“He doesn’t have his own phone, Dev. But when I called his dad, he sounded really angry,” Booker said. “He told me Zee was asleep already. That it was after nine thirty and I shouldn’t be calling.”
“But did you ask your uncle about the text?”
“He told me to forget I ever saw the text,” Booker finally said. “He told me he didn’t want us dragging Zee into any more of our trouble. My uncle said that we were already in way over our heads.”
27
“It must be an anagram,” I said to Booker. “The words in Zee’s text must be a coded message for us.”
I turned on the flashlight app on my phone and slipped out of bed. I didn’t want my mom or Sam to see any light under my door. I grabbed my notepad and a pencil from my desk and got back into bed.
“Why would Zee do that?” Booker asked.
“Because he’s trying to tell us something, without his dad knowing,” I said. “Only I’m not clever enough to undo the letters he did. Hold on for a minute.”
I started by writing the words on a piece of paper. Then I tried to rearrange them into other words.
“I can’t believe Zee’s dad is mad at us,” I said as I shuffled letters around in my brain. “Over our heads? I mean, we’ve got the Oak Bluffs police and the NYPD working on this. Zee’s not involved.”
“My uncle’s kind of a straight arrow.”
“WHAT?” I said.
“Zee’s dad,” Booker said, “he’s really strict.”
“No, I meant ‘WHAT’. The word WHAT is an anagram of THAW. And there’s also SCRIPT, but that uses the T again,” I said. “This is so much harder to do than I ever imagined. We need to talk to Zee.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen tonight,” Booker said.
“I hear you,” I said. “Wait!”
“Is that another word you made, or are you asking me to hold up?”
“It’s both, but holding up is more important,” I said. “How about if I call your grandmother? She’s been with us on this since we came home with the coin. Maybe there’s a chance she can tell us what Zee was trying to do.”
“Right now?” Booker asked.
“Yup. Worth a try, isn’t it?”
“Do it,” he said. “Then call me right back, okay?”
I hung up and speed-dialed Becca’s cell. “Devlin?” she said. “Is this you? I have to tell you that this little island isn’t the same without you and Booker. There’s hardly anything for people to gossip about.”
“That sounds boring, Becca.”
“Then come on back, you two.”
“We’d love that,” I said. “In the meantime, I think Zee’s dad is mad at us. Has he talked to you about it? Is he right there with you?”
“I’ve got my house all to myself,” Becca said. “Zee’s sound asleep, and his dad walked over to Circuit Avenue to hear some band play.”
“Did he tell you that Zee sent Booker a text tonight?”
“Not a word about it,” she said. “But when I was putting Zee to bed, he’s the one who told me.”
“Told you what?”
“Let me see,” Becca said, thinking through her conversation. “Zee was upset that his daddy got mad for no reason at all. He was only trying to send a message to Booker, and you know how that child loves Booker.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “What message? Did he tell you what the message was?”
“No, he didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t pay him much mind, because he said he didn’t get to finish the puzzle he was sending Booker by text. I just told him he could do it in the morning—from my phone, if his daddy was still in a bad way.”
“That’s all?” I asked.
“Well, that, and that it was about a show.”
“A show? What kind of show?”
I looked at the paper on my bed. Yes, SHOW was one of the words you could make from the jumble.
“Now I didn’t ask him that,” Becca said.
“Do you mean a Broadway show?”
“I just don’t know,” she said. “All I can tell you is that Zee was reading the New York Times when he saw something that made him want to write the text. That’s what he was looking at.”
We had a copy of today’s paper in the apartment.
“Now, Devlin,” Becca said, “if you’ve got yourself a rooster that can wake you up at the crack of
dawn like Zee seems to do every day, I’ll be certain he calls you. Can’t this all wait until then?”
“Sure it can,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bother you at this hour. It’s just that Booker and I didn’t want to get Zee in any more trouble with his dad.”
“I’ll watch over him till morning,” Becca said. “You get yourself some sleep, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thanks a lot.”
I turned off my phone, opened my door, and tiptoed out toward the kitchen, where my mother stacked the newspapers at the end of the day.
“You’re not asleep yet?” my mother asked when she heard me walking around.
“Close,” I said. “Just a little restless.”
“Was all that chattering to Asta?” she asked.
“Booker and I were making a tennis plan for the morning,” I said. That was true, as far as I went.
“You’re going to need all your sleep for a match against him,” Sam said.
“I know,” I said. “He never gives me a break. ’Night again.”
I got back on my bed, flipped on the flashlight app, and turned to the Weekend Arts section of the newspaper. I skimmed the names of the Broadway shows but nothing connected to anything that Booker and I had done with Zee.
The next page had features about art museums and special exhibits around the city.
I ran my finger up and down the side of the pages, one after another. Then I came to a stop at a huge ad at the top of the fourth page.
I kept my finger on the ad while I speed-dialed Booker’s number.
“Yeah?” he said. “Did Becca tell you anything?”
“She didn’t know, but she remembered that it had to do with something that Zee saw in the newspaper,” I said.
My finger was shaking as I tried to keep it in place to read the ad to Booker.
“What did?”
“What Zee is trying to tell us about. There’s a numismatics show at Chelsea Piers on Saturday!”
“A coin show?” Booker asked. “Are you serious? Let’s hope there aren’t any pirates hanging around there.”
28
“Are your parents okay with this?” I asked.
Secrets from the Deep Page 14