#4 Seeing and Believing (Mike & Riel Mysteries)

by Norah McClintock

  “I’m going downtown this afternoon, Mike,” Rebecca said. “You want to come?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have some stuff I have to do.”

  “I’m going dress shopping,” she said.

  Boy, one more reason not to go with her.

  “I’m going dress shopping,” she said, “because of the dance that’s happening at school in a couple of weeks.”

  What? “Did someone invite you to the dance?” I said.

  “Not yet, Mike. But that’s okay. I’m going to invite him.”

  Wait a minute! She was going to invite someone to a dance at our school?

  “You want to go to the dance with me, Mike?” She flashed me a smile.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca,” I said.

  “Is that a no?”

  “I mean, I should have asked you, right?”

  “It doesn’t matter who asks. Just so long as you want to go with me. You do, don’t you?”

  I said of course I did. I’d never been to a dance before. I didn’t even know how to dance. But if Rebecca wanted to go, well, maybe she’d be happy with just the slow dances.

  “Great,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll be back around five. You want to do something later?”

  I said sure. Half the time I couldn’t believe she wanted to spend as much time with me as she did.

  “Call me,” she said. “Promise?”

  Like she had to ask.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I recognized the Taglias’ car when it pulled up outside Riel’s house. Vin’s mother got out. She looked tired, but she smiled when she saw me.

  “Mike,” she said, “I almost didn’t recognize you. You’ve grown so much.”

  I used to be shorter than Vin. Now I was taller. Other than that, though, I didn’t think I’d changed much.

  I got into the car, and we drove the first few minutes in silence. Then Vin’s mother said, “We’ve missed you, Mike. Both Joe and I have.” She meant Vin’s father. “How are things working out with John Riel? You like living with him?”

  I told her I did. “He’s kind of strict,” I said. “But he’s fair.”

  “I was sorry how things turned out between you and Vin,” she said. “You two used to be such close friends. I can’t help thinking that if he’d stuck with you instead of hanging around with those other kids, he wouldn’t have got himself into so much trouble.”

  The other kids she meant were Cat Phillips and A. J. Siropoulos. Vin had started hanging around with them after I moved in with Riel. Riel didn’t let me go out until I’d done all my homework. He insisted I hold down a part-time job. It didn’t leave a whole lot of extra time, so Vin had moved on.

  “I’m worried about him, Mike. We both are. He says he didn’t have anything to do with that convenience store robbery, but the police don’t believe him, and I guess after what happened last fall, I can’t really blame them. But he swore to me he wasn’t involved.” She glanced at me. “And he’s having a hard time in there. I thought maybe it would be a little easier this time. I know it sounds terrible, but I thought maybe he’d be used to it. But I can tell he’s scared and worried. I’m glad you went to see him—I think it really made him feel better. And I’m glad you’re coming with me now.”

  She talked like she was nervous, like if she didn’t keep talking, we would both feel awkward. And I realized that although I used to see her a lot—because Vin and Sal and I used to hang out at Vin’s place—I had never spent any time alone with her. And now that I was alone with her, I didn’t know what to say. Maybe she felt the same way. So I let her talk about Vin, and when she was finished, I told her a little more about school and Riel and my job at the community center. I was glad when we finally arrived at the detention center.

  We went through the sign-in and then security, and then they let us go into the visiting room, where we waited for Vin.

  He looked even worse than the last time I had seen him. He was pale, and he looked thinner and tired. But he smiled when he saw his mother and he hugged her, and then he said, “Hey, Mike, thanks for coming.”

  We all sat down at a table, Vin on one side, Vin’s mother and I on the other. Vin’s mother asked him how the food was and whether he was sleeping okay, and Vin said it was fine and, yeah, he was sleeping, even though you could see that it wasn’t true. She said that his father would have come, but he was doing some overtime at the Ford plant where he worked and how that would come in handy to pay the lawyer. Vin sort of winced when he heard that. Whatever he’d done or hadn’t done, I could see he felt bad that his mother had to pay a lawyer because of it and maybe had to give up some things to make sure that the legal bills got paid. Then I remembered how, no matter what, Vin had always managed to scrape together some money somehow to get his mother something nice on her birthday and again for Christmas. Finally he said, “Mom, I’d like to talk to Mike alone for a few minutes, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll be outside,” she said.

  Vin waited until she left the room. Then he said, “You can’t believe what it’s like in here, Mike. I hope you never find out.”

  “I had to go down to the police station again this morning, Vin.”

  “You’re kidding,” Vin said. “What for?”

  “Someone called them and said they saw me go into the store before it was robbed.”

  Vin laughed.

  “It’s not funny, Vin.”

  “Yeah, it is, Mike, if you look at it the right way. I told them who was there—that girl—and they don’t believe me. I bet if I tell them who wasn’t there—you—they wouldn’t believe me either. Nice, huh? My life is so messed up, when I tell the truth, everyone thinks I’m lying.”

  “What did you want to see me about, Vin?”

  Vin’s face turned serious.

  “The man from the store died.”

  “I know.”

  “The cops came to see me again. They asked me again about the two guys who were in the store. They said it’s two murders now, and if I don’t tell them who the other two guys were, I’m going to face it all on my own.”

  He was trying not to show it, but I could see he was scared.

  “Did you find the girl?”

  I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t want to get his hopes up—Yeah, I found her—only to have to disappoint him—but she swears she wasn’t there. So I said, “Are you sure about the girl, Vin? You wouldn’t lie to me about her being there, would you?”

  “Lie to you? Are you kidding, Mike? Why would I lie to you about a thing like that? The girl is my ticket out of here.” He looked at me. “You haven’t had any luck, huh?”

  He looked small sitting there in that chair, thinking about all the trouble he was in. I thought maybe I should tell him what Rebecca and I had found out so that at least he would know that I’d tried. But if I did, he’d want to tell the cops or his lawyer or someone. And if the cops checked it out, if they went to Amanda, she’d do exactly what she said she would—she’d swear she wasn’t there. She’d say she didn’t know what they were talking about. And the cops, who already didn’t believe Vin, would probably believe her. After all, no one else had seen a girl in the store. And that would be that. Telling him now wouldn’t do any good. Worse, it would confirm to the police that he was lying—as if they needed more confirmation. But maybe if I tried one more time …

  “We thought we had a lead, but it didn’t pan out,” I said.

  “We?”

  “Me and Rebecca.”

  “Rebecca?”

  I kept forgetting how long it had been since we’d talked regularly and what he knew and didn’t know.

  “You know, the girl who was walking by the park that night.”

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  “Rebecca with the red hair?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re going out with her, Mikey?”

  “Yeah. She’s nice.”

  “Well, she’s pretty.
”

  “Pretty and smart,” I said. “She’s been helping me look for the girl. But so far we haven’t had much luck.” I felt terrible lying to him. “I’m going to keep trying, though.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” he said. He looked tired and sad and disappointed.

  Now there was something I had to ask him. “Vin, those guys who robbed the store. Did you see them take the money from the woman?”

  Vin nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “But from behind. I saw the woman hand over some cash, but I didn’t see the guys.”

  “Did she give them anything else?”

  “What do you mean? Like what?”

  “Like a lockbox. You know, a metal box with a key. Locked.”

  He perked up. “The cops asked me about a box. They asked me where it was. But I didn’t know what they were talking about. A lockbox, huh? What was in it? Money?”

  “The old man emptied the cash register regularly. He kept most of his money in a lockbox. Did Mrs. Lee give those two guys the box?”

  “If she did, I didn’t see it.”

  “Did you see the guys leave the store?”

  “Yeah. After they shot the man, they split. Fast.”

  “Did you see if they were carrying a box?”

  “This lockbox, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stared off into space for a minute, like he was trying to picture it. Then he shook his head.

  “I don’t think they were carrying anything. I saw them run. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed if they were carrying a box. Why? Did the cops say something to you about it?”

  I shook my head. “I just remember you saying the police asked you about it,” I said. “That’s all.” But that wasn’t all. I was wondering about that box and remembering what Sal had said—the old man had asked him where the box was. The police had asked Vin the same question. That meant the box was missing. If the guys who’d robbed the store hadn’t taken it, who had?

  I went and got Vin’s mother, and I waited outside while she visited a little longer with Vin. Then she drove me home.

  No one was home when I got there, but there was a message on the phone from Rebecca—she was setting the record for messages today. This one said: “This is Rebecca for Mike. Mike, call me on my cell as soon as you get this.”

  I punched in her cell number. She answered on the first ring.

  “Where have you been?” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I had to go out. Did you get a nice dress?”

  “I saw her, Mike. I saw her, and she was doing some serious shopping. She had bags from half a dozen different stores. Expensive stores.”

  She? “Who are you talking about, Rebecca?”

  “Amanda.”

  Oh. I had a feeling I was going to regret this, but: “So?”

  “You saw where she lived, right, Mike?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she only worked at that video store for, what, less than two weeks? Fifteen hours a week, and she was late all the time? Isn’t that what Megan said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she had no work experience, right? Megan said that, too, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah …”

  “So that means she wasn’t earning money from anywhere else, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So, Mike, I saw her with bags from a bunch of different stores. One of them was from a shoe store where the shoes go minimum a hundred dollars a pair. And they weren’t on sale. I checked. Nothing in the store was on sale. And that was just one bag, Mike. The other bags were also from nice stores. I don’t mean Walmart. I mean really expensive places. Where did someone like Amanda Brown get the money to shop in places like that?”

  “What are you thinking, Rebecca?”

  “Don’t you get it, Mike? Vin says she was in the store. She says she wasn’t. Why would she lie? Because she took money from the store, that’s why. She was out today spending stolen money.” I had to hold the receiver away from my ear a little because she was practically yelling the words at me. “We should call the cops, right?”

  I hated to ask my next question, but I did. “And tell them what?”

  “What do you mean? Tell them what I just told you.”

  “You mean, tell them that Amanda Brown went shopping?” I said.

  “With stolen money.”

  “Maybe with stolen money,” I said.

  “You said there was blood on the money Vin had when he was arrested. Mike, I remember some of the store bags she was carrying. We can call the cops and tell them what we saw and they can go to the stores and check the money in their registers.” There was a pause. “Well, assuming they haven’t given any of the money to other customers—you know, as change.”

  I was shaking my head as I listened to her. “There was blood on the money that Vin had because Cecilia Lee was holding it when she was shot. The money she gave those guys came from the cash register. But if Amanda was spending as much money as you say, Rebecca, it couldn’t have come from the cash register. Remember what Megan said? The old guy always emptied the register. He never kept more than a hundred dollars in there. The rest he took out and kept in his lockbox.”

  Wait a minute.

  The lockbox.

  Megan had said she wasn’t sure where Mr. Lee kept the box. But she did say that he had a desk in the storeroom in the back. Maybe he kept it there.

  Vin was pretty sure that the guys who shot the Lees hadn’t taken a box with them.

  Vin had said he’d seen Amanda Brown in the storeroom at the back of the store.

  Maybe Amanda Brown had taken the box. She’d tried to steal from the store before. She’d stolen DVDs from the video store where she worked. Amanda Brown liked to take things that didn’t belong to her. That would explain why she hadn’t gone to the police about what she had seen in the convenience store.

  She had dyed her hair right after the shooting. She had removed the ring from her eyebrow. Why? Maybe because she didn’t want to be recognized. And maybe because up until yesterday, Mr. Lee had still been alive and there was a chance he might recover. Mr. Lee had said something to Sal about a box. Had he been worried that the robbers had taken his lockbox? Or had he actually seen someone take it? Had he seen Amanda?

  My mind was racing.

  Mr. Lee had been able to identify Vin from a picture the police showed him, but he obviously hadn’t told the police who took the box. So maybe he hadn’t seen Amanda. Or maybe he’d seen her but he’d been too badly hurt to tell anyone. If he had told the police about her, they would have believed Vin when he said there was a girl in the store. But the police didn’t believe Vin. So that must mean that Mr. Lee hadn’t said anything.

  From what I had heard, Mr. Lee cared more about his money than he did about anything else. If he had recovered, he probably would have pestered the police about the lockbox. He would have told them where he kept it. If he’d seen who took it, or if he’d seen anyone in the storeroom, he would have told them that, too. Even if he hadn’t seen Amanda, he might have told them about the girl with the tattoo who had stolen from his store once before. He would have described her—spiky black hair, an eyebrow ring … Just like Vin had said.

  Except that Amanda didn’t have spiky black hair anymore. She didn’t have an eyebrow ring, either. Why was that?

  Maybe because Amanda Brown had been lying low in case Mr. Lee recovered.

  But Mr. Lee hadn’t recovered. He was dead. And now Amanda Brown had gone shopping.

  “Rebecca, what do you think Amanda Brown was doing in her garage when we found her?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  If Mr. Lee had been serious about keeping his cash safe, the lockbox he put it in was probably a sturdy one. And he probably didn’t leave the key lying around. For sure he wouldn’t leave it wherever he kept the box—what would be the point of that if a thief could take the box and scoop up the key? No, he probably k
ept the key somewhere safe. If Megan was right about how stingy he was with his wife, he probably kept it someplace where he’d be sure his wife couldn’t get at it either. He probably kept it on him.

  “Mike?” Rebecca said. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here. Where are you, Rebecca?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I met Rebecca at a coffee shop halfway between downtown and her place. She was drinking coffee but, if you ask me, by the time I got there she was wired enough without the caffeine. I ordered a hot chocolate and sat down across from her.

  “Do you think Amanda stole the lockbox, Mike?” she said. “Do you think that’s why she didn’t go to the police and that’s why she told us she wasn’t there?”

  “It sure crossed my mind,” I said. I explained what I’d been thinking. Her head bobbed up and down as I talked.

  “So we should call the cops and tell them she was in the store, right?”

  “We can’t say that for sure. We didn’t see her. We weren’t there.”

  “Yeah, but if we tell them, they’ll go and talk to her.”

  “And she’ll lie to them.”

  “But Vin already told them—”

  “They don’t believe him.” But the way Amanda lied, I bet they’d believe her. “You know what she’s like, Rebecca. She’s probably already come up with some convincing story about where Vin might have seen her before. She could say that’s how he could describe her.” I stared down into my hot chocolate for a moment. “When we saw her, she was rummaging around in that dump of a garage.” She’d been pawing through the tools. “How do you open one of those lockboxes, anyway? If you don’t have the key, I mean.” Then I had another thought. “That garage was a real mess. Did you notice? I bet you could lose a lockbox in there,” I said. “On purpose, I mean.”

  Rebecca’s eyes glowed. “So you do think she took it, don’t you, Mike? Do you think she still has it?”

  “If she took it,” I said slowly, “then I’m pretty sure she still had it yesterday. I bet that was what she was doing in the garage—trying to figure out how to open it.”