Chicken Girls

by Brat

  “Meg, don’t you think he looks like me?” Conrad said, trying to enlist his sister’s support. But Meg, still frowning, was reluctant to give in.

  “It does make sense,” Rhyme said encouragingly. “Vincent was from Millwood, which is probably why Betty’s parents tried to keep them apart.”

  “What’s so bad about Millwood?” Meg said quickly, and Rhyme suddenly felt uneasy.

  “It’s just rougher than Attaway,” she said, stammering slightly. “Poorer.” Meg looked at Rhyme the way Matilda used to, like she had inadvertently stumbled across the stupidest thing to ever be said in the history of the English language.

  “Also, he was black,” Meg said in the tonal equivalent of duh. “If Vincent Patterson is Vinny, then the reason our grandmother couldn’t be with him was because he was black.” Rhyme thought back to the civil rights exhibit she and Matilda had been organizing, and suddenly felt very stupid for not connecting the dots.

  “It’s like Loving and Virginia,” Rhyme said quietly, unsure of herself.

  “Huh?” Conrad asked. “Trust you me, nobody loves Virginia—especially not with Fiske there.”

  “She means the Supreme Court case,” Meg said approvingly. “It was in 1967, a few years after Vinny and Betty met. Loving versus Virginia. It made interracial marriages legal in all of the states.”

  “That’s totally what I meant,” said Rhyme. They all giggled.

  “So maybe Betty’s parents were probably racist,” Conrad said, and Rhyme responded with a horrified look. “Most of the country was back then, unfortunately.”

  Meg pondered this for a moment. “Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There’s a million reasons why Betty and Vinny couldn’t be together. Maybe he was from out of town, or maybe he was much older. We can’t really be sure that Vincent Patterson from Millwood is our Vinny.”

  “Why are you so set on proving Vincent’s not our grandfather?” Conrad said. “I thought you wanted to find him.”

  “I do, Conrad,” Meg said. “But we only get one shot at this. What happens when we confront Vincent, find out he’s not our grandfather, then he tells the cops that some runaway twins are going around Attaway acting like total maniacs?”

  As the twins went back and forth, Rhyme went into the kitchen to stir the marinara. It bubbled lazily in the pot. She sprinkled a little salt and pepper on top, just like her mom had taught her. It was hard to imagine living in Attaway so many years ago. Segregation and discrimination. It occurred to her that, decades later, Millwood still had a bad reputation. Matilda had said the school districts were rezoned so many times because of race. All these years later, were people in this town still prejudiced? Her friends at school came in every color, not only black and white and Asian, but a mixture of everything. Just like Meg and Conrad. She continued stirring the pot, wondering how a small town like hers could’ve been so misguided. A boring Attaway was much better than a divided one.

  She stirred the sauce once more, and went back into the dining room, where the twins were still at each other’s throats.

  “Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does,” Conrad was saying. Rhyme paused. Where have I heard that before? “Love is a battle, love is a war; love is growing up.” Though he was barely making any sense, Rhyme was hanging on Conrad’s every word. His eyes shone bright and beautiful.

  “What’s that from?” Rhyme said.

  Both twins looked up. “His senior quote …” Meg said. Oh. “We’re trying to make sense of it.” Rhyme picked up her phone and started typing.

  “Clearly, he can write,” said Conrad. “And you have to admit, it does sound a lot like the letters—”

  Rhyme cut him off. She had done a quick search for the quotation. “It’s James Baldwin,” she said. “The quote, I mean. It says it’s from a speech he gave.” Meg looked at Conrad, as if to say: See?

  “He’s literary, then,” Conrad said, not willing to yield his point. “Exactly the kind of person who might write those letters. Betty was bookish, too. They probably—”

  “Have you tried to find him yet?” Meg said, ending the conversation and turning to Rhyme.

  “Vincent? No,” she said defensively, wondering whose side she was on. “I just ran to you guys, then found Fiske, and—”

  “But you checked the Purple Heart registry, right?” Rhyme bit her lip, and Meg turned again to Conrad. “See? There are so many details we need to confirm, and—”

  But Conrad was holding up his phone. “Vincent Patterson received the Purple Heart in 1972. Meg, Vincent Patterson is Vinny. He’s our grandfather.”

  Meg looked back at him, silent. She no longer disagreed.

  CHAPTER 18

  “You made all this yourself?” Conrad said, heaping another scoop of pasta onto his plate.

  “One jar, one box,” Rhyme said. “Not that difficult.”

  “Well, Conrad’s knowledge of cooking ends at dipping pretzels in a peanut butter jar,” Meg said, and Rhyme laughed. She liked feeling like part of their team, their “gang.” They were doing something important, something exciting, and Rhyme was part of that. And she had cooked them dinner to boot. Who said thirteen was so much younger than sixteen? For the first time, she felt like their equal.

  “Okay, so Fiske said what again?” Meg said, as if an internal timer had told her they’d spent too long talking about something other than the investigation.

  “Nothing, really. Just that he was looking for you guys, which you knew. And that you’d taken something very valuable from him, which I didn’t understand.” Rhyme watched the twins’ intently for any sign of recognition, but they looked as perplexed as she had been. “He said you could be arrested for it. Me too, apparently. For aiding and abetting.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry,” Conrad said, but Rhyme waved him away.

  “It sounded like an empty threat. I think he was just trying to scare me or get me to scare you guys.”

  “Valuable,” Meg repeated, turning over the idea.

  “The money?” Conrad said dubiously.

  Rhyme was confused. “What money?”

  “Before she died, Betty gave us five hundred dollars,” Conrad explained. “But it’s already running low. That can’t be what Fiske is after.”

  “I’m sure he spent more than that on the plane ticket over here,” Meg said dismissively. “No way. That can’t be it.” She scraped her chair away from the table and went into the entryway, returning with her bag.

  Slowly, quietly, Meg took out each letter and placed them on the table. Four in total, three of which Rhyme had already seen. She took the fourth and examined it as Meg and Conrad fought over the last piece of garlic bread.

  The letter in front of Rhyme was another love letter. Another deeply romantic love letter. But it was different from the other ones. Vinny sounded resigned. Like he had given up. It sounded like he was saying goodbye.

  Attaway’s not the sort of place you hang around very long, he wrote. At least if you’re me. To Rhyme, it sounded like he was trying to explain something, why he was leaving. Maybe why he had enlisted in the army? But the way Vinny had phrased it (“if you’re me”) made it sound like he was leaving town on bad terms, and with a heavy heart. He signed off, though, very much still in love. “I love you as much as Arwen loved Aragorn, and would make the same sacrifices for you as she did for him.” Vinny wrote. How romantic …

  And tragic.

  “It’s Tolkien,” Meg said, suddenly behind Rhyme. “From Lord of the Rings. Betty read it to us at least seventy times. Did you find anything useful?”

  “Not really,” Rhyme said. “I just feel so bad for them. That they never made it work, even though …” She shook her head. “I guess sometimes love just isn’t enough.”

  Suddenly, Rhyme’s phone rang. It was T. K.

  “Who’s that?” Meg asked. Rhyme paused, debating what to tell her.

  “No one,” she said, ignoring the call. “You guys find anything new?” Meg shook her h
ead.

  “A piece of string and a button we ignored before. Conrad thinks the answer might be in a clothes fastener, it seems.”

  “I’m just being thorough!” Conrad said. “Fresh eyes and all.” Rhyme picked up another one of the letters, searching for clues. But nothing stuck out. Her phone buzzed again. “Missed call from T. K.”

  “I … need some air,” she said suddenly, unsure of who she was addressing. “I’ll …” but she left before finishing, the twins looking at her with confusion.

  Outside was damp and muggy, the air practically rising in steam from the ground. She tried T. K. as cool wind rippled through. A storm was coming, and she could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. The phone rang once, twice. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him—if she would say anything. If there was anything to say. T. K.’s actions spoke louder than words. Three rings, four. A car zoomed by on the street—gray, it looked like. Was it Fiske? Rhyme jumped as lightning lit up the sky, the lagging boom of thunder coming several seconds later. She shook her head. She was getting paranoid. Five rings, six.

  “You’ve reached T. K. Leave a message after the—”

  T. K’s voicemail beeped before Rhyme could hang up. Now that he didn’t answer, Rhyme wished she hadn’t called back so quickly. How long had it even been? She checked her phone. T. K. called five minutes earlier. Had he really gotten so busy in five minutes that he couldn’t answer? Even to say “call you back”? It was so frustrating. It was so T. K.

  Rhyme took a deep breath as the first drop of rain landed on her shoulder. Rhyme didn’t move. The rain felt good, and she had a waterproof phone case. The sky opened up, and raindrops danced on the asphalt. If this were any other summer, any other night, if her friends were over, they might have been dancing in the rain. Dancing on the ceiling, as they liked to say. But Rhyme didn’t feel like dancing anymore. Everything was stormy.

  Rhyme sat down on the curb, rainwater running over her feet and into the drain. She thought about the first time she’d met T. K. They were just kids. It was summer then, too. Rhyme and Ellie were drawing with chalk on the sidewalk when they noticed a moving truck parked down the street. Outside, a girl with bright eyes and plenty of attitude introduced herself as Birdie. “That’s my brother, T. K.,” the new girl said, pointing to a boy their age on the lawn. He locked eyes with Rhyme. Later that week, she saw him again, dribbling a basketball on the corner. She sat on the stoop, just watching,

  until he came over and sat beside her. She offered him a chocolate-covered pretzel from her bag, and he took one, smearing chocolate all over his face as he ate it. They sat in silence, searching for something to say. Then, it started to drizzle, and T. K. said he better be going. From that moment on, a day rarely passed without them seeing each other.

  … Until now, of course. When she got back inside, Rhyme was soaked. Conrad was asleep on the couch, snoring softly. “You go swimming?” Meg asked as Rhyme went into the laundry room to towel off.

  “Caught in a storm,” Rhyme said, thinking of T. K. “Conrad sure sleeps a lot, huh?”

  Meg shrugged, putting down the letters she was looking through fruitlessly. “I’ll wake him up. We should get going anyway.”

  “Go where?” Rhyme asked. “If you leave, Fiske might see. You guys should just stay here. I have plenty of room.” She gestured around, and Meg nodded. “Where have you guys been staying anyway?”

  “Around,” Meg said vaguely, in a way that made Rhyme think car. “But if we could stay here, that’d be great.” She paused, then said, “We’re so close. I can feel it.” Rhyme sat down beside her.

  “I can, too,” Rhyme said as Meg got up and put a blanket over her brother. Then, she stopped by the credenza in the corner, covered with framed photos of Rhyme and her family.

  “These your folks?” Meg said, lifting up a photo of Rhyme smiling with her parents. She nodded. “You guys look happy.” It almost sounded like an accusation. Rhyme hesitated, then joined her by the photos.

  “Conrad told me about your parents. Your mom, at least. I know how important this must be to you.” Meg turned on her, with a look somewhere between hurt, anger, and pity.

  “Do you?” she asked, not cruelly but more exasperated. “Because we never knew our mother, and when we were only five, we watched our dad die of cancer, slowly but surely.”

  “He didn’t tell me about your dad …” Rhyme said lamely. “I’m sorry.”

  “He never even told us he was sick. We just saw him get paler and thinner, dark circles forming around his eyes, his hair falling out as he went to the hospital more and more frequently.” Meg looked over to Conrad, still sound asleep. “It’s both of our first memories.”

  Rhyme didn’t know what to say and had to swallow hard to keep from crying. Somehow, she knew Meg wouldn’t appreciate tears. “Conrad took it the hardest,” Meg continued. “I don’t think he had any idea. He’s always trusted what’s told to him. He wears his heart on his sleeve, so it’s easy to hurt.”

  They were silent, both watching the logo on Conrad’s shirt rise and fall with his steady breathing. Rhyme had never experienced anything close to that, but she knew how painful it was to say goodbye to her family even for the summer, so she could only imagine. Rhyme put her hand on Meg’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “We’ll find Vinny,” Rhyme said. “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Rhyme wanted to skip her shift at the library the next day, but Meg said she had to go. “You can’t do anything out of the ordinary,” she said, practically shoving Rhyme out the door. “Or Fiske will know something’s up.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to break in here to snoop regardless,” Conrad said, looking around with a grimace.

  “Must run in the family,” Rhyme joked as she gathered her books. “What do we need from the library?”

  “See if there’s anything else on Vincent Patterson,” Meg said, looking over his senior portrait again. “Now that we have a name, I mean. There must be some sort of town directory or something.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Rhyme said. “Just don’t get caught while I’m out.” She closed the door with a satisfied smile. She liked giving orders.

  At the library, Ms. Sharpe was even more harried than usual. The county fair was just around the corner, and they were terribly behind schedule on the retrospective. Matilda shot a look in Rhyme’s direction when they were told this, just quick enough so that Rhyme knew the delay was her fault. “We have nothing for Attaway in the seventies, and our eighties section is basically just a scrunchie Madonna left when she came to town.”

  “Madonna came to Attaway?” Rhyme and Matilda said at the same time.

  “Yes!” Ms. Sharpe said, as if their surprise were insulting. “A stop on her Who’s That Girl World Tour.”

  “How could I have missed that?” Matilda asked.

  “Well, technically the concert was in Crown Lake,” Ms. Sharpe said in a distinctively quieter voice. “More of a pit stop, really. I mean, she used the bathroom at Junior’s.” Matilda and Rhyme exchanged a furtive grin, when Rhyme suddenly had an idea.

  “I’ll take the Seventies!” Rhyme said quickly. Matilda and Ms. Sharpe turned to her. “For the retrospective, I mean. I can handle it.”

  “And do what, exactly?” Matilda said, seemingly unable to decide whether Rhyme was now a friend or enemy. Rhyme smiled confidently.

  “I was thinking we could do something about Vietnam,” she said. “The war and … and the protests here. There are still some veterans in town, I’m pretty sure.” Then, she added: “Here and in Millwood.” Matilda looked askance at Rhyme, who ignored her, hoping Ms. Sharpe would take the bait.

  “That’s an excellent idea, Rhyme,” Ms. Sharpe said. “Why don’t you spend today gathering the relevant materials?” Hook, line, and sinker.

  “I know why you volunteered for the seventies,” Matilda said a little later, as Rhyme carried a box of papers back to her seat. “You’re stil
l looking for that guy.” Rhyme tried to act casual, scrunching her face as though she had forgotten all about Vincent Patterson. As though Matilda had said something preposterous.

  “Oh, no, that’s all done,” Rhyme said, unconvincingly. “Just, uh, piqued my interest.”

  “War buff, huh?” Matilda said skeptically, leafing through the box of papers Rhyme had brought over. Rhyme didn’t respond and went over to Ms. Sharpe, who was on the phone with the bank. She was holding a check and talking about a large deposit. When she hung up, she seemed all excited, but wouldn’t say why.

  “I was just on the horn with the bank, finalizing the Manderley Corporation’s donation,” she said, putting the paper underneath a folder on her desk.

  “That’s wonderful!” Rhyme said, smiling ear to ear. Capitalizing on this happy interlude, she changed the subject, making sure Matilda wasn’t eavesdropping. “Do you … Do we … keep any Millwood papers? I know the district was rezoned a bunch, so I just want to make sure I’m thorough.” She looked up at Ms. Sharpe and smiled again, blinking her big, brown eyes. Having adults trust her was one of the perks of being the innocent girl next door.

  “Of course we do!” Ms. Sharpe said. “What kind of negligent historian do you think I am? The keys are somewhere in here.” She began rifling through her bag. “Wait here just a moment.”

  When she came back, Ms. Sharpe was carrying a stack of old CD-ROM discs, in jewel cases marked with dates.

  “What’s all this?” asked Rhyme.

  “Archives from the Millwood Messenger,” said Ms. Sharpe. “We had some of them digitized earlier this year. I haven’t had a chance yet to upload them to the Internet, but you should be able to find what you need about the Seventies here. Off you go!” With a victorious grin, Ms. Sharpe went back to cataloging books across the room.

  Rhyme inserted the disc for 1972—the year that Vinny received his medal—into one of the old computer towers. An hourglass turned on the screen for what seemed like ages. Finally, a window came up containing a dozen folders for each month of the year. Best to start at the beginning, Rhyme thought, as she double-clicked on January.