Under Cover

by Caroline Crane

  I kept asking myself how I’d gotten into all this. Of course I knew the answer. It was my own doing. But there wouldn’t have been anything to do if they hadn’t killed Johnny Kinsser.

  If not him, they might have killed somebody else and I’d be in it, anyway, if Liam was involved. It was because of that killing that I even knew Liam existed and that he was my brother. Did Dad have any plans for telling me, ever?

  He hadn’t said a word even after he got here. I’d had to find out for myself. And that, only because he’d mixed up the envelopes. Could Grandma be right that everything happens for a reason? Then how come so many things work out badly? Maybe that’s part of the Grand Design, if there is one. Maybe the bad things are supposed to teach us a lesson.

  What did this teach me? That I shouldn’t jump into a dangerous situation without better planning?

  Okay, I’ll remember that and hope there won’t be a next time.

  What did getting strangled with a coat hanger teach Johnny Kinsser? Not to trust his so-called friends? So now maybe he won’t do that again.

  There goes my pesky old sarcasm.

  Sorry, Grandma. Your theory has holes in it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Grandma must have been getting sick of me. I thought maybe she should give Archie to me and then she could borrow him back when she needed him.

  Just kidding. If it ever happened, I would faint dead away.

  “When?” she wanted to know.

  “Um—afternoonish?”

  “What’s that mean? Three o’clock?”

  “Maybe a little before. Like around noon.”

  “What happened to school? You got the afternoon off?”

  I didn’t think fast enough to come up with something believable, like exams.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “But I have to go somewhere. I really have to.”

  “Then you can go without Archie. I’m not having him be an accomplice to whatever it is you’re up to.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “What are you up to?”

  How could I tell her? She would want to be in on it. Or else it would get back to the wrong people. Or maybe both. Either way, the truth wasn’t going to help, so I said nothing.

  I kept hoping to hear from Rick. When I finally did, he had nothing to tell me that I didn’t already know.

  “Evidence is stacked against the Penny kid,” he said. “He’s the only suspect. What makes you think there were other people in the car?”

  “That’s what he told me. He wouldn’t say even that much to the police, so please don’t pass it along.”

  “There wasn’t any evidence of other people.”

  “Did they look for evidence?” I asked.

  “Yep. Because that’s what he said initially and then he changed his story.”

  “He was scared. Of the other people.”

  “When a suspect changes his story,” Rick said, “it tends to look suspicious.”

  “I can’t help that. Maybe it’s too late, already, even if he does decide to tell the truth. And there’s no way they’re going to believe me, even if I can name the other people.”

  I hoped Rick would ask for those names. I’d already told him about Austen. But it wasn’t his jurisdiction and he didn’t think the HH guys would want him butting in. So what could I do? Every time I tried to get hold of my dad, I washed out. I would have to make a supreme effort to patch things up with Maddie. If I told her all I knew about Austen… But it wasn’t much, and hadn’t I already done that?

  The school year was almost over. Then what would I do? How could I investigate? We had a history exam on Thursday. I got out before Maddie because, as usual, she had to talk to people. I was waiting by her car for the ride home when another car came by and hesitated.

  I didn’t pay much attention beyond noticing it was old and black. I wished Grandma had an old black one instead of that bright orange attention-getter of hers.

  The car came to a full stop. Dark eyes and a mischievous grin looked out of the passenger window.

  “There’s Peggy!” he said. “Hey, Peg!”

  I waved. Freddie waved back.

  Austen was at the wheel. I walked over to Freddie’s open window and spoke across him to Austen. “I thought you didn’t have a car. Did you just get it?”

  “Nope. Borrowed,” he said.

  I didn’t ask who he borrowed it from. He did the talking. “Where is she?”

  “Who, Maddie? Um—she might be at a newspaper meeting. She’s on the staff.”

  I was of two minds. Send him packing before he found her, or wait for her and all of us get together? If she’d had a newspaper meeting, she would have told me. Furthermore, I didn’t think there were any more meetings since the year was over.

  “Newspaper?” Austen blinked.

  “Just a school paper. They have meetings to talk about what they’re going to write about.”

  Freddie said, “There she is!” Austen beeped his horn. That was a no-no on the school grounds, but nobody got after him. Maddie lost her preoccupied look, smiled, and came toward us.

  “Hi, guys!” She rested her arms on Austen’s open window. “Don’t you have school?”

  “Not anymore,” Austen said.

  “You’re all finished?”

  “Exams, you know.” He gave her a benign smile. He could fool anybody with that charm. I kept remembering how he treated Liam while I hid in the mini office. That was the real Austen.

  Freddie moved to the back seat and kept the door open for me. I got in next to him and Maddie got in next to Austen.

  “Is this your car?” she asked.

  “Nope,” said Austen. “Grandpa’s.”

  “Aren’t grandparents wonderful? Cree gets to borrow her grandmother’s car sometimes.”

  I punched her through the space between the seatbacks. “You’re the only one who calls me that. Nobody else even knows who you’re talking about.”

  Maddie smacked her forehead. “I’m so used to it, I forgot.”

  Which was probably true. “Please try to remember,” I said. “It’s annoying. People don’t like being called by their ethnic origin.”

  “We got any plans?” Freddie asked.

  Austen looked back at him. “What do you want to do?”

  “Make out.” Freddie laughed and looked at me sideways. I hoped Maddie wouldn’t blurt that I already had a boyfriend. She must have realized I could do the same to her and mention that hers was a cop. I looked to be sure she was belted in case Austen got mad and tried to push her out of the car.

  I said, “What’s that thing in Hudson Hills that’s out in the river past the railroad tracks? Is that a park of some kind?”

  The two guys were silent for a bit. Then Austen said, “Yeah, it’s a park. Nothing to see there.”

  “It’s right out in the river,” I said. “It looks interesting.”

  “It’s not. Trust me. I’ve got a better idea.”

  I didn’t ask, but I was getting nervous. It made me glad Maddie had come along. What would I do if I were alone with two guys I didn’t know well and one of them wanted to make out while the other was a cold-blooded killer? Or if they had a clue that I wasn’t who I said I was?

  Austen glanced back at me with a grin. “You like views?”

  Because I’d raved about their school’s view of the Hudson. We were on the highway now. He shouldn’t have been glancing back.

  He said, “I can show you one I’ll bet you haven’t seen.”

  “There’s a lot I—” I began.

  Maddie whooped. “Katmandu!”

  “In Nepal?” I said.

  Then I remembered. It was the name of an estate built in the nineteenth century by some rich tycoon. When he died it became an artists’ colony and now was a museum. People came from all over to look at the artwork and antiques. And the view. I was amazed that Austen had enough sensitivity even to know it existed, and Freddie, too.

  “Have you ever been there?�
� Freddie asked me. I shook my head.

  Maddie said, “I have.”

  No surprise there. Her family went in for that sort of thing and they had more leisure time than mine. Well, Grandma had leisure, but until last summer she couldn’t drive.

  Katmandu was on a mountainside above Hudson Hills. We climbed up and up on a narrow, winding road. Every now and then through the trees I caught flashes of red.

  After ages of climbing we came out onto a huge rolling lawn with an Oriental-looking castle at the far end of it. Bright red. The lawn was so vast I wondered how they kept it up back in the nineteenth century before mechanical mowers. Maybe they had sheep.

  Austen stopped at the very edge of a parking lot that overlooked the now-distant Hudson. A row of giant boulders kept cars from falling over into the treetops below.

  He looked at Maddie. “Feel like going in?”

  She hesitated. She’d been there, done that.

  Then she made up her mind and they got out of the car.

  Freddie looked at me. I wasn’t in the mood for culture, only in getting the right person charged with murder. But Freddie wanted to make out and a car was the place to do it. I wasn’t in the mood for that, either. If it were Ben, that would be different, except that Ben shied away from public displays. What could be more public than a car in an open parking lot in mid-afternoon?

  I opened my door. “Is there anything to see if we just walk around?”

  He shrugged. Clearly he was not a culture freak. If he’d ever been to this place before, it was probably for the purpose of making out. Or it might have been the sort of thing a fourth grade teacher would drag a class to. I wondered why mine hadn’t.

  I got out and walked to the nearest boulder. Below me was a terrifying view of those treetops. The hillside didn’t go straight down but it was steep enough. And to think, we’d driven up it. The mountain was thickly forested but I saw glimpses of Hudson Hills between us and the river.

  Freddie came and stood beside me.

  I said, “Austen was right, it’s a fantastic view. Were you ever here before?”

  “Nope. You?”

  “No, but I’ve heard of it.”

  “Why don’t you want to go in?” he asked.

  “What is it, mostly art things?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “Maybe another time.”

  “You don’t dig that stuff?”

  “Not at the moment.” Get with it, Cree. Make him talk

  This was my chance, but I didn’t know where to start. And I wasn’t Cree, I was Peggy. I should have picked a name that I didn’t identify with my mom. But now I was stuck with it. Peggy Mellin was me and I had a mom named Peggy Mellin, too. That could work. A dad in California. A grandmother and a dog. Any siblings? I should have set up a complete dossier before I got going.

  I started toward a path that didn’t look too steep. It wandered sideways across the hill instead of down it. Freddie came with me.

  I said, “Why didn’t Austen want to go to that park in the river? You can see it from here. It looks like an interesting place, with the river right up close.”

  “He must have thought you’d like this better. Or Maddie would.”

  “I’m sure she does. Her folks really dig this sort of thing. But I know she’d like the park, too. I wish we had something like that in Southbridge.”

  “You will when you move here,” he answered lazily. “Are you really gonna move here?”

  “That’s what they keep saying. I know they’re looking, and they’d better do it soon. I don’t want to change schools after it starts.”

  “Me and Sam’ll help you out.”

  “I’m counting on it. What about Austen? Oh, I forgot. He’ll be graduating. Is he going to college?”

  The path was narrow and I had to keep looking back at Freddie. He shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “Doesn’t he ever talk about it? Don’t any of you guys have plans? What about his folks? What do they do?”

  Freddie paused and squinted down at the river. “Hasn’t got folks. He lives with his grandparents.”

  “That’s folks, isn’t it?” I said. “How come he lives with them? What happened to his parents?” Now we were getting somewhere, maybe.

  The path got steeper. It was hard to walk and talk. I sat down on a log bench with a good view of the river.

  “Grandparents is all he’s got.” Freddie sat beside me and stretched out his legs. “We could make out,” he said.

  I liked him, but didn’t feel that way about him. I kept talking. “What do you mean, it’s all he’s got?”

  “That’s what I mean. His grandparents raised him.”

  “His parents are—gone?”

  “There’s more than one way of being gone.” Freddie picked up a rock and rolled it down the hill to show how steep it was.

  I looked around to be sure Austen wasn’t following. Again, I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Aw, I shouldn’t talk about him. It’s not right.”

  “Freddie, you’re too noble.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’m a great guy. Glad you noticed.”

  “I mean it. But whatever you say, I won’t pass it along. Austen won’t know you told me anything. We’d better get back.”

  I stood up. My foot skidded on the steepness. “This is murder,” I said, and wished I hadn’t said it.

  He caught me and steadied me. “Your feet are too small. That’s your trouble. Not enough base.”

  I noticed his were kind of large for his size. But I liked mine the way they were. We turned around and started back.

  Being the determined cuss that I was, I kept on. “Tell me about Austen’s parents. I promise I won’t let on.”

  “You better not. Snitching can get you in trouble.”

  “I know. I understand it’s sort of what happened with, um—Johnny Kinsser?”

  That took a lot of nerve, and then I was scared when I said it.

  He almost didn’t answer. Then, slowly, “I don’t know if he did, but he might’ve. That’s what they said.”

  “Who said?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, Peggy.”

  “If you don’t want me to know anything, why do you keep volunteering information?” But please don’t stop.

  That shut him up temporarily. I went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “I can’t stop thinking about that. A coat hanger. It’s so—it must have really hurt.”

  Another pause. “Yeah, when you look at it that way.”

  “How else can you look at it? I wonder what he did to deserve that. You said he snitched? On who? About what?” I kept trudging. It wasn’t easy. Through an open space I could see the river, but not River Edge Park.

  “That’s what I heard. Or he was going to, I don’t know. What’s with the questions?”

  I ignored that. “He must have pissed somebody off.”

  “Yeah, Lee Penny.”

  “Who?”

  “Lee. Penny. Liam, his name is. We call him Lee.”

  I stopped and looked around at him. “He’s the one who did it?”

  “I told you that, didn’t I?” He gave me a nudge to keep walking.

  “I have trouble with names,” I said.

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “What’s he like? Does he have a temper?” I had seen Liam’s temper, but Freddie mustn’t know that. Anyway, his temper didn’t seem like the murderous kind.

  But you never know.

  We came out onto the parking lot. I rambled on, trying to get more information. “So, if Austen doesn’t have parents... What was it, a car accident?”

  “No, it wasn’t anything like that.” He leaned against one of the boulders and now he seemed eager to talk. “See, his mom is this real looker.”

  “Austen’s mom?” It was hard to believe.

  “Yeah, Austen’s mom. She got this modeling job, working for a photographer. He said he could get her in the movies.” Fredd
ie laughed.

  “And she fell for it,” I guessed. I would have sat on the boulder, but it didn’t look comfortable.

  “That’s what they tell me. All she got was Austen.” He laughed again, harder.

  I looked around, making sure there were no eavesdroppers. If Freddie kept this up, he could laugh himself right over the hillside.

  “She found out this photographer already had a family,” Freddie went on, “but that didn’t stop her. She left Austen with her folks and went to Hollywood by herself.”

  “That was brave,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess. But not very bright. Everybody who goes to Hollywood is a knockout, except you need more than that. She couldn’t act, or anything, but she wouldn’t give up. Signed on with some outfit where you get to be in crowd scenes.”

  “Like an extra,” I said. “Does she get a lot of work?”

  “How would I know? I’m not in touch with her.”

  “Does Austen ever see her?”

  “Not much, I don’t think. She stays out west. There’s nothing for her here.”

  I almost felt sorry for Austen. “At least he has his grandparents.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I don’t think he gets along with them too good.”

  “How come?”

  Again Freddie shrugged, brushing off the question. I was glad Austen had those grandparents and sorry there was friction. Possibly because of him being a psychopath. I hoped he didn’t torture animals. A lot of psychopaths do that. Maddie said some people think they get that way because nobody loves them. Maybe that was what happened.

  “Want to walk some more?” Freddie asked.

  “They’re coming.”

  They were, strolling across the grass, holding hands. If this was all an act on Maddie’s part, I didn’t see how she could keep it up. Maybe she’d heard his life story and felt bad for him. Worse than I felt. I could relate to the missing parent, but not to all the other stuff.

  Especially the part about the coat hanger. And Mrs. Kinsser left without her son.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Maddie and Austen came toward us deep in conversation. They really were into each other. To distract her, I asked, “How was it?”

  A stupid, trivial question, but I really wanted to get her focus off him.