The Wig in the Window

by Kristen Kittscher

  “What? No! Who do you think you’re dealing with here? They don’t call me Amazing Grace for nothing.”

  “Who calls you Amazing Grace?” I shouldn’t have asked. It was probably some private joke with Jocelyn and Natalie.

  “You, from here on out.” Grace grinned as she crouched by the bed and tugged at something underneath it.

  “But the posters?” I pointed.

  “Precautionary measure,” she said, leaning down to toss aside one of her brown boots before fumbling under the bed. She slid out her rectangular steel forensics box and unlocked the padlock with a flourish. She wriggled on a pair of latex gloves, snapped the elastic to ensure they were adequately snug, then held up a clear Ziploc bag dated and labeled EXHIBIT A: WIG. It contained what appeared to be a furry exotic pet but was, at second glance, clearly Agford’s hair helmet crushed beyond recognition.

  “Grace! You were supposed to stash it!”

  “Amazing Grace. Remember?” She shook her head. “Determining a secure location takes time, Sophie,” she said. “Plus, everything’s fine.” Grace unraveled a sheet of plastic film and laid it over her bed to protect the evidence, forgetting that I’d riffled through everything a couple hours earlier. As she began to pluck papers from the box with oversize tweezers, she detailed the horrors of Agford’s visit. Agford had waltzed into the house and cornered the Yangs in a long discussion about Grace’s studies. Although Grace’s parents homeschooled her because they wanted her to be able to enjoy lots of extracurriculars without having the pressure of juggling a lot at once, sometimes they worried that Grace wasn’t learning as much as she would at a regular school. Probably sensing she could prey on those fears, Agford insisted upon seeing Grace’s room to determine whether it provided suitable study conditions.

  “I had no choice,” Grace said. “I had to go all-out Chinese.”

  “Let me guess. Spontaneous piano recital?”

  “Of course.” She smiled mischievously. “You know she thinks we dance around our house in cone-shaped rice-paddy hats and bang gongs or something, so I figured I might as well act the part.”

  “And?”

  “Worked like a charm. After six awful run-throughs of ‘Greensleeves,’ she couldn’t wait to leave.”

  “Nice.” I slapped her a high five. “I wish I could have seen her face.”

  “I know. My parents couldn’t figure out what was up with me. I bet she’ll be back, though.” She shuddered, seeming to forget that I’d had to put up with close encounters of the Dr. Awkward kind pretty much every day.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “She’ll be arrested before then.”

  Grace’s face creased with worry. “About that . . .” She swiveled her laptop screen around to face me. “Things have gotten complicated.”

  It was an email from Agent Ralston:

  ****AUTOMATED RESPONSE*********************

  I am currently out of the office on vacation. For urgent matters, please contact the main switchboard at (870) 555-1000.

  ****AUTOMATED RESPONSE*********************

  “Vacation?” I said. I pictured Ralston, neck roped with fragrant leis, lounging ocean side with an umbrella-garnished fruity cocktail in one hand and People magazine in the other. “Vacation?” I repeated. “How could she?”

  “Shhh!” Grace jabbed her finger at the door in warning.

  “But, vacation?” I hissed.

  “Don’t panic. Ralston has to have a good reason for this.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “Unbeatable airfare to Tahiti?” I closed my eyes and practiced my tai chi breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I thought of the dark circles under Ralston’s eyes, her drooped shoulders. I’d taken them as signs of worry and lack of sleep. But she wasn’t worried about her safety. Her conscience wasn’t tortured by some dark plan the FBI had hatched to use innocent kids as bait, either. She was just overdue for some R & R on sun-drenched sands.

  Grace let out a heavy sigh. “She’s FBI, Sophie. Maybe she’s realized Agford’s not her woman,” Grace said. She sounded downright disappointed.

  “Then she hopped a plane for the islands without mentioning we can relax now? I don’t think so.” I got up and tried to pace, but Grace’s magazines and clothes made it like running an obstacle course.

  Grace rubbed the top of Lucky’s head. “Let’s think about it. When’s the last time you saw Ralston?”

  “Monday morning,” I said, remembering her sedan trailing me as I rode to school. For all I knew, she had been going to the airport to split for Club Med. “But I saw Unibrow lurking outside Agford’s last night, I’m pretty sure. And didn’t you say you saw him when you biked down to school today?”

  “Yeah. So, see? They’re still on the case. Maybe he’s in charge now.”

  “She’s got nitwit on the case while she’s sucking down mai tais? You think that’s okay?”

  “How do you know he’s not a genius? Maybe he’s smart and all muscle,” Grace said.

  “All muscle? Apart from the man boobs, you mean? He’s giving Agford some serious competition.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “You’re totally overreacting.”

  “I’m overreacting?” I laughed in disbelief. “Now there’s a change. Grace, this is, like, the one time you should be freaking out.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The FBI has abandoned us with a fugitive who knows we’re on to her, Grace.”

  “I wouldn’t say abandoned exactly . . .” Grace tugged at a loose strand of hair.

  Maybe my words were finally sinking in. “All Ralston’s baloney about the operation taking a while? She needed to keep us out and buy time for her vacation. Then she leaves this doofus running the show while she’s at the beach without even telling us!”

  “Shhh!” Grace hissed again. “If you wake up my parents, we’re dead.”

  “No, that’s exactly what we have to do.” I moved toward the door. “Let’s wake them right now. Let’s tell them everything.”

  Grace hopped up to block my way. “They’re not going to believe us,” she said. “What are they going to do anyway? Go to the FBI? They’ll deny everything. You heard why Ralston didn’t want to tell our parents. They want to keep this undercover.”

  It was the first reasonable thing Grace had said since we’d read the message. I sat down on the bed. Lucky cocked his head at me. “Maybe . . .” I flipped Grace’s laptop back and stared at the message. “Maybe we can figure out who the FBI thought she was and work backward from there to prove the connection.”

  Grace nodded slowly. “You mean cut Ralston out of the equation and go directly to the police? I don’t know, Sophie.”

  “I thought you said the FBI doesn’t usually make arrests, anyway. The police do,” I said. Then I pictured Officer Grady wedged into the armchair in Mr. Katz’s office, gushing with compliments about Agford’s beet juice. I sighed. “That’s not going to work, is it?”

  “Maybe it’s worth a try,” Grace said. She sat cross-legged in front of her laptop and began to type.

  “I think we’re going to need more than Wikipedia, Grace.”

  “Yeah? Well, look.” She pointed to the screen. “Every high school in Texas, organized by county. We gather the ones that begin with T . . .”

  “And check the mascots.” I clapped my hands together. “This could work.”

  Grace clicked to one high school home page after another. Soon we’d found three “T” schools with cat mascots.

  “No tabbies though.” I smiled.

  “Uh, negative.” Grace gave Lucky a pat as he rubbed his face against her knee.

  “Hang on,” I interrupted. “Ralston said she’s from the Austin FBI office, right? So there’s got to be a way to check which counties that office covers.”

  Grace’s face lit up. Within seconds she was on the FBI’s web page. “Yep. Austin has jurisdiction over Bastrop, Blanco, Burleson, Burnet . . . fourteen counties in all,” she said. Before long we’d narrowed down
our list to just a few schools. “Okay, Tucker High School. Burnet County,” I said, holding my breath as Grace clicked. My hopes rose.

  Grace’s computer speakers blared the first few notes of a marching-band song. She slammed her hand on Mute and looked at the door. On the screen furry cartoon beasts with long duck bills danced and banged bass drums. “What are those?” Grace made a face.

  “Platypuses, maybe?”

  “Oh-kayy. On to Troy High, then.”

  Troy High was the Trojans; Temple High, the Cowboys. At last we stumbled onto the Tilmore High School Tigers in Tilmore, Texas, not far from Austin. On the home page stood a roaring silhouette of a tiger superimposed over a bold, chunky orange T. I held up the ripped newspaper from Agford’s car next to the screen.

  “Perfect match,” Grace said.

  I nodded. “To a T.”

  She groaned at my lame pun.

  “So now what?” Grace asked.

  I hardly heard her. My vision narrowed until I saw nothing but the stern, squared corners of the orange Tilmore High T. I stood up straight. I felt a surge of anger—or was it power? We had Agford in our sights. It was time to plunge forward. The possibility of victory lies in the attack, Sun Tzu said. But how to attack?

  “She works at a school now,” I said. “Maybe she has the paper because she worked at a school then, too. Search ‘Tilmore High’ and ‘murder,’ maybe?”

  Sports headlines littered the screen. Grace read aloud: “‘Tilmore High Murders the Fort Hood Ferrets, Thirty-two to Seven.’”

  “That’s what happens when you name your team after a small rodent,” I said.

  Grace’s fingers tapped on her keyboard. “Let’s try ‘Tilmore, Texas, Investigation,’” she said. A list of articles from the Austin American-Statesman scrolled onscreen. Now we were getting somewhere. Even Lucky seemed uplifted. He do-si-doed between the legs of Grace’s desk chair, capping off his unexpected square dance with a neat allemande right with his tail.

  I leaned over Grace’s shoulder to read:

  SWIM-MEET TRAGEDY INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY

  (TILMORE—April 8) Investigations into the electrocution of five Tilmore High and three Kenwood High students in Tilmore High’s newly built Olympic-sized pool at the league-championship swim meet March 30 are underway, reported Vernon LaGrange, Tilmore High’s principal. Deborah S. Bain, assistant superintendent of the Tilmore Independent School District, confirmed that electrical wiring work in the athletic facility’s new pool had only recently been completed before Tuesday’s fatal accident.

  The hair at the base of my neck prickled. Grace ran her hands over her hairpins. Neither of us spoke as we skimmed the horrifying headlines of the associated stories. “Parents Watch from the Stands as Children Drown,” and “Team Captain, 17, Dies in Heroic Rescue Attempt.”

  It seemed an odd coincidence that Agford had a newspaper from a high school where such a gruesome accident took place.

  Grace’s hands were trembling. If we ran across many more stories like this, she wouldn’t even go to the pool with me, let alone the beach.

  “It’s just an accident,” I said, hoping to distract her. “Maybe we should search something with ‘crime’?”

  Grace shook her head. She pointed to the last in the list of related articles.

  MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES IN POOL ACCIDENT

  (TILMORE—April 12) The fatal electrocution of eight high school students on March 30 was the result of gross negligence and fraud, authorities have now determined.

  Daniel Slater of Slater Construction, the company that performed all electrical work at Tilmore High’s new pool complex, has been indicted on eight counts of involuntary manslaughter and fifteen counts of fraud. School administrators are still determining how his unlicensed company won repeated bids for lucrative district contracts despite frequent staff complaints about unfinished or substandard work.

  “I can assure you we are making every effort to investigate the cause of this tragedy,” said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Deborah S. Bain. The Tilmore Independent School District paid more than $2 million to Slater’s company over the past three years.

  A picture accompanied the article. A heavyset man, his stomach straining against his jeans and leather belt, lifted his jacket to hide his face as he pushed his way through a crowd of reporters.

  “No way,” Grace said, finally recovering. “She was a guy! No wonder the feds can’t tell it’s her.”

  “Danny,” I whispered.

  “I know. I wouldn’t have pegged her for a Daniel, either.”

  “No, silly. The phone call. She’s not a guy. She was talking to one! Danny.” I tapped my finger on the screen. “Daniel Slater.”

  “Danny Slater,” Grace repeated. She rubbed my finger-print off her laptop screen with the sleeve of her pajamas.

  “Google Slater. There’s got to be more on him.”

  Grace typed. I marveled at how easy it was. The bits and bytes containing the secret of Agford’s real identity had always lurked somewhere out there, waiting to be uncovered. A few well-chosen clicks and, like a combination lock releasing as the tumblers slipped into place, Grace’s laptop might very well serve up the truth.

  “Hang on,” Grace said, pointing. “What’s this?”

  FIRE KILLS LOCAL OFFICIAL

  (TILMORE—May 2) Prominent local school administrator Deborah S. Bain is presumed dead after a fire ravaged her two-story colonial home in Tilmore in the early morning hours Sunday. Neighbors awaking to billowing smoke and 10-foot flames heard a woman’s cries and called for help. Although firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading, it destroyed Bain’s home. The cause of the fire is still being determined, but Fire Chief Robert McAllister reported Bain was likely asleep in bed when it began.

  “Deborah dedicated her whole life to the welfare of our kids,” neighbor Beverly Mathers said, weeping. “Now everything is in ashes.” Deborah Bain gave more than 20 years of service to the school district in a variety of roles, most recently as assistant superintendent of the Tilmore Independent School District. The district attorney offered no comment about whether her death will hamper the case against Daniel Slater, a contractor accused of involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Tilmore High pool tragedy last month. Bain’s office had closely coordinated with the district attorney in the preliminary investigations.

  “Unless Agford’s a zombie, she can’t be Deborah Bain,” I said with a chuckle. “Although that certainly would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”

  “And, while I may be unaware of some major advances in plastic surgery, I’m pretty sure it can’t turn that”—Grace clicked back to the article and accompanying photo of Daniel Slater and his bulging belly—“into a busty middle-aged woman.”

  I let out a long sigh. A moment ago my heart had been racing with the thrill of the hunt as we neared our prey. Now the jumbled details muddied my brain. A woman dead by fire. A contractor who didn’t do repairs. A horrible swim-meet tragedy. All of it was awful. All of it was strange. Yet none of it traced back to Agford.

  “Just when it was starting to feel easy,” Grace said glumly. She flopped back onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. “We’re not even very good Googlers, let alone private investigators, are we?” A gob of white acne cream smeared across her fingers as she brought her hands to her head. She glanced at her alarm clock. “Jeez. It’s two a.m. You should go back,” she said.

  “Maybe just one more search?” It felt strange to be the one pushing her forward.

  “Let’s give Ralston a chance to reply,” Grace said, sitting up again. “Maybe she will. If not, we’ll call the number on her email. Who cares what she said about secure phone lines at this point?”

  Lucky rubbed his chin on the corner of Grace’s laptop. As she swatted him away, my eye caught one of the headlines on the screen.

  “There’s something else. Scroll down,” I said, leaning in to read the headline.

  SUICIDE SUSPECTED IN BAIN HOUSE FIRE

/>   (TILMORE—May 15) Just one day before her death in a devastating house fire, Deborah Bain was interrogated by authorities about her possible role in Tilmore High’s gruesome swim-meet tragedy last month, sources at the district attorney’s office revealed Friday.

  Tilmore High Principal Vernon LaGrange confirmed that investigations revealed Bain’s office had awarded indicted private contractor Daniel Slater more than $2 million in construction bids for work that was not satisfactorily completed. The district attorney neither confirmed nor denied reports that Slater and Bain were related, but the Statesman’s research indicates Deborah Bain’s middle initial S might stand for Slater, and that the two may be half siblings.

  Interviews with Bain’s coworkers and neighbors suggest Bain was distraught over the investigation. Authorities now suspect her death was a suicide. However, the investigation has been impeded by the lack of remains on the scene.

  “A perfect match for our woman, and she’s been incinerated.” Grace flung up her hands.

  “Is that what that means? Lack of remains?”

  “Yep. No Deborah Bain. Just ashes. The police can’t do a thing.”

  I pictured a bewildered group of cops standing among heaps of ash, their pencils hovering above blank notepads. “Wait a minute. If there’s no body, then how do they know she really died?”

  Grace didn’t even hesitate before busting out a forensics lecture. “Well, in these cases, they usually match teeth with dental records, but sometimes, if the fire burns hot for a long time . . .” Grace’s eyes widened. She leaped up and grabbed me by both shoulders. “You’re a genius!”

  “So maybe she . . .”

  Grace nodded. “It makes sense. She fakes her death in the fire, hits the road, and she’s home free. She doesn’t leave a trace.”

  “That’s why it’s so hard for the feds to know if Agford is her! They didn’t get DNA from her in the first place.”