The Wig in the Window

by Kristen Kittscher

  “Exactly! And check out the article dates: Agford moved here two summers ago. That would only be six weeks or so after the fire.” Grace hunched back over her computer in search of more articles on Bain.

  Slowly we pieced the full story together. We didn’t find anything else on Bain’s death, but there were piles of articles on the swim-meet tragedy, each one accompanied by haunting photos of “the Tilmore Eight” and their grief-stricken families. Even the national news media had picked up on the story. Bain had contracted with her brother’s company, Slater Construction, to complete work at all the schools in the Tilmore district. Slater Construction had cut corners to make huge profits they either spent or squirreled away in offshore accounts. The electrical work for the Tilmore High pool lights was done by untrained workers the head foreman had picked up off the street. None of the required inspections had been carried out.

  So, one day, as kids were hopping into the pool to begin warm-up laps for the championship swim meet, ten thousand volts of electricity pulsed through the pool’s waters, because some wiring in the lights had come loose. The proud parents who filled the bleachers looked on helplessly as their children’s bodies convulsed in the blue water. The captain of the swim team had jumped in to save his girlfriend. They both died, arm in arm. I couldn’t bear to read about it.

  “You really think we should go to the cops instead of waiting?” Grace asked.

  I imagined bursting into Officer Grady’s office with a scrap of newspaper and an acrylic wig, claiming Agford was a wanted fugitive who’d made off with millions, then faked her own death in a fire.

  “God, you’re right. We can’t prove a thing.” My shoulders slumped. I felt the same way I did during my tai chi sparring sessions. Just when I thought I’d mastered my Seven Star Punch or Cloud Hands, my instructor would calmly block and counterattack.

  “Let’s check if Unibrow’s truck is out there,” Grace offered. “We could see if he can get in touch with Ralston at least?”

  I humored Grace. But neither Ralston’s bulky right-hand man nor his white pickup were anywhere to be found. Grace tossed her high-powered binoculars on the bed as if it was their fault. “I don’t think he’d even know what to do with it all, anyway,” she said.

  Lucky the cat, eager for more investigation, darted around the room stalking imaginary prey. If only it were still all a game. I watched as he disappeared into a toppled cardboard box in the corner.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting up. “Do your parents lock your door that goes from your garage into your house?”

  “Nope. But I told you already, Soph.” Irritation crept into Grace’s voice. “I’ll stash the evidence. You don’t have to worry about her breaking in.”

  Lucky peered out from the box, watching us curiously from the safety of its shadows.

  “That’s not what I mean. My parents don’t lock ours either. The garage door is secure enough. And you know what? Agford left hers unlocked on Saturday. I don’t think she ever locks it.”

  “What are you saying? We break in?”

  “We know she’s Deborah Bain. We just have to prove it. And I’m not waiting around for Ralston to cruise back from the Caribbean to do it.” I scanned Grace’s room. “I’ve got an idea. Where’s your phone?”

  Grace looked at me uncertainly. “Right on the desk. Why?”

  “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, victory will never stand in doubt,” I replied. The bed creaked as I stood up.

  “You quote Sun Tzu one more time, Lucky and I vomit in your lap.” On cue, Lucky reemerged from his investigations and stood at attention. He cast me a warning look before leaping to Grace’s dresser to run a slow-motion slalom course around her various nail-polish bottles and empty Diet Coke cans.

  “Is Miss Anita still going to her Harvard alumni thing?”

  “Yes, thank God. Self-study from tomorrow till Monday.”

  “Perfect. You and I are going on a mission tomorrow, Agent Yang. Together.”

  As Grace raised her hand to give a salute, a loud clattering rang out. We turned to see Lucky atop Grace’s dresser, wide-eyed amid the wreckage of nail-polish bottles.

  A door creaked open down the hall. We froze. Lucky, the coward, dashed for cover under the bed skirt.

  “Grace?” Mr. Dr. Yang’s voice croaked.

  As Grace shooed me away wildly, I leaped for her cell phone and slid open the patio door just wide enough to slip out.

  “One p.m. tomorrow. Meet me here,” I whispered just before Grace’s door swung open to reveal a groggy Mr. Dr. Yang in red-and-white striped pajamas, looking concerned. I flattened myself against the wall outside and held my breath. I didn’t dare run, for fear Mr. Dr. Yang would hear me.

  His worry turned to anger. “What are you doing?”

  “Miss Anita—” Grace protested.

  Mr. Dr. Yang muttered something in Mandarin I couldn’t make out. “Hand it over,” he said in English.

  And just like that, Mr. Dr. Yang snatched Grace’s laptop—and our hopes—away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  All Locked Up

  Bleary-eyed, I headed to meet Trista in the alcove behind the art room at break the next morning. She looked surprisingly alert, considering I’d woken her up at two a.m. Maybe it was just because she was wearing a bright orange T-shirt. “Here you go.” She handed me a crumpled brown lunch bag. “You’re going to go through with this crazy plan no matter what I say, aren’t you?”

  “You sure it’ll work?” I whispered. At least one of us should try to be subtle.

  “You wake me up in the middle of the night for this and you want it to work?” Trista shook her head at me. Then she smiled. “Of course it does. Stanley, Craftsman, Genie, LiftMaster. I found the frequencies online and programmed them all,” she explained. “Even rode the bus once around the block this morning so I could test it out.”

  I peered in at the universal remote, picturing Trista’s bus chugging down Luna Vista Drive as a synchronized sequence of garage doors flung open.

  “It was a real hit,” she said with a chuckle.

  “I bet. You’ve got Grace’s cell number, right?”

  She nodded and patted one of the bulging pockets of her cargo shorts. “And check this out.” Trista flashed a plastic vial. “Eye drops. If I can’t keep her overtime in therapy last period, watch out! I’m going to cry me a river. You sure you don’t want me to let the air out of her tires?”

  “Nah. Too suspicious.” I got on my tiptoes to clap Trista on the shoulder. “You’re a good friend. You know that?”

  “And you’re crazy, Sophie Young,” she said, breaking into a smile. “Crazier than I ever thought you could be.”

  When the bell rang for lunch, Madame Tarrateau was still standing at the front of the room, arms extended, flashing her impressive tufts of underarm hair as she simulated either a jet preparing for takeoff or the Crucifixion, I wasn’t sure which. I didn’t wait to find out. I slung my backpack over one shoulder and headed for the door. If I was fast, I might reach the bike racks before I had to fight upstream against the lunch hordes.

  I passed Trent Spinner’s crew lurking near the archway to the courtyard, looking aimless without their captain to chart a course to the cafeteria. Students emptied from classrooms, shoes scuffling, shouts rebounding against the lockers. My backpack snagged on something. When I turned to free it, I was greeted by Marissa’s round, blue eyes. My backpack strap was looped through her arm as if it were an old lady she wanted to help across the street.

  “Our Brown Bag Lunch Seminar is on peer pressure today. You should join us,” she said, pulling back her lips in a smile that reminded me of Agford’s. My blood ran cold.

  “Dentist appointment,” I said with a shrug. Marissa’s eyes traveled to the lunch bag sagging in my hand. I smiled tightly and yanked my backpack free.

  I zigzagged my way down the hall, calculating the odds that Marissa was en route to report my suspicious dentist appointment to Agford. As long
as Agford didn’t clip-clop down from her lair to check on me in orchestra or PE, I’d be home free. But if she did . . . I sneaked a glance over my shoulder before I rounded the corner to the bike racks. I had to risk it.

  As I pedaled my bike over the crest of Luna Vista Drive, I felt as if I were taking flight. Wind rushed against my face as I coasted downhill. I imagined it was the uncontainable energy of yang. Trista was right. I was crazy—crazier than even I thought I could ever be.

  Grace was waiting for me in a lawn chair on the patio outside her room. Two neat braids poked out from under her blue baseball cap. If she hadn’t been wearing a denim mechanic’s jumpsuit, she might have looked like a vacationer soaking up some sun. A name patch on her left pocket read Earl in a loopy script.

  “Where’d you dig up that outfit?” I asked.

  “Oh, I borrowed it from Jocelyn’s older brother. Told him it’s for a costume party. All systems go?” Grace grabbed the small black backpack that held her spy gear.

  “As long as that door is unlocked,” I said, tossing her the crumpled lunch bag and her cell phone. “You alone?”

  “My parents are at the clinic until at least four,” she said, inspecting Trista’s modified garage-door remote as though checking the chambers of a gun. “I’m supposed to be writing a report on the dangers of internet addiction. Longhand.”

  “Didn’t get your laptop back, huh? I wonder if Ralston replied.”

  “Not yet.” Grace sighed. “I logged on to my dad’s computer for, like, half a second to check—but I can’t push my luck right now. Not after last night.”

  It wasn’t until Grace and I nestled behind a thick hedge near the street to watch and wait that doubts crept in. Marissa could have told Agford already. I pictured her and the rest of S.M.I.L.E. marching in lockstep up to Agford’s office like aliens returning to warn the mother ship. What if Agford was on her way home? It would only take her five minutes—especially the way she drove.

  Grace hitched back her sleeve. Six digital watches ran up her forearm, all peeping and chirping as she set them. “Ninety minutes tops, right?” she said as she unfolded a piece of notebook paper. Assuming Agford’s house wasn’t laid out very differently from ours, Grace had divided the floor plan into imaginary sectors in dark pencil lines. “Ten minutes for each of these three sectors, maximum,” she said, pointing to the open areas of the house. “But at least an hour for the basement, don’t you think?”

  I wasn’t even irritated that Grace repeated my plan as if it were hers. We were a team, and a team doesn’t waste time worrying about who should get credit. Besides, my second wind was fading and I was suddenly feeling too tired to argue. I nodded. “I say we split up. You take upstairs; I’ll take downstairs. Trista will text when she can’t keep Agford any longer. Is your bike ready?”

  “The tires are pumped, and it’s right in the garage. It shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes to bike to the station if we find anything good.” Grace’s eyes flickered with worry as she turned back to Agford’s house. “You think Unibrow or Ralston’s other agents are watching?” she asked.

  I ignored the feeling in the pit in my stomach. “Whatever,” I said. “We have nothing to lose.”

  “If they stop us, we sure do,” Grace reminded me.

  The bulk of the thick-necked FBI agent we’d seen lurking around Agford’s house had once reassured me. Now I pictured him leaping out to stop us as we launched our kamikaze break-in. It’d be like running into a brick wall.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, surprised by the sureness in my tone. I drew in a sharp breath, aimed Trista’s universal remote, and pressed. Agford’s garage door whirred open.

  Grace and I turned to each other. “I gotta hand it to Trista,” she said.

  I nodded. “It almost feels too easy, doesn’t it?”

  “Almost,” Grace said. She tugged on a pair of her latex gloves. Her hands trembled very slightly.

  “You sure you still want to go first?” My hands were shaking, too.

  “When’s the last time I took a risk?” Grace grinned. “It’s my turn, right, General?” She tucked her braids into her baseball cap and pulled it low. “Meet you at the side door in five, if the coast is clear.”

  “Be careful, Agent Yang.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Grace jogged up to Agford’s gaping garage door, put her hands on her hips, and pretended to inspect the automatic garage-door mechanism. Her workman’s disguise was bad. Really bad. I held my breath and hoped no one walked by.

  I breathed again once Grace disappeared into the shadows. Agford’s garage door hummed shut. That was our signal. The interior door was unlocked.

  I counted to two hundred. If Ralston’s agents were still surveilling Agford’s house, they would sweep in on Grace right away. I waited until I heard nothing but the breeze rattling through Agford’s sycamores. Then I made my move.

  Agford’s side door swung open just as I arrived. I looked up, almost expecting to see Agford towering over me with a gleaming machete, her wig askew. But there stood Grace, striking a fake fashion pose and gesturing to her feet. Slippers of red silk embroidered with gold peeked out from under her denim jumpsuit. The Yangs’ house shoes for guests.

  “Nice look,” I whispered.

  She tossed me a matching pair. “And practical,” she said. “You won’t leave any trails this time.”

  We looked like lost houseguests as we shuffled around in our slippers on Agford’s fake wood floor. Apart from the dishes rising out of the sink like the leaning tower of Pisa, Agford’s kitchen looked just as it had on the weekend. The same rotten smell seeped from the trash, mingling with the vague traces of her disinfectant-scented perfume. I felt the same twinge of sadness. Sometimes it really did seem like she was just a weird, lonely lady, rattling around in her empty house. No friends to speak of. Not even a dog.

  “Ahhh!” Grace cried.

  “Ahhh!” I echoed as she toppled backward into me, arms windmilling. A fly took refuge in a patch of sticky brown residue on the counter, no doubt planning a second surprise landing on Grace’s face.

  “It’s a fly, Agent Yang. Pull yourself together!” I whispered.

  “I thought there was a booby trap!” she hissed back.

  “Tell me you didn’t just say booby.”

  We laughed nervously.

  I pointed to the basement door across the kitchen. “Let’s meet down there in half an hour,” I said. “Unless Trista texts first.”

  Grace gave a thumbs-up, started the timer on one of her watches, and disappeared upstairs.

  Agford’s house was a cluster of sharp angles and empty space, as though it were trying to somehow balance out every poufy pillow that graced her office at school. A square glass table stood at the center of her dining room, blanketed by a thick layer of dust. Frenzied geometric shapes stabbed their way across a painting that hung above the hard, gray sofa in the living room. Black bookshelves lined the room; the pink covers and curlicue scripts of Agford’s trashy romance collection gave the room its only softness and color.

  I tiptoed through the dark, empty rooms. Each time I opened a cabinet, I expected sirens and iron traps to snap around my snooping hands, leaving me to wait in shackles for Agford’s inevitable return. But there was only emptiness. No mail lingered on desks. No photos were on display. Even the drawers in Agford’s office were bare, except for a few pens and legal pads. I suppose fugitives don’t settle into town with moving trucks bearing treasured belongings from the good ol’ days, especially when they’ve burned their own houses down. Still, shouldn’t Agford have gathered some possessions over the last two years? It sure would have made much more sense if she’d channeled her passion for bright orange pumpkin flags and giant pastel bunnies into her interior decor, where they wouldn’t attract attention.

  I pulled open another file drawer in Agford’s office. Empty. The cabinet thrummed as I slammed it shut. Upstairs Grace’s footsteps creaked hurriedly back and
forth. Maybe she was having more luck.

  Finally I gave up and shuffled back to the kitchen. I stared at the door next to the refrigerator. The basement was waiting for us. It had been waiting for us ever since my first Saturday of punishment, when Grace and I had pressed our faces against its windows and strained to see into the darkness.

  I opened the door. I don’t know what I expected, exactly. A flock of rabid, fang-gnashing bats shrieking as they swarmed around my head, maybe. Certainly not the silence that greeted me instead.

  I ventured onto the first wooden step. The scent of damp concrete and rust was cool and refreshing compared to the disinfectant-heavy odor of the house. The door behind me creaked gently as a faint cross draft blew against it.

  Halfway down the stairs, I paused and looked around. Pale light tried to push past a few cloudy half windows near the ceiling, illuminating the most beautiful scene I’d laid eyes on in weeks. Dusty shelves clung to the walls, packed with musty books, Mason jars, and bags of old clothes. Dented archive boxes struggled to contain manila folders. Each box, each rusty tool, shimmered with promise. I staggered forward, drunk with anticipation. I’d start with the bottom shelves. Grace could reach the top ones.

  I had slid out the first box and was about to turn and shout for Grace when the gunshot rang out. I flung myself flat on the hard concrete and covered my head. Was I hit? Maybe adrenaline had numbed me.

  “Sweet moves, Agent Young!” Grace’s voice echoed above me.

  I lifted one arm and peeked up. Grace laughed and jerked her thumb to the basement door. It hadn’t been a gunshot at all—just the door slamming behind her. I let out a long breath and rolled back on the ground as she thwacked down the steps in her red slippers.

  “Oh my God . . . ,” Grace said as she took in the sight of the overflowing boxes. She reached up and pulled one down from the highest shelf. I squatted, sifting through layers of junk as if I were panning for gold.

  “I think I’ve found every pine garland and oversized bunny ever manufactured,” I said.