by A. J. Lape
“You’re grounded!” Coach shouted.
Wasn’t the first time I’d heard the phrase, but I have to say it was the first by a gym teacher. “What did I do?” I said, feigning ignorance. I reached underneath my silver down coat, resnapping my jeans, trying my best to look like a concerned citizen. Dylan slowly opened his car door, not even asking what’d happened as Coach dangled half the stopwatch in front of my face.
Holy cow, what did he do? Smash it with a crowbar?
After a few more phrases of me acting like I hadn’t a clue what’d upset him, all three of us realized how cold it had grown. A snow was expected tonight. Three to five inches. In Cincinnati, if you had a good nose, you could smell it in the air.
All at once, Coach looked as if he’d grown twenty years older. I had the distinct feeling whatever bothered him this morning had inflated tenfold.
“I’ll replace it,” I blurted out.
“Take me to my car,” he muttered to Dylan. When we circled around the side of the building, nothing could’ve prepared me for what we’d see. Your parents always warn you to not laugh at others’ misfortunes, but sometimes the joke is so hilarious your body can’t help but be a smartass.
I laughed so loud I snorted like a pig. Dylan did some sort of strangled cough and bit his lip. In tie-dyed letters on the back of Coach’s white Honda Civic was painted “Coach Wallace is a Wanker.” There was the start of a few expletives, but thankfully whoever the artist was either ran out of paint…or nerve.
“Maybe you should cut back on this wankering thing if it’s so upsetting to people,” I joked.
He and Dylan sat there, mouths agape. When I rambled on about the weather and how the rainbow of colors made a nice, whimsical pattern, Dylan reached back and flicked me on the top of the head.
Well, he wasn’t saying anything…
After a few more beats of nothing, Coach leaned his head back against the headrest like his life had officially ended. He let out an exhausted sigh. “Walker, find out who spray painted my car. Unless I can get the person to pay for their crime, I’ll have to drive the thing around until I can pay my thousand dollar deductible.”
My father was in the insurance business. I’d rather take a fork to the eye than follow in his footsteps, but Murphy spewed his travails so much, I could probably ace a training class.
“That’s a pretty high deductible,” I said.
He muttered, “This isn’t a first time occurrence.”
“Seriously?” Dylan added.
“Three times before and one of them was Vinnie Vecchione,” he grumbled. “Granted his was washable, but still.”
Ah, Vinnie…
Vinnie was a full-blooded Italian with a prominent nose and lamb chop sideburns. Never short on a girl, Vinnie was the type of guy who oozed that “something.” That “something” which made the most gorgeous girls imaginable fall for a guy about fifty pounds overweight…with moobies.
Dylan and I exchanged worried glances. As far as we knew, Vinnie still lived at Ohio State University. He played football with Dylan last year and received a college scholarship as an offensive lineman. I doubt Vinnie had anything to do with Coach’s car, but I owed him a phone call anyway. Vinnie was on retainer with me, so to say, and the association definitely upped my street cred. When I was abducted and thrown in the back of a car last spring, it was by a man in a Yellow Dodge Charger. When the man yanked me out of the trunk, I wasn’t met with a chainsaw. Instead, I received a lecture on how to stay alive doing the things that made me Darcy. Wow. Er, no other word to describe that kind of ripple effect. Problem was, I hadn’t seen the man since. Vinnie had a large net of informants across the city that’d been playing lookout. We had several confirmed sightings, but when we investigated (behind Dylan’s back), nothing ever panned out.
“Why me?” I giggled.
Coach finally laughed, although it might’ve been at my expense. “You cut your teeth on being nosy, dollface. God knows you roam the hall enough, and you did a fine job with that gang last spring.” Okay, I did roam a little, but the roaming helped bust up the Northside 12 from infiltrating our school. When all was said and done, the Northside 12 had a rap sheet of assault, drug trafficking, murder, and attempted murder. I learned something about myself then. Once I put my nose to the ground, my bloodhound instincts rarely led me wrong.
Graffiti could be random or premeditated. The premeditated usually were personal. Looking at his car, premeditation seemed obvious. Sure, someone could’ve happened onto a can of paint and felt creative, but random occurrences more than likely would’ve involved more cars. Furthermore, logic said his car hadn’t been parked in its current space. He was in the teacher’s parking lot, positioned near a security camera. A crime perpetrated in this location was asking to be caught.
Someone knew his specific car and where to find it.
I said, “Someone was after you specifically. So where were you parked because I know it wasn’t here.”
Dylan’s dimples imploded, like he knew where my mind was headed.
Coach turned around, one eyebrow raised. “You deducted that from one glance at my car?”
I did my shoulders up and down in an exaggerated shrug. “This wasn’t random, Coach, or other cars would’ve been hit. And it didn’t take place in the teacher’s lot because there’s a security camera right next to your car. It would’ve documented the whole thing. I could give you more, but I need to know who your enemies are first.”
He rattled off the usual…
Disgruntled athletes who didn’t make the basketball cut, angry students he failed in gym, and his recently divorced wife who…jackpot…vandalized his car twice this year already. Huh, I just found out today he had a wife, let alone she was the “artsy” type.
A glance to Dylan said he’d known about the revelation. Dylan had left his car idling. I leaned forward between the seats and thrust both hands forward toward the blowing heater. My hands were numb, and my fingers felt past the resuscitation phase.
“Obviously things didn’t work out, Coach, or there wouldn’t have been a divorce. Who threw in the towel? You or her?”
He scratched his head, debating a reply. A look crossed his face like he felt bad talking about her without her present to defend herself. Whatever she did must’ve been pretty crummy, or he wrestled with overwhelming guilt and regret.
When he didn’t respond, I touched his shoulder. “Tell me what I’m working with. Did she hit you, rob you, cheat on you, poison your dog?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Which ones?” I shrieked.
“All of them.”
The animal lover in me yelled, “She poisoned your doggie!”
“All right, maybe not that, but I didn’t want the divorce. Besides, I’m sort of talking to someone else.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“It’s new,” he muttered. “We hooked up on Facebook. Haven’t met in person yet.”
“Well, that definitely has the makings of something everlasting,” I mumbled.
Dylan yanked my hair.
The three of us sat there listening to Dylan burn away more gas. I’d never rubberstamp a divorce, but sometimes circumstances warranted the break. I knew Dylan agreed with me. Catholics were more no-no on divorce than Murphy was, and my father was his own brand of Holy Roller. But Dylan was uncharacteristically quiet. He not only knew of their marriage but of details he hadn’t divulged in our late night soul-baring chats. Well, guess what, it’s only a matter of time before I pulled those suckers out of him.
Dylan finally graced us with a comment. “No video footage of anything?” The question was actually next on my list; but dang it, I hadn’t been hired yet.
Coach answered, “No. I’d parked in space 270. Some huge SUV parked in front of me, and we
got nothing but the black silhouette of a Nissan Armada when Security and I went through the tape. All I know is it happened between the time I pulled into the lot and right before first period because I discovered it when I ran out to the car to grab my whistle. Just my luck,” he mumbled to himself.
“Why had you parked there anyway?” I asked. “Whose space is or was it?”
“That space is always open, and I just took advantage. I was running late and didn’t work out this morning, so I pulled into 270 and sprinted to the door.”
“Dude, you burned a whole two calories. Good for you,” I giggled. I held my hand up for a high-five, but he left me hanging.
Dylan reached over and flicked my head again. Coach ignored me, still caught up in his personal problems, I guess.
I wasn’t the type to beat around the bush, but if he wanted my services, it’d come with a price. I glanced at Dylan who now gave me a wink. I smiled, “Five hundred dollars.”
Coach snorted in laughter, “You’re going to charge?”
Hellooo, my budget was bleeding. Of course, I’d charge.
There wasn’t much room between the seats, but I managed to cross my arms in protest. “You’re asking the best to solve a problem, Coach. That’s actually my discounted rate.”
Dylan giggled behind his wrist.
“How about half?” Coach countered.
Dylan peeked out from behind his hand, with an eye roll, shaking his head.
“Five hundred,” I declared, holding my head higher.
“Three hundred,” he frowned. When I returned a deeper frown, he muttered, “I’m a teacher for goodness’ sake! That’s practically my paycheck!”
Yeah, well, I was a poor student. We were even. “Look at it this way, Coach. If you don’t pay me, you’ll force me into a life of ill repute. I’m broke, man. And you weren’t going to turn it into your insurance company anyway. Your wife—”
“Ex-wife,” he interrupted with a frown.
“Right,” I smiled. “She got artsy before, correct? All I can say is if you turned in two acts of vandalism this year, one more time, and your rates will skyrocket.”
I picked at my nails as Dylan coughed to keep from laughing.
Coach glared, like he negotiated with a viper to crawl back in its hole. “You’re vicious, Walker,” he grumbled.
“I’m a businesswoman,” I explained professionally. “Pay me, or pay your insurance company.”
“I’m still out my five hundred dollars and haven’t paid for a paint job.”
“It’s the season for giving,” I grinned.
“It’s the season for scams,” he grumbled.
“It’s the season for miracles,” Dylan chuckled. “Give me all of your estimates, and the man who handles my father’s fleet of cars will beat it. You won’t have to turn it in at all.” Dylan turned to me winking, running a finger down my nose. “Don’t you like to win, sweetheart? I so like to win.”
I gave him an even bigger grin, cooing, “Winning makes me feel special.”
Before we called it a day, Coach showed us the videotape of the offense. I’m sure it was against school policy, but when you walked into Security and no one manned the shop, the tape sort of turned itself on (wink, wink).
Cameras rolled 24/7, and at seven o’clock, Coach’s Honda Civic was a dirty arctic white. The cameras definitively documented the time of him driving into the parking lot, but like he said, he made a C-turn and popped into space 270 where cameras didn’t have a full-view. By seven twenty, the bumper had been tie-died like a darn rainbow with WANKER in all caps. Holy guacamole, I didn’t even know what a wanker was. Whoever painted, painted fast. We viewed the tape from seven o’clock up until school started at seven fifteen and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. We didn’t see anyone congregating around the area other than a white van that paused for a minute to chat to a few students. No one was bowled over with laughter in the nearby spaces or aisles. What did that tell me? People either had no clue what went on around them, or I needed to see who’d been listed as tardy for the day. A few minutes late to class could mean all the difference in the world.
After Coach gave me the names of the students he considered possibilities—unfortunately, none I recognized as listed in his file—he opened his door and turned around with furrowed brows. My word, he looked at me like you looked at creatures underneath microscopes. “Do you really think you can do this?”
It didn’t take a lot to galvanize me into action. Tell me I couldn’t do it, and I’d die trying.
“Call me the little engine that could,” I smiled. “And by the way, that guy and girl in your class earlier? Don’t leave them alone again.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say he was having trouble keeping the beast in check.”
Dylan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Coach still hadn’t caught my drift. “Dumb that down for me, Walker,” he grunted.
“You heard me, Coach. He doesn’t know when no means no.”
Coach dropped his chin, his eyes going wide like a hoot owl’s. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
“It does,” I snorted, “but don’t worry. I took care of it.”
Dylan cut him off, slaying me with his gaze. “And how exactly did you take care of it?”
“Well, I didn’t have a stake for his heart, so I made do. In fact, my retaliation was so brutal I think I sprained my own hand.”
All the air rushed from Dylan’s lungs. I pounded on his back.
“I’ll look into this,” Coach sighed. “Thanks, dollface.”
“I’m going to need his name,” Dylan hissed low in his throat.
Heck yeah he needed it because my girl bits might need protected, and I’m positive I gained a new enemy in the process.
6. 100 Proof Stud
“I worried, Mr. Murphys. Death is coming to your life.”
For the past forty-three minutes (yes, I actually counted), Claudia, frantically mirrored Murphy’s every move, telling him to skip work, or take the bus, or heck, quit working altogether and embrace government assistance. She spoke through a crack in the bathroom door, pulled him out of his car, even helped stir the pot of chili he’d been cooking on the stove. Murphy, his usual uncomfortable-with-emotional-displays self, patted her awkwardly on the shoulder grunting, “I’m good.”
Claudia wasn’t so convinced. She’d bolted us in nice and tight and shoved a chair up against the front door, an ottoman against it. Claudia believed in her “powers” over any voice of reason whatsoever.
When she was thirteen, Claudia walked through the streets of Puerto Rico when a fruit truck backfired and a load of produce fell off the bed. She said she saw the Virgin Mary in the spray of tomatoes. Ever since, Mary or Baby Jesus would occasionally visit her. Last spring, she saw Jesus on a Keebler cookie—a cookie that I accidentally ate.
Yeah. Mazel tov.
Claudia’d just picked up Murphy’s briefcase and saw “Death,” whatever it looked like, on a file folder with the words “Dumbass Kansas Account” hand-scrawled on the header. First off, Murphy never cursed, so this account must really be stupid for him to immortalize it on company property as such. We’d just finished eating dinner, and he fell into his recliner, finishing up a recorded episode of The Young and the Restless.
As Claudia chanted a voodoo spell of protection, I scrounged around for dessert. I had bad eating habits and referred to my snack cuisine as the 3Cs: a coffee, Coke, and a cookie. I’d since added a fourth—the churro. Claudia had just baked a batch, and I jumped up on the countertop, eating two of the remaining three. This is how I wanted to die…I wanted to die falling face-first into a plate of churros. In about eight bites, my slobber switch turned off, and I was left with a mouthful of food I couldn’t swallow.
&nb
sp; While I downed half a Coke with a burp, Claudia bounced over in a hot pink muumuu. It looked like a shower curtain wrapped around two, inflated beach balls. File that under another episode of Bathroom Commercial Gone Bad.
She smacked my hand, pointing to the last churro I’d licked and placed back on the countertop. “Did you do?”
I shrugged. “My lips sort of fell on it. Sometimes that stuff happens.”
She cocked her head to one side, debating the chances, but gave up and sang a Spanish song about baby angels. When Y&R ended, Murphy switched to the six o’clock news right as a live-streaming camera showed Nowacki’s Videos—the latest establishment to fall victim of robbery and vandalism—and what the reporter claimed was “…already a case of confirmed identity theft.”
That could only mean the crooks cleaned him out, stole information from his personal accounts, and then divested him of his assets. Quick movers, if the press already had confirmation. That insinuated a high level of organization.
Nowacki’s Videos geographically lay across the street from Belinski’s Bookstore—where I found the three ID cards. Furthermore, this was one too many instances of vandalism and identity theft for me today. Coincidence? I think not.
“Was anyone hurt?” I asked, jumping off the counter. Mr. Nowacki never left the place until ten o’clock. Windows had been broken and glistened like diamonds on the front sidewalk. A cleaning crew wiped down what appeared to be profanity because the news station blocked the words from viewership with white rectangular boxes.
As the anchor reported the incident happened “after hours,” he touched on other incidences in the area while my mind tugged at me with the promises I’d made. A promise to Tito for information on the person who stole his identity, and a promise to Coach to unearth who’d painted his car. Add those together and you talked enough money for Christmas (hello $10 G reward), plus the beginnings of a substantial savings account. In my little corner of the world, I’d be freaking rich.