The cops’ faces fell, confirming Digby had seen through their acts.
“I get it, though, because Officer Holloway even looks like the nice lady cop on that show,” Digby said. “But you gotta smize. You know, smile with your eyes—”
“Okay,” Holloway said. “That’s enough. The conditions are the same. Talk or we’ll take you to the station.”
“You know, it’s interesting that we’re not at the station now. In fact, it’s interesting that you patched her up here instead of taking her to the ER,” Digby said.
The two cops looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“Maybe we oughta go to the station. Maybe we should call our parents. Or our lawyers,” Digby said.
“Okay, Stella, shouldn’t we—” Cooper said.
“You don’t need lawyers,” Officer Holloway said to us. “Schell isn’t pressing charges. He claims it was a misunderstanding and that you two are his patients.” She pointed at Digby and me. “If you corroborate his story, we’ll let everybody go.”
“Which you don’t wanna do,” Digby said.
“No,” Holloway said.
“But you don’t want us. It’s him you want,” Digby said.
Holloway was silent. Cooper stared at his shoes.
“When my sister was abducted, the cops took eighteen minutes to come,” Digby said. “You two were here three minutes after I called.”
“We were across the street. We watched you break in,” Holloway said. “This . . . isn’t exactly our case.”
“What’s going on?” Henry said.
“I’ll bet they need what we have on Schell, but they have to get it from us legally or they can’t use it,” Digby said. “You let us break in because we would’ve been a reason to search the office.”
“Good guess, kid,” Holloway said.
“You’re not detectives and you’re not in uniform . . .” Digby said.
“We’re off the clock,” Holloway said. “This is our side project.”
“Side project? Like . . . vigilante?” Digby said.
“Like budget cuts eliminated proactive investigations,” Cooper said. “Even when we have solid leads about a doctor writing illegal prescriptions that can be directly tied to two fatal ODs.”
“Can’t you get him on a weapons charge? He shot at us,” Digby said.
“Legit permit,” Cooper said. “And, technically, it sounds like the weapon discharged accidentally.”
“Okay . . . what if there’s another way?” Digby said.
“We’re listening,” Holloway said.
“What if someone else pressed charges? Say, a chiropractor whose storefront was vandalized?” Digby said. “Then maybe you’d have to take us in? Check our pockets?”
“Where we find . . .” Holloway said.
“A list of names and numbers . . . and maybe those numbers are URL addresses to a members-only porn site that shows him playing doctor with patients,” Digby said. “Except the patients don’t know they’re playing.”
“Wait. That means you knew what those numbers were the whole time? We didn’t need to come here at all? What was this stupid break-in for, then?” I said.
“And maybe if you found another file one of us was holding, you’d let him keep it since it has nothing to do with your case against Schell,” Digby said.
“Sorry, kid, that’s stolen property,” Holloway said.
“Yeah, but since technically, this”—Digby held up Schell’s files—“is tainted evidence, and I think if we dropped all the maybe’s from this conversation, we’d be in a conspiracy . . .”
“Christ, kid, you get all that from watching TV?” Holloway said.
“I only need one file. Check the name—it’s my mother’s. Let me keep it and we’ll cooperate,” Digby said.
“Cooperate?” I said. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Deal?” Digby said.
Holloway stared at Cooper, pleading.
“I’m sure this is not only illegal, but it’s probably also a violation of his constitutional rights too,” Cooper said. Finally, looking pained, he closed his eyes and nodded.
“Okay, great. You get twenty minutes. Read it here before we take you in,” Holloway said. “Best we can do.”
“I take photos,” Digby said.
“No,” Holloway said.
“Notes?” Digby said.
“Fine. But you’re struck with amnesia about how you got them,” Holloway said.
“Deal,” Digby said.
“In fact, all three of you get struck with amnesia about what’s happening here,” Holloway said.
“I’m not even sure I know what’s going on,” Henry said.
“Don’t we all have to agree? I can’t have this on my permanent record,” I said.
“Uh . . . me neither,” Henry said. “Football scholarships require a clean record.”
“Wow. I never thought the whole permanent record thing would blow up in our faces,” Cooper said.
“There’s no such thing as a permanent record,” Holloway said.
“Stella, don’t tell them that,” Cooper said. “Yeah, kids, there is such a thing as a permanent record.”
“Your partner really is the good cop, isn’t he?” Digby said.
“You have no idea,” Holloway said. “He’s vegan and he won’t even put honey in his tea because he refuses to exploit bees.”
I couldn’t help it. I thought, He’s vegan? and immediately my eyes gravitated to his belly hanging over his belt. I guess we were all doing it and he noticed.
Cooper pulled his jacket over his stomach. “Carbs are vegan.”
“Don’t most college applications ask you to list just felonies?” Digby said.
“That sounds right,” Henry said.
“What’s vandalism?” Digby said.
“In this state, a misdemeanor offense,” Holloway said.
Digby turned back to Henry and me. “He was filming patients and posting it online. This guy seriously deserves prison time. Besides, the misdemeanor will come off our records when we’re eighteen. In a way, it’s a good deal. We’re not even getting busted for the crime we did commit.”
“I know that in your head, that totally made sense, but now that you’ve said it, you do realize it’s actually totally insane, right?” I said.
“Come on, guys, let’s do the right thing,” Digby said.
“You don’t care about doing the right thing. You just want to read your mom’s file,” I said.
“That’s true. But you care. It’s your civic duty,” he said.
“Civic duty? I hate this town,” I said.
“I don’t hate this town,” Henry said.
“Two against one, Princeton.” When I shook my head and stood fast, Digby said, “Don’t be a Squidward.”
Squidward? I gave Holloway and Cooper the nod.
“Now we have to bust you for vandalism in a way the DA will believe,” Holloway said. “It would’ve been better if we’d found incriminating evidence in plain sight. But I guess that’d be too good to be true.”
“Hm . . . plain sight, you say?” Digby whacked my hoodie. The can of snow spray flew out of the pocket and rolled up to Holloway’s toes. “Plain enough?”
Mom came straight from singles Scrabble and turned up at the police station wearing what she calls her Minnie-Mouse-knows-what-Victoria’s-Secret-is dress. When Officers Holloway and Cooper brought us in to booking, Mom was sitting on a bench with some women who were handcuffed.
“What’s all this?” Holloway asked a uniformed officer.
“Brothel raid on William. These lovely ladies are waiting to get booked,” the uniformed officer said.
These women weren’t in the normal uniform of plastic platform heels, short shorts, and bad makeup. They looked lik
e normal women who’d put on special red lipstick for a night out. Kinda like Mom. Which is probably why Holloway turned tough-cop again when Mom got up and walked to me.
“Step back.” Alarmingly, Holloway put one hand on her holster. “Yo, why isn’t this suspect restrained?”
“Whoa, wait. She’s my mom,” I said. But that just deepened the misunderstanding.
“Your mom’s a—” Cooper said.
“What? No! I just sat down on that bench,” Mom said. “Never mind. I got a call about my daughter, but no one told me what the problem was.”
To his credit, Cooper looked uncomfortable with the lie we were about to tell. Holloway put on her bossy face and made herself taller to tell it.
“We found a defaced chiropractor’s office and a can of snow spray in your daughter’s possession and brought her in for misdemeanor vandalism,” Holloway said.
“Vandalism? Zoe? I don’t believe that,” Mom said.
“Believe it,” Holloway said.
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” Mom said.
Cooper inserted himself. “Please. Excuse my partner. It’s been a long night. What she meant to say is—”
“Don’t apologize for me, Cooper,” Holloway said.
“I’m not apologizing for you,” Cooper said.
“You’re not apologizing? Because someone should,” Mom said.
Cooper caught Digby’s eye.
“Go on. I wanna see how you get out of this,” Digby said.
The station doors burst open. A lady holding a sleeping baby ran straight for Henry, screaming so loud and fast, it took me a while to figure out she wasn’t speaking English. She jammed her finger in Henry’s face and ended her rant with a smack to the upside of his head.
“Signomi, Mama,” Henry said.
“Hello, Hestia, long time no see,” Digby said.
She smacked Digby on the upside too. “You call me Thia Hestia.” She pointed at Holloway. “What are you saying these boys do?”
“They vandalized a chiropractor’s office,” Holloway said.
“You have proof? I want to see proof. You show me proof. This is America.”
“We found a can of spray snow in her possession—”
“So she do it. My son has no can so why you arrested him?” Mrs. Petropoulos said. “These are good boys! Maybe this one, she is bad influence.”
“Hey! I guarantee this wasn’t my daughter’s idea,” Mom said.
“They’re not under arrest, technically. We’re writing citations. They have to appear in court, but until then, we’re releasing them to a parent or guardian,” Holloway said.
“Filipos, is that Val coming?” Mrs. Petropoulos asked Digby.
“Well, Val’s redoing the fireplaces at our country house . . .” Digby said.
“That mother of yours.” She handed a well-worn piece of paper to Holloway and pointed at Digby. “I take care of this one also.”
“Power of attorney. Old but it still works,” Holloway said.
“We go now.” Mrs. Petropoulos grabbed the power of attorney from Holloway, the citations from Cooper, and Henry by the collar even though he was a head taller than her.
“Want me to drive, Hestia?” Digby said.
“You shut up, Filipos. Tonight, you sleep on sofa. Tomorrow, we talk. You in big trouble now.” Then Mrs. Petropoulos got a tragic look on her face. She released Henry and stroked Digby on the cheek. “You poor, broken little boy.” Then they walked out with her shouting all the way to the car.
“I can’t believe that baby slept through all that,” Cooper said.
“So what we were hearing was her inside voice?” Holloway said.
Mom snatched my citation from Cooper’s hand. “You know, these kids are innocent until you can prove them guilty. Which I don’t think you can. Tell me, do you sit around with the rest of the George Bush Nostalgia Society perfecting intimidation tactics?”
“Ma’am, I’m a lifelong Democrat,” Cooper said.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?!” Mom said.
“Um, Stella . . .” Cooper said.
“But you’re doing so well,” Holloway said.
“I want your badge number. And hers too. I’m writing my congressman,” Mom said.
Cooper sighed and gestured for Mom to follow him to the desk.
“I thought you said she wouldn’t care,” Holloway said to me.
“Yeah . . . this is kind of a surprise for me too.”
“She seems pretty worked up, in fact. Which is a problem because this plan depends on her being as oblivious as you said she was,” Holloway said.
We watched Mom argue with Cooper.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Holloway said.
I did too.
ELEVEN
Mom gripped the wheel in silence on the tense ride home from the station and sent me to bed without a lecture. Part of me hoped it’d become just another thing we didn’t talk about. This was the same part of me that got hopeful when I scratched off supermarket Instant Win tickets that gave away, like, one TV for every million customers.
The silent treatment continued the next morning. After breakfast, she said, “This isn’t working.”
“What isn’t?” I said.
“None of it is.” Then she went to do the laundry.
The local paper reported that they’d arrested Schell the night before. As Holloway said, because we were minors, the press hadn’t contacted us. That was good because I wouldn’t have known what to say.
That night at dinner, Mom turned off the TV. Uh-oh, trouble, I thought. But then she busted out fancy napkins and made pork chops. Mixed message. Chops were not trouble food. Especially not with fancy napkins.
“The police called,” she said.
I did that cartoon thing where my fork froze in midair.
“So . . . turns out, my gynecologist was filming his patients,” Mom said. “Apparently, I was one of the lucky ones. He didn’t care enough to do anything more than give me my Pap smear. I shouldn’t be offended, right?”
I put my fork down.
“You expect me to believe it was a coincidence you three broke into that office? After you tried to talk to me about him earlier that night? How did you know?” Mom asked. “Can we talk about what happened, Zo?”
Great. The one time she actually wanted to talk, I couldn’t say anything at all. I couldn’t keep straight all the things Digby and Holloway told me to say and not to say. I focused on cutting my chop into smaller and smaller pieces.
“You know, when you were little, I was just glad that your dad was interested in you. He was totally different from the other dads who were just . . . not there for their kids. But then, it became this strange dynamic in our house with you and him . . .” she said. “I just felt . . .”
Left out. She’d felt left out. I knew because I remember leaving her out. It wasn’t exactly on purpose, but I’d known Dad and I were doing it.
“And then during the divorce, my therapist told me not to crowd you with my problems. He told me to give you space . . . let you mourn your own way. I’m beginning to wonder if that was a mistake.”
“You’re beginning to wonder?”
“Okay, yes, clearly it was a mistake. But I’m listening now.”
“Ugh, Mom, stop.”
“I just bailed you out of jail, Zoe. I think we’re past the small talk.”
“That’s a pretty dramatic interpretation of what happened.”
“Maybe this is a chance for us to make a new start.” Then, just before it turned into a pathetic PSA-style “moment,” featuring hugs and promises, Mom said, “For now, though, I need us to talk about what we’re telling your father.”
“Do I have to tell him anything?”
“I can’t afford the lawyer, Zo. We’ll have to tell him
,” she said. “He’s probably going to think this is me sabotaging this little Prentiss plan you two have. He isn’t going to take this well.”
No. He was not.
The Monday after I became a criminal (Mom’s word, which isn’t accurate because we only got charged with violations, although, yeah, we sort of got arrested), girls were eyeing me in the bathroom mirror. I considered this progress, because the week before, these same girls didn’t know I was alive.
When someone cut in front of me at the lunch line, someone else pulled him back and said, “Careful . . . she’ll shank you in the yard.” The next day, Henry told me a rumor was going around that we’d formed a vigilante group and that we had a list of people we were going to “punish.”
In Wednesday’s PE class, I got picked second out of forty girls for volleyball, which was fishy, because the week before, I’d tripped on my shoelaces and almost broken both arms when I’d gotten them tangled in the net on my way down to the ground. The janitor had had to cut me out. While waiting for our turn to play, two girls asked me about the whole thing.
“Is it true you got shot?” Volleyball Girl #1 said.
“Last Friday? Five days ago?” My implication was that if I’d gotten shot on Friday, wasn’t it hugely unlikely I’d be playing fricking volleyball on Wednesday? But the two girls took it to mean something else entirely.
“You mean you got shot another time too?” Volleyball Girl #2 said.
By the following Monday, I decided to embrace the dark side. I wore the outfit from the break-in. There was still my blood on the hoodie’s front, snow spray up one sleeve, and plaster across the back. I looked bad-ass dirty. By Thursday, I realized I wasn’t attracting the right kind of attention. I got “Hey, gangsta”–style comments, but I wasn’t getting into any meaningful conversations.
So I wore my usual dress and boots on Friday. Mom actually sighed in relief when she saw my outfit at breakfast.
For two weeks after our break-in, I didn’t see Digby in school except for once in the parking lot. I was about to call out to him, but he ducked behind some bushes as Dominic Tucker got off the football team’s bus. After a bit, Digby hopped out of the bushes and ran onto the empty bus. I didn’t want to know what new insanity he was up to, though, so I kept walking. I had all the notoriety I needed for a while.
Trouble is a Friend of Mine Page 7