Hazed

by Franklin W. Dixon

“He’s kind of psycho—in his own quiet way,” I assured Lil. “What kind of psycho does Emma like?”

  “The kind of extremely needy psycho who decides he can’t live without her,” Lil said. “First there was Noah, who wrote her two poems a day. Which was upped to five when she said she wanted to break up with him. Five tearstained poems of patheticness.”

  She shook her head. “Then there was Roy. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Roy was twisted.”

  The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. We were about to find out something important.

  “Twisted how?” I asked.

  “Emma wanted to break up with him, too.” Lil turned to Frank. “That’s the other thing. Em’s always wanting to break up. You really don’t want to get gooey about her.”

  “Okay,” Frank said.

  “So anyway, Emma wanted to break up with Roy,” Lil continued. “She was ready to move on to Liam, psycho number three, who she’s dancing with right now. But Roy didn’t want to break up with her. And that’s where the psycho part came in. Roy actually blackmailed Emma into staying with him.”

  “Sick!” I burst out.

  “So sick,” Lil agreed. “Roy had helped Emma cheat on this bio test. He helped her figure out how to do it. Then, when she wanted to kick him to the curb, he said he’d go to our school’s dean and tell her what they had done.”

  “Sick and cold,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Lil shook her head again. “Especially because Roy knew our school has this zero-tolerance policy about cheating. He knew that if he ratted out Emma, she would have been expelled. He also knew enough about Emma’s parents to know that if that happened, her life would become a complete waking nightmare.”

  “So she stayed with him?” Frank asked. His curiosity about our case had clearly won out over his girl shyness. He wasn’t blushing or stammering or anything. Atta boy, Frankster.

  “Until he died,” Lil answered. “But she hooked up with Liam about two seconds later. Very classy. Not that Roy deserved loyalty or anything after what he did to her. Which brings us to psycho number three.”

  “Liam,” I said.

  “Liam.” Lil rolled her eyes. “He’s not an especially interesting kind of psycho. Just your basic extremely jealous one. He’s always flying into a tantrum because he thinks Em is looking at some other guy. Or some other guy is looking at her. Or whatever. I don’t—”

  Lil stopped in midsentence. “This is my favorite song ever. Are you sure one of you won’t break the rules and dance with me?”

  “Can’t,” Frank said.

  “Sorry. So sorry you can’t even know how sorry,” I told her.

  She smiled at us. “Okay, well, I can’t not dance to this song, so, gotta go.” She whirled off into the crowd of people on the dance floor.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah, she just gave us a new suspect. I think Emma has to go on our list,” Frank answered.

  “True. But that’s not what I meant,” I told him. “I just meant wow, how cool was Lil?”

  “The thing about Emma is that even though she had motive, it would have been really hard for her to get into the dorm the night Roy died—or was killed,” Frank went on.

  “Of course, Liam lives in the dorm. And he might have been very happy to help Emma if she decided she had to off blackmailer Roy,” I added.

  “He does seem pretty attached,” Frank agreed, looking over at the two-headed body that was Liam and Emma dancing together.

  “Extremely.” I spotted Lil in the crowd. She seemed totally happy dancing by herself. Joining up with a couple briefly. Weaving through a circle of other girls for a minute.

  “Here she comes,” Frank said.

  “She’s way over there,” I told him.

  “I’m talking about Emma”

  Oh, right. Emma. The whole reason we were lurking by the girls’ bathroom.

  “Emma! You and Liam looked great out there!” I called.

  She stopped. “Do I know you?” she asked. But not in a snotty way. In a kind of teasing, flirty way.

  “I’m Joe Hardy. My brother Frank and I are part of an exchange student program. We’re going to Eagle River and living in Liam’s dorm for a couple of weeks,” I told her.

  “Cool,” she answered as she came toward us. “How do you like it so far?”

  “Great. Except for the being a servant part,” I answered.

  For a moment Emma didn’t answer, and I thought her face got a little paler. “Yeah, that part sucks. But then you get to be a master the next year.”

  “Except for Roy,” Frank said. “We heard about what happened to him. That must have been really hard on you.”

  Emma’s smile slid off her face. “Yeah, Roy. This probably sounds horrible, but I try not to think about him. It just hurts too much.”

  “It doesn’t sound that horrible.” I touched her arm.

  “Hey!” Emma pasted the smile back on her face. “My school is doing a Boys of Eagle River calendar. It’s for charity. Would you guys want to be in it? It’s for charity,” she said again. “And you’re definitely both cute enough to be models.”

  I almost got whiplash from that subject change. She really, really, really didn’t want to talk about Roy.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Emma Whitley

  Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts

  Physical description: Age 17, 5’5”, 130 lbs., long brown hair, blue eyes

  Occupation: Student

  Background: Girlfriend of Liam Sullivan; former girlfriend of Roy Duffy; both parents college professors

  Suspicious behavior: Gets extremely agitated when talking about Roy, does anything to change the subject.

  Suspected of: Murder of Roy Duffy with the help of Liam Sullivan

  Possible motive: Wanted to stop Roy from blackmailing her.

  “Sure, Frank and I have always talked about how we want to be models,” I told Emma.

  Frank shot me a look of extreme pain. I ignored him. This could give us more time to spend with Emma. Time we could use to get more info about her and Roy.

  “Cool. Ultracool,” Emma answered.

  “But we’re not going to be around for very long,” Frank said.

  I thought he was about to blow it, but I underestimated him. “When can we get in a photo shoot?” he asked. For my brother, that was like asking when he could get in a root canal.

  “Um.” Emma hesitated. “Well …” Clearly she had no real interest in us as calendar boys.

  I spotted Lil twirling past. “Hey, Lil!” I called out. She boogied on over.

  “Emma just recruited me and Frank for your school calendar,” I told her.

  “Excellent!” she answered. “I would love to take your picture. I’m the photographer for the gig. Can you come by tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Absolutely,” Frank told her. He looked over at Emma. “Will you be there?”

  “Of course she’ll be there,” Lil told us. “She’s the stylist. Just go to Edwards Hall. Someone will call for us.”

  “We’ll be there,” I told her.

  10.

  Model Behavior

  Emma Whitley ran her fingers through my hair. “You’ve got great texture,” she said.

  “I’ve always thought that about Frank,” Joe said from the chair next to mine in the downstairs lounge at Emma and Lil’s dorm.

  I felt myself blushing. Of course. It didn’t help that what felt like about a hundred girls were watching Emma “style” me. It was probably only about twenty. But still.

  I hoped that at some point during the photo shoot Joe or I would manage to get a couple of minutes alone with Emma to talk to her about Roy. Otherwise, this afternoon was going to be a waste. And something Joe would probably be teasing me about for the next few years of my life.

  “Wait. What are you doing now?” I burst out. Emma had finished futzing around with my hair and now had a sponge way too close to my face.

  “Just a little fo
undation,” she told me.

  “Yeah, you really need it,” Lil added. “Not just you. All the models. Otherwise you’ll look totally washed out.”

  “I can live with that,” I answered.

  “Oh, come on, Frank,” Joe said. “I let them put it on me.”

  I snorted. As if following Joe in this situation was a good thing.

  “Pretty please,” Emma said, moving the sponge an eighth of an inch closer to my face.

  “Fine,” I said. A second later I felt the cold stuff spreading over my skin.

  “So who are the other guys you want to be in the calendar?” Joe asked.

  “Li-am,” four or five of the girls watching chorused.

  “Emma would have Liam for every month if she could,” Lil added.

  “Does that mean last year’s was all Roy?” I queried.

  A bunch of the girls looked at me like I was a huge jerk. Emma looked shocked.

  I knew it was a completely uncool question, but Joe and I needed to get the convo over to Roy somehow.

  “This was Roy’s first year at Eagle River,” Emma finally said.

  “How did you two meet, anyway?” I asked, pretending I just had no idea how uncomfortable I was making her. Uncomfortable people sometimes say things they don’t mean to. Things like the truth.

  “I don’t even remember,” Emma said as she finished up applying the makeup to my face. I noticed her fingers were trembling a little. “Because I was so little. My parents and Roy’s have known each other forever.”

  So Roy definitely would have known how strict Emma’s parents were. He would have known just how much trouble she’d have gotten in if the fact that she’d cheated on that bio test had come out.

  “I’m done here,” Emma told Lil. “I have a ton of studying to do. You care if I skip the actual picture-taking part of the shoot? These guys are ready.”

  “Won’t they need touch-ups?” Lil asked.

  Emma had already started walking away. “I want their hair messy,” she said over her shoulder. “Just slap some powder on their faces if they start to get shiny.”

  Then she was out of sight.

  Had she bolted because I’d made her feel sad about Roy? Or because she was still mad at Roy and didn’t want it to show?

  Or was it because she felt guilty for murdering the guy?

  “Where have you two been?” Keith demanded from the TV lounge as Joe and I walked into the dorm. It was almost dinnertime. The bus back from the girl’s school had taken a while to come.

  “Didn’t Liam tell you?” Joe asked.

  Liam turned his head. “How was I supposed to know where you were? All I knew was you weren’t here to get the chips. And there were only about thirty other servants who could do it for us. I was most vexed.” He grinned at us.

  “This is serious, Liam,” Keith snapped. “They broke the rules. Servants are supposed to come straight back to the dorm as soon as class lets out.”

  “One push-up for each of them,” Liam said. He turned back to the TV He and Keith were the only two guys using the lounge.

  Keith stood up. “So where were you?” he asked again.

  “Emma and Lil had us go over to their school,” Joe said. “I guess they wanted some new faces for their calendar.”

  “Wait. Emma?” Liam exclaimed. He was on his feet too. “Emma, as in my Emma?”

  “If your Emma is Emma Whitley, then yeah,” Joe answered. “I guess she thought Frank and I were cute or something. She’s the one who asked us if we wanted to be in the calendar.”

  I watched Liam carefully. If he was the jealous type, what Joe had said to him would get him very jealous. The muscles in his neck tightened a little, but that was it.

  “Hardys,” David called from halfway up the stairs. “You have a phone call on the pay phone. Sounds parental.”

  “If it’s parents, you better take it,” Keith said. “But from now on, you have four minutes to get back here after the final bell rings. You’re late, you suffer.”

  I nodded, then Joe and I headed up the stairs and over to the pay phone. It had been hung up.

  “What’s the deal?” Joe asked. “Do they want us to call them back?”

  “The deal is that you saved my life and I owed you one,” David answered. “I heard what you were saying to Liam about his girlfriend. I’m sure the guy was wanting to massacre you until I got you out of his sight.”

  “Just ’cause we told him she wanted us for the calendar?” I asked. “A lot of guys are in it, right?”

  “Liam can’t take it if another guy even says Emma’s name,” David answered. “He had a crush on her from day one of the semester.”

  “Wasn’t she with Roy back then?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. Like that mattered to him,” David answered. “You should see his room. I’m the one who has to clean it. It’s like the Emma Whitley shrine. He has a million pictures of her and a box full of all this other garbage. Practically everything she’s ever touched, he has. Even some old tests and study notes.”

  Tests and study notes. Could that possibly be the stuff Roy was using to blackmail Emma?

  Did Liam have it because he’d killed Roy to get it back for her?

  “So, do you think you’ve completely paid us back for saving your life?” I asked David. “Or do you think you can do us one more favor?”

  David raised his eyebrows. “Depends on the favor.”

  “Next time you’re in Liam’s room, you think you could borrow that box of stuff and let us have a look at it?” I asked.

  “Why?” David asked.

  Good question. I didn’t have a good answer.

  “Frank’s completely in looove,” Joe said. “He probably wants to smell the ink on her notes or something.”

  I shrugged. “Kinda,” I said.

  “Whatever,” David said. “I have to go turn down Liam’s bed anyway. He likes me to leave a box of Milk Duds on his pillow. I can get it for you then. But I need it back before lights out.”

  “You got it,” I told him.

  “I’ll drop it by your room,” David said. Then he took off

  “A box of clues by special delivery,” Joe said. “Excellent.”

  11.

  Box of Clues

  Frank and I headed to our room to change socks. There are special socks servants are required to wear for dinner.

  If you must know, white with red polka dots. Happy now?

  I spotted Mr. Diehl coming down the hall from the opposite direction. I checked to make sure no one else was around. Nope. So when he got close enough, I said, “Hey, Mr. Diehl. How did it go with the dean? Were you able to talk to him?”

  “No.” Mr. Diehl rubbed the scar that ran through his eyebrow. “His schedule was jammed today. I barely got to speak to his secretary when I dropped by his office. And I just tried him on the phone. Sometimes he works late. He wasn’t there, but I left him a voice-mail message.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s great. We just don’t want anything bad to happen, with David having that health condition and everything.”

  “I don’t want that either,” he agreed. “I’ll get back to you both once I hear from Dean McCormack.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. Frank and I went into our room. I shut the door behind us. “So do you believe him?” I asked my brother.

  “I don’t know,” Frank admitted. “But I think we need to find out if he’s telling the truth. He’s on our suspect list. If he’s a liar, we need to know it.”

  “So we need to check out the dean’s answering machine,” I said.

  “Yeah, and before the dean or his secretary get to the message—if there is one—and erase it,” Frank added.

  “So, tonight. After dinner?” I asked.

  “Let’s just hope no one absolutely needs to be served their potato chips specifically by us,” Frank said. “It wouldn’t—”

  He was interrupted by a tap on the door.

  “It’s open,” I called. I wondered if you ea
rned the ability to lock your door when you became a master. I hadn’t noticed.

  David entered, carrying his backpack. He opened it and pulled out an oversize shoebox. The drawing of a lasso on the outside made me think it had once held cowboy boots. “Here you are.” He dumped the box on my bed. “Now we’re even. You saved my life. But if Liam finds out I took that, I’m totally dead.”

  “We’ll get it back to you fast,” Frank promised him.

  “Put it in a bag or something,” David instructed. “Don’t go walking around the halls with it in sight.”

  “Got it,” I said. David hurried out of the room.

  I opened the lid of the shoebox and gave a low whistle.

  “What?” Frank asked. He came over and sat on the end of my bed. I held up the lid so he could see the words “my Emma” printed over and over and over. In tiny letters. Filling up almost every speck of blank cardboard.

  The words covered the inside of the box too, what I could see of it. Which wasn’t much. The box was crammed full of … stuff. “Do you think he has the order memorized?” I asked.

  “If there’s an order to that, I don’t see it,” Frank said.

  “Okay, then.” I upended the box quickly, so the contents landed in a pile on my bed. “If we look at stuff from the top of the pile down, and replace things in the box as we go, then the contents will be basically in the same place.”

  Frank picked up two movie stubs and glanced at them. “He must really like her. They went to that Sarah Jessica Parker chick flick.” He put the stubs in the bottom of the box.

  I flipped through the program that was next in the stack. “He went to see her in a synchronized swimming show.”

  “Twice,” Frank said, pointing to an identical program deeper in the pile.

  “I guess watching your girlfriend in a bathing suit for a couple of hours isn’t such a hardship,” I commented. “It’s not like it was opera or anything.” I returned the program to the box.

  “Do you think Emma knows he has all this stuff?” Frank held up a sparkly hair thing shaped like a daisy. “Because if he just snags things like this without telling her, it’s creepy.”

  “Very creepy,” I agreed. I shook my head as I got to a chewed-up pencil. It was better than a chewed-up piece of gum. I guess.