by Dana Moss
Deborah laughed. “Candy makes everyone happy except the dentist.”
Taffy rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be his favorite person.”
“True. Those taffies are so chewy and sticky I once used one to temporarily patch a crack in a salad bowl.”
That made Taffy laugh. She’d have to tell Ellie.
“Did Jenny like a particular flavor?” She was going to offer to bring some to her after she got home from her trip, as a small condolence gift, but Deborah’s face had darkened. Her smile had turned into a hard line.
“She likes candy, sure. But for the wrong reasons.”
Taffy lifted one eyebrow. What did she mean?
Deborah looked through the open doors of the car—she stood outside the driver’s side and Taffy stood outside the passenger side—and said, “Do you know why I have to sell this car?”
Taffy shook her head. She’d assumed Deborah wanted an upgrade, but her expression suggested something more complicated.
She stared at Taffy for a moment longer, as if gauging whether she could trust her or not. And when she opened her mouth to speak, Taffy had the sense it wasn’t because she had passed any kind of character test but rather that Deborah had reached a point where she might burst if she kept her secret any longer. Her jaw was tight as she spoke.
“I’m selling it so I can pay for Jenny’s rehab. Again. That’s where she is. I told everyone she’s on holiday with her cousins in Hawaii.”
Taffy steadied herself on the car frame. Jenny, a drug addict?
Deborah crossed her arms and looked across the hood of the car. “I thought she’d kicked her bad habits in the new year. Things seemed to be going well with her new boyfriend, Tyler. But it all went to hell last weekend… Something happened.” She sighed heavily, as if lightened by her confession. “I know I shouldn’t be worried about my own problems when that poor boy’s just died.”
Did she know that “poor boy” was also on drugs? Had Tyler been the one to give Jenny more drugs?
“Do you have any idea who was supplying her? Do you think it could have been Tyler?”
Deborah stared as if she’d never considered that possibility, was trying to, but still came up short.
She shook her head. “She had these problems before Tyler ever moved to town. In fact, his presence seemed to have a healing effect on her. I really thought she was done with all that. If I were to suspect anyone of giving her drugs, it would have to be Rex.”
“Rex Gifford? The mayor’s grandson?”
“And high school varsity star athlete? I know, I know, it seems improbable. But all I can think of is Jenny wasn’t like this before she met him and they started dating. And that kid is so spoiled by this town. He can do no wrong. I was so relieved when they broke up.”
“You should call Detective Salinas and tell her where Jenny really is.”
Deborah nodded, an air of resigned defeat making her shoulders sag. “You just don’t want to admit your kids are struggling, you know? You want what’s best for them, but sometimes the worst things happen. When I think about what the Bradfords must be going through…” She shook her head. When she looked at Taffy again, her eyes were wet.
Taffy understood. Her grandmother must have felt that way about her at times.
“Anything you can tell the police will be helpful. Tyler may have died from a drug overdose. If Rex had something to do with it, then we all need to pull together to fix the problem, even if it means upsetting Abandon’s status quo.”
Deborah agreed.
Taffy didn’t think it was improbable that Rex was dealing drugs. He had the perfect cover, because few people would be willing to accuse the mayor’s grandson in a small town like this. He had a status shield of protection. We have to protect Rex. The words from the bathroom echoed in her brain.
What if she’d missed a word in the bathroom? What if they were trying to say they needed to protect someone from Rex?
What if that someone was Jenny?
“If you don’t mind me asking, where’s Mr. Hughes?’
“Away on business. He travels a lot for work.”
Taffy nodded.
“So are you interested in the car?”
“I’d hate to take it under these conditions.”
Deborah shrugged. “My husband is slated to get a new lease car through his work. We’ll be fine.”
Taffy hadn’t even asked what kind it was. She looked inside. Fancy that. A Jeep. Cherokee to be exact.
They agreed to switch the title after Mr. Hughes got home from his business trip.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Taffy drove back to the factory and checked in with Ellie and Aubin.
Ellie had an update on her pet marshmallow proposal.
“Remember how popular chia pets were? And those didn’t even taste good!”
“You’re planning to grow marshmallows out of terra cotta pigs?”
Ellie giggled. “No, silly. That would never work. You get kits, see.” She pointed to a page full of diagrams. “You get all the parts for the pets, and you stick them together according to the pattern… Like, voilà!” She brandished another page that was indecipherable to Taffy.
“And then you eat it?”
“Voilà! You got it. Kids will love it.”
Taffy raised an eyebrow. “You don’t see a problem with encouraging children to eat their ‘pets’?”
Ellie blinked.
“What if we spark an epidemic of grilled hamster legs? Look what happened to frogs in France.”
Ellie’s blinking eyes started to look wet. “You don’t like the idea…”
“No, Ellie. I do. It’s really creative, truly. It just needs a bit more tweaking.”
She nodded and tucked her papers under her arms.
“All good ideas need a bit of massaging,” Taffy said to reassure her. “Keep up with the bon-bon brainstorming.”
Ellie sighed. “The first trials of edible shower gel didn’t turn out so well, just as an FYI. At least the Rash-Away Raspberry didn’t. We’re waiting on the Beach Body Blueberry results.”
“Don’t give up. It’s just a matter of chemistry.”
Ellie perked up a bit. “We got our first tour booking. For Monday. Everyone’s excited.”
That’s great news. You’re rockin’ it, my friend. I mean, rock candy-ing it.” It didn’t roll off the tongue so easily, but it made Ellie smile.
“You’ll be here, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for a lick-a-stick.”
“Good.” Ellie checked her list. “The last thing I wanted to talk about is putting in a new row of lockers in the hallway of the staff room. We’re running out of space for the elves to securely store their stuff.”
“Like school lockers? Sure. Fine by me.”
That was the last item on Ellie’s list, and so she went back to her office, reminding Taffy again about the tour on Monday.
Taffy checked in with the marketing team and did a quick walk-through of the different departments. As she passed the staff hallway, she checked out the width of the hallway to make sure there was space enough to hold a row of lockers.
She imagined the kind in schools or gyms. Then she had an idea.
She drove back to Abandon Secondary.
~
School was out for the day but the baseball team was still out on the field practicing. Taffy slipped into the school and skipped signing in as a guest.
A few students milled about, and only a handful of staff members lingered: teachers marking assignments, the librarian locking up, and Janice finishing her work in the office. No one saw Taffy go down the hall to the gym annex. No one saw her sneak into the boys’ locker room. She tiptoed down the tiled hall.
There was something off about Rex. It couldn’t hurt to do a little vigilante sleuthing.
The locker room was empty.
Water dripped from one of the spigots. The sound of falling drops echoed off the tiles. Every so often a yell or a call
of “Atta boy!” or “Bring it on home!” would find a way through the vents from outside, but other than that, Taffy was alone in her mischief.
But how was she going to find Rex’s locker? And even if she did find it, what made her think she’d find something incriminating in it? Rex knew they were asking questions about Tyler. He probably wouldn’t keep anything around. Then again, he was cocky as a rooster, fancied himself some sort of Grecian king of the school, and therefore above suspicion in many ways. It certainly couldn’t hurt for her to poke around to see what she could find.
She tried various lockers. Most of them were unlocked, but when she opened them, she felt slapped in the face with the pungent scent of dirty socks, shirts, shorts, and, what was that? A crotch cup? Ugh. There were towels, mitts, baseballs with the scuffs and shredded seams, caps…. The most incriminating item she’d come across so far was chewing tobacco. Before checking the next aisle of lockers, which were larger and looked more promising, she peeked into the shower stall. Someone had unleashed a roll of toilet paper as if it were crepe paper. She did not envy the janitor’s job.
She went back to the lockers. A few of them had locks on them, and she wondered what they might be safeguarding, if anything. She pulled out a bobby pin from her bun and tried picking one of the locks. She’d seen that in the movies once. But nothing worked like in the movies. Where were the props person and the special effects team when she needed them? She left the locked doors alone and tried more of the open ones.
They were different sizes. Most were about four feet tall, but some were almost six feet and wider than usual, to hold all that sports equipment and thick protective gear, she guessed. Sure enough, some lockers were crammed with football padding leftover from the fall, wrestling helmets, a few textbooks, and many pairs of large, stinky running shoes and cleats.
The second-to-last locker from the end yielded the jackpot she was looking for. When she opened the door, a five-by-seven glossy picture of Jenny’s grad photo stared out from the inside of the door. This had to be Rex’s locker. Inside was a neat stack of textbooks, a Herschel backpack, a spare pair of Adidas court shoes as well as a pair of checkered Vans. A grey hoodie hanging on a hook smelled of laundry soap and cologne. No sweaty socks in here. She poked around the backpack, checking the pockets. In a small zippered side pocket she found three unopened condom packets. At least he was responsible in that way, but she wondered vaguely if he was (a) hopeful, (b) opportunistic, or (c) simply prepared. With his Greek god ego and near royal status, she gathered it was the latter. She found a couple of concert tickets stubs, a gas receipt, a business card from a bar in Eugene called the Lame Duck, and half a dozen Tootsie rolls. Who ate Tootsie rolls anymore?
The textbooks were on the top shelf. Taffy pulled the top one down. Calculus. Impressive. When she pulled the second one down—a geography workbook—something fell to the floor. A little plastic bag. With multicolored pills inside. Ka-ching. Taffy bent down to look at it. It looked suspiciously like the baggie from the campground.
She heard more yelling from the field. The vents were conducting the sound more efficiently now. Everything sounded louder than before. Then a ball cracked against the shower tiles and rolled into the locker room.
“Austin, don’t be an A-hole, pick that up!”
The voices weren’t coming from the vents but from the halls leading to the fields! She had to get out of here. She scrambled to pick up the baggie. Should she take it with her? Or stuff it back in the locker? She shoved the textbooks back on to the top shelf and threw the baggie up there with them. It slid down again, and she grabbed it, threw it back. A herd of baseball players were shoving their way down the hall, laughing and teasing each other as they passed the showers. Someone turned a shower on and laughed as they pushed some poor kid into the water in full expletive protest.
Taffy had nowhere to go now. She’d get in trouble if she got caught in here. But if she crossed the aisle to the door she had come in, she’d be seen. She opened and closed several of the larger lockers until she found an empty one. She stepped into it backward, tucking herself down, and pulled the door shut after her. As soon as she was cramped inside—her neck bent awkwardly under the upper shelf, a hook digging into her neck, her knees bent and pressed against the metal sides—she regretted her impulse to hide. She should have just walked out with her head held high. She would have gotten some looks, possibly a report to the principal, or maybe the boys would have simply laughed at her. But now she was hidden, and the boys were stripping off their uniforms, stepping into the showers, and this could end up looking very, very bad.
She could see slivers of the room, of the team, through the slats in the locker. As uniforms were shed, sweaty skin exposed, shoes kicked off, pungent aromas filled the room, and some found their way through the slats of Taffy’s locker.
“Hey, Colin, catch!” A shoe flew by, and then several bunched-up socks arced through the air, spreading their scents like smoke bombs. One hit Taffy’s locker and nearly stuck there. As it slid to the floor, the stench slipped in through the slats and nearly made her gag. She had to hold back a cough and a tickle in her throat. Then the tickle rose up to her nose. She wiggled it. Oh no. She felt it coming and did everything she could to hold it back, but it built and exploded inside the cramped, dark locker.
A fine mist of spittle coated the inside of the door.
“What the hell?”
“Is that snot-nosed Jimmy’s hay fever acting up again?”
A whiny voice said, “I’m on antihistamines now.”
They all got quiet for minute.
Taffy felt another tickle building. She held her nose, held her breath, but she was beginning to feel panicky in the locker now, claustrophobic.
“Is someone in here?”
Taffy heard banging on nearby lockers.
“Is it crazy Jay from the art room? Crazy Jaaaaay! We know you got a thing for us ballplayers, but you got suspended last time you got caught spying on us.”
More banging, and the clang and spring and slap of doors opening and closing.
“Crazy Jay? Is that yoooooou?”
There was a knock on the locker next to Taffy. She held her breath, but that only made the sneeze she was trying to hold back more insistent. Fingers slid into the handle of her locker. She bit down on her lip and shut her eyes tight.
“Hey, team, great practice!”
The fingers slid away.
“Coach, we think somebody might be in here.”
“As a matter of fact, there is. Principal Ainsley is gracing us with his presence. He wants to speak with you all. Jimmy, make yourself decent.”
The shower taps turned off. Swearing and guffawing subsided. The team gathered.
Ainsley cleared his throat. “First, let me say congratulations for your wins in Salem.” There were a few whoops and “right ons” and back slapping until Ainsley raised his voice and got their attention again. “Most of you have probably heard about the tragedy surrounding Tyler Bradford and the investigation that’s underway.”
Murmuring, an inappropriate joke, someone’s head getting slapped… Taffy’s nose felt prickly and on fire.
“Boys, boys!” Mr. Ainsley called. “I told the police that everyone would cooperate until they can discern what happened. I want you on your best behavior, and if you know anything, please come to see me immediately. Tyler would have been on your team if he’d—”
“Not that pussy!”
“Hey!” That was Rex’s voice shutting the kid down.
“But you said—”
“I said nothin’. Tyler was one of us. Remember that.”
Grumblings. And Taffy felt her own rumblings. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She sneezed so hard she bumped her head on the inside of the locker. Ouch, that would leave a bruise.
The entire locker room fell silent.
The locker door flew open. Mr. Ainsley stood on the other side. He looked completely dumbfounded.
A coup
le of the boys gaped and then clasped their genitals, even though they were already covered with towels.
“There’s drugs!” Taffy blurted. “In Rex’s locker!”
“What? There is not!” He lunged for his locker but Taffy got there first.
Taffy wrenched open his locker and dragged down a book, bringing the baggie with her. “See? Here!” She held up the baggie.
Rex’s eyes widened. “That’s not mine! Coach, Mr. Ainsley, you gotta believe me. I wouldn’t put the team at risk like this.”
Even his pleading was charming, but Taffy had caught him. Mr. Ainsley stepped forward and took the baggie. He eyed it, shook it, looked at Rex, and then looked at Taffy.
“Who let you in here, Miss Belair?”
“No one. I thought I might find evidence in his locker, so I—”
Mr. Ainsley cut her off with a chuckling nod. “We appreciate your diligence concerning Tyler’s case. Your passion is apparent.”
Someone snickered.
Mr. Ainsley cleared his throat and couldn’t help grinning. “Let’s let Coach Morrison finish up with the team for now.”
He touched Taffy’s elbow and guided her toward the door.
“Including Rex?”
Coach Morrison said, “He is the captain.”
Taffy resisted being ushered out of the locker room. “You have to take this seriously, Mr. Ainsley.”
“Of course I’ll take it seriously. We won’t tolerate drugs on school premises, but if Rex claims this doesn’t belong to him, then—”
Taffy scoffed. “He’ll say anything in front of you!”
Once they were out in the hall, Mr. Ainsley said, “Miss Belair. Taffy—I can call you Taffy, can’t I? You really are the spitting image of your mother—”
“Mr. Ainsley. What are you going to do about this?”
“About finding you unsupervised in the male locker room?” He raised an eyebrow.
Taffy bit her lip. “I meant about Rex.”
“Well, we have a school procedure for dealing with these kinds of things.”
“Then you’ll call the police?”
“We involve the police only if I deem it necessary. These could be vitamins for all I know.” He shook the small baggie.