The Final Step

by Ridley Pearson

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do. Someone was following us. Followed us there. Followed us back. It was terrifying.”

  “Exciting.”

  “Terrifying. You do not want to go into that observatory.”

  “So that’s why you’re not going to help me?”

  “Nice try. That stuff won’t work on me, James. I’m helping you by not stealing from a friend.”

  “Randolph’s pool party.”

  “What about it?”

  “Friday night.”

  “I know that, James!”

  “If she takes it off there in order to swim, I could . . . it could easily just disappear.”

  “And if she doesn’t . . . take it off?” Lexie said.

  James’s eyes lit up. He stopped her on the path, took her face in his hands, and kissed her before he’d even thought of what he was doing. It was just a reaction. And, judging by Lexie’s expression, one he regretted immediately.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry!”

  “What the . . . ? People saw that! People just saw you kiss me! Are you out of your mind? Lexie the Loser? Remember me?”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “You had no right!”

  “I know!” He said this three times, very fast. “I’m sorry!”

  Lexie leaned back. “You are?”

  “What? Yeah . . . I mean, no. I mean, I’m sorry I embarrassed you, but I’m not sorry that I kissed you. But I am sorry that I kissed you without asking you.”

  She leaned forward and pecked another kiss onto his lips. “There!” she said. “Maybe that will shut you up.”

  It did, in fact. “But I thought . . .”

  “Less thinking, James. Much less thinking. Good night.” She headed for her dorm, leaving James to wonder what exactly had just happened.

  Only then did he remember his diabolical idea of how to get the key from around my neck. Only then did he smile.

  CHAPTER 14

  MR. RANDOLPH’S POOL-AND-DANCE PARTY WAS one of those horrible ideas thought up by grown-ups. It might as well have been called the Awkward Moment Fest. Throw forty kids together, half of whom are embarrassed about bizarre changes to their bodies, ask them to take most of their clothes off, and then get the remaining clothes wet just to make sure they stick to all the embarrassing places. Then, turn on music and have them attempt to dance or, in the case of most of us, jump up and down and call it dancing.

  Throw in ribs and coleslaw and soda, just to make sure the kids are gassy, potato and corn chips to make sure everyone will break out in zits in the coming days, and you have all the ingredients for a terrific time.

  At least I wore a one-piece. Some of the girls who showed up in bikinis had earned it. Others, not so much. They made fools of themselves. My one-piece was dark purple. Given my overall shapelessness, I looked something like a ripe eggplant. But I owned it. If I was going to be an eggplant, I was going to be one with square shoulders, a high chin, and confidence. Lois had taught me that being a woman started with attitude. Let the rest fall where it may.

  So I was the dudette with attitude.

  Turns out, eggplants can make a pretty big splash when connecting with water. They can also float, dive, and are capable of laughing, though not at the same time. An eggplant with her hair back looks pretty much like the fruit. With her hair down, she looks like a girl wearing an eggplant below her shoulders and above her legs. This was my decision: hair down.

  I didn’t want to attend Mr. Randolph’s pool party for all the obvious reasons. But when I heard the list of who wasn’t going, I knew I had to attend, or I’d be associated with them and that would condemn me to a life of convents and caring for the homeless. Or ringing bells at Christmastime outside the supermarket. Or the group of kids that ride to eighth-grade graduation—I mean: what?—in a stretch limousine. I was going. And I was not going to be an eggplant on a chaise lounge lawn chair, that is, an eggplant on display, like all that produce at the market under the automatic spritzers. A partially submerged eggplant was difficult to see, so I spent approximately 99 percent of my time partially submerged.

  This included Marco Polo, swim contests, underwater swim contests, diving for hoops, and using kickboards. It also included toes and fingers the texture of prunes. There was a good deal of squealing—not my favorite. Boys pushing other boys into us girls—pointless. Swimming between the other person’s legs—awkward. And girls tugging constantly on their suits to prevent wedgies.

  It was during a game of piggyback Sir Lancelot, when I rode the shoulders of Carol Johansen, from Minneapolis, of Norwegian heritage, a girl who in ninth grade stood just shy of six feet tall, that I found myself facing my brother, James. He rode Bret Thorndyke. Bret was to the student body what those Budweiser horses are to equines. Even with me mounted on Carol’s abnormally broad shoulders, our duo looked tiny next to Thorndyke and James.

  They came at us at a charge. Carol squealed (see earlier note); I recoiled. Feeling me falling off, Carol used her strength to rock me forward and into my brother. We wrestled for somewhere right around a tenth of a second. That would prove to be a world record against the Thorndyke/Moriarty team, but at the time it meant I was propelled forward by Carol and then to the side by James.

  That was when a swimming eggplant became a flying eggplant. And then, the flying eggplant became a drowning eggplant, because the eggplant was laughing so hard when she hit the water.

  When I surfaced, coughing, laughing, and splashing, I didn’t see James. For a moment, I felt giddy: Could I have possibly pulled James off with me? Had we fought to a draw?

  No such luck. He bobbed to the surface a few seconds after me and stretched out his hand. “Sorry! I yanked this off!” he said.

  I’d never felt it go.

  In his hand was my Sherlock necklace and the prized master key to the school. It would have been a disaster to lose it. I threw my arms around James to thank him as he struggled to continue treading water.

  “You’re the best brother ever!” I said, while hugging him.

  At the time, I couldn’t make out why, after such a heroic deed, he looked back at me with such an odd and unusual expression. It looked as if he might cry.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I LIKE DAYTIME BETTER,” LEXIE TOLD JAMES as they climbed the hill toward the observatory. Their side of the hill was already in shadow, as the sun was edging toward dusk after a hot and humid day. “But I don’t love the fact that we’re not hearing what we heard the other night.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Because that means something was out there the other night. It wasn’t just forest noises or we’d be hearing them now.”

  James had to think that through. “Oh. I suppose that’s possible, but it’s also because it was night and it isn’t now.”

  “Whatever. I like it better.” They continued up the hill. “And remember, I’m not coming in there with you. No way.”

  James grunted. In fact, he was surprised she’d come along with him, but wasn’t about to say so. They would have to time it just right to make it back for dinner. Missing dinner was a risk, a gamble worth taking to avoid returning in the dead of night.

  They arrived at the observatory, its domed tower reaching up into the pink-tinted sky.

  “We don’t even know the key will work,” James said. “But that starwatching club meets here on weekends, so it must.” He turned the key. He was inside.

  Lexie stood guard. “So?” she called in.

  “Shh! Not so loud.” His footsteps reverberated softly as he crossed the interior. “There’s dried blood on the floor.”

  “Ewww.”

  “It’s evidence. He was here. He was definitely here!” James sounded like he’d won the lotto. “Hang on.”

  Lexie couldn’t take it any longer. She craned her head around.

  The telescope was wider and shorter than she’d expected. It connected to gears and motors, but was otherwise a disappointment
. Along the wall was what appeared to be a control area with a computer and a bank of switches. Other than that, the place was empty. Just a big round empty tower.

  She couldn’t see any blood from where she stood. James was across the room at a door. He tried his key. It didn’t fit. He tried again, which seemed stupid to her, but she didn’t say anything. He crossed back to her.

  “The drops lead to that door, but it’s a different key,” James said.

  Lexie tried to process the information.

  “He was shot on the other side of that door somewhere.”

  “You’re saying he was shot in a storage closet inside the school observatory.” Lexie sounded extremely skeptical. Sarcastic.

  “I’m not saying it makes sense.”

  “Because it doesn’t,” she said.

  “Don’t you dare say something about how you wish Sherlock was here.”

  “You have a real thing about him, don’t you?”

  James didn’t answer.

  “For your information, that wasn’t anywhere on my mind,” she said. “But clearly, it was on yours.”

  “Colander,” James said. “Cops want evidence. This is evidence.”

  “Evidence that you and I broke school rules. Evidence that you must have a master key, or how’d you get in here? Evidence that’s going to get you and me thrown out. You’d better think about that, James.”

  “They can compare these drops to Mr. Lowry’s. They’ll match. That’s all they need.”

  “Are you listening? They’re going to ask questions, James. Questions you can’t answer.”

  James squinted, deep in thought. “So, I’ll find all this by accident,” he said. He waved his hand to indicate the stains on the floor.

  “By accident,” Lexie said, disbelieving.

  “It’s the weekend. What happens every weekend?”

  “A movie in Hard Auditorium.”

  “The Starcatcher Club meets at ten o’clock. Right here. Mr. Royce.”

  “You’re going to join the Starcatcher Club.” She wasn’t asking.

  “No, Lexie. We are.”

  CHAPTER 16

  JAMES MISSED BREAKFAST. I NOTICED, AND I WAS pretty sure Lexie did as well.

  James had gone into town. The school shopping bus did a quick round trip to the supermarket and drugstore twice a week. The morning trips were hurried, so the kids scattered down rows looking for everything from cereal to toothpaste. But James found his way to the supermarket’s coffee bar, where a girl with blue hair and a lip piercing was humming to herself while wiping the counter by the biscotti. James ordered an English Breakfast tea with steamed milk and a piece of banana bread. He paid up and turned to take a seat, nearly spilling his drink in the process.

  Superintendent Colander looked at him from a nearby table. Even though James had agreed to meet him here, seeing the man startled him. The man’s graying hair and ice blue eyes reminded James of a husky. He looked tall even sitting down.

  “Agent . . . Detective . . . I didn’t see you come in.”

  “Sit,” Colander said. He directed James into a chair. “If you’re seen talking to an adult, we could both get in trouble.” This apparently explained Colander taking a seat at a different table, his back to James. “You said it was urgent. I got up early for this.”

  “You were going to bring me something,” James said.

  “The blank key? Yes. You’ll find it in your left pocket.”

  “No way,” James said, reaching into his pants pocket. “Oh my gosh! How did you do that?”

  “Tricks of the trade. I could show you—”

  “But you’d have to kill me. Very funny. That is such an old joke.”

  “You obviously know how to use it, or you wouldn’t have asked for it.”

  “Wiggle it around so the parts of the lock scratch the metal. Seems pretty easy.”

  “Cutting it won’t be.”

  “We have a metal shop at school.”

  “Of course you do. So tell me,” Colander said. “What’s this evidence you’ve found?”

  Espiranzo had reported back that he’d failed to turn up any Scowerers with knowledge of Lowry’s killing. He also hadn’t bawled out James for sneaking off into the woods, which meant James had managed to avoid him. James wasn’t sure how much to share with the superintendent. What would get him into trouble, and what would be OK?

  “Blood. Mr. Lowry’s blood. I’m positive. We—I—kind of borrowed a hunting dog. The dog led me to the place.”

  “At school?”

  “Near. It’s the observatory. It’s across the valley from the campus. In this old ruin. Lowry was inside the observatory. The blood being there is proof.”

  “That’s very good, James.”

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Explaining any of this won’t be easy. His body was found in Boston, don’t forget.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “As a witness, you’re young. You may not be taken seriously at first.” Colander sounded concerned.

  “It’s evidence.”

  “I understand that.”

  “So what are you saying?” James asked.

  “I don’t think it wise for you to suddenly show up as a witness. Whoever killed Mr. Lowry might not appreciate there being a witness.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “I need to think this through, to create a way for me or the local sheriff to pick up on some of this without involving you.”

  “What about I call nine-one-one? A student. They don’t know what student.”

  “They’d record your voice.”

  “So I change it. Right?”

  “Could work, but I still need to think about it first. A local investigation wouldn’t find its way to me.”

  “What about I call the Putnam Recorder? Let some reporter investigate it?”

  “You have a good mind, James.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “That’s a maybe.”

  “I thought guys like you, agents, detectives, act on evidence.”

  “We do on TV. In real life we need to consult lawyers and make sure we build a legal case. Evidence means nothing if it doesn’t hold up in court.”

  “I’m confused. Are you going to help me or not?”

  James never heard a chair move, never had any indication Colander had ditched him. But when he turned around, the man was no longer there.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE STARCATCHER CLUB WELCOMED ITS TWO new visitors and shared the walk down the long hill, past the ice rink, and up the other side to the crumbling estate and its refurbished observatory. Mr. Royce prattled on about the history of the club and other nonsense for which James had little patience.

  Lexie’s assignment was to distract the group long enough for James to attempt to mark the blank key by forcibly rocking it in the closet’s locked door. She would need to not only win their attention, but make enough noise to cover for him.

  They had everything so carefully planned out. Then, Mr. Royce turned on the observatory’s bright lights.

  The bloodstains were gone.

  CHAPTER 18

  “I THOUGHT I MIGHT FIND YOU HERE,” LEXIE said. She had done a decent job of distracting members of the Starcatcher Club an hour earlier by pretending to roll her ankle.

  James had put a blank key into the closet door and had wiggled it enough to scratch it up. The things a boy could learn on the internet! she thought.

  She had refused to join him until and unless he explained his plan, a plan that now involved cutting the key in the school’s metalsmith workshop, part of the makerspace.

  James was using a band saw to notch the blank key.

  Lexie continued speaking, shouting above the roar. James wore goggles and a noise-suppression headset that reminded her of the kind worn by airport workers. “Curfew’s in fifteen minutes.”

  James maintained his focus.

  “If you’re so determined to open that door, why don�
��t you just pry it open or something?”

  “Because then someone would know I’d opened it.”

  “So what?”

  “As in: Lowry’s killer. Or killers. That’s what.”

  “So how stupid are you?” She waited. He didn’t say anything. “We’ll get in trouble for doing this,” she reminded him.

  “Go on then. Go back to the dorm!”

  So, he was hearing her, she realized. “It was probably just a janitor,” she said, referring to the observatory’s clean floor.

  “Do you believe that?” he asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “You think it was cleaned on purpose?”

  “I happened to look at the floor. The mop left a narrow line of water marks between the closet and the main door. Nowhere else. What do you think?”

  “You’re not going back there without me.”

  “I wasn’t aware I had to get your permission.” He never took his eyes off the key.

  “Now you do.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Think again.”

  He stopped working. Shut off the band saw. Lifted the goggles and slipped back the headset so that his right ear stuck out like a bird wing. “I’m going tonight, Lexie. After curfew. You don’t like it at night, therefore I’m going by myself. I’m a big boy. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re thirteen!”

  “Fourteen. Fifteen, next month.”

  “Same difference,” she said.

  “Not really.”

  “You need a lookout.”

  “I could use a lookout,” James said. “No doubt. But all I need is this key, and my phone to take pictures of whatever’s in that closet.”

  “What if it’s a mess in there?”

  “Probably cleaned that up as well. Colander waited too long. I knew something like this would happen.” James sounded so sure of himself.

  “We should leave it alone. You know that, right?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me going alone?” James seemed to be teasing her.