To Right the Wrongs

by Sheryl Scarborough

  “I’d love to,” Letty says.

  The coach and Victor shake hands. “Anyway, thanks for everything, Vic,” the coach says. “I have to take her to get her car, but it’s going to be exciting having you around here.”

  “Thank you,” Victor says. “I’m excited to be here.”

  The coach and his cousin leave.

  Victor kind of shakes off the encounter and then pulls up a chair to join me at the desk. “I have your mission, should you choose to accept it,” he says.

  “Why wouldn’t I choose to accept it?” I’m confused. “Isn’t that why I came in with you today?”

  Victor laughs. “Sorry, that’s a line from Mission Impossible.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Victor says. “Old TV show, which means I’m showing what an old guy I am. Anyway, first day of camp is only three weeks away. I have a budget for about forty hours of prep time. Here are the themes I’m looking at.”

  He hands me a piece of paper.

  “Week one: crime scene. Week two: hair, fingerprint, impressions … Well, you can read the list. If you and the girls would come up with two fun, science-oriented activities per day, along these themes, that would be great.”

  “By activities do you mean science experiments?” I ask.

  He bobs his head right and left, thinking. “They don’t have to all be experiments. A game would work too.”

  “So, even like a crossword puzzle or word search on the theme?”

  He grins. “Yes. Anything that you think would be fun and educational.”

  The door bursts open again.

  This time it’s the contractor, Clay, lugging a toolbox and a coil of extension cords slung over his shoulder like mountain climbing ropes. “Are you having a meeting?” he asks. “Because I’m going to be installing brackets and that’s going to get loud.”

  “We’re almost done here.” Victor looks at me. “You know what to do, right?”

  I nod. “Spam and I can get a table over by the gym and work there.”

  “I’d like to have your concepts by Friday so I can approve them,” Victor says.

  “Will do.” I give him a little salute and head for the door.

  “Erin,” he says. “I’m glad we’re working on this together.”

  I smile. “I am too.”

  Just as I’m leaving, the contractor is back with more stuff. I hold the door open for him and he gives me a grateful smile.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  I get to the top of the stairs and send Spam a text on where to meet me and start walking toward the gym. There’s a buzz on my wrist. I look up and Blankenship is coming straight toward me. She unnerves me, and for no reason at all I panic and turn right. This sets me on a path to the Administration building, which is probably exactly where she’s going.

  Before I get to the A-building, I turn again, trying to figure out how to not look like a super dork walking in circles. A whistle blows behind me. I turn as Blankenship makes a beeline in my direction. There’s a second buzz against my wrist.

  Got it. She’s right in front of me.

  “What’s the problem? Are we not awake yet, Blake?” she asks.

  I sag. But then I force myself to put on a friendly face. I palm-tap my forehead. “Just got confused about where I was going.”

  Blankenship looks me up and down. “Good,” she says, in a tone that clearly doesn’t mean good at all. “Because for a minute there I thought you might be trying to avoid running into me.”

  She so bluntly nailed the situation that I’m dumbfounded. Speechless. I fumble and stammer. “I better go,” I mumble and hurry off.

  She makes a rather loud harrumph to my back.

  I shiver. That woman gives me the heebie-jeebies.

  I select a table in the shade by the gym. Within a few minutes, Lysa arrives and drops into the seat across from me.

  “So, it turns out I can read text messages on the phone Spam gave me, I just can’t reply to them.”

  As she sits down she adopts the saddest face I’ve ever seen, which I’m sure is about what her parents have put her through over the last two days. But she surprises me when she asks about Journey.

  “Have you heard from him?” she says.

  “No, why?” I’m flooded with fear.

  “Apparently, it was awful,” she says. “My father said Jameson freaked out when he realized his son was in the room and he wouldn’t talk to them or even look at them.”

  “Oh no.” I feel terrible.

  “Yeah. Apparently, he ran to the door and pounded on it to be taken back to his cell,” Lysa says.

  “Journey was so excited to meet him.”

  Lysa puts out a hand. “It may still happen. They’re going back today.”

  “They are?” That’s surprising.

  “My father said he has a new strategy. So, fingers crossed.”

  “No wonder I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Haven’t heard from who?” Spam asks, arriving with a tray of coffees and a bag of donuts.

  “You are my hero,” I say, reaching out with grabby hands.

  She hands me a coffee and a donut wrapped in a napkin.

  “She hasn’t heard from Journey and things didn’t go well at the prison,” Lysa says.

  “Do things ever go well at a prison?” Spam wonders.

  “The only good news is that my father’s preparations for their second meeting distracted him from severe lecture mode over the skateboarder fiasco.”

  “So, what did they say?” I ask.

  Lysa gives a bland smile. “I get to suffer the consequences.”

  “What does that mean?” Spam asks.

  “They’re not going to do anything to get my phone back. I get it back when Detective Sydney gives it back.” Lysa sighs. “It definitely could have been worse.”

  “Don’t worry, Syd’s pretty cool. She’ll just do her job and probably won’t snoop on your other stuff.”

  Lysa shrugs. “It’s okay. I deserve it. I’m just glad we didn’t totally blow the camp counselor job.”

  “Yeah. Me too,” I say.

  Spam hands Lysa her coffee and donut, then punches in some keys on her phone. “Maybe this will cheer you both up. We currently have orders for eighty Bellas, at twenty dollars apiece, less costs.” She punches in some more numbers. “We stand to make a profit of about $1,200.”

  “Wow,” I say. “You’ve done all the work on this, Spam. I think you should keep the money.”

  Spam shakes her head. “Nah. We’re a team, and besides, I need you guys to help me assemble and program these bad boys.”

  “I’ll help,” I say.

  “Me too,” adds Lysa.

  “So, you know I’ve given my father more than a few gray hairs, right?” Spam says.

  We laugh, remembering some of Spam’s more terrifying antics.

  “Like the time you caused the main cell tower in town to shut down?” Lysa says.

  “Or when you accidentally played that X-rated meme about the coach and the librarian in front of the whole school?” I say.

  Spam scowls at the enthusiasm we put into remembering her mistakes. “I get the point. Nip it,” she says.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Just teasing.”

  She softens. “Anyway, I showed my father the Bella last night. He was really impressed. He thinks this is my ticket into college. There’s a whole bunch of stuff about STEM for girls and the big push to get girls interested in math and science.” Spam comically smooths her eyebrows and hikes up her bra. “Can you picture me as a role model?”

  Lysa gives me a soft look. “Our girl’s growing up.”

  Spam lightly smacks her on the shoulder.

  “That’s awesome, Spam,” I say. “I want you to show us how to code those things too.”

  “That’s right,” Lysa says. “We’re girls. We need to know.”

  “Totally,” Spam promises.

  “By the way, I shouldn’t say this, but
we have our first connection on the murder board,” I say.

  “You should say it. You should shout it from the rooftops,” Spam says, squirming excitedly. “This means I get to use my super-awesome skinny red tape.”

  “I know. I’m excited about that too. So, the crazy woman driver … is connected to Coach Wilkins. She’s his cousin. He was just downstairs talking to Victor and she showed up. She was very snoopy about the crime lab.”

  “Hmm,” Lysa says. “We still need to research her.”

  I give her a look. “Because research isn’t investigation, right?”

  “I think research is just reading,” Lysa says.

  “Yeah, me too,” I agree. “As long as we keep it at just reading. Because here’s the deal: Victor says we’re on probation as counselors, one more screwup and we’re out.”

  Lysa and Spam exchange grim looks. Lysa moans, putting her head in her hands. “I’ve never been on probation in my life.”

  Spam smirks. “Oh, give it a rest, Debbie Do-Right. You’ve just never been caught. That’s the real story.”

  “We can put our energy into this camp thing and not screw up any investigations,” I say. “I know we can.”

  18

  It’s always the minute details of a case that suck me in.

  —ERIN BLAKE

  I hand the girls copies of the weekly themes that Victor gave me.

  “Victor wants us to start working up activities for the camp—two per day—based on his list of themes for each week.”

  Weekly Themes for Camp

  Week #1 Analyzing the crime scene

  Week #2 Hair, fingerprints, and impressions

  Week #3 Blood analysis

  Week #4 Ballistics testing

  Week #5 DNA and electrophoresis

  Week #6 The criminal process

  “He loved the idea of word search and crossword puzzles,” I say. “What else can we do?”

  “We could do a crime scene treasure hunt,” Spam says.

  “How about crime scene charades?” Lysa offers.

  “Both ideas are so fun. Let’s each take two topics and work up our ideas,” I say. “We want to do a supergood job so Victor will be so impressed he’ll forget all about the probation.”

  “I want crime scene and the criminal process,” Lysa says. “All I have to do is listen to my dad for three meals in a row and I’ll have all the ideas I need.”

  “I’ll take blood and hair, fingerprints, and impressions,” Spam says. “I love all that gross stuff that just flicks off while we’re walking around being human.”

  Lysa looks amused. “Your blood just flicks off while you’re walking around?”

  Spam makes a face. “Don’t challenge me. I can get gross and you know it.”

  Lysa retreats. “Why do I let her do this to me?”

  “That means I’m doing ballistics and DNA. Sounds good. Let’s show Victor what a smart thing he did by hiring us.”

  There’s a red flash of light from our Bella bracelets. All three of us turn to notebooks and start making notes.

  After a couple of seconds, Blankenship strolls up to our table with her notebook shield cradled in front of her. She scans the table and stares at each one of us individually. Then she checks her watch. “Seeing one of you here on a Saturday is one thing,” she says. “But seeing all three of you here raises my suspicions. What are you girls up to?”

  Lysa and I can barely look at her, but for some reason Spam just talks to her like they’re old friends. She waves her hand over Victor’s list. “Science experiments for the CSI camp.”

  Blankenship grunts. “What about finals?”

  “We’re studying for those, too,” Lysa says.

  She puts a hand on her hip. “And yet there’s not a single book on this table.”

  “Notes?” Lysa says, at a complete loss.

  “It’s your funeral,” she says.

  As she turns and walks away, Spam makes a nasty face to her back.

  Blankenship isn’t stupid … or maybe she’s an alien and has eyes in the back of her twist of hair. Either way, she glances back and nearly catches Spam in full prune-face.

  Spam makes a quick correction.

  Lysa elbows her in the ribs. “She almost caught you.”

  “Yeah,” Spam grins. “But she didn’t. The Bella works. We’ll always know when she’s about to pop up. “

  * * *

  We spent the day working on lists for CSI camp and monitoring how our social media is blowing up over the Bella. I’m glad I got stuck with ballistics because before this I didn’t know anything about firearms and ammunition. But I’m learning that, as a science, ballistics is as detailed and sophisticated as the study of fingerprints. Maybe even more so. Which makes it totally my kind of thing. I can’t believe he’s paying us to research this stuff. I’d gladly do it for free.

  Victor shows up at our table.

  “I’m ready to call it a day, how about you?” he says.

  We stretch.

  “Yep, I’m ready too,” I say.

  “I’ll meet you at the car,” he says.

  I pack up my stuff and head to the parking lot. Victor is already there, waiting. I climb into his car. The new leather has a faint smell of citrus. Orange, specifically. A smell that still leaves me so conflicted.

  It’s great having Uncle Victor in my life. But through all of this I still ache for Miss P. And yet, if she were still here, he wouldn’t be. Then again … if she were still here maybe Journey and I would be working on things together, not separately.

  Although, it’s more likely that Journey still wouldn’t know I exist.

  “What’s wrong?” Victor asks as he turns toward home.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  Victor and I used to talk about exciting things, like crime stories in the news and how he would approach solving them. We would theorize about how ordinary, everyday things could be used as evidence. But lately, our typical conversations go like this: Victor asks if we’re excited about the camp and I answer yes. Victor asks what’s for dinner and I tell him. Victor asks what’s wrong and I answer nothing.

  I don’t want to say that Victor has turned out like all the other adults in my life, but in a way, he kinda has.

  “Yeah. That’s a full load of nothing,” Victor says. “Are you and Journey fighting again?”

  “I told you, Journey and I don’t fight.”

  “Fine. I’m just going to stay out of it,” Victor says. “Did you make any headway with a list of camp activities?” he asks.

  “Yep,” I say. “Weeks one, two, and three are solid. And we’re working on the others.”

  “Great.” Victor gives me a proud look. “Next week we can set up the classroom. That should be fun.”

  “Can we put a little shrine to Miss P in the new room?” I ask.

  “Shrine?” He glances at me, eyebrows furrowed. “Is that appropriate for a classroom?” Victor pulls in and parks in the driveway. Now I have his complete attention. He turns to look at me.

  “Sorry. When I say shrine, I don’t mean an actual shrine. I just mean something special to remind us of her. Like a picture or something to keep her memory alive, that kind of thing.”

  Victor begins to gnaw on his lower lip. This is Rachel’s fault. She told Victor he needs to be careful about what he says to me because I process trauma by holding everything inside. And blah blah blah.

  He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns toward me. “What’s going on, Erin? Is this camp stuff bringing up some feelings you’d rather not deal with?” he asks.

  “No. God. How about ‘tribute’?” I force my hands into my lap so I don’t appear too wigged out. “Is that a better word than ‘shrine’? Because it’s seriously not that big of a deal.” It didn’t start out to be a big deal. But now there’s that sharp pain again. She’s supposed to still be here and she isn’t. And I’m not okay with that.

  “Erin. Talk to me.” His voice takes on a sharp edge. “What’s going
on? What are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine.” I rush quickly through the explanation. “Coming up with the camp activities got me thinking about Miss P and how a tribute to her would be fun. It will all look very normal. Not like a shrine at all. The class and the lab are beautiful and it was all her idea. It really sucks that she isn’t here. I just want to feel like she’s still here … in spirit.”

  Victor nods. “I get it. It’s going to take some time for all of you to process this loss. Doing something is better than stuffing it down. Promise me you won’t stuff it down.”

  “I promise.” Now it’s my turn to be worried. “So, what’s happening with your job thing?”

  Victor exhales and stares out the front window. “I’m working on it.”

  “But is it going to be okay?”

  He glances back at me. “I’m supposed to be the one worrying about you, not the other way around. I’ll be fine. Okay?”

  “Alright,” I say.

  “Now let’s go see what Rachel is cooking for dinner. I missed lunch today.”

  As we enter the kitchen I’m expecting to find Rachel either working on dinner or sitting at the table, reading. But it doesn’t look like she’s even home yet.

  I send her a text: I THOUGHT YOU WERE MAKING DINNER?

  She texts back: SORRY. GOT DISTRACTED. I MEANT TO SEND A TEXT EARLIER. I AM MAKING DINNER AT CHARLES’S HOUSE. YOU AND VICTOR SHOULD COME OVER HERE.

  Victor grabs a soda out of the fridge and flops into his regular chair at the table.

  “She’s making dinner at the chief’s and wants to know if we want to go over there.”

  Victor pops open the soda. “What are our choices?”

  I open the door to the fridge and scan the layout. “Leftover Salisbury steak … TV dinners … pizza … or eggs à la Victor.” I throw the last one in there to get a smile out of him. “Or, we go to the chief’s for dinner.”

  “What’s she making?” Victor says.

  19

  People suffering from PTSD require a program of structure and predictability and lots of time to restore their sense of security and stability.

  —ONLINE HELP GUIDE

  Rachel’s making my favorite roast chicken casserole for dinner.

  I’m not wild about having dinner with the chief, but I can’t resist chicken casserole and it beats leftovers or pizza. I’m going as is, but Victor wants to change clothes. I wait at the bottom of the stairs while he goes up to his room.