All Unquiet Things

by Anna Jarzab

  “I have a Swiss Army knife in my car and I’m sure we can get a marker from Gert.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get hacking.”

  “You are having way too much fun with this,” I said as I watched Harvey chop up the soda can and draw lines on it with a chunky blue Sharpie we’d borrowed from Gert the librarian. We were in the back of the library at my usual table, where nobody would stumble across us unexpectedly.

  “I’m thinking about being an FBI agent when I grow up,” Harvey said. “What’s all this about, anyway?”

  “I’m really close to figuring out who killed Carly,” I told him. “To do that, I need something in a certain locker.”

  Harvey raised an eyebrow. “You sure you want to do this? It seems like a long way to go for a girl you claim to hate.”

  “I don’t hate her,” I said softly, watching his hands work the aluminum instead of looking him in the face.

  “Dude, you burned all her pictures.”

  “I don’t hate her,” I said. “I was just so angry at her. She broke my heart, she humiliated me, and then she went and got herself killed. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

  “So she had some flaws, and she made some big mistakes,” Harvey said. “Everybody does. You can’t be perfect, and you definitely can’t expect other people to be.”

  I scoffed.

  “Seriously. You know, my grandmother used to say that flaws are God’s greatest gift to humanity, because they give us the opportunity to learn from ourselves and from each other. She said they’re not obstacles to perfection, merely signs and guideposts on the path we take in pursuit of it.”

  “But if nobody’s perfect, no matter how hard we try, then what’s the point?”

  Harvey didn’t look up; he was concentrating hard on his work. “The universe is infinite; we’ll never map its edges, yet NASA keeps on sending up spacecrafts,” he said, folding the metal precisely. “The point is just to get a little closer.”

  He smiled and held up the handmade shim. “Now, this may or may not work—the metal is a little too thin to be one hundred percent, but those combination locks are pretty weak. Still, you might need to use some brute force.”

  “So I do what? Jam this in where the lock closes and give it a tug?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What are you doing seventh period, Harv?”

  “Well, I was going to go to government class, but seeing as you’ll be otherwise engaged, I guess I can tag along, play lookout.”

  “Great.”

  “You look a little terrified, Neily. You sure this is a good idea?”

  “No. But it’s the only idea I have at the moment.”

  “Whose locker are we breaking into, by the way?”

  “Adam Murray’s.”

  Harvey let out a low whistle. “You might want to keep that knife on you, just in case.”

  Shortly after the bell announced the start of seventh period, the men’s locker room emptied out and all the muscleheads started doing rotations in the weight room down the hall. When we were sure that the coast was clear, Harvey and I went into the locker room and jammed the door closed with a wedge.

  “Do you know which one’s his locker?” Harvey asked as we walked along the aisles.

  I stopped in front of locker 214 and pointed to a large round sticker that had been affixed to the door. “Where else in northern California would you find a Pittsburgh Steelers logo than on the private property of the great-great-great-grandnephew of Andrew Carnegie?”

  “And here I thought being a Niners fan was heresy. You know way too much about the people in this town.”

  “Yet another sign that it’s time to get the fuck out of here,” I said. “Give me the shim.”

  Harvey handed it to me. It took me a couple of tries, but eventually the lock popped open.

  “Sweet,” I said in a low voice. I pawed through a pile of dirty laundry, trying not to inhale, and found the BlackBerry in its case near the bottom. “Got it. Let’s get out of here.”

  After I stole Adam’s BlackBerry, we booked it to the Mac lab on the second floor of the library to peruse its contents. I hooked it up using a cable from my father’s BlackBerry that I had accidentally taken with my cell-phone charger the last time I stayed with him.

  “Good thing I kept this,” I remarked as all of Adam’s data uploaded to the computer.

  Harvey shook his head. “I don’t get this. What are all these calendar entries?”

  “Oz told me he wrote them in code. I’m going to print this out so I have a copy to show him. He thinks he can figure out what the code means if he can take a look at it.”

  “All right, you’d better hurry. You only have”—Harvey checked his watch—“ten minutes until the meatheads get back to the locker room.”

  “Ten minutes till busted.” I got up and went to the printer. “God, it’s like this thing was made in the seventies. Hurry up, you piece of crap.”

  The printer finished three minutes before the BlackBerry had to be back in Adam’s locker. “Let’s go,” Harvey said nervously.

  “I just have to check one thing.” I scrolled through the BlackBerry’s phone book until I landed on Carly’s number. I selected EDIT and then RINGTONE—Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” screamed out into the library’s emptiness. The same ringtone was set for her home phone. Good, I thought. Not Cyndi Lauper.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Harvey asked.

  “Nothing. Let’s go,” I said, grabbing the lock and Black-Berry and running out of the library with Harvey close on my heels. As we passed down the corridor toward the locker room, I glanced into the weight room—it was empty.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath. “What now?”

  “Sometimes Coach Wilson makes them do a couple of laps on the field before hitting the showers,” Harvey said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I took weight lifting over the summer. Thought I’d try and bulk up.”

  “Uh …”

  “I think I’m doomed to remain a skinny white guy,” Harvey said. “All I got from that class was insulted.”

  “I admire your commitment, though,” I said. “Meet you at the lot.”

  Harvey was right—the weight lifters hadn’t come into the locker room yet. I jogged over to Adam’s locker and replaced the BlackBerry and the lock, only moments before the door swung open and a group of Adam’s cronies swarmed in. I walked quickly toward the door, hoping to God Adam wouldn’t notice me, but he wasn’t among them. Oz, however, body-slammed me into a row of lockers.

  “You lost, Think Tank?” he asked gruffly, searching my face with his eyes.

  I nodded once and said, “I think I am. I was looking for the Oakland Zoo, actually. Looks like they moved it.”

  “You better get out of here,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m going. I have a four o’clock appointment at the reptile house. Don’t want to be late.” And with that, I slipped out the door and ran all the way to the student parking lot.

  I wasn’t quite sure that Oz had gotten the message-extemporaneous code creating wasn’t exactly my strong suit-but at four-fifteen he lurched up to the alligator pit looking nervous.

  “Sorry I’m late. You got the BlackBerry?” he asked.

  I handed him the printout I’d made of Adam’s calendar. “A reasonable facsimile thereof. Can you tell me what it all means?”

  “I can try.” Oz sat down on a bench and pored over the document. After about fifteen minutes, he said, “I think I’ve got it.”

  “Great.”

  “You see this?” He pointed to a small box, marked June seventh, that read JON TRAJILLO—BIRTHDAY, 18. “Jonny Trajillo is one of Adam’s clients. His dad—”

  “Owns that chain of Mexican restaurants,” I said. “I know.”

  “Right. Okay, so that’s his birthday. Now look at this. March fourth of last year—Roman numeral VI-VII-VIII-IX. Six seven eight nine.”


  “June seventh, 1989,” I said. “Along with the time they met, what he bought, and how much money he owed.”

  “That’s it. That’s how he keeps track. And then the numbers are in his phone under people’s real names.”

  “What if there’s a duplicate?”

  “Well, then he adds an extra dash and another number-one, two, three … however many he needs.”

  “So another person listed beneath Jonny on June seventh would be VI-VII-VIII-IX-I.”

  “If they were born in the same year.”

  “Wow.”

  “Adam knows what he’s doing. He’s no amateur.”

  “That sounds like admiration.”

  “It is a little.”

  “There’s just one more thing I need to check.” I flipped to the page with the month that Carly died, and there it was—a meeting with XI-XI-VIII-VIII. “Whose birthday is November eleventh, 1988?”

  “I don’t know. Look it up.”

  And there it was, under November 11, 1988: Freddie Kramer.

  “Who’s Freddie Kramer?”

  “You wouldn’t know him. He went to Brighton for, like, a minute before he got kicked out for fighting. Last I heard, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Stockton.”

  I looked up Freddie’s number in Adam’s files and dialed it.

  “No answer?”

  “The phone’s been disconnected. Give me a second.” I called 411. “Empire Valley, California. I need a listing for Kramer.”

  “There are two listings for Kramer in Empire Valley,” said the woman from Information. “A Bonnie Kramer and a Fred Kramer.”

  “Fred Kramer,” I said, reasoning that Freddie was probably a Fred Jr.

  The Kramers’ phone rang three times before a woman—I assumed Freddie’s mother—picked up. “Hi, Mrs. Kramer? My name is Joe Neiland. I was a classmate of Freddie’s at Brighton Day and I was trying to get ahold of Freddie, but his cell phone’s been disconnected. Is there another way I could reach him?”

  Mrs. Kramer snapped, “He’s not here.” Then she hung up. I closed the phone and gave Oz an exasperated look. “Mother of the Year, that one.”

  “Joe Neiland?”

  I shrugged. “It’s my uncle’s name. Who were Freddie’s friends? Do you know anybody else who might have a clue as to how to get in touch with him?”

  “I do. Freddie didn’t have a lot of friends, but there was one person he did hang out with pretty regularly: the Bean.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Audrey had told me the Bean had fled, but his girlfriend was still around and I figured there was about a fifty-fifty chance he was in the area too. I thought about calling Audrey to come along on the stakeout, but now that she was back with Cass it didn’t seem like a good idea. Still, it felt weird doing something without Audrey. I kind of missed her.

  I sat outside Keptow Auto Body until six o’clock, when young Amanda Richardson, the Bean’s sullen girlfriend—who I had learned that day, with a few pointed questions to the right people, was actually twenty, though she looked about fifteen-emerged from the office. She locked the door behind her and shuffled to her car, an ancient BMW with vanity plates that read 2HOT4U. Besides the Bean, I doubted that there were many men out there who would agree.

  It turned out that stealth was not one of the Bean and Amanda’s best qualities, because following her for a half hour through traffic led me to a run-down apartment building in San Leandro. She had been inside for about fifteen minutes when I finally turned off the ignition and headed up the stairs to knock on the door of apartment 2A.

  To my surprise, the Bean himself answered. When he saw who it was, he tried to shut the door in my face, but I was quicker and wedged myself in to stop it.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me, Bean,” I told him.

  “I didn’t do anything. You got the wrong guy.”

  “I think you’re right. But I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Because you’re afraid Audrey’s going to pin Carly’s murder on you, and we both know that you didn’t kill her. I just need you to help me prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Can I come in? I’m starting to feel like a Jehovah’s Witness.”

  “Fine. But don’t get comfortable. You’re not staying long.”

  The Bean’s hideout was just as nice and cozy on the inside as it was on the outside. Empty pizza boxes and empty cans of Coors Light littered every surface, and it looked like he and Amanda had been sleeping together on the couch, which wasn’t a pullout.

  “I know that Adam had a meeting with Freddie Kramer right before Carly died. The problem is that I’m having a hard time getting ahold of Freddie. Oz told me you were friends—have any idea where I can find him?”

  “Freddie moved.”

  “You think I don’t know that? That’s why I’m here, Bean. Try to keep up.”

  “If I get you in touch with Freddie, will you promise to leave me alone?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. Give me a second.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Bean came out with good news. “Freddie’s agreed to meet you in town tonight while his grandparents are at bingo.”

  “Which town?”

  “Empire Valley, at the Howard’s Yogurt downtown.”

  “At the Ho-Yo? I haven’t been there since I was, like, ten.”

  “Cool story.”

  “One more question: You did try to run Laura Brandt off the road, didn’t you?”

  The Bean paused. “Adam told me to scare her a little. I didn’t mean for her to go into that ditch. I swear, I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  I nodded. “I believe you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep, that’s it.” I glanced at Amanda. “Are you really running, Bean?”

  He nodded. “Amanda’s psycho ex-boyfriend keeps harassing her. We’re going down to L. A. to throw him off.”

  “Wow. That’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?” The Bean didn’t seem to find it funny. “Well, good luck with that.”

  “Uh, thanks. And Neily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t tell Adam I told you.”

  The Ho-Yo was sort of an Empire Valley landmark. It’d been there for years and was run by a friendly Vietnamese family that lived down the street from my mom. When I was younger, my parents used to take me there all the time before the divorce. The owner, Mr. Nguyen, had an uncanny memory for regulars’ orders. After all this time, he handed me a cup of chocolate and vanilla twist two minutes after I stepped into the shop. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d lost the taste for frozen yogurt, so I paid for the cup and chose a seat in the back of the shop, farthest away from the counter and the door.

  I had no idea what Freddie Kramer looked like, but I recognized him instantly when he walked through the door. Freddie was short but stocky, twenty pounds overweight and with arms that looked as though he had been working out. There were freckles all over his face and his hair was red; he looked exactly like the sort of kid who ought to have been named Freddie.

  “Neily Monroe?” he asked, sitting down across from me and eyeing my yogurt. “That for me?”

  I nodded and pushed it toward him. “Sure.”

  “The Bean said you had a couple of questions.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for coming, by the way.”

  “No problem. I hardly ever get out of the house anymore. It’s sort of a nice change. I miss this town.”

  “That makes one of us. Listen, Freddie, do you remember Carly Ribelli?”

  “Yeah. She’s that chick who got killed on the bridge last year, right?”

  I chafed at the word “chick” but tried not to react. “She was murdered, yeah. Do you remember where you were the night she died?”

  His face fell. “Oh. Um, yeah, sort of.”

  “You sort of remember?”

  “Well, things ar
e a little fuzzy. That was the night I got my face scrambled by Adam Murray and a couple of his boys.”

  “Why did they beat you up?”

  “Well, I was supposed to be picking up an eight ball I’d ordered, but a friend of mine owed them money and they decided to send him a message by kicking the crap out of me.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “At the overlook.” Just ten minutes away by car from the scene of Carly’s murder.

  “What time?”

  “We were supposed to meet at seven forty-five, but Adam was early. They jumped me as soon as I got out of my car. It was over by eight, because I remember hearing the bell in the clock tower ringing as I counted what was left of my teeth.” He opened his mouth and pointed to his two front ones. “See these? Fake.”

  “And they just left after that?”

  “Yeah. Adam told them to stop and then they took off.”

  “Do you remember anything else? Did they stay together, or did Adam leave on his own?”

  “He got a phone call right as they were getting back into their cars. He picked it up, listened, said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and kicked everyone out of his car. Then he took off.”

  “You don’t by any chance know who the call came from, do you? He didn’t mention it to any of his buddies?”

  “No, but I remember thinking the ringtone was really weird for a guy like him. You know Adam, he’s all tough, but the ring was pretty girly, like from the eighties or something.”

  “Like the kind of song a girlfriend would program into your phone to play when she calls?”

  “I guess. I wouldn’t really know.”

  “Sorry, man. I’ve got to run, but enjoy the ice cream.”

  “Frozen yogurt.”

  “Whatever.”

  I readied myself for a confrontation when Adam opened his front door, but instead of getting up in my face he just eyed me warily, as if I were an unidentified species of insect.

  “What do you want?” he demanded, gripping the door with one hand and the frame with the other.

  “I have something that belongs to you.” From my backpack, I pulled the printout I’d made of the files on his Black-Berry.

  “What the hell is this?” He grabbed it from me and his eyes widened. “Where did you get this?”