Adventures In Murder Chasing (Funeral Crashing #3) (8 page)

Troy smiled at me, "Thanks."

I wondered if Troy knew that I was thinking about Ariel. I hoped he didn't tell her, being her boyfriend and all.

Troy continued, "I do want to help you guys, you know. Nico and I may not have been as close when he died, but he was a really good guy. If there is something weird about how he died and it's not a freak accident, I want to help."

"I think we're good," Ethan said automatically, "But thanks."

"Sure! The more the merrier," I said at the same time.

Ethan frowned at me. I looked at him, confused.

"What?" I asked. "It's true. And who knows, we might need Troy's help getting to talk to Nico's friends. I mean, how else are we going to talk to them about Nico?"

Believe me, I knew from experience that just bumping into people and asking them about a dead person, didn't always work. Sometimes it ended in disaster, actually. Ethan looked at me for a moment and then nodded, thoughtfully.

"Okay," Ethan said.

Troy looked at us, "Cool. So, what can I do?"

"I'm not sure yet," I said. Troy looked disappointed, so I continued, "Um, we pretty much need to get a list of suspects and go from there. Maybe go visit the crime scene. Are you up for any of that?"

Troy's face brightened, "Yes. Definitely. Whatever it takes, I'm up for it."

As if on cue, the food came and we dug in. The pie, as always was delicious and Ethan ate his hamburger in what seemed like two minutes, so I knew it had to be good. As we ate, the table went silent. I guess that besides murder talk we didn't know quite what to say to one another. I thought about asking Troy about Ariel. Had she said anything to him about our meeting at Wired? Why wasn't she with him at Nico's funeral? Did I dare bring either of those subjects up? Yeah, Ariel was on my brain, still. I guessed she wasn't going to be getting out of my head anytime soon. I gave up. Maybe when we resolved things. Then again, that could be when hell froze over.

I looked over at Troy between mouthfuls of pie. He was taking the last bite of his second slice. I took a chance.

"So, where's Ariel tonight?" I asked.

Troy quickly finished chewing his pie, "She had something to do for Pep Club. Aren't you in that too?"

Ethan shot me a knowing smile.

"Oh," I said. "Well, kind of."

I'd been to a couple of meetings, but yeah, I wasn't quite sure I was a dedicated member. I mostly wanted to write it on my college application. Plus, since Ariel was now the president, it was kind of awkward. I couldn't say that to Troy, though.

I continued, "I just go every once in awhile. Ariel's way more into it."

Troy nodded.

"So, uh, back to, uh, Nico," I said, chickening out on asking more about Ariel. "There has to be more."

"I'm sure there is," Troy said. "It's just that if it happened at Nico's school, wouldn't it probably be someone who went there? I can't tell you too much about that."

"Well, what about high school enemies?" Ethan asked. "Everyone has them."

I shot Ethan a look. As far as I knew, Ethan didn't have any enemies. Everyone loved him, at least that was what I thought. I'd have to ask him about that.

Troy looked thoughtful, "Well, there was one guy who gave both of us a hard time for awhile, but I haven't seen him since high school. It was probably just a high school thing. I seriously haven't heard from him at all."

"What was his name?" I asked. "It can't hurt to put him on the list and just make sure."

"His name is Ed Patawak," Troy said.

"Why didn't he like you guys?" I asked, writing down Ed's name.

Troy frowned, "Well, he thought that Nico stole his girlfriend and he just hated me by association."

"Oh," I said.

"The truth is, though, that Jessie was totally done with Ed and liked Nico," Troy said. "Ed couldn't handle the break-up, though, and yeah for like a year and a half Nico and I had to deal with that. Nico didn't even date Jessie for more than a few months, but Ed still tried to start something whenever we crossed paths. There were some fights, but like I said, I haven't seen him since high school."

"Are you sure Nico didn't see him?" Ethan asked.

"He never said anything about it if he did," Troy said.

"Alright," I said. "It's something. Nobody else?"

Troy thought for a moment, "Not that I can think of."

I frowned.

"What?" Troy asked.

Ethan smiled. "Kait was hoping you'd have your top ten list of suspects."

Troy laughed, "Sorry."

I shrugged. Actually, that would have been nice, but starting with one name was something, at least. I was going to have to find out more about Nico's college life too since Troy was pretty much a blank on that. Since Nico had been murdered there, it was the most logical place to look for his killer. I mean, if Nico was murdered. I had to remember the word if especially after the Gabe situation. Still, I had a ton of work ahead of me. I had lots and lots of investigative research to do and I still had homework to finish.

The first thing I did when I got home was to put on my pajamas and fall into bed. I was exhausted. My brain was still trying to figure out how the whole night had turned topsy-turvy and how I had ended up going from investigating one death to investigating another. Of course, then I remembered that I still had homework to do. I dragged myself out of bed and did half of it as quickly as I could. I wasn't expecting any A's on these assignments, but I'd at least get a passing grade. I hoped. I'd do the other half of the work during lunch or if I had time I'd do it during one of my classes. I had to go to sleep.

Even though my dreams were totally disturbing and I didn't sleep all that well, the next morning, the first thing I did was find Nico Moretti's obituary online. I probably should have finished my homework, but I had to find out what happened to him. It took me about two minutes to find his obituary on the local paper's website. I loved the internet sometimes.

Nico Moretti, 19, died Saturday. He was a sophomore at Landale College, studying business. He is survived by his mother and father, Isabella and Gino Moretti and his sister, Bianca Moretti. The wake will be held on Tuesday from 3pm - 9pm at Palos Funeral Home. The funeral is Wednesday at 11 am.

I read Nico's obituary three or four times. It was freaking me out that it sounded familiar. I looked further up the page and saw Gabe Fulton's obituary. How weird was it that I had probably read Nico's obituary when I was looking at Gabe's? It was strange how things had worked out. I tried to shake off the deja-vu feeling that I was having and printed a copy of Nico's obituary and taped it into my crime notebook.

I also looked up Ed Patawak. The first thing that came up was a news article. A year ago he had been arrested during a routine traffic stop for having numerous pounds of marijuana with him. He even looked like a thug. He was burly with brown hair cut short. It didn't say if he had gone to jail or not. It was only the initial news report that came up. I wondered how I could find out more. Could I just call and ask? Still, if Ed had already committed one crime, would it be all that much of a stretch for him to commit another?

Of course, all of my murder investigating made me almost miss my bus. I looked up from the computer and found that I was running twenty minutes late, even though I had purposely gotten up thirty minutes early to allow for some quick early morning investigating and homework. I didn't get to the homework part, though.

I guess that extra time wasn't enough and since it usually took me forty-five minutes to get ready for school, I was in major crunch mode. I only had twenty-five minutes before I had to leave. I got ready in record time, although I did stub my toe on my bedroom door in a hurry to get into the bathroom to get ready. Between hopping along because of an injured toe and trying to squeeze in a quick shower when I only had twenty minutes to get ready, it made me feel like it was going to be one of those days. Plus, once it was all said and done and I was running for the bus, I found that my hair which was still wet from my shower because I hadn't even had time to dry it, was doing the freezing in clumps thing that it did when the temperature was dropping too low. It made my hair stiff and crunchy. It was not going to look great by the time it dried. I hoped I still had some leftover hair stuff in my gym locker. I was definitely going to have a case of the frizzies.

I tried not to think about it, though, and focused all of my thoughts on the bus ride to school on Nico's case. I started jotting down all of the details I knew so far, as the bus went from stop to stop.

It was actually really unnerving trying to write when the bus kept jarring to a stop. You had to brace yourself to not fall out of your seat. Luckily, I usually had a seat to myself. Most people sat with their friends, so nobody sat with me unless there really were no seats left. That rarely happened, though. I mean, it definitely depended on the day and how crowded the bus was, but it seemed like a decent amount of people on my bus route got rides to school from their parents or friends on a regular basis. I didn't mind sitting alone, though, whether the bus was crowded or not. I usually preferred to work on homework or read or something and that was harder to do that when you were squished into the seat next to a total stranger.

On the fourth stop, I dropped my pen into the aisle. Oh yeah, it was definitely one of those days. I reached across the floor, trying to grab it before it rolled across the aisle and under the seat across from me, and almost got stepped on by one of the people getting on the bus. I looked up and froze. The girl met my eyes. She looked really familiar, but not from school. Where did I know her? I froze in shock.

Oh no. It was Fiorella, Nico's cousin. My immediate thought was: at least now I knew why she looked familiar when I saw her the night before. I had seen her on the bus. My second thought was: Ahhhhhhhhh!

Hopefully she didn't notice me. I looked away from her as quickly as I could, clutching my pen to my chest, ducking my head, and staring at my open crime notebook like it would help make me disappear. It didn't, though. I knew that for certain when I felt someone sit down next to me. I moved toward the window, to make room, not daring to look up to see who it was. I already kind of knew who it had to be. It could only be one person. It had happened that quickly.

My eyes focused on the notebook page in front of me. Nico's name and my notes about him were all over it. I panicked. Had Fiorella seen it? I slammed the notebook shut and tried not to act as freaked out as I felt.

Fiorella didn't say anything. A minute passed. I didn't move. It was her, right? I didn't dare look up from my now closed notebook. I could barely breathe. Was she watching me? I couldn't look. I so wanted to, though. I mean, would we just sit in silence for the whole fifteen to twenty minutes of the bus ride left? Fiorella had to say something to me, right? That is, unless the person sitting next to me wasn't Fiorella and I was freaking out over nothing. Should I check? Make sure? Before I died of a panic attack?

I couldn't take it anymore. I had to start breathing normally again. More importantly, I just had to know so that my brain didn't explode from anxiety. I looked. Immediately my eyes met hers. It was Fiorella who had sat down next to me. My brain short-circuited.

"Who are you?" Fiorella asked.

I wondered how long she had been staring at me, waiting for me to look up. I just looked at her. Yeah, my brain was definitely not working.

"Who are you?" Fiorella asked again.

"Uh," I said. I seriously forgot how to think or talk for a split second. "I'm Kait."

I had almost forgotten my name. This was so bad. How was I going to explain being at Nico's funeral to Fiorella? Could I stall for fifteen minutes? Maybe I could get out of this. I wondered if my dad would be okay with driving me to school for the rest of the year. I'd be totally okay with leaving super early, even though it would mean that I had to get up an hour earlier and...

"Really?" Fiorella asked, looking at me suspiciously. "Your name is really Kait?"

"Yes," I said. "I really am. Kait, I mean. My name is Kait."

I stopped talking. It didn't even sound convincing that my name was Kait and I wasn't lying about that. Nope, this was not going well. If I wanted to get out of this conversation I was going to have to jumpstart my brain.

"But your hair was different yesterday," Fiorella said.

"Oh. Yeah. That," I said. Why did I even wear that wig? "I just like wigs. I wear them sometimes. It's my thing."

Fiorella was still looking at me like I was a sideshow freak. I didn't blame her. I felt like one.

"So, how did you know Nico then?" Fiorella asked. "You lied about going to school with him. You can't possibly go to Landale College. You're here."

"Well," I started, trying to think fast.

Why weren't we at school yet? I wanted to jump out the window, but I couldn't. There was no way out of this. I had to think fast. Why did this always happen to me? It always seemed like I was faced with this same dilemma. Did I lie or just admit to Fiorella that I was investigating Nico's death? I was afraid she might be a little upset if I told her I thought Nico might have been murdered. Would she be right in feeling that way? Was I wrong to investigate a death that people were already beginning to accept as a freak accident?