Down the Rabbit Hole (10 page)

Big headline:
TWO ARRESTS IN FLATS MURDER
. No surprise there, but seeing it in print gave her a jolt anyway.

The Echo
had pictures of the men, two scuzzy-looking guys named Albert Morales and Lon
Stingley. They shared a basement apartment on Packer Street, were currently unemployed, and had long criminal records—drug possession, public drunkenness, vagrancy, car theft, shoplifting. Ingrid went over that part twice. What was missing? No crimes of violence, no breaking and entering. She gazed at their faces, faces with too much hair, too many scars, not enough smarts. The bigger the crime, Holmes said, the more obvious the motive. That was one of his basic rules. So what was the motive here? Ingrid had heard these men, drunk, yes, but sounding mournful about Kate's death, as though they'd liked her. Did that mean they hadn't done it? Did it mean one of them couldn't have broken in and stood over the bed? Why repair the grate first? Why repair it at all? And what was the point of that break-in? Ingrid had no answers. Why couldn't this have been an airtight case?

Full-length photos might have helped, especially if they'd showed Albert Morales or Lon Stingley in dirty Adidas sneakers spattered with green paint. But these were just their faces. She stared at the photos until they turned into meaningless dots.

W
EDNESDAY AFTER SCHOOL
. Ingrid home alone. She sat at the kitchen table, math homework in front of her, rain whipping by outside at a sharp angle. She counted the problems—six factoring, eight solving for
x
. X, that obsession of Ms. Groome and all her buddies in the math police.

Ingrid gazed at the page in the textbook, saw a maze, a thicket, a minefield, endless. Suppose she could do each problem in two minutes; the whole thing would take six plus eight makes fourteen times two—twenty-eight minutes. Practically a whole half hour, a serious amount of time, torn right out of her life, lost without a trace, wasted forever. A sin.

“Can you believe this, Nigel?”

Nigel, sleeping on the floor, one paw awkwardly over his face as though warding off the light, had no response.

But what about if she went a little faster, one and a half minutes per problem? That would be…let's see, fourteen times a minute and a half, minute and a half being tricky…twenty-one minutes. Still too big a chunk of time. One a minute would make fourteen minutes, but even that, so close to a quarter of an hour, was too much. Math homework was worth ten minutes, not a second more. That meant doing better than one problem a minute.

How much better? How quickly did she have to do each problem to get the whole stupid thing over with in ten minutes? Was there a way to figure it out? Time—ten minutes. Problems—fourteen. What else was there? Just the amount of time per problem, which was what she wanted to know. Call that G, for Griddie.

She wrote
G
on a corner of the textbook page, remembering too late the rule about not writing in textbooks.
G
was the time for one problem. For all of them, it would be…fourteen times
G
. She wrote 14 in front of the
G
. Total time—14G. But
total time was also ten minutes. Hey. 14G = 10. So
G
…turned out to be one of those messy divisions that wouldn't come out even, forty-two point something. Call it forty-three. Forty-three seconds. Hey! That was the answer. Wow. Forty-three seconds per problem, painlessly quick, if you wanted to be done in ten minutes. But impossible, as least for her. She sucked at math.

The phone rang. Ingrid grabbed it, thinking
Jill Monteiro
, her heart racing even though she knew she'd blown the audition. But it wasn't Jill.

“Ingrid? Hi.”

“Hi Joey.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What's happening?” Joey said.

“Homework,” said Ingrid.

“Me too. Math.”

“Me too.”

“Um,” said Joey. “Who have you got?”

“For math?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ms. Groome.”

“You're in Algebra Two?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm in Pre-Algebra. Mr. Prindle.”

“What's he like?”

“Gay.”

“Gay gay?”

“No,” said Joey. “Just gay.”

There was a silence.

“How's Nigel?” Joey said. “Your dog.”

“He's sleeping right now,” Ingrid said. “He sleeps a lot.”

Another silence. “Do you think dogs dream?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“About what?”

Ingrid glanced at Nigel. If he was dreaming, there was no sign. “I don't know,” Ingrid said.

“You think there's a way to find out?” Joey said.

“What dogs dream about?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You mean like an experiment or something?”

“Yeah.”

An interesting idea, the kind she wouldn't have had in a million years. “You could do something for the science fair,” she said.

“I've already got a project.”

“What is it?”

“I'm building a catapult.”

“A catapult?”

“Like in
Lord of the Rings
where the orcs lobbed the bodies into Minas Tirith.”

“Cool.”

“Not full-scale,” said Joey. “I could lob maybe mice.”

“That wouldn't be as scary,” Ingrid said.

Silence.

“You could see it, if you want,” Joey said.

“The catapult?”

“Uh-huh. After school. I'm on bus two.” She'd need a note to change buses. “My dad could drive you home.”

“That sounds—” Beep. “Joey? Hang on a second. I've got another call. Hello?”

“Hello. Tim Ferrand. Is Mark there?”

“Hi, Mr. Ferrand.”

A little pause. “Ingrid?”

“Hi. He's not here.”

“Do you know where I can reach him?”

“Probably at the office.”

Mr. Ferrand's voice, kind of impatient to begin with, got a little sharper. “I'm at the office.”

“Oh.”

Click.

Ingrid hit flash to get back to Joey.

“Joey?”

“Hi.”

Beep.

“Hang on.” She hit flash again. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Stacy. “You watching TV?”

“No.”

“Turn on channel nine. Quick.”

Ingrid switched on the under-cupboard TV, found channel nine. A reporter was standing in front of 341 Packer Street, and the writing at the bottom of the screen read
ECHO FALLS MURDER
. “…suspects lived two doors down,” the reporter was saying. The camera panned down the street, zoomed in on 337. There was a
FOR SALE
sign outside—Riverbend Properties, the company Mom worked for. “Morales and Stingley were arrested by Echo Falls police on Sunday,” the reporter said. Footage came on of police marching Morales and Stingley into the station.

“Are they nasty-looking or what?” said Stacy.

But Ingrid wasn't looking at their faces. She was bent close to the screen, peering at their shoes. Morales wore beige work boots; Stingley, who
walked with a pronounced limp, dragging his right leg, had on black hightops. That didn't prove anything: Somewhere in the basement apartment at 337 Packer Street there might be a pair of paint-spattered Adidas sneakers. But one thing Ingrid knew: Whoever had broken into 341 and stood over the bed hadn't walked with a limp. Did that mean Stingley, at least, was innocent for sure? That feeling of dread stirred inside her.

The news shifted to another story—people lined up at a convenience store for lottery tickets.

“Stace? I'll call you back.”

She hit flash.

“Joey?”

No one there. The door opened and Mom came in with a bag from Ta Tung Palace. “Who's Joey?” she said.

“Joey?”

“Didn't you just say Joey?”

Ty came in behind Mom, dumped his backpack on the floor.

“Not there, Ty, please,” said Mom. She looked tired. “How many times do I have to ask you?”

“You're so uptight,” Ty said, grabbing the backpack, rounding the corner, tossing it into the
mudroom, where it knocked something over. He looked tired too.

Mom turned to Ingrid, her eyes a little confused. Ingrid could tell she couldn't remember what they'd been talking about. Just as well.

They sat down to dinner: spring rolls, dun dun noodles, orange chicken, Szechuan shrimp with onions. Nigel woke up. Ingrid got out the chopsticks—Chinese food always tasted better with chopsticks.

“Where's Dad?” Ty said.

“Working late,” said Mom. “Anything interesting happen today?”

Ty shrugged.

“Ingrid?” Mom said.

Ingrid, chopsticking up a slippery shrimp no problem, like she hailed from Haiphong, said, “Not that I can think of.”

“What's happening in English?”

“We're reading poems.”

“Such as?”

English was Ingrid's favorite subject, by far, but today's class seemed long ago. She realized she was tired too, the whole family tired at once. “There was one about daffodils.”

Mom's eyes brightened. “‘I wandered lonely as a cloud,'” she said, “‘That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.'”

“Hey,” Ingrid said.

Ty paused in midchew. “How do you know that?” he said; midchew of an orange chicken ball, Ingrid saw.

“I just do.”

“But how?” Ingrid said.

Mom looked a little embarrassed. “Don't laugh,” she said. “But as a kid, I wanted to be a poet. My poetry was terrible, so I decided to memorize great poems in the hope it would rub off.”

“Like how many?” Ty said.

“How many poems?” said Mom. “Oh, I don't know, lots. I got good at it—I guess that was my talent, memorizing poetry.”

“Say some more,” Ingrid said.

“Of ‘Daffodils?'”

“Something else.”

Mom thought. Then she said:

“What the hell's all that about?” said Ty.

“Something scary,” said Ingrid. “What is it about, Mom?”

Mom didn't answer the question. Instead, she smiled a wise sort of smile, and in a quieter voice, recited:

“Hey,” Ingrid said.

Mom didn't look so tired anymore.

The door opened, and Dad came in with a bouquet of mixed flowers in his hand. He handed them to Mom.

“They're beautiful,” Mom said. “What's the occasion?”

“No occasion,” said Dad. He sat at the table. “I'm starving,” he said, and started eating out of a carton.

“Let me get you a plate,” Mom said. She got him a plate; opened a bottle of wine too, which normally happened only on weekends. Dad took a big drink.

“Long day?” Mom said.

“No complaints,” Dad said. “That Blueberry Crescent sale go through?”

“Not yet,” said Mom. “They're haggling over whether the freezer stays or goes.”

“What's your cut?”

“One and a half percent of three twenty.”

“Forty-eight hundred,” Dad said. He was amazing with numbers. And Mom had all this poetry in her. Together they had it made.

“Let's go somewhere,” Ingrid said.

“What do you mean?” said Mom.

“With the forty-eight hundred. Chloe Ferrand went to Barbados for the weekend.”

“When were you talking to her?” Dad said.

“At the audition.” Ingrid glanced at the clock. Maybe Jill wasn't even going to call, would be e-mailing the bad news instead. Yeah, that was it.

Dad dipped a spring roll in plum sauce; Chinese food was great, and plum sauce most of all. “The
Ferrands and us aren't in the same league,” he said.

Ingrid knew that, of course, but it was depressing to hear it coming from Dad. “He called, by the way,” she said.

“Who?”

“Mr. Ferrand.”

“When was this?”

“A while ago.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Uh-oh. Some kind of mood change—why, she had no idea. “I just did,” Ingrid said, maybe a little rudely, but it came out so fast.

“Thanks,” said Dad, rude right back. He took out his cell phone and went into the dining room. “Tim?” he said, and closed the door.

Ingrid cleared the table. Mom loaded the dishwasher. Ty went into the little pantry and started eating something that made crunchy sounds, probably potato chips. Dad returned, shaking his head.

“He's in some kind of a mood,” Dad said.

“Why?” asked Mom, pushing the energy-saver button on the dishwasher.

“No idea,” Dad said.

Strange, thought Ingrid, Dad's moods and Mr. Ferrand's. She made a big decision: No way she was
going to work for anyone but herself.

The phone rang. Ty stepped out of the pantry, answered it.

“For you,” he said, handing the phone to Ingrid.

Yes, potato chips: Their oil was now all over the receiver, and therefore on her hand and in her hair, just washed this very—

“Ingrid?”

Jill Monteiro. Ingrid went still.

“Or,” said Jill, “should I say Alice?”

H
APPINESS
, essence of.

Ingrid fell asleep happy—except for the little glitch of not having called Joey back—and woke up happy.

Alice!

In Wonderland!

Unstoppably happy. Did it matter that cold rain was still slanting down and it looked really miserable outside? No. Or that Ty's toilet-aiming skills had been at their all-time worst this morning? No. Or that he'd used up all her favorite shampoo, sold only at salons, forcing her to wash her hair with a bar of Ivory? No.

Ingrid went downstairs, skipping the last few, skidded around the corner and into the kitchen. Mom and Ty were already gone; Dad sat at the table, drinking coffee and reading
The Wall Street Journal.

“Someone's feeling pretty good,” he said.

“Who wouldn't, Dad? I got the part.” She almost couldn't stop herself from saying it again.
I got the part.

He smiled at her. “Have some breakfast.”

Ingrid glanced at the clock. “No time.”

“That's all right,” Dad said. “I'll drive you.”

“Yeah?”

“Got to go in early anyway.”

Ingrid fried up an egg, toasted an English muffin, spread it with lots of butter and raspberry jam, sat down.

“What's in the paper?” she said.

“Interest rates are going up.”

“Is that good?”

“Not for business.”

“Then why are they doing it?”

Dad looked over the top of the paper. “Not much choice,” he said. “It's like surfers on a wave—they can change the direction they're going a little bit, but they can't change the wave at all.”

“So the economy's like out of control?” Ingrid said.

“Depends who's doing the surfing,” Dad said, and turned the page.

Ingrid took a big bite of her English muffin, toasted to perfection, the butter partly melted, the jam still cold from the fridge—that first bite, just heavenly. “How did the Ferrands get so rich?” she asked.

“They got in early on some nickel mines in Canada, back in the thirties. Angus Ferrand, Tim's grandfather, I'm talking about.”

“But he must have had money to start with.”

“Not much. But he married a Prescott.”

“From Prescott Hall?”

“Right.”

“And who did they marry?” Ingrid said.

Dad laughed. “I don't know. Their money goes way back to the Civil War. They had a foundry right below the falls where the Little League complex is now. Made shovels and shipped them down the river.”

“The Prescotts got rich by making shovels?” Ingrid said.

“For burying the dead,” Dad said.

“Hey.” There was so much killing, you could get rich making the shovels to bury the dead? “Why don't they teach us this in school?” Ingrid said.

Dad shrugged, spooned more sugar into his coffee. He liked lots.

“What happened to the Prescotts?” Ingrid said.

“They kind of dwindled away,” Dad said. “I think one still lived up in the Hall when I was a kid. He took off for Alaska or someplace.”

“Did you ever see the Prescott Players back then?” Ingrid said.

“Going to a play?” said Dad. “Does that sound like Grampy to you?”

Ingrid laughed.

Dad got a look in his eye. Every once in a while, especially if encouraged at all, he told a really stupid joke. One was on its way.

“What do you call a guy who jumps off a bridge in Paris?”

Ingrid waited.

“In Seine,” Dad said.

“Please,” said Ingrid.

Dad drove her to school. She sat up front in the TT, which didn't happen often. The sound system was awesome.

Ingrid punched in Roxy 101.

“Turn it down,” Dad said.

Ingrid turned it down. The rain fell harder. Little branches lay on the pavement. Dad checked the outside temperature and said, “Two degrees lower and you'd have a snow day.”

“Damn,” Ingrid said. She had a complicated thought, all about the existence of numbers everywhere—interest rates, thermometer degrees, even Civil War dead—affecting her life whether she understood how or not. “I'm starting to do a little better in math,” she said.

“Good to hear,” said Dad. Ingrid smiled. “Won't get into Princeton without practically an eight hundred on the math SAT.”

Ingrid stopped smiling. “Does it have to be Princeton?”

“Or any other top school. But Princeton's very special.”

“How?”

“How is Princeton special?” Dad said. “You'd be set for life. Look at Tim Ferrand.”

“But you said the Ferrands got rich by marrying the Prescotts.”

Dad's voice rose. “That's only part of the story,”
he said. “Why do you argue when I give you good advice?” He punched the off button on the radio.

“It's a long way off, Dad. I'm in eighth grade.”

“Last grade that doesn't count,” Dad said. “And that's not even true, not in math. You've got to come out of this year on the calculus track.”

“What's that?”

“Algebra, geometry, precal, calculus.”

“Or what?”

“Princeton won't even look at you.”

Rain pelted down. The drops got long and silvery, as though icing over. “Princeton's orange and black, right?” she said.

“Their colors?” said Dad. “Yeah.”

“Who's red?” said Ingrid. If Princeton didn't want her—and that was already crystal clear—she didn't want them.

“Red?” Dad said.

“Of the…top schools.”

“Stanford. Cornell. Harvard is crimson, which is pretty close.”

“Not really,” Ingrid said. What was crimson? Just a mealymouthed color that didn't have the guts to be red.

They rode the rest of the way in silence. The future looked grim. There wasn't even a Prescott left to marry.

 

Math, first period. Ms. Groome usually began the class by collecting homework, walking up and down the rows. Ingrid, her mind on those surfers making insignificant little movements on a mighty wave, might have missed something Ms. Groome said.

“Ingrid? Is there something wrong with your hearing?”

Ingrid looked up. Ms. Groome was looming over her.

“Your homework, please,” Ms. Groome said.

At that moment, way, way too late, Ingrid realized that she hadn't actually done her homework. Instead, she'd spent her time making calculations about how long homework would take if she were speedy; calculations in ink, written in the margins of her textbook, this same textbook that now lay on her desk, open to that very same page; a page Ms. Groome was staring at.

“I…uh,” Ingrid said. “Forgot.”

Ms. Groome's glasses were smeared with fingerprints that made a kind of glare, hiding her eyes
from view. “You forgot to do your homework?”

Ingrid nodded. She could have said she was sorry, but then Ms. Groome would have had an opening for saying sorry doesn't cut it or something along those lines, and what was the point of going through all that?

“And did you also forget the rules about defacing textbooks?” said Ms. Groome.

Ingrid nodded again. This time she did come close to saying sorry.

There was a long silence. The silence ended when Brucie Berman sneezed, so loudly it had to be on purpose. Someone giggled. Ms. Groome picked up Ingrid's textbook. “Unacceptable,” she said, and returned to her desk, shutting Ingrid's textbook in the top drawer.

Ms. Groome taught a lesson all about distance, rate, and time problems, trucks and trains passing each other, going in different directions, arriving in places like Cleveland, Des Moines, or Kalamazoo, but when? Ingrid, concentrating hard, resolving to do better on account of the calculus track and her newfound realization that math was all around, ended up understanding the lesson perfectly. Later, in the hall, the guidance counselor handed her a
note. She'd been reassigned to Pre-Algebra, Mr. Prindle's class, starting tomorrow.

 

Ingrid saw Joey in the dismissal lineup. He was wearing his Pop Warner jacket, and that out-of-control blunt Indian feather thing was sticking straight up from the back of his head.

“I didn't call you back last night,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Things got busy.”

“Yeah.”

“And now guess what?”

“What?”

“I'm in your math class.”

“How did that happen?”

“Ms. Groome.”

“That sucks,” said Joey.

“Yeah.”

“Um. Want to come over and see the catapult?”

“I didn't bring a note for the bus.”

“Oh.”

“But maybe…” Ingrid took out her math notebook, useless now, tore out a page, and wrote “My daughter Ingrid will be taking bus two today. Sincerely, Carol Levin-Hill.”

“I don't know,” Joey said, reading it upside down.

“Don't know what?” said Ingrid.

“If…” said Joey.

Ingrid handed the note to the bus monitor and got on bus two. Unlike a lot of kids, she'd never forged a note from home before, but today was different. Just like Grampy, she'd had it up to here.

 

Joey lived in the Lower Falls neighborhood. The houses were smaller and closer together than in Riverbend, with lots of pickups in the driveways. Joey took out a key, opened the side door. Ingrid went in.

“This is the kitchen,” Joey said.

Ingrid could see that. It was very tidy, with a sailing-ship calendar on the wall and two places set at the table. “Want something to eat?” Joey said.

“I'm all right.”

Joey opened a cupboard, took out a bag of potato chips. He offered them to her. She shook her head. He ate a few, then a few more, offered the bag again. This time Ingrid took a handful.

“Okay,” Joey said. “I'll show you the thing.”

They went into the living room.

“You've got a woodstove,” Ingrid said. Coals
glowed through the glass window.

“Heats the whole house,” Joey said. “Pretty much.”

Paintings hung on the walls, all of sailing ships. A chessboard sat on a table between two chairs, the pieces in some kind of midgame formation.

“Who plays chess?” Ingrid said.

“Me and my dad,” said Joey. “Do you?”

“No.”

Joey opened a door. “It's down here,” he said. He flicked on a light. They went down to the basement.

“You've got a workshop,” Ingrid said.

“Yeah.”

An amazing workshop, with a long bench, different power saws, a vise, tons of tools, lots of stuff Ingrid didn't even know the names of. On the end of the bench stood the catapult, about three feet high, made of some yellowish wood that seemed to glow under the workbench lamp.

Ingrid went over, touched it.

“No modern materials or techniques,” Joey said. “I got the plans from a book about the Hundred Years' War.”

Ingrid had never heard of the Hundred Years' War.

“They weren't fighting the whole time,” Joey said.

“Does it work?” said Ingrid.

“I told you,” Joey said. “Tack down the leather string.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Now crank the wheel.”

Ingrid turned the wooden wheel, a little thing, beautifully made.

“You can do it harder than that.”

Ingrid cranked harder. The arm of the catapult began to bend. She felt its strength.

“Now put this in the bowl.”

He handed her a golf ball. She stuck it in the bowl at the end of the catapult arm.

“Unhook the string.”

Ingrid reached for it.

“Get your head out of the way first.”

She got her head out of the way, unhooked the string. The catapult arm snapped forward with a tiny whoosh of air, flinging the golf ball across the room in a blur. It thumped against a punching bag that Ingrid hadn't noticed and bounced on the floor.

She turned to him. They looked at each other for a moment. “If there's time before the fair,” Joey said, “I'll build a little castle to knock down.”

Ingrid nodded. For some reason, it sounded like one of the best ideas she'd ever heard.

There wasn't much space between them, the way they were standing, close to the catapult. Joey leaned across that space, face first, a very awkward movement, leading with his mouth. Ingrid, like a figure in a dream, turned up her own face. Their lips came together. Ingrid's eyes closed. She felt his arms going around her. She put hers around him. Ingrid had done plenty of hugging—Mom, Dad, Stacy, Mia, other friends, Grampy once or twice, Aunt This and Uncle That—but nothing compared to this. She opened her eyes to see what he was doing. He was watching her. She'd never been so close to someone's eyes before. At that moment a door opened upstairs and Joey backed away, fast, like from an electric shock.

“My dad,” he whispered. And then, out of nowhere, “Divorced.”

A voice called from upstairs. “Joe?”

“Down here,” Joey said.

Heavy footsteps started down the stairs.

“Ingrid's here to see the catapult,” Joey said.

Chief Strade came into view, wearing his uniform. “Is she?” he said.

“You remember Ingrid,” Joey said.

“From the woods,” said Chief Strade. “Nice to see you.”

“Hello, Mr. Strade,” Ingrid said. “It's one heck of a catapult.” Possibly the dumbest remark of her life.

“Not bad,” said the chief. “I'll just get supper started. You're invited.”

“Thanks, I—”

“Fire up the grill, Joe.”

“It's raining, Dad.”

“Stopped twenty minutes ago,” said the chief. “You didn't notice?”