Down the Rabbit Hole (9 page)

“Like?”

“I don't know,” Joey said. Chief Strade was coming back. “Why would the killer do the break-in last night?” Joey said. “Ingrid wants to know.”

“Does she?” said the chief. “Good question. We're about to find out.”

“What do you mean?” Joey said.

“We got them,” said the chief.

“Them?” asked Ingrid before she could stop herself. What them?

The chief gave her another look, but quicker this time; he was in a hurry.

“Couple of lowlifes who live on the same street,” he said. “They left a bottle in the alley out back with prints all over it. We think they used it to smash the window on the back door. Their prints are inside, too. As for the night of the murder, their stories don't add up, not one little bit.”

“So what's going to happen?” Joey said.

“Booking them on murder one,” said the chief, “soon's we get to the station.”

“Murder one,” said Joey; his body made a little motion, almost a shiver, in his Pop Warner jacket.

Chief Strade turned to her. “Better get some ice on that eye.”

I
NGRID WENT BACK
in through the slider and up to the kitchen, Nigel following. Ty was doing homework at the table. Homework. Did she have any this weekend? She kind of thought so.

Ty looked up. His gaze went right to her eye. He looked worried—was he thinking bye-bye to that Rolls-Royce or Maserati due on his sixteenth birthday? Nigel spotted a bagel half under the table—sesame—darted across the floor, and scarfed it up.

“His name is Nigel,” Ingrid said.

“Nigel? How do you know?”

“Because I named him.”

“Nigel? That's the dumbest—”

Mom came in through the door that led to the garage, carrying two pizzas from Benito's.

“Ingrid! What happened to your eye?”

Ingrid looked at Ty. She let a nice long pause go by, building suspense like a Hollywood pro. “I fell,” she said at last.

“You fell?”

“Playing with Nigel. I'm fine. Don't worry.”

“Who's Nigel?” Mom said.

“The dog, Mom,” Ingrid said, still watching Ty. “That's the name we gave him, Ty and me.”

“Nigel?” Mom said.

“It was Ty's idea, but I like it too.”

Mom turned to Ty, surprised. “‘Nigel' was your idea?”

Ty's face went through a bunch of expressions, all comical from where Ingrid sat. “Yeah,” he said.

“Ty was really psyched about it,” she said. “Weren't you, Ty?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell Mom where you got the idea.”

He was kind of squirming now. This must have been how it felt to be a grand inquisitor in the Spanish Inquisition: pretty damn good.

“Where I got the idea,” Ty said. He gazed down
at Nigel licking sesame seeds off the tiles. “He…looks like a Nigel. Like, it fits him.”

Mom bent down, getting a good close-up of Nigel. “You know something, Ty? You're absolutely right. It's perfect.”

Her gaze shifted to Ty, seemed to be seeing him in a new light, as though she'd spotted some previously hidden talent.

Mom opened the pizza boxes—a large pepperoni, olive, and garlic, and a medium arugula and goat cheese. “Someone call Dad,” she said.

“He's not back yet,” Ty said.

“From where?” said Mom.

“He had to go to the office,” Ty said.

Mom lost track of what she was doing for a moment, as though hearing some distant sound, then finished serving out the pizza.

 

There were still two slices of the pepperoni when Dad came back, taking off his leather coat and saying, “Hi, everybody. That looks good.” He sat down opposite Ingrid. She waited for that piney smell to waft her way, but it didn't.

“You had to go to the office?” Mom said.

Dad nodded. “Ten-o'clock meeting tomorrow.
Tim's gotten interested in electroplating technology for some reason. There isn't one company in the whole sector I'd put a dime into but—”

Ingrid stopped listening. Murder one. The killers, those two drunks in the alley, were in jail, their fingerprints all over Kate's place, their stories not adding up. And she had the red Pumas. So it was over, right? There was nothing to tell anybody ever.

Except: The man who'd broken into Kate's house, ducked under the police tape, and stood over the bed had been so quiet, whereas the drunks were noisy. Plus she hadn't smelled any alcohol. But weren't those just two tiny impressions she could have easily gotten wrong? And what did they add up to anyway compared to Chief Strade's expertise? A feeling of relief should have been washing over her at this very moment. But it wasn't. Ingrid would have given a lot to know if one of those men in jail owned Adidas sneakers spattered with green paint.

“Ingrid? I asked you a question.”

Ingrid looked up. Dad was talking to her.

“What happened to your eye?”

“I fell. Out playing with Nigel.”

“Nigel?”

Ingrid pointed under the table. Dad looked down.

“Nigel,” he said. “Cool name.”

“Ty came up with it,” Mom said.

Dad beamed at Ty. Ty gave him an aw-shucks look so fake that the dumbest parents in the world would have seen through it; but not Mom and Dad.

“So we're keeping him?” Dad said.

“Unless someone puts in a claim,” said Mom.

Dad tossed Nigel a piece of pepperoni. Almost casually, Nigel opened his mouth and caught it, like a smooth shortstop making a routine play.

 

That night Nigel followed Ingrid up to her bedroom, tried to climb on the bed. “On the floor,” Ingrid said, pointing. Nigel circled and circled, finally settled on a spot. Ingrid lay down, pulling Mister Happy in beside her. It had to be the two drunks. And she had the cleats back safe and sound, as though she'd never been in Kate's house at all, the whole episode deleted. The seas rose around her. She slept. The little boat was not so snug anymore, but she slept.

When she woke up in the morning—“Ingrid! Don't make me call you again!”—Nigel was on the bed and Mister Happy, somewhat gnawed, was on the floor.

“Bad dog.” But he was too warm and fat and cuddly to get mad at. “Don't hog the pillow.”

“INGRID!”

 

“Mornin', petunia,” said Mr. Sidney as Ingrid got on the bus.

“Morning, Mr. Sidney.”

Mr. Sidney checked the rearview mirror, his eyes barely showing under the bill of his
BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA
hat, and said, “Guy in the back—zip it.”

Ingrid sat beside Mia.

“Hey,” Mia said. “You're wearing eye shadow.”

Ingrid had made up both eyes. A good solution—they now looked much the same—even though she was a little sketchy with makeup, having tried it only once or twice, and never out in the world. Ingrid batted her eyelids.

“Cool,” Mia said.

“Cool in da pool,” said Brucie Berman, somewhere behind them.

“Zip it, guy,” said Mr. Sidney.

Ingrid noticed that Mia's own eyes didn't look very happy. After their divorce, despite the fact that Mia's dad had stayed in New York and never came to Echo Falls, he and her mom still managed to
fight several times a week, usually on the phone but sometimes by e-mail. Mia knew that part because her mom wasn't good on the computer and sometimes copied Mia by mistake, nasty messages popping up in her inbox. Ingrid was trying to find the right thing to say when the bus pulled into Ferrand Middle School.

 

Ms. Groome handed back the math quiz. In red at the top: an
A. A? A!
Ingrid had never got an A in math in her life. She flipped through—check mark after check mark, right to the end, where she'd left the extra credit problem undone. Wow. A breakthrough. She noticed that under the A, Ms. Groome had written “Please see me after class.”

Griddie the math whiz trailed after the other kids when the lunch bell rang, stopped by Ms. Groome's desk for her pat on the back. “Hi, Ms. Groome,” she said. “You wanted to see me?”

Ms. Groome looked up. It was her first year in Echo Falls, but before that she'd taught in Hartford for a long time. Ms. Groome put down her red pencil.

“You got all the questions right,” she said.

“Not the extra credit,” Ingrid said, in the interest of modesty.

“Up till now,” said Ms. Groome, “you've been carrying a C plus.”

No denying that: It was what made the A feel so good.

“So,” said Ms. Groome, “this is unexpected.”

Exactly. They were on the same page. Surprises were nice. If you got A after A after A, the whole thing would get old pretty fast.

“Therefore,” said Ms. Groome, “I want you to tell me honestly whether this is your own work.”

A weird thing happened at that moment: Ingrid's body understood what Ms. Groome was saying before her mind did. Her face went red, a bright hot red, and she had trouble getting her breath. “Are you saying I cheated?”

“I'm not saying anything,” Ms. Groome said. “I'm asking.”

“I didn't cheat,” Ingrid said. Her face got hotter and hotter, probably making her look guilty when she wasn't the least bit guilty.

“Mia is a very good math student,” Ms. Groome said. “On last Monday's homework she got only one wrong, number thirty-seven. You got only one wrong as well, which rarely happens, even when you complete the assignment. The exact same problem,
thirty-seven, the exact same error.”

Ingrid remembered copying Mia's work on the bus Friday morning; had she done it Monday too? Possible. Was it cheating? Kind of. But not the same as cheating on a quiz. “I didn't cheat on the quiz,” Ingrid said.

Ms. Groome gazed at her. Silence went on and on until Ingrid had to say something. “I don't sit anywhere near Mia.”

“True,” said Ms. Groome. “And no one who sits around you got better than a B.” She rose, took Ingrid's quiz over to the board. “If you didn't cheat, is there any reason you couldn't solve these problems again?”

“No,” said Ingrid. There was no other answer.

“Then why don't we take number one?” Ms. Groome wrote on the board: “Factor the following quadratic polynomial: 4
x
²
+ 8
x
–5,” and handed Ingrid a piece of chalk.

Ingrid stared at the problem. Four x squared plus eight x minus five. Vaguely familiar, but no answer jumped out at her. Worse, her mind refused to help. For some reason it started tossing up all kinds of irrelevant stuff, like Angelina Jolie, Elijah Wood, Shakespeare, Arabs. Algebra was an Arabic word.
Al
meant
the
in Arabic and
gebra
probably meant
gibberish.
Ingrid touched the chalk to the board, hoping something might happen. It didn't.

“Well?” said Ms. Groome.

Ingrid turned to her. Ms. Groome had a broad, still face, almost like a piece of statuary, that could look you in the eye forever. Ingrid knew how important it was to look her right back but couldn't quite do it.

“I didn't cheat on the quiz,” she said, suddenly sure that her face wore the same mulish look she sometimes saw on Ty's, not attractive, not innocent. Plus the eye makeup, which Ms. Groome seemed to be noticing at that very moment, no doubt thinking
The kind of thirteen-year-old girl who wears eye makeup to school is the kind who cheats.

“I can't prove you did,” said Ms. Groome. “Not without an honest admission.” She waited. Ingrid said nothing.

Ms. Groome laid Ingrid's test on the nearest desk, wrote on it with her red pencil, handed it to Ingrid. The A was now an F.

“If you choose to appeal this grade,” said Ms. Groome, “speak to the principal.”

 

Ingrid sat next to Stacy on the bus ride home. She was telling her all about Ms. Groome when a police cruiser sped by, the word
CHIEF
in gold letters on the door.

“He's a real jerk,” Stacy said.

“Who?”

“The chief. Joey's dad.”

Ingrid's heart started going, that quick tom-tom beat. “What makes you say that?”

“The DUI thing.”

Stacy's brother, Sean, had been picked up for DUI a few months before. “But how was that the chief's fault?” Ingrid said. “Wasn't Sean drunk?”

“Point oh nine on the Breathalyzer,” said Stacy. “Know what the limit is? Point oh eight. The chief could have cut him a break.”

“Why didn't he?”

“Because he's a hard-ass,” said Stacy. Stacy glanced at her. “Like Ms. Groome.”

Was Chief Strade a hard-ass? Meeting him in the woods, Ingrid hadn't gotten that feeling. But it wasn't going to matter—as long as the right guys were in jail.

T
HERE WERE NO
more Prescotts in Echo Falls, hadn't been for thirty years, but Prescott Hall still stood on a hill across the river from the main part of town. That side of the river had been rural until very recently: Grampy's farm could be seen from the long gallery, if it hadn't been closed off. Most of Prescott Hall was closed off—whole floors and wings, plus most of the back including the kitchen, pantry, and morning room, and all of the cellar, where the renovation was scheduled to begin, under the direction of the Echo Falls Heritage Society, of which Carol Levin-Hill was vice president in charge of acquisitions. The Heritage Society now owned Prescott
Hall and had a ten-year plan to fix up the whole thing; Tim Ferrand was in charge of fund-raising and had already given one hundred thousand dollars of his own money.

Ingrid often heard her mother talking about all this on the phone, but it didn't interest her very much. What interested her was the fact that some long-ago Prescott had married a wannabe stage actress and converted the ballroom into a beautiful theater that sat 300 people. Mahogany seats, red carpeting, polished oak stage, lovely red curtains decorated with gold-embroidered masks of comedy and tragedy: all this the home of the Prescott Players, Jill Monteiro, director.

Ingrid had never met anyone like Jill Monteiro. Jill was an artist, not wannabe but real. Besides her role in
Tongue and Groove
, she'd done two off-Broadway plays, guested as a nervous flight attendant on
Friends
, and created a one-woman show based on the life of Jackie Onassis that she'd performed at colleges all over New England.

“Hi, everybody,” she said, standing at the front of the stage, a slim little figure dressed in black, with curly black hair and big dark eyes. “What a great turnout, and I'm glad to see some newcomers.”

Ingrid, sitting in an aisle seat ten or twelve rows back, glanced around. She saw lots of the same people who auditioned for every production, like Mr. Santos of Santos's Texaco, who did a great wiseguy accent (even when he wasn't in a wiseguy role) and Mrs. Breen, the teller at Central State Savings and Loan, who couldn't learn her lines but could cry on cue, real tears just pouring down her chubby face (an effect that had made her performance as Mrs. Claus in the Christmas pageant really stand out); but there were also some she didn't know; and oh my God—who was that just coming in at the back? Not…but it was.

Chloe Ferrand.

Chloe Ferrand, daughter of Tim, Ingrid's dad's boss, was the most beautiful thirteen-year-old girl in town, maybe the most beautiful girl in town period. And certainly the only one to be recognized as officially beautiful by the outside world: She was already represented by a real modeling agency in New York and had appeared in the Plow and Hearth catalog twice, once in sheepskin slippers and once lounging by a stack of Georgia fatwood kindling. Ingrid and Chloe had played together when they were little, but Chloe had left the public-school
system at the end of sixth grade and now attended Cheshire Country Day. C.C.D. had its own theater program, for God's sake. So what was Chloe doing here? Only one reason Ingrid could think of: Alice. Chloe wanted the role.

“…have to take other parts,” Jill was saying. “And there won't be enough parts to go around, but everyone who wants will get some job in the production. Any questions?”

Mr. Stubbs of Stubbs Engineering stuck up his hand. “How are we going to do the parts where Alice gets smaller and bigger?”

“We'll get to that, Gene,” Jill said. “Did everybody sign in on the clipboard? Scripts are down front, with Post-its marking the audition scene for each role. Wait in the green room for your call.”

Ingrid loved the green room. Some Prescott had gone all out. The walls were rich and creamy, with fluted green marble columns painted on them, the floor was a checkerboard of green and cream tiles, and the furniture was all green leather.

Ingrid sat on a footstool in the corner, examined the script. “
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, by Lewis Carroll. Adapted for the stage by Jill Monteiro.” She turned to the page marked with the Alice Post-it: an
excerpt from the mad tea party scene. There were only two speaking roles, Alice and the Mad Hatter.

“Hello, Ingrid.”

Ingrid looked up: Chloe.

“Hi,” Ingrid said.

“How's everything?” Chloe said.

“Good.”

“Cool,” Chloe said. “How's what's-her-name?”

“Stacy.”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Chloe nodded. A wisp of golden-blond hair fell over one eye; she tossed it back into place, a little movement that seemed to attract all the light in the room. “Interested in any role in particular?” she asked.

“Alice,” said Ingrid.

“What a coincidence,” said Chloe. “You'd be great.”

“Thanks.”

“But maybe even better as the White Rabbit.”

“The White Rabbit?”

Chloe nodded encouragingly. She had the brightest smile in creation, would probably be doing Crest commercials any day now. She also seemed to have a tan, although it wasn't a month for tans, even for the Chloes of the world. Not summer, not Christmas, not spring break.

“You've got a tan,” Ingrid said—couldn't stop herself.

“Barbados,” Chloe said. “Just for the weekend. How long have you had braces?”

“Ingrid Levin-Hill,” called someone from the green-room door. “You're next.”

Already? She hadn't even read the scene once. Ingrid rose, a little unsteady.

“Break a leg,” said Chloe.

 

There were two stools onstage. Ingrid sat on one. Mr. Santos sat on the other, the script in his huge hand, oil stains under the fingernails.

“Anytime,” said Jill Monteiro, from somewhere in the darkened seats.

“Me?” said Mr. Santos.

“From the top,” said Jill.

Mr. Santos frowned at the script. “I'm at the top,” he said. He shook himself, as though discarding the
character of Mr. Santos and allowing the inner Mad Hatter to emerge, then cleared his throat, forcefully enough to cause bleeding, Ingrid thought, and spoke through gritted teeth: “Okay, paisan, time's up on that freakin' riddle.”

Out in the darkness, something dropped on the floor. Ingrid opened her mouth, closed it, began again: “I give up.” Her instinct was to be breezy in the tea-party scene, but following Mr. Santos's lead, she tried nervous instead, flashing him an anxious glance. “What's the answer?”

Mr. Santos laughed suddenly, startling her—a loud, cruel, triumphant laugh, but more Daffy Duck than Joe Pesci. For such a big guy, Mr. Santos had a surprisingly high voice. “How the hell would I—” he began, before a cell phone rang in the pocket of his overalls. “Geez.” He fished it out and said, “Santos,” listened for a moment, then rose and peered past the footlights, shading his eyes. “Hey. Screwup down at the station. Be back as soon as I can, okay?”

Jill's voice came out of the darkness. “No hurry,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Mr. Santos. He turned to Ingrid and in a stage whisper said, “That scared look you
did—wow. Just like Diane Keaton in
Godfather Two
.”

Mr. Santos left. Jill called out, “Send another Mad Hatter.” Then to Ingrid: “This will probably be a little more conventional.” And to herself, so quietly Ingrid almost didn't hear: “Please God.”

A man walked onto the stage, script in hand. Ingrid had never seen him before. He was tall, with short-cropped gray hair, high cheekbones, and only one or two wrinkles, but deep.

“Your name, please?” said Jill.

He gazed into the orchestra seats. “My name is Vincent Dunn,” he said.

“Thanks for coming out,” Jill said. “This is Ingrid.”

He turned to her. “Hello, Ingrid.” He had a soft voice, kind of a monotone.

“Hi,” said Ingrid.

He sat on the vacant stool.

“Whenever you're ready, Mr. Dunn.”

“Vincent, please,” he said in his quiet voice. He glanced down at the script. His face seemed to change, although Ingrid was at a loss to say exactly how, but it became a little unstable. And when he spoke, his voice had changed too, no longer a monotone but not musical either: It was too discordant for that.

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” he said; there was a slight pause before
riddle
, and the word itself seemed to squirm around aggressively, like a living thing. Maybe it was the aggression part that reminded Ingrid of her talk with Ms. Groome, and the way Ms. Groome had trapped her with questions.

“I give up,” Ingrid said; and heard defiance in her tone, defiance she wished she'd mustered with Ms. Groome. She hadn't cheated on that quiz. “What's the answer?” Ingrid said, making it a demand.

“I haven't the slightest idea,” said Vincent Dunn, slowing down the rhythm slightly on
idea
to suggest just the opposite of what he was saying, that he knew the answer damn well.

The script now directed
(wearily)
for the next line of dialogue, but Ingrid found herself narrowing her eyes and sharpening her tone. “Why waste time asking riddles that have no answers?”

“Aha!” said Vincent Dunn, reading from the script: “Another riddle!” He smiled like he was enjoying himself.

“Not all questions are riddles,” said Ingrid, giving him the schoolmarm effect, straight from Ms. Groome.

Now for the first time, Vincent Dunn raised his
eyes from the page and looked at her. A long time seemed to pass. “Your hair wants cutting,” he said.

“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Ingrid said, maybe getting too prissy; she wanted a do-over on that one. “It's very rude.”

He gazed at her for a moment, as though offended, then changed completely, growing brisk and host-like: “I want a clean cup,” he said. “Let's all move one place down.” All at once, utterly insane.

Ingrid tried some exasperation, Scarlett O'Hara style. “This is the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!”

Vincent Dunn went still, then delivered the last line on the Post-it page in a quiet, reasonable tone that was somehow still insane: “Who's making personal remarks now?”

A moment of silence. Jill Monteiro came down the aisle and into view beyond the glare of the footlights.

“Interesting,” she said. “A little…darker than I'd imagined, but interesting. Have you done much theater, Mr. Dunn?”

“Vincent, please,” he said, back in the soft monotone, his face again inexpressive. “A little bit. Years ago.”

“Where was this?” said Jill.

“Various places. Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Are you new in town?”

He nodded, then looked down at his feet. He wore brown leather lace ups like Dad's, but scuffed and without those tiny holes in the toecap. Could middle-aged men be shy? Vincent Dunn seemed to be. “I thought maybe this might be a way of meeting a few people,” he said.

“It's a great way of meeting people,” Jill said. “And I'm delighted you came out. In fact, Vincent, with Mr. Santos called away, would you mind staying out here while we run through the other Alices?”

“Not at all,” said Vincent Dunn.

“And one other thing,” she said. “I was thinking—depending on the abilities of whoever got the role—of having the character sing the little song that's in the book. The words aren't coming to me offhand but it goes to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' Can you sing, Vincent?”

“A little,” he said. He licked his lips and sang.

It was beautiful. He hit every note and had a much bigger voice than Ingrid would have guessed; but more than that, he gave you the feeling of great big universe and little lonely guy.

“Wow,” said Jill. Ingrid knew Jill was much too professional to give anything away at auditions, but she did now.

He looked at his feet.

Ingrid got off her stool. “Thanks, Mr. Dunn.”

“Vincent,” he said to her. “Please.”

“And thank you, Ingrid,” Jill said. “I'll let you know by tomorrow.” She called to someone in the wings: “Send in Chloe Ferrand.”

 

Ingrid went into the entrance hall, a huge octagonal room hung with artists' renderings and blueprints of the reconstruction plans, and looked out the window. No silver TT, no green MPV. She sighed. After a minute or two she began sidling back toward the theater. She opened one of the doors, stood behind the last row of seats.

Up onstage, Chloe, glowing in the footlights, was saying: “Why waste time asking riddles that have no answers?” Her voice ran up and down the scale like a flute. She shook that blond wisp out of her eye, all girlish innocence and wide-eyed freshness, at the same time impossibly good-looking, oozing stage presence.

Vincent Dunn said, “Aha. Another riddle.” He smiled again as though enjoying himself, maybe this time even more. Even more. Did that mean Chloe was doing better? One thing was certain: Ingrid hadn't looked like Chloe up there, not close. A thousand Dr. Binkermans couldn't take her to that level. After a minute or two she knew she'd blown it, her reading way off the mark.

 

Ingrid went home in a gloomy mood. Wide-eyed freshness was obviously the way to go. What had she been thinking?

The Echo
lay on the kitchen table.