Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose (52 page)

"Hmmm, could be," Gracie agreed. "That'd certainly be enough to set off the fireworks."

"On top of everything else I could see why she'd want to escape somewhere," Shawna said.

"Hey, isn't that Jake's truck over there?" Kelly asked. "Bright red, dual-cab, V-8 engine."

They glanced around to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear.

"And a heavy-duty front bumper," Kelly continued his description as they reached the truck. He ran his fingers lightly over the front edge. "No obvious damage to this hunk of iron, but it sure could bash a taillight and not leave any traces. And look! There's a dent on the right front fender above the bumper."

Cheryl took her phone out of her pocket and snapped a couple of pictures while Gracie dug for her measuring tape.

"The dent's too high, it would've been above the place where Madison's car was hit. But the bumper's the right height."

"So let's go see what we can see on the back end," Kelly suggested.

They strolled around the truck as casually as possible, though they all felt their attention must be obvious. Shawna hung back a little acting as look-out and watching for Jake.

"No damage at all back here," Kelly announced. "Boy, does he keep a lot of junk in the bed of this truck: tool box, rope, bungee cords, a bottle of oil, empty antifreeze bottle, and all sorts of sports equipment."

"And an assortment of squashed beer cans," Cheryl added.

"Guess he's into
all
sports from the look of it," Gracie said. "I thought he was just a football jock."

"Psst! I just saw Jake walk out the door!" Shawna issued her warning.

"Twenty-three skidoo!" Kelly said as they all instinctively turned their backs to the building and tried to move away nonchalantly.

"Twenty-three skidoo?" Gracie asked. "Isn't that what they say in those old gangster movies?"

"Seemed appropriate, somehow," Kelly said with a shrug. "I feel like I'm doing something illegal."

Gracie and Cheryl laughed a bit nervously, but Shawna said she agreed with him.

"Come on
gang
," Gracie said. "Let's go get some lunch."

Chapter 46

"Okay, the gang's all here," Kelly quipped. "Let's see if we've come up with anything new."

The girls groaned at his intended pun, but they were beginning to think of themselves as rather underhanded in their quest for the source of all the accidents.

"The meeting of Gracie's Gang will now come to order!" Gracie continued the joke. "Secretary Kelly will read the minutes of the previous meeting and we'll discuss each point in turn."

Kelly favored her with a small frown. "How'd
I
get elected secretary?"

"Because you took the minutes yesterday," Cheryl told him. "Thus, you're elected."

"Ha, ha," Kelly replied drily. "Okay, let's see what we've got. First item is Maggie's fall resulting in her death."

"Ken said the neighbor lady saw a light-colored car in front of Maggie's house early in the morning," Gracie said. "That's too vague to be of any use, except that it couldn't possibly describe Jake's red pick-up."

"I'm going to start a new list," Kelly mumbled. "I'll list two accidents on a page, that way I'll have room to add anything new we come up with. Light car,
not
Jake's. Anything else?"

"Well, Ken found one of Amy's earrings in the back yard," Gracie said. "But we know she was at the party. It's not likely she was there to make out with someone, but she could've just gone out for some fresh air and quiet."

"The rest of the points are the same, then," Kelly summarized. "Travis' fall; no change. Emily's poison ivy; no change."

"Wait a minute," Shawna said. "If we're trying to pin these on Jake we should ask Emily when was the last time she went out with him."

"That's a great idea, except how do you do that without making it sound weird?" Cheryl asked.

Shawna got a wicked grin on her face. "Listen and learn," she said as she flipped open her phone.

"Hi, Emily, Shawna here. I'm trying to win a bet; ice cream to the winner. I think there's a pattern to the girls that Jake dates, and if I'm right you're going out with him tonight."

The other three looked surprised at Shawna's unaccustomed duplicity. Cheryl gave her a thumb's up.

"
Really
. Well, darn, no ice cream for me! Thanks, Emily. Take care." Shawna hung up and turned to look at her friends.

"She says she's been so busy rehearsing for the upcoming play that she hasn't been out with Jake for a couple of weeks now," she told them.

"Now that's dedication," Cheryl remarked.

"So unless Jake somehow smeared her with the leaves during school hours he couldn't very well be responsible," Kelly said.

Gracie got the slightly furrowed brow that indicated she was thinking. "But anyone who knew Emily would know she's been around the stage a lot lately…"

"So maybe they planted it somewhere she'd touch it," Shawna finished.

"Ooh,
planted
the plant," Cheryl groaned.

"Which would mean it was done deliberately," Gracie pointed out.

"But if she knows she's allergic to poison ivy, she'd probably know what it looked like," Kelly said. "The shape's distinctive. 'Leaves of three, let it be.'"

"This
is
Emily we're talking about," Cheryl reminded them. "Just think of the dramatic scene she could create
after
she'd touched the stuff."

"She could just as easily make a scene at just
seeing
the leaves, and not risk touching them," Gracie said.

"Okay, Emily didn't get poison ivy from smooching Jake out in the boonies," Kelly said, making the appropriate entry on his notes. "The two-fer of damage to Madison and Emily's cars, and Madison's subsequent tumble."

"My, don't you sound pretentious in your role as secretary," Cheryl said with a grin.

"We're trying to do this logically, so I just want to be precise," he defended himself.

"Jake's bumper is the right height," Gracie re-capped their lunchtime fact-finding excursion.

"But there's no corresponding damage to it, at least that we can see," Kelly said.

"I've got pix of both dents, um, in Emily's car and Jake's truck," Cheryl said. "Let's download them and compare them side-by-side."

"What can you tell by doing that?" Shawna asked as Cheryl began working at Gracie's computer.

"Don't know," Cheryl said. "But it's easy enough to do. Okay, I've got 'em both up on the screen."

Everyone stood up to look.

"They're just dents, I don't see anything odd," Shawna said.

"The dent on Jake's fender is sort of sideways, and Emily's is horizontal," Gracie muttered.

Kelly leaned in for a closer look. "See how round the impression is on Emily's car – it almost looks like it was hit with a baseball bat."

Cheryl enlarged the photo. "Looks like it tapers just a little too, like someone hit it with the middle of the bat instead of the end."

"She could've run into a post of some kind, like in a gate," Gracie said.

"Then the diameter would be the same," Kelly said.

"Wasn't there a bat in the bed of Jake's truck this afternoon?" Cheryl asked.

They all looked at each other for a moment, wondering if this was the piece of information they were looking for.

"I think so," Kelly said. "But if we could walk by and see it in there so could anyone else.
Any
one could've 'borrowed' it to bash the two cars. But then a bat's not exactly a restricted item, lots and lots of people probably have one."

"That would make it easy to point the finger of suspicion at Jake, too," Gracie said. "But it's hardly enough to prove he did it. On to the next item, Kelly."

"Serene's desk failure, 4th hour, after lunch," Kelly read. "How'd us amateur sleuths do at finding out who all sits at that particular desk during the day? I saw Richelle there 2nd hour."

"Amy sits there 3rd hour, and Bobby's there 6th," Shawna said.

"It's empty during 1st hour," Gracie said. "Or maybe whoever sits there wasn't here today."

"5th hour it's Carter," Cheryl supplied. "Amy doesn't date anybody and I don't think Richelle's ever been out with Jake."

"Jake wouldn't have anything to do with Bobby, and as far as I know he's not friendly with Carter, either," Kelly said.

"Which means that Serene is the only person who sits at that desk that's even remotely connected to Jake," Gracie said.

"Yeah, but it still seems like a long shot that it could've been
meant
for Serene," Kelly insisted. "If it'd been 1st hour I might believe it. Next up is Tony Fletcher's trip over the rock. Gracie thinks it was meant for either Tanya or Meaghan."

"Or the third girl that was there," Shawna said. "The one Jenifer didn't recognize. Tell us again how she described her?"

"The only thing she said was the girl was quiet and had long brown hair. Oh, and she came in with Meaghan," Gracie said.

"Who could that be? Do any of Jake's girlfriends match that description?" Kelly asked.

"Madison's hair is a light brown, but she wears it short," Gracie said.

"Serene has long brown hair, but you could hardly call her quiet," Cheryl said.

"Same thing for Emily," Shawna said. "Okay, her hair is auburn, but it's long and it could be mistaken for brown if you weren't paying attention."

"Brittney's the quiet type and her hair is long," Gracie said. "But it's black, and even ditzy Jennifer should be able to see the difference."

"I can't think of anyone else that qualifies," Shawna said.

"I still think Tony put that rock there himself," Cheryl said firmly. "It's the kind of thing a little snot like him would do."

"So nothing conclusive there," Kelly confirmed. "What about Andrea and the cyanide? I saw you guys talking to her today, did you ask about it?"

"No, we were hoping she'd go away so we could snoop around Jake's truck," Gracie said.

It was Cheryl's turn to look pensive. "Didn't Ken say she 'ingested' the poison?" At Gracie's nod she continued. "That means 'eat' or 'drink', right?"

"I don't think it gets absorbed through the skin," Kelly said.

"What about Home Ec.?" Cheryl exclaimed. That was the day we made the lasagna, and we all ate some of it. Maybe it was in the lasagna."

"Well, it certainly wasn't
Jake
, then!" Kelly said.

"Seems to me that Bonnie said she didn't feel good that afternoon, too," Cheryl said. "She's in Andrea's cooking group."

"Who else is in it?" Gracie asked.

"Amy and Elyzabeth," Cheryl replied.

"In other words, none of Jake's dates."

"So it was meant for Andrea?" Shawna asked.

"Probably," Gracie said. "But I was just wondering if one of his girlfriends might want to scare off the competition, so to speak."

"By poisoning them? That would be pretty obvious." Kelly commented.

"I don't want to sound rude," Cheryl began. "But Andrea has a bit of a weight problem. She was really chowing down on that stuff, and I think anyone could figure out that she'd be likely to do just that."

"Makes sense; she ate more so she got more cyanide," Shawna agreed. "The other girls didn't eat enough to be affected."

"But that doesn't get us any closer to who might've put it in the food," Cheryl said. "Remember,
I
was there and I didn't see anything odd happen. And none of Jake's other girlfriends are in that class."

"You were busy with your own group," Shawna pointed out.

"You wouldn't think it was possible for anyone to slip into the classroom between hours and doctor the stuff," Cheryl said. "And like Serene's desk, if it was done after school or before 1st hour there'd be no way to be sure who would get the poison."

"So, a possibility only," Kelly said. "Number eight is Shaun's locker door."

His statement was met by blank stares and heads shaking 'no.'

"Okay, on to number nine. Meaghan's wreck."

"Well, you can add that we now know she was pregnant," Cheryl said.

"And
if
it was Jake's, that could give him reason to want her out of the way," Kelly said.

"Like we said, he was seen tinkering with her car that afternoon. Maybe he only hoped the wreck would make her lose the baby," Cheryl suggested.

"Seems pretty drastic to me," Shawna said. "Too hard to control, he couldn't know how badly she might be hurt. And besides, too many people
saw
him messing with her car. Even the cop asked him about it."

"Maybe he did that on purpose so he'd have plenty of witnesses that he didn't really do anything to it," Cheryl said. "Then he did whatever to it later."