Authors: Kimberly Reid

My Own Worst Frenemy (11 page)

BOOK: My Own Worst Frenemy

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Chapter 15

L
angdon is just ten miles from Denver Heights, but it takes two buses to get home. It's not bad because the route takes me close to Downtownâjust ten more minutes and one extra bus connectionâand there's all kinds of benefits to that. So far I've only discovered the food benefits, but I hear there are others. I need sweets when I'm stressed so today I made a detour to one of those candy stores that sell stuff from back in the day. I bought Lana's favorite candy from when she was a kid so that ought to score me some points with herâand I might need her help. Since I got the information from Smythe's office yesterday, it's all I can think about, but I still haven't narrowed the list of suspects.

I'm working on some banana Laffy Taffy when Tasha boards the bus but doesn't notice me. I call her over.

“What are you doing on this bus? Shouldn't you be on the tin can from North High?” I ask.

“I had a job interview at the movie theater. If I get it, there's an employee discount.”

“How did it go?” I ask

“I feel good about it, but we'll see,” she says, taking my candy bag from me and digging through it. Something about how easily she did that makes me think we're still as close as we ever were, we just got a little off track.

“Don't eat all the chocolate.”

“Uh-oh. What's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You only get territorial over chocolate when you're seriously stressed. So what's up?”

I'm glad Tasha knows me so well because I really do need to talk to someone.

“You can't tell anyone about this, especially loudmouth Squeak. Or my mother.”

“You know I won't. Tell me.”

The bus has stopped to pick up a bunch of people and I wait until it moves again so no one can hear us whisper over the loud engine.

“My principal suspects I'm stealing stuff at schoo1.”

“Seriously? Why you?”

“She's had it in for me since the beginning. She never wanted to offer scholarships and is profiling on the kids who got oneâwe're not rich so we must be thieves.”

“She can suspect all she wants, but what proof does she have?” Tasha asks, unwrapping a Squirrel Nut Zipper.

“I broke into her office to find out that very thing.”

“See, that right there won't help your case that you aren't a criminal.”

“I didn't have a choice.”

“This is like the time in fifth grade when you had to prove you weren't stealing food out of people's lunches in Miss King's class. You got profiled because everyone knew how much you liked to eat.”

“A stolen Snickers bar wouldn't have gotten me arrested. This time the loot is expensive enough to make it a felony charge.” I'm so upset I barely notice when a kid walking by knocks me in the head with his backpack. Barely.

“Dang, Chanti, that's serious. Have you figured out anything yet?”

“Until today, five thefts had been reported, all from girls, so I figure it's a girl doing the stealing, or maybe a boy who has a thing for the girls he's stealing from.”

“Yeah, but even the biggest player won't be mad crazy about five different girls.”

“I thought the same thing. So I ruled out boys. Next thing is the stolen property: an iPod, a BlackBerry, a net-book.”

“Stuff that's easy to sell in a pawn shop,” Tasha says. Every third business on Center Street is a pawn shop, so she knows the deal.

“Exactly, but I doubt anyone at Langdon even knows how a pawn shop works, or where to find one, so I ruled out anyone stealing because they
have
to.”

“That's the only reason someone at North would steal. It must be a whole different world at your school.” Tasha points to my candy. “Can I have another one?”

“But the other two stolen items have nothing to do with electronics,” I say, handing her the bag. “One was a tiny bottle of perfume. I had to go online to find out why anyone would steal it. Turns out it goes for tall dollarsâit's produced in France for two hundred an ounce and impossible to find in the States. The last item on the list is a Kate Spade bag.”

“How much money was in the bag?” Tasha asks because in Denver Heights, thieves steal bags to get what's inside.

“That's the crazy thing. The thief dumped the contents in the victim's locker, and took the bag. That didn't make any sense until I checked the Net. From what I can tell, the bag is produced in limited quantities to create a false inflated market for it.”

“English, please.”

“SorryâI'm taking Econ 101. They only make a few bags so everyone wants one, no one can find it except a privileged few, and once they find it, they have to spend a ton to buy it.”

“Like this overpriced candy you just bought,” Tasha says, fishing out another piece.

“Right, so maybe you should stop eating it,” I say. “Then I was trying to figure out what the stolen goods have in common besides all being top of the line and stupid expensive.”

“And?”

“They were all taken during study-hall periods. But there are two study-hall rooms in Percy Hall.”

“That school has so many buildings they have to name them?” Tasha asks. “North only has one building, unless you count the overflow trailers, and no one's naming those. One day you need to take me over there to see it.”

“Assuming I'll still be there and not in jail.”

“Oh yeah. You were saying?”

“Since we only get one study-hall period a semester, and each item was stolen from a different study hall period, it would be impossible for one kid to do all the stealing. They'd have to have help.”

“Maybe there's a ring of thieves, like a porn or drug ring.”

Tasha's suggestion sounds a little Hollywood, but I don't dismiss it. A theory, even a crazy one, is a possibility until you can disprove it.

“Wouldn't it be kinda hard to steal in study hall? I mean everyone would see the thief,” Tasha says.

“Maybe at North, where it's just a regular classroom. At Langdon, they also have study rooms like you see at the public libraryâlittle rooms with a small table, a chair, and a large window looking out into the main room. Everybody tries to get there early enough to claim one of those rooms so they can nap or text or whatever they want because the teachers can't see them unless they walk by. All the thefts happened out of those rooms.”

“So the kids must have been out of their study rooms when the items were stolen, but wouldn't someone have noticed the thief going into the rooms?”

“That's what I keep thinking. To complicate things, today something was stolen from a PE locker so now I can't even confine the thefts to study hall.”

I've been so focused running the case by Tasha, I'm surprised to find we're already halfway home. Tasha has helped me lay out all the facts (and eaten half my candy). Now I just need to connect them into a story. That's always the fun part.

When I get home, I find Lana at the kitchen table reading blueprints. They're spread all over the table and floor with sticky notes stuck to them. She does this whenever she's on a new case, studying not only the building she's staking out, but buildings nearby. That's a big part of being a detectiveâknowing your surroundings. She says it's a gift we have, the ability to look at a thing once and understand it better than other people, to see how it fits into everything else. Even though she sometimes treats me like I'm already one, she claims to hate the idea of me becoming a cop. Too dangerous, she says.

“Lana, now I don't want you to get all crazy when I tell you this.”

“Oh no, don't tell me you're pregnant. . . .”

One thing Lana fears more than chasing down an armed suspect is me getting pregnant. I guess because she knows how hard it was to have me when she was in high school. I'm sure I could tell her anything elseâI'm on drugs, I'm a compulsive shoplifter, maybe that I gamble on the weekends when she's working a late surveillanceâand she'd be fine with that, just as long as I don't tell her I'm pregnant.

“I'm not preggers, Lana. You'll be the first to know when it happens.”

“Don't even joke about that.” She knocks three times on our wooden table in case I've jinxed myself. But unless you can get pregnant from just dreaming about sex, I'm safe. “So what is it you don't want me to get âall crazy' over?”

“Look what I got for you,” I say, handing her what's left of the candy. “There's some Mary Janes in there, and some Sugar Babies.”

“Bribes, Chanti? It must be bad.”

“The headmistress is trying to set me up for some thefts at school.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I thought it was something serious,” Lana says. Not quite the response I was hoping for, but pretty much what I expected.

“I consider a theft charge pretty serious, especially when I'm the accused.”

“Sure you aren't overreacting a little? You tend to do that, you know. Remember the time you called the fire department because you smelled smoke, certain our house was burning down, and it was the neighbors' barbecue? Had an ambulance and three fire trucks over here.”

“That was being cautious, not overreacting. And in this case, I've got proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“Monday Smythe called us all down to her office. . . .”

“Who is
us?
Don't give me half the facts.”

“All the scholarship kids . . .”

“Is that what they call you?”

It's hard to get a story out when Lana goes into interrogation mode.

“Never mind that, Lana. She called us all down to say someone had been stealing and, not that she wanted to make any accusations, but it must have been one of us.”

“Because . . .”

“She claims they had no thefts until we started at the school.”

“That woman better watch herself,” Lana says, and I know from the inflection in her voice that it isn't an idle threat.

“Or what?”

“Just a mama bear looking out for her cub.”

Now I know something is up. Lana would never reference a mama bear and her cub. When I was a kid, her bedtime stories were G-rated versions of her day at work. Sort of like an Officer Friendly version of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, except that the dwarfs were juvenile delinquents, and Cinderella was more worried about her probation officer than her evil stepmother.

“You have something on her, don't you? Is
Smythe
the favor you used to get me into Langdon?”

“Chanti, you're getting off track.”

“Let's see. She must have committed some crime for you to have any dirt on her.”

Lana says nothing, just stares at her blueprints, and I know I'm right.

“Nooo! Did you catch her in a sting? Is Smythe a drug dealer after school?”

“You're talking crazy.”

“Was she stealing something? Maybe she's my suspect. She really wants us scholarship kids goneâmaybe she'd set us up just to get us out of Langdon.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Chanti.”

“You know I'm going to figure out how you met her, so you might as well tell me.”

“I'm not telling you anything.”

“So there
is
something to tell. I knew it. Does she know your cover?”

“No, I stayed under.”

“A-ha! Vice Bureau
has
arrested her for something.”

Silence from Lana.

“I guess I don't need to know what she did, but it explains why she treats me the way she does. She thinks I'm the daughter of one of your alter egos. Hooker, crackhead, con artist, drug dealerâdoesn't matter which one. No wonder she's convinced it's me.”

“You know what happens when you can't verify a theory. No evidence, no case.”

“You're just peeved because I outsmarted you.”

This new revelation about Smythe doesn't give me much in the way of solving the school thefts, but at least I know who I'm working with. For the first time since all of this began, I feel like I'm one step ahead.

“Can we get back to the school thefts, please?” Lana asks. “Why are you just telling me about this?”

“I thought I could handle it on my own, but I need help. I was able to get a look at the list of what was stolen.”

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