Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (20 page)

“You were what?”

Just then Max walks in, robe wrapped tight around him, glasses wedged in place. And I try not to look stupid,
scared, or guilty, but seeing as how I'm feeling all three, that's not an easy thing to do.

And it's strange. It feels like we're all connected by some force, yet separated by it, too. Like we've each got the negative pole of an invisible magnet pointed at the other guy, keeping us a safe distance away as we move around the room.

Max tosses his towel on a heap of dirty laundry and says, “LeBrandi's farewell service starts in half an hour.” He looks back and forth between us. “You haven't forgotten that, have you?”

Hali won't even look at him, but I manage to say, “Half an hour? I …I should have the beds made up by then.” He gives me a puzzled look, so I add, “The beds in…you know, everything was stripped?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you for taking care of that.” He turns to Hali and says, “I expect you there, too.” Then he adds, “Have you found your mother?”

She whips around to face him. “What do you care?”

He closes his eyes and makes it to three before opening them again. Very quietly he says, “Don't be flip, young lady,” then pushes out through the swinging doors.

Hali calls after him, “I hope you don't expect
me
to rustle up chow! Or to do any more stupid laundry around here. Hey! Who do you think's gonna wash this towel? You think I am? Well, you can just servant
this
!”

She lets the door close, then turns to me. “So you slid down here for some sheets. Likely story.”

“Look, Hali, Inga was after me. It was my only way out.”

She sort of prowls around me, studying me, her eyes sharp and focused. Like she doesn't know whether to trust
me
, either. “Inga, huh? Well, why was she after you?”

“Because I … because she thinks I … Hali, it looks like we're going to stay here another night, so I really do have to make up the beds….”

She flips open the washers we'd filled that morning. “Then you'd better get a move on dryin' these suckers.” She sneers at me and says, “Looks to me like you're back to being a punk liar. And this after I snuck those photos back into the reception room for you.”

All of a sudden I feel awful. Just beat up with guilt. Why had I told my mother? Why hadn't I just let Max tell her? He would, he said he would! I'd betrayed Hali's trust, and for what? How had I become sucked into this world of lies and suspicions and backstabbings? How had I become part of this mess?

With a shiver I realized that in less than twenty-four hours I'd managed to get myself hopelessly tangled in a giant web of deceit, and all my flapping around was just making things worse.

I really didn't know what to do anymore. So I whispered, “Hali, I thought you were going to lose it earlier. You're so upset about Max and your mom that I thought…”

“I was gonna blurt something I shouldn't?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I didn't, did I?”

“No, but you came close. And I don't know what your angle is anymore. Are you moving out? Are you blackmailing him?”

She hops up on a washer and heaves a sigh. “I don't know. I can't find Mama, and that's all I care about right now. I've checked at Uncle Manny's, the neighbors'… everyone I can think of. No one's heard from her. And I'm starting to worry that maybe she, you know,
did
something to herself.”

I go up to her and say, “Hali, she'll come back.” Then very softly I add, “Unless she's the one who killed LeBrandi.”

Those braids go whipping around. “What?
Mama?
She is the gentlest, kindest creature on earth!”

Just then Marissa comes blasting in. She takes one look at me, holds her heart, and slides down the wall, saying, “Inga … ohmygod, Sammy. She …”

I give her a watch-what-you-say warning with my eyes and interrupt her with “I know. I heard.”

She jerks her head toward the laundry chute and says, “Did you…?”

“Yeah. And it really hurt.”

Marissa says, “Not as bad as Inga's pitchfork would've.”

“Her
pitch
fork?”

“Yeah. It's not full-sized—I think it's some kind of gardening tool—but it could puncture your ribs pretty good!”

A mummy with a pitchfork. I was almost sorry I'd missed it.

I got busy moving sheets from a washer into a dryer and told Marissa, “Hali's real upset because Reena hasn't come back yet. And Max says we're supposed to be at that service for LeBrandi. It starts in like twenty minutes, so we'd better get going.”

Hali must've been really worried about her mother, because she didn't ask any more questions. She just sat on the washer hugging her knees to her chest, her head down so her braids hung like a beaded curtain in front of her jeans. I whispered, “See you in a little while” as we made for the door, and her beads clicked together softly, but I couldn't tell if they were going up and down or side to side.

The minute we were alone, I flashed Marissa the key.

“Is that mine?”

I shook my head, but I didn't feel like grinning. I felt like some kind of stupid ground squirrel playing chicken with Old Faithful. I knew the geyser was about to blow, but I kept scurrying around it, coming in closer and closer. And even though I'd been nearly burned the last time, I had to charge in one last time. Just had to.

Marissa whispers, “So when?”

“When they've gone to dinner. How did you get away from Inga?”

“
Max
got her away from me. We ran into him on the stairs, and he thought she'd gone nuts. Said you couldn't be in his room when he'd just seen you in the laundry room. Inga knows, though, Sammy. She
knows
. And what about that branch? How do you explain that? I sure couldn't!”

“Maybe we won't have to. Nothing's missing. I left everything the way I found it…. Look, we have to go to that service. Max practically commanded us to go, so if we don't show up, it's going to look really suspicious.”

Marissa and I hurried toward the stairs, and on our way up, a group of gussied-up women was coming down. And
from the way they were whispering back and forth so intensely, they reminded me of a bunch of eighth-graders who had been sent to the principal's office.

When they saw us coming up, they zipped their lips and plastered on smiles, and we were almost past them when I stopped and asked, “Which one's Tammy's room?”

A woman who looked as if she'd shampooed with black ink said, “Right across the hall from the phone cubby.” She gives my jeans and sweatshirt the once-over and says, “Max isn't making you go to the service?”

“Yeah, we'll be there….”

She pops an eyebrow up and says, “It's not black tie, but you could've done better than that.”

As they disappeared around the corner, I grumbled to Marissa, “What's it matter? She's
dead
.”

“It's a way to show respect, Sammy, and it's not going to kill you to wear a dress.”

“Oh, please. I've got places to sneak to and people to hide from. You expect me to do that in a dress?”

“Just wear it and change back later, okay? Trust me, you're going to feel like a bumpkin in high-tops.”

I scowled at her. “Never.”

My mother was doing fine, dressed to the nines for a funeral. She and Tammy were both in black with gold accents, but the funny thing was, they didn't look anything the same. My mother had slicked what little hair she had completely back, and Tammy's was ratted and sprayed from here to Kingdom Comb.

Okay, so maybe it's just funeral protocol to put on fancy clothes and give your hair the ol' 220-volt treatment. I don't get it, and I don't like it, and if I die, I sure don't want people saying good-bye to me in high heels and hair spray, but I was through arguing. I had too much else to worry about.

My mother says, “Girls, we're already running late.” She cringes at what I'm wearing and says, “Do you have anything more presentable with you?”

Marissa tugs me along by the arm, saying, “I brought a couple of dresses. We'll be down in a flash.”

So Marissa's dragging me off in one direction while my mother and the Ratted Rabbit scurry off in the other, and then I realize that we don't know where to go. So I call out, “Where's the service?”

My mother calls back, “In the Great Room. Past the dining hall, around the corner, double doors on the right.”

Marissa and I go into our barren barracks, lay out the elephant-trunk arsenal, and pick our weapons. And actually, Marissa could've done a lot worse. The dress she'd brought for me was a little too pouffy in the skirt, but it did have a pocket where I could stash the key, and since the top was like a fancy elasticized T-shirt, it didn't want to migrate or flap open the way some dresses do. She'd even brought me a pair of shoes that were a whole lot better than some I've worn. For one thing, they were flats; for another, they were a little bit big, so they didn't really bite me anywhere.

Marissa says, “Royal blue is your color, you know that? You look great.”

I looked at myself in the mirror and frowned. “I don't know if it's a funeral color, though.”

“Beggars can't be choosers. So zip me up, would you?” I helped her into her little black-and-violet velvet jobbie, and after we raked a brush through our hair, off we went, mere privates in the ranks of the respectably dressed.

The Great Room looked like an enormous Egyptian den. The windows were swagged with miles of earthy-colored chiffon, there were small clusters of armchairs and coffee tables, and I think the giant tasseled pillows thrown here and there were supposed to be like high-class beanbags or something. There were cat sculptures everywhere, and then stone urns and pyramid-shaped lamps and even a four-foot brass
camel
.

In the heart of the room was a black marble fireplace. Actually, it was more like a fire pit. It was up off the floor, with a ledge around it that you could sit on, but then it was just open. No glass, no screen. Just sort of a fancy campfire pit with a giant suspended hood that vented out through the ceiling.

A bunch of chairs had been arranged around one side of the fireplace, and as we got closer, it became clear that this was no party. Everyone but Max was seated with their hands in their laps, dead quiet, waiting.

Max checks his watch and says, “I think we should begin. Girls, if you'll take the two seats right there?”

The chairs he's pointing to are on the edge, off to one side, and as we scoot into them, my mother gives us a nervous little wave from her seat on the opposite side of the grouping. Inga is sitting right beside her, looking extra
stiff, and as she glances our way, I can see she's also extra angry.

Marissa whispers, “She's not going to let you get away with it, Sammy. God, look at her!”

I couldn't. Those eyes of hers burned like acid. I turned away and started trying to figure out who was missing. Knowing Max, he'd take roll by putting out the exact number of seats. I whispered to Marissa, “Hali's not here.”

“Neither's her mother.”

“But everyone else
is
.”

“So?”

“So I'm thinking…”

“Oh, Sammy, no. Please. You want to flush out the killer? You want to stand up and make a scene like you know who did it, and then—”

“That's a great idea!” I whispered back.

“Stop! Sammy, you can
not
be serious! This is not some TV mystery of the week!”

“You're the one who brought it up!”

Max cleared his throat and gave us a reprimanding look, then clasped his hands at his chest. And it looked for all the world like he was going to start things off with a prayer, but instead he takes a deep breath, looks from one side of the group to the other, and says, “It's been a rough day, hasn't it? From the moment Dominique discovered LeBrandi to now. It's been rough. On all of us.”

They're all sitting as stiff as their hair, listening to Max but still kind of eyeing the people around them. Max makes some long apology about the grueling police interrogations
everyone's had to endure, but I'm not quite tuned in to him because my brain is running away with Marissa's idea, trying to figure out how to use it.

Then Max says, “I do have an announcement that I hope will make you rest a little easier, though. It's shocking, but still, a welcome resolution to the suspicion that has shrouded our home since this morning.” He looks across the group and says, “Officer Doyle has arrested Opal Novak for LeBrandi's murder.”

All at once the tension snaps. Everyone gasps or cries out and then starts talking a million miles an hour to someone next to her. I jump up and say, “No! Opal didn't do it! I
told
you she didn't do it! She …she…”

It's as if I hit the mute button. Everyone's quiet, and they're all staring at me. And I realize that I didn't have to come up with a way to put Marissa's idea in motion— Max had done it for me. So as everyone's staring at me, I look around at them, searching for a face that looks nervous or angry or scared. But what's out there?

The biggest bunch of doe eyes you've ever seen.

Well, except for ol' Tiger Eyes. She jumps up and says, “You sit down! You are completely out of line!”

Then my mother starts frantically motioning for me to shut up and sit down, and then Tammy joins in, too, waving at me to sit down. And before I can say anything else, everyone starts talking again, and Marissa yanks me back to my seat, hissing, “Don't argue with him! You're going to give yourself away!”

Max calls, “Ladies! Ladies! If I may
please
have your attention!”

When everyone settles down, he says, “I realize there are still a lot of unanswered questions, and our young guest is right—Opal has not been convicted.” He looks at me sort of sternly and says, “But, young lady, the police have been working nonstop on this case and know much,
much
more about it than you do. I'm sure they have more than enough evidence to support their decision, or they wouldn't have taken Opal into custody.”

He stands up tall, then clasps his hands again and says, “For now, though, I think it's important for us all to take a deep breath, put our questions aside, and give thanks. Thanks for the time we've spent together. Thanks for the positive influences we've had on each other, and thanks to LeBrandi for having graced us with her beauty, her style, and her talent.