Sketchy Behavior (13 page)

“I haven’t reached the suicidal stage of boredom yet.” I looked around, thinking. I had no homework, there was nothing on TV, and I couldn’t concentrate long enough to read anything.

“Any new leads?” I asked, hopefully.

Detective Masterson smiled at me. “Give them time, Kate. They’ll find him.”

I sighed.

He looked at me for a long minute and then closed his three-ring binder. “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

“What?” I asked.

“You’re just going to sit there until Maddy shows up with your homework, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’ll probably eat something in there too.” I looked over at him. “This is what causes childhood obesity, huh?”

He grinned. “Witness protection?”

“House arrest.”

“Considering the rise of childhood obesity and the few people every year who are put under protection, I’m thinking it’s probably not the sole cause of it. Personally, I blame Xbox.”

I’d never been a fan of video games. There were the kids at school who played them nonstop, and I’d always thought they were very strange people. They came in wearing their
Darth Vader could totally take Frodo
shirts, with their hair all straggly and their eyes all bloodshot.

Dad said that the effects of playing video games had to be similar to having a drinking binge the night before. He called it the “brain cell murderer.”

“We aren’t allowed to have an Xbox,” I told the detective. “Dad thinks it ruins your brain cells, and Mom said it prohibits healthy family communication.”

“You have smart parents,” Detective Masterson said.

At noon, I turned the TV back on.
Miss Congeniality
was on and I watched the rest of it, snacking on deli meat and cheeses in the meantime.

Finally, the phone rang at two thirty. It was Maddy.

“So, Kate, about this whole bringing you your homework thing,” she started.

I tried not to sigh too loudly, because that was Maddy’s way of saying that she wasn’t going to do it after all.

“Tyler asked if I wanted to go watch his football practice, and things are kind of on a slippery slope for us right now, so I really feel like I need to go do that if I’m going to make this work,” she said.

“Didn’t you guys just get back together yesterday?” I asked.

“No. Wednesday night.”

“And things are already on a slippery slope?” I asked.

“We just have communication problems,” she said.

Sometimes, Maddy and Tyler’s problems seemed like they belonged more to a couple who had been married for ten years. I could just see them going to counseling for this.

“Well,” I said. “Okay.”

“Yeah, but don’t you worry about getting your homework. I’ve already given it to someone else, and they’re coming by.”

It was probably Allison Northing, and I’d have to listen to her chatter mindlessly for an hour before she’d leave and let me get to studying.

Even though mindless chatter was totally welcome at this point in my house. Detective Masterson was back to reading from his three-ring binder, and DJ was again on the phone.

“Okay,” I said. “Have fun at the practice.”

“Thanks, Kate! Have a fun day at home! You are so lucky you got to stay home all day, by the way.”

“Not really,” I said. “Bye.”

Detective Masterson looked over at me when I hung up. “No homework?”

“She sent it with Allison Northing. Remember the girl who sat next to me in art class?”

He didn’t do a very good job at hiding his wince.

“Yeah. Just be prepared,” I said, sounding an awfully lot like Scar in
The Lion King
.

Fifteen minutes later, my doorbell rang. DJ answered it, since I was not allowed to answer the door alone.

I steeled myself, waiting for Allison’s loud voice.

I didn’t hear anything. A second later, DJ walked into the living room followed by Justin Walters.

I was a little bit shocked. Or a lot bit.

“Hi, Allison,” Detective Masterson greeted him, grinning. “You look different outside of school.”

Justin smiled confusedly at the detective. “I’m Justin Walters. I have Kate’s homework,” he said, like he was being interrogated.

“Sure you do,” Detective Masterson said, still grinning. “I’ll just go get something to drink. DJ, you want something?”

DJ was standing behind Justin and looking at me. “What? Oh yeah. That sounds great.”

They both left, leaving me and Silent Justin standing in the living room.

Lolly wagged over to Justin, and he petted her ears. “Pretty dog,” he said, though I wasn’t sure if it was directed to me or Lolly.

“Thanks for bringing my homework,” I said after a minute. First, Justin doesn’t talk to me for three straight years — well, almost — and now he’s bringing me my homework.

It was a little awkward, to say the least.

“Sure, no problem,” he said, handing me a stack of papers.

“Miss Yeager’s homework is to pick one of the careers we talked about and draw something for that career. She said you didn’t have to do it, though.”

I frowned. “How come?” Suddenly I’m not only not welcome at school but I can’t even do the homework?

I felt like a homebound invalid. Next thing we knew, someone was going to be calling that traveling meal service to come feed me.

Justin must have seen the anger, because he immediately stopped petting Lolly and put both hands up. “Just because she said that you had already done it,” he said quickly, in a soothing voice. “She said you’d already done it at least twice, which was all the rest of us were required to do.”

So Miss Yeager had recognized my work on TV again.

I sighed. “If it’s an assignment, then I’m going to do it too.”

“Fine by me,” Justin said.

“What are you going to do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of like restaurant and commercial art. Honestly, it’s just a hobby.”

This was the most he’d ever talked to me, so I tried to keep the conversation going. “What do you want to do then?”

Another shrug. “I’m good at math. I’ve thought about engineering.”

I just looked at him.

What is with me and this apparent magnetic force I have toward engineers? My dad. My brother. Now Justin.

Justin is the only one of those three, though, who appreciates art. My dad and Mike think art is a waste of time and a ridiculous use of pencil lead.

“Oh?” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah. And with the art background, I’m kind of interested in something along the lines of architectural engineering.”

“So you want to design buildings?”

He shrugged. Yet again. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s a thought, anyway. I still have two years to decide.”

“Well. A year and a half.”

“Yeah.” He finished scratching behind Lolly’s ear and looked at me. “So, what do you want to do?” Then he grinned. “That might be kind of an obvious answer, huh?”

My turn to shrug. “I don’t know.” I sat down on the couch. “Do you think that if you are good at something that’s a sign you should do it?”

He thought about it for a minute and sat on the recliner. Lolly scrambled over to lay her head in his lap.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “Like, my sister is good at cooking but she’s a finance major at Missouri State.”

“You have a sister?”

He nodded. “And a younger brother. He’s nine.”

So much I didn’t know about this guy. It was amazing that we’d been sitting next to each other in classes for the entire last year.

I looked over at him. “How come you don’t talk like this at school?”

“I don’t know. Allison talks enough for the entire class. And I like to just concentrate at school.” He leaned back in the recliner. “So does that mean you don’t really want to be a forensic sketch artist?” he asked, going back to my earlier question.

I sighed as I thought about it. On the one hand, I loved the art aspect of it. Faces had always intrigued me and I’d always loved to draw them. And the idea that I was helping people by doing it. That was cool.

On the other hand, I didn’t like this part of the job. The staying in hiding, getting shot at, worrying about my friends and family and the people protecting me part of it.

Surely not
all
sketching jobs for the police department were this dangerous though. I mean, look at Larry, whoever he was. He was apparently safe. Unemployed, but safe.

Poor Larry.

I realized Justin was watching me then and I shook my head. “I like parts of it. I don’t like other parts of it.”

“Sounds like any job then,” Justin said. “My dad is an attorney. He said that he really likes the helping people and the money parts of it, but he hates the actual legal process.”

“Why did he become an attorney then?”

Justin grinned suddenly. “Because my mom was in school to be a legal assistant, and Dad thought she was cute.”

“That’s funny,” I said, smiling.

“Yeah. So did you draw the picture of the guy they think shot at you at the parade?” he asked.

I nodded.

“It was a good picture.”

“Thanks.”

“Think you’ll come back to church on Sunday?”

I hadn’t even thought about it. It was more Mom’s thing than mine anyway. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. We’ll see what happens by the time Sunday gets here.”

He smiled. “It’s only two days away.”

“A lot can happen in two days.”

“If you come, you should come to the second service. It’s more laid back.”

I thought about Sister Elizabeth Parker and her boisterously loud amens. For being such a tiny woman, she could sure get loud.

“Do people say amen as much?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Hardly ever. Why? Do people say it a lot in the first service? I haven’t been to first service in years.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding. “A ton. Like Sister Elizabeth Parker? She gets nice and loud. I jumped every time Sister said it.”

He grinned widely. “You know, Kate, you don’t have to call them ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ unless you just want to,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Sister Elizabeth Parker? Her name isn’t sister.”

I just looked at him. “Then why did she introduce herself as Sister?”

“Because sometimes people in the church say that as a way of
saying that we’re all part of the body of Christ.” He was still grinning. “Her name is just Elizabeth Parker.”

Christians were very weird.

And I felt pretty dumb. “Well,” I said, fumbling around for some shred of pride left. “Since you know everything, where is Zion and why are we marching there?”

He just laughed.

S
ATURDAY AT NOON, DEPUTY SLALOM CALLED DETECTIVE
Masterson. I could hear the deputy’s deep voice over the phone even though Detective Masterson was sitting on the other end of the couch from me. We’d been playing a game of Phase 10.

Dad was killing us all.

I think it was starting to bug DJ. I never noticed he was competitive until right then.

“One second,” Detective Masterson whispered to all of us and stood and walked into the kitchen.

It was Mom’s turn, and she was busy staring at the top card on the discard pile.

“Pause,” DJ said, rolling his shoulders and laying on his back on the floor. We were all gathered around the coffee table. Mom and DJ were sitting on the floor, Dad had the recliner, and the detective and I had the sofa.

Mom laid her cards face down and then started doing a couple of back stretches.

“Do you want to sit here?” I asked her for the thirtieth time that day.

She shook her head. “I sit on a couch all week long, Kate. I like the floor.”

Mom’s office had two couches in it. One for her and one for her
patient. Sometimes I think she sat at her desk, but the majority of the time she was on the couch.

I nodded and everyone got quiet. I think we were all trying to overhear Detective Masterson’s conversation in the kitchen, but he was talking too quietly for us to hear.

Dad was looking at the score sheet. He had his glasses on, which I thought made him look at least fifteen years older.

“So, I’m on phase six, Kent is on phase five, and you three are all still on phase four,” he said.

I could see DJ stiffening on the floor. “I hate this game,” he mumbled.

“What was that, DJ?” I asked.

He sat up. “Nothing.” Then she shot a look of challenge at my dad. “It can all change in one hand, Dale. Just one hand.”

“Heh. We’ll see,” Dad said.

My dad can be quite the competitive person as well.

Detective Masterson came back in the room then, sliding his cell phone back into the pocket of his jeans. All of us immediately quit talking and looked up at him.

“Kate, you’ve got a press conference at three,” he said, squinting at the clock over the fireplace.

“Press conference?” I asked.

“What?” Mom said.

“I thought you guys said that wasn’t a good idea.” Dad frowned.

“Also, we’ve had three separate leads all tell us that they saw a man who fit the description of the one you drew at a grocery store in Ballwin. We’ve got a team headed over there right now.” He sat on the couch and picked up his cards.

Ballwin is closer to St. Louis than South Woodhaven Falls. It’s almost straight to the west of the city, and we’re more to the northwest.

“Is that what I’m supposed to talk about then?” I asked.

“What?” he said.

“The lead. The grocery store?”

“Oh,” Detective Masterson said, shaking his head. “No, no. You just need to talk about drawing. Don’t mention anything about the lead. We don’t want this guy to leave Ballwin if he hasn’t already.”

A press conference.

I tried to hide the groan. I thought I’d gotten out of giving a press conference.

“So, we’ll leave here around two or two fifteen to give you time to get ready, okay?” Detective Masterson said. “You’ll be giving it at the station, so don’t worry about safety.” He said that mostly to my dad.

“Great! Let’s play,” DJ said, picking up his cards.

“So I’m just supposed to talk about drawing?” I asked.

Detective Masterson nodded, and DJ laid his cards face down again. “Just talk about your techniques, your excitement over John X being caught, and how you’re hoping this new drawing will bring enough notice to find his accomplice,” he said.

He made it sound very easy.

“Ready?” DJ asked as soon as the detective stopped talking, grabbing his cards again. “Ready to play?”

“What are you, six?” I asked him, rolling my eyes.

He shrugged. “I have to beat your dad, Kate.”

“Just so you know, Dad has not lost at Phase 10 since he had the Great Stomach Flu of 2003, and even then, he didn’t actually
lose
, he quit early because he couldn’t stop throwing up.”

DJ made a face. “Is that true, sir?”

Dad nodded. “Man, that was a miserable night. I rarely get sick, but that night I thought it was the end of the line for me.” He looked at Mom. “Remember that night, Claire?”

She sighed. “How could I forget? You made me pull out the will and go over it before you went to sleep.” She was rolling her eyes now too. “All men are hypochondriacs.”

DJ said, “I meant about the Phase 10 record, not the stomach flu.”

“Oh,” Dad said. “Yes, it’s true.”

He straightened. “Well, it ends today.”

Dad just shook his head. “Words I’ve heard before. Never seen the fruit of it, though.”

Detective Masterson looked over at me. “So, you’re good for today?”

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

“Not really.”

I shrugged. “Then does it matter?”

He looked at his cards. “I guess not. Just ask me if you need help preparing something. Mostly it will just be a chance for people like Ted Deffle to finally ask you some questions.”

“Maybe he’ll stop sending flowers then,” Mom said. “I love flowers, I really do. But when it takes me thirty minutes just to water all of them and when the air in my house is starting to get a yellowish pollen hue to it, I start to think otherwise.”

It would be nice. We had three more bouquets today. One was from KCL and the other two were from people in Springfield, Missouri.

We finished playing the game — Dad won again much to DJ’s distress — and I went to go find something to wear to the press conference.

What in the world are you supposed to wear to press conferences? The only ones I’ve ever seen involved people confessing that yes, they did cheat on their wives just like the whole country knew they had. They always wore a collared polo shirt and sunglasses.

I would assume the attire would be different for today’s occasion.

Mom knocked on the open door, while I stood and stared at my closet.

“Need some help?” she asked, coming in.

“Skirt or pants? Short sleeve or long sleeve?” I tugged on a couple of clothes but didn’t pull them out of the closet.

Mom let out a long sigh. “Well,” she said, coming next to me to join in staring at my closet. “I’m always a fan of longer sleeves on
TV. I think it makes your face more of the focus instead of people staring at your arms.”

I found a couple of three-quarter-length shirts and pulled them out. It was too warm to wear long sleeves.

“And I would just wear jeans. You’re sixteen, and you’ll probably be sitting down,” Mom said, shrugging. “You might as well be comfortable.”

She had a point. So I picked out a cranberry-colored, three-quarter-length shirt and my favorite pair of jeans. Mom told me to pick the cranberry top because, apparently, I was a person who looked better in winter colors.

Until then, I had no idea that cranberry was in any way associated with winter other than being a traditional side dish for Christmas dinner.

For once, my hair actually straightened correctly, and I practiced smiling without squinting as I put on my makeup.

“Time to go, Kate,” Detective Masterson said as I came out of my room.

I nodded. We all piled into the Tahoe, and DJ drove us to the police station.

The good old familiar police station.

Tons of news vans were there. South Woodhaven Falls only has one news crew, KCL, so I asked DJ as we pulled to a stop in front of the building where all the other vans had driven from for this conference.

“All over,” he said, shrugging. “Like that one? WGDB? I think they are one of the main ones in Saint Louis.”

A few news people and their cameras were gathered out front of the building, but DJ and Detective Masterson hustled me in so I didn’t even hear their barrage of questions.

Plenty of time for that soon.

The station had two conference rooms. One was the conference room that I’d sketched the parade shooter in and where I’d met with Deputy Slalom. The other I’d never been in. It was much
larger and had enough room for about fifty people to sit comfortably. There was a long table at the front of the room on some risers.

“I have to sit there by myself?” I whispered to DJ.

He shook his head. “Kent’s going up there with you. And so is the boss.”

That made me feel a little better. I was also glad I hadn’t worn a skirt. That would have put the edge of my hem on eye level with the cameras.

A lady stepped up on the risers and attached a couple of microphones onto the table.

People were milling around everywhere. Mostly well-made-up people wearing suits with big, coiffed hair and earpieces. Cameras blocked every possible walkway.

Deputy Slalom walked in then and clapped his hands. “All right, let’s do this,” he said, climbing up on the riser. He was dressed nicely today. Slacks, a button-down collared shirt, and a sport coat.

I looked like a little kid they’d dragged out of school next to him.

Which was sort of the truth.

Detective Masterson was wearing his uniform, which had become kind of a rare sight for me. He helped me climb onto the tall riser, and I sat down in the middle chair.

I felt like a little person. Deputy Slalom is probably an inch or two over six feet tall, and he’s shaped like a big barrel. Detective Masterson isn’t a big man, but he is tall. He really does look a lot like a tougher Orlando Bloom.

And then there was all five feet one of me. In front of a table that sat a few inches higher than a normal table, and I had to reach a microphone on top of that.

The people with the news crews were slowly arranging themselves on the chairs below. The cameras were mostly in the back and along the sides of the room.

I felt like I needed to make an apology to my significant other.

Thanks to my No Dating High School Boys rule, though, I wouldn’t have to deal with that.

“All right, all right,” Deputy Slalom said gruffly, pulling his microphone closer. “Everyone take a seat, we’re going to make this short and sweet.”

I wondered if he realized he rhymed.

I pulled the microphone closer to me as well, and it squealed super loud in protest. Everyone in the room groaned and covered their ears.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Detective Masterson grinned at me. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming today on such short notice, but you can understand why, considering the security breach at the parade last week. You’ll have fifteen minutes to talk to Kate Carter, so please make your questions brief. Kate, go ahead.”

Go ahead and what? I just smiled — being careful to avoid squinting — and looked around. “Um. Any questions?” I asked.

All of the reporters started shouting right then, so loud that I couldn’t make out one question from another.

Deputy Slalom rolled his eyes. “One at a time!” he yelled darkly into the microphone. Then he pointed. “You. Talk.”

It was Ted Deffle from KCL. I half wondered then if he’d been sending flowers to the police station as well, and that’s why he got picked first.

“Kate, Ted Deffle from KCL,” he said, standing and flashing his teeth that were so white they probably caused traffic accidents.

“Hi, Ted,” I said.

“Let’s start with John X. How did you manage to draw such a picture-perfect image? And were you the artist who created the portrait of the proposed shooter at the parade?”

I looked briefly at Detective Masterson, who just smiled encouragingly at me. “Well,” I said, “I heard a description of what John X looked like, and I just drew what I saw.” Simple enough answer. “And yeah, I drew the shooter at the parade.”

“Kate! KATE!”

“Enough!” Deputy Slalom yelled again. He pointed. “You. Go.”

Another man, this one with hair that looked like he’d emptied a can of shine serum into it.

Ew.

“Hi, Kate, Ralph Robins from Springfield. I think we’re all wondering the same thing,” he said. “You’re sixteen, you’re a junior in high school, and you’re not even old enough to vote. How is it that you are the one who is now drawing all these criminals? Might I say, very
dangerous
criminals?”

He was looking more at Deputy Slalom and Detective Masterson than he was at me, but the question was still addressed to me, so I cleared my throat.

“Well, um, I don’t think you can ever be too young to assist your country when it’s in need,” I said, trying not to flinch. Now I sounded like a miniature politician. Cue the national anthem and the big flag dropping behind me.

Detective Masterson leaned forward then. “Every measure has been taken to ensure Kate and her family’s safety and health during this time. We have also been very aware of child labor laws and are actively guarding Kate’s delicate psyche.”

I glanced over at my mom, who was nodding like Sister Elizabeth Parker during the preacher’s sermon last Sunday. I was almost waiting for a loud “amen!”

Deputy Slalom pointed out a brunette lady this time whose hair was teased so high, I had trouble seeing any cameras behind her.

“Cindy Treller from St. Louis. Kate, why did you lean forward at the parade?”

Oh, the question of the week.

I still got a tight, tingly feeling in my gut when I thought about it. Sort of like when you find out that you’re going to have to get shots at your doctor’s visit and it was never just a checkup.

I looked around for a minute, trying to figure out what I was going to say. “I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “I had put my sunglasses
in my purse on the backseat, and we were starting to get to the part of the parade that was in the sun. So, I was trying to pull my sunglasses out.” I took a deep breath. “Why it was at that particular moment, I don’t know.”

Detective Masterson and Justin would say that God was watching out for me.

I thought that God, if there really was a God, had better things to do than worry about what a five-foot-nothing average student was doing.

On and on the questions came.