The Clue in the Trees: An Enchantment Lake Mystery Page 10

  “But wait. Raven doesn’t have a costume yet.”

  “Fine,” he growled. “Make it snappy,” he called into the clothes racks.

  “Can I ask you another question?” Francie asked. “About those graduate school days?”

  “What?” Redburn shot back sharply. He started shoving all the bottles and tubes and containers of stage makeup against the long mirror that ran the length of the counter.

  “Why didn’t you complete your doctorate?” she asked.

  His head snapped up. “I don’t see why—” he began, then started over, saying simply, “Fell down a flight of stairs and got pretty banged up. Broke a bunch of bones, had a head injury, there was a lot of rehab. Found it hard to concentrate.”

  “I don’t mean to get too personal, but is that how you got your limp?” Francie asked.

  Jay glanced at her, unable to keep his eyebrows level—they nearly disappeared under his hairline.

  “Might I ask why you’re asking all these questions?” Redburn said.

  “I’m just curious,” Francie said. “So, like, what would your graduate degree have been in? And what happened to your dissertation—all your research and stuff?”

  Redburn’s nostrils flared. He glanced in the mirror and smoothed his hair before saying, “Listen. That’s it for questions and for the use of this room. I gotta go and I gotta lock this up.”

  “I’ll wait for you guys outside,” Jay said, heading out.

  Raven returned in a long hooded cape, the hood pulled so far over her head it was hard to tell who was under there.

  The three of them walked the quiet school corridors at first without talking. Other than the sound of their footfalls, the shoosh of Raven’s cape, and the rustling bolt of fabric in which Francie was swathed, it was quiet.

  Finally, Jay whispered, “Redburn was lying.”

  “How do you know that?” Raven whispered back.

  All of them scanned the hallway behind them, in front, and down an intersecting corridor. No sign of Redburn.

  “He exhibited all the signs,” Jay went on. “He didn’t use the words I or me if he could help it. He fidgeted. He busied himself straightening things that didn’t need straightening. Didn’t look anybody in the eyes.”

  “How do you know those are signs of lying?” Francie asked.

  “What do you think I was doing on my phone? I was Googling it as you were grilling him. And boom! He went right down the list: four out of ten surefire signs of lying.”

  “The real question is,” Raven said, “if he was lying, why? What was he lying about? How do we find out the truth? We know he was classmates with Digby. We know he fell down a flight of stairs. We know he was a rising star. So, if he was lying, what was he lying about?”

  “Here’s something strange . . . ,” Francie said, slowly. “Back at auditions, he warned me from investigating the murder. He said I needed to put my time and energy into the play. He said something about me being a role model, blah blah blah. Do you think he might have given me the big part just to keep me busy—to distract me from the investigation?”

  “And that weird field trip,” Jay added, “which now seems like maybe it was all a cover story. It got him out there on some pseudo-legit business and gave him a kind of alibi, except the thing was, when would he have killed Digby? He was with us at the site, on the pontoon—he was with us the whole time.”

  “Only he wasn’t,” Raven said. “Not the whole time.” She stopped and stared into the distance as if she could see all the way to Enchantment Lake.

  The other two stopped and stared, too, as if they might see whatever she was seeing.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Raven said in a hoarse whisper. “Phoebe was the last one back! We had to wait for her. In fact, Mr. Redburn had to go back and look for her! I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Could it be Phoebe?” Jay said.

  They paused to consider, then all said at once, “Naw.”

  “It’s gotta be him!” Jay said, wide-eyed. “Our own director! That is super-creepy. What are we going to do?”

  “We have to report him to the sheriff!” Raven said.

  “No,” Francie said firmly.

  “Why not?” Raven asked.

  “The sheriff and Redburn are on a first-name basis,” Francie told them. “I think they might be a thing. Dating? Maybe. Sheriff Warner slipped up when she was talking to me and called him by his first name. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything, or maybe it means they’re chums. I just got the feeling there’s something going on between them.”

  “Oh, boy,” Jay said.

  “So I think we have to get more evidence—something more substantial—before we go to anybody with an accusation.”

  “So we have to keep going to rehearsal as if everything is just fine?” Raven asked.

  “And what about right now?” Jay said. “Because, besides Redburn, we are the only ones in this school.”

  “OMG,” Raven whispered. “We are all alone in this school with a murderer!”

  “Well, let’s get out of here,” Jay squawked.

  “We can’t,” Francie said. “Or at least I can’t. I left my phone back in the costume shop. I’ll just run back and get it. You guys can go if you want.”

  “We’ll wait here,” Raven said. “Hurry!”

  Francie moved somewhat like a homecoming float, she supposed, down the long hall. As soon as she rounded the corner, out of sight of her friends, the sound of her boot heels echoing in the empty hallway made her slow her steps. It was suddenly so dark. And quiet. Except, that is, for the noises she supposed were there all the time but never noticed during the school day: the tick of a wall clock, the ping of a pipe, the strange creakings and groanings of an old building—tiny sounds suddenly leapt out at her as slightly sinister.

  She hadn’t left her phone; it was secure in the pocket of her jeans, now buried under yards of blue fabric. But she had realized during her conversation with Raven and Jay that she still clutched the key to the costume shop—the key that Raven said led into Redburn’s office. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. What if she could find something that incriminated Redburn? Or at least let Theo off the hook? She had decided to go by herself because she didn’t want to get her friends in trouble. At least that’s what she told herself. But maybe it was because if she found anything incriminating about Theo, she wanted to be able to keep that information to herself.

  Using the key that Raven had given her, Francie unlocked the door to the costume shop, closed it behind her, then pushed her way through the old prom dresses to reach the closet.

  She found the door Raven had said led to Redburn’s office and slipped the key into the lock. It fit; it turned; the door opened, just as Raven said it would, and then she was inside the office—a jumble of boxes and piles of books and papers and . . . bones! Bones all over the place! Some kind of animal skull used as a bookend, the entire skeleton of something, and individual bones gathering dust on shelves.

  Creepy, Francie thought. And weird. Or maybe not that weird since he had studied paleontology.

  Forget the bones, she said to herself. She needed to find something that might prove that Redburn was the killer—or at least prove that Theo wasn’t.

  She spied the file cabinet and strode over to it, skirting a box full of—what were those things—teeth? She had always wanted to rifle through paper files, like detectives do in mysteries, and here was an actual file cabinet, with actual paper files in it.

  Going through the As: Antigone, Archaeology articles, Art in Ancient Greece, Francie thought about the conversation she’d just had with her friends, about how Phoebe had not been with the rest of the group. So maybe it was Phoebe who was trying to frame her, Francie thought, in order to cast the blame elsewhere.

  Now the Cs: Carpathian, Carpe Diem, Car Insurance . . .

  But Phoebe? Strangling Digby? Didn’t seem possible. Now that she thought about it, it didn’t seem possible that she, Francie, would have been
able to strangle Digby either. How could the sheriff even suspect her?

  Ah ha! Francie almost shouted. Here was a file marked “Digby”! Score! But maybe, she thought, the sheriff didn’t suspect her. Sheriff Warner had to realize that the killer could have only been someone hefty enough to overpower the large, probably very strong Digby. It had to be someone tall and strong . . . like, she thought, sinking once again into despair, Theo.

  Or, she thought, as she heard a key turning in the locked office door, Mr. Redburn.

  19

  The Aquarium in the Wardrobe

  FRANCIE ONLY HAD TIME to dart back through the open door into the rack of costumes, pulling the door almost shut behind her before she heard the swoosh of a person entering the office, then footsteps, and keys being set down with a clatter on the desktop.

  Crouched behind the door, Francie tried not to move, not to breathe, and, in spite of the prickly fur coat tickling her nose, not to sneeze. Hooking one finger around the edge of the door, she gently and slowly pulled it a little more shut. If she pulled it all the way, it would shut with a click, maybe a clunk. If she pulled too fast, it might be noticed, but if she could pull it slowly enough and get it almost shut, maybe Redburn wouldn’t notice it was open.

  She stopped when she heard the scrape of his feet growing closer, then pass by, then heard the sound of a file drawer sliding shut.

  Silence on the other side of the door made her clamp her lips shut, slowly withdraw her fingers from the edge of the door, and wish like heck she had not assumed this uncomfortable crouching position. Why a crouch? she asked herself. In future hiding situations, remember to take a more comfortable position, and one in which your butt does not fall asleep!

  When she heard his distinctive footfall—the limp, she remembered—she let out the breath she had been holding—let it out into the fur coat, which she hoped muffled her exhalation. But the footsteps came closer, while her temples started to throb. It crossed her mind that Raven and Jay knew where she’d gone. If she disappeared from the face of the Earth, at least they would know whom to suspect. But Redburn wouldn’t kill her here, would he? I mean, it would be messy—oh, wait, no, he was a strangler—it wouldn’t be messy. He could kill her here, wrap her in her own bolt of blue fabric, enshroud her in old costumes . . .

  The closet door shut with a click—and a clunk—and Francie sat down with a thump on the floor of the closet, the hems of the fur coats dusting the top of her head.

  After her heart resumed its more or less normal rhythm, and her pulse went from 6,500 rpms to idle, she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly—breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth as she’d learned in a yoga-for-acting class, stood up, and realized she was still clutching the Digby file.

  She tucked the file into the prodigiousness of her costume—she still hadn’t figured out what she was, possibly a circus tent?—and, not hearing anything in the hallway, decided the coast must be clear, so she stepped out into the hall and turned back to make sure the door was locked behind her.

  When she turned around again, there was Redburn, standing in the hall.

  “Francie?” he said. “I thought you guys were done in there.”

  “Forgot my phone!” she chirped, a little too brightly. “But I found it. My phone, I mean. It was in there! In the costume shop.” Shut up! she told herself but heard her mouth running on. “Right where I left it.”

  Francie tried to avoid looking at him but then remembered that was one of the signs of lying, and so she forced herself to look at his face, at the concerned expression in his brown eyes, which she now noticed were deep and enigmatic. Possibly the kind of look you would have if you were trying to figure out whether someone had just been in your office and stolen a file.

  Tipping his head to one side, he said, “What are you supposed to be?”

  Be? Did he mean, like, did she fancy herself a sleuth, sneaking around in his office? Was she a bad girl, criminal, vandal, felon?

  “Your costume,” he clarified. “What is it supposed to be?”

  “Oh!” she said, looking down at the oceanic blueness of it. “An aquarium?”

  He reached into his pocket while also reaching toward her. She tried not to flinch as he took a length of the drapey fabric in his hands. What was he going to do? Strangle her with her own costume?

  But, no, he stuck a couple of colorful fish stickers onto it, and another one on her forehead.

  “There you go,” he said, putting the sheet of stickers back into his pocket. “Completes the look.”

  The high school gym had been decorated with orange streamers, orange twinkle lights, and glowing plastic jack-o’-lanterns. There were doughnuts and cider and bobbing for apples. It was all so very . . . wholesome, or would have been if some of the kids weren’t already drunk and others on their way.

  Why was she here? Francie wondered, looking over the crowd. Her eyes snagged on a group of girls who had dyed white streaks in their hair, worn in a style like Francie’s, not that Francie actually styled her hair. They were even dressed like her, too: black jeans, black top, gray hoodie.

  She stared for a moment, then asked Raven, “What’s with those girls?” She desperately wanted to get out of there. “Is that their Halloween costume or something?”

  “See how popular you are?” Raven said. “The girls are copying you.”

  “I think maybe they’re mocking me.”

  “No!” Raven laughed. “They’re all dressed like cats—you missed the ears and the painted noses and whiskers.”

  Now that Raven pointed them out, Francie noticed the ears, whiskers, and long tails. “But why the hair?” she said.

  “They’ve been doing that for weeks—you just never noticed.”

  “Seriously?” Francie asked.

  “Seriously,” Raven said. “They are copying you.”

  “Weird.”

  Francie saw the trench coat and fedora come into the gym. Phoebe. As Francie crossed the room to talk to her, it occurred to her to wonder if it had been Phoebe who had followed her and Theo into Muskie Bait. But why? It didn’t make any sense.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Phoebe asked when Francie reached her.

  “Can’t you tell?” Francie pointed to the fish stickers. “An aquarium.”

  “More like the Atlantic Ocean,” Phoebe said, quickly adding, “Kidding!”

  “What about you? Is that, like, a detective costume or something?”

  “I dunno,” Phoebe said. “I just had this stuff that Digby gave me, so I thought I’d wear it.”

  “Digby gave you that?” Francie said, suddenly very interested.

  “So strange,” Phoebe said. “He was usually such a turd. Then, at that field trip thing, he just said, ‘Hey, you want this? You can use it for Halloween or something.’ And handed me this bag of stuff.” She shrugged. “Weird.”

  So, Francie thought, it must have been Digby who chased Theo and me into Muskie Bait! Why? Did Theo know it had been Digby?

  While Francie was ruminating, Phoebe pulled the tooth out of the bag and held it up. “What is this, anyway?” she said.

  A nearby zombie plucked it out of her hands and tossed it to another zombie who handed it to a devil.

  “What the devil is this?” the devil joked, before lobbing it to someone in an ape suit. The tooth went from hand to hand; Francie scrambled after it, trying to intercept it as it was passed like a football, thrown like a softball, and just about to be sent across the floor like a hockey puck when Phoebe hollered in her cheerleading voice, “Stop the madness! Give the nice lady her weird thing!”

  The music happened to stop at that precise moment, and everyone in the gym went stone-cold silent as the tooth soared through the air, while Francie simultaneously executed a midair lunge. The partygoers watched, open-mouthed, as the yards of blue fabric in which she was swathed snagged on something and began to unwind.

  The tooth splashed down into the punchbowl; Francie made a crash la
nding on the gym floor; and 8½-by-11-inch white confetti—the contents of the file she’d tucked into the folds of her costume—drifted in the air, then fell to the floor like giant, square snowflakes.

  She picked herself up and began hastily gathering papers. Raven, Jay, and a few other people began to help, the band started playing again, and the partygoers returned to their conversations, shouting over the music.

  While scooping up the fallen pages, Francie glanced at them and read: “Several counts of felonious smuggling . . . Tyrannosaurus Rex cousin . . . lived seventy million years ago in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia . . . a one-man black market” before she realized that one of the people helping to pick up the papers was Mr. Redburn.

  After the pages were retrieved and jammed helter-skelter into their folder, he held out his hand and she handed over the file. She couldn’t help but notice what was in his other hand: the tooth, dripping punch.

  “My office. Eight a.m. tomorrow morning. Sharp,” he said. Without another word, he spun on his heel and disappeared into the depths of the school.

  Francie sank into the depths of her ocean-blue costume, now a puddle on the gym floor, a puddle that partygoers did their best to avoid.

  It had not been a good day. And things were not looking up.

  20

  8 A.M.

  FRANCIE HAD BARELY SLEPT the night before, and she ran a hand through her hair—as if that were likely to make her seem more alert—before knocking. Despite the lost sleep, she still had not thought up a plausible cover story for why she had that file, how she had gotten it, and why she had been playing football with a Pleistocene-era fossil. The only thing she came up with was: simple answers; don’t rattle on. Above all else, don’t incriminate Theo. Still, all night, words from the papers on the gym floor rolled around in her brain, especially smuggling and one-man black market and Mongolia. Isn’t that where Theo said he’d been, before showing up with a dinosaur tooth in his backpack? Why had he been in Mongolia? Why did Redburn have a file about dinosaur smuggling in Mongolia? Was there some connection?