Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye (9 page)

It turns out I was right all along. Having a partner isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The only person I can really trust is
me
, and finding Austin in the journalism lab only confirms this. When you work alone, there’s nobody around to betray you.

When Connor’s mom gave me her warning, at first I was afraid something bad had happened to Austin. Something
really
bad, and it would mean that the only two people I’ve ever partnered up with on a case got hurt. But I could hear in her voice that it was more than that, that this time they hadn’t just hurt someone close to me, like when Eugene failed his test. I knew this time
I’d
be the one to pay, and I was right.

Because there’s Austin, looking all cozy next to one of the giant scanners, typing away at a high tech, state-of-the-art computer. He’s got an oversized flat screen that’s longer than it is wide, so he can view a whole page of the paper at once. There’s a water cooler in the corner and a vending machine just outside in the hall. A whole row of windows line one wall. Sunlight actually shines through them.

There are about a dozen other kids in the lab, all rushing around, trying to finish up last minute work. Nobody’s kicking Austin out, which means they think he
belongs
here.

“You’d better be getting rid of that story about Danigail like you promised,” I say, creeping up behind him. “That
better
be why you’re here, because I can think of a couple other explanations, but I don’t like any of them.”

Austin flinches—startled and guilty—and hunches his shoulders up around his ears, swiveling around in his chair. “Harper.” My name drops from his mouth like a stone, heavy in the air. He sounds like he didn’t expect to see me here, ever. That makes two of us.

“I thought you wanted to help.”

Austin glances around nervously as a couple student journalists pause to look at us before hurrying over to their computers.

I shrug. “But, I mean, who could resist all this?” I gesture to all the high tech machines surrounding us. The fancy, really thin computers that hardly make any noise, the big light tables, scanners, and printers set up throughout the room. The walls that aren’t sagging.

I don’t see his notebook anywhere. I guess he replaced it with something better.

“You made a promise to me, too,” he says, keeping his voice low. “You said you’d get me a
story
. Something big. Working with you was never going to get me here.”

“And how, exactly,
did
you get here, Phelps?” I raise an eyebrow, watching the guilt twitch across his face. “Little newspaper fairies bring you an offer?”

He leans forward, whispering. “Harper, listen. You were wrong about Alexis, about… about Danigail, too.”

“You made the switch awfully fast.” He never really believed she was innocent. He believed in me, and now… Now I guess he doesn’t.

Austin swallows and hooks his fingers in his belt loops. “This is a case we can’t solve. Danigail’s in a whole lot of trouble, and no one can get her out of it. I had to get out before I got in too deep.”

“You sound like you’ve been talking to the PTA.”

He takes in a sharp breath. “It doesn’t matter who I’ve been talking to. Oliver was right. Danigail’s guilty—there’s no story in this case. Not anything you’d want me to write about anyway.”

“I thought if I believed, then you believed. I thought you believed in
justice
.”

“They made me an offer.” He glances from side to side, his voice barely audible, so that I have to lean in to hear it. “They pulled some strings. This is my
dream
, Harper, and I wasn’t going to get here tagging along with you. Especially when…”

“When you think Danigail actually did it?” I rub my temples with my thumbs. “You’re killing me, Phelps. You beg me to get on this case. You pester me, you carry that notebook around all week taking notes and reporting to Dodge, and now… Now you’re playing it safe.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles. “I have to get back to work.”

“You’re too afraid to cross them, that’s what. You’re a coward who only believes in justice and the truth as long as it’s easy, as long as it doesn’t involve any risk.”

He glares at me. “So what if I got an opportunity to do what I’ve always wanted? I got a spot on the paper, and I didn’t have to break the rules to do it.”

“No, all you had to do was sell out. All you had to do was abandon your
partner
.”

Everyone is staring at us, no one wanting to miss a second of this drama. The room goes quiet, the silence almost deafening after the busy sounds of everyone working on the paper. The journalism teacher pokes his head in from his office next door, then storms over to me, not looking very happy. “Young man, this is the journalism lab, and we have a paper due for the presses in only twenty-four hours. Are you writing an article? Editing? Do you have any
pictures
someone explicitly asked you for?”

I think his questions are rhetorical, but when he just stands there, tapping his foot and waiting for an answer, I grudgingly shake my head.

“No?” he says, gasping in mock surprise. “Then you’re holding up my workroom. I’m going to need to see your hall pass.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. My hands move to where my hall pass should be, hanging around my neck. I know it’s not there, but they move on their own, out of habit, and part of me hopes it will magically still be there somehow. But of course it isn’t. I gave it up, for Danigail. I grit my teeth and take a deep breath in through my nostrils. “I don’t have one.”

He seems almost pleased by that, especially when he rubs his hands together and says, “A
punishable
offense. Come on—the two of us need to take a trip to the office.”

“How could you do this to me?” Dodge asks. “
How
?”

I swallow and slide down in my seat. Today has not been my day. From the looks of him, it hasn’t been Dodge’s either. The journalism teacher dragged me to the office, practically cackling with glee over getting me in trouble. Apparently these journalism types take themselves pretty seriously, and the lab is sacred space. No intruders, especially disruptive ones. When we got to the office, it was Dodge who called me in to see him, and he did
not
sound happy.

“It still says Vice Principal Dodge on your door,” I say, half question, half statement. “Does that mean—”

“Does that mean what? That I get to keep my
job
?” He snorts. “Vickers didn’t fire me, not yet, no thanks to you. So far on this case you’ve abused my authority, you’ve been reckless, and you’ve come
this close
to getting me fired.” He pinches his forefinger and thumb together and squints, showing me just how close. “And where is your
partner
? I assigned Austin to you for a reason.”

“We’re not exactly seeing eye to eye at the moment.”

“Uh huh.” Dodge has a sharp I
told you
so edge to his voice, and I know he blames me for Austin not being here. “I asked you to stay out of trouble for once. I asked you to actually
listen
to me, and what did you do?” He slams his hand down on the desk. His eyes meet mine, hard and angry. “You went up against the PTA.”

“I know, but—”

“Oh, no, I don’t think you do. You don’t mess with the PTA. And you especially don’t mess with them when my job is on the line. You lied to me, Madigan. Maybe not outright, but you
knew
the PTA was involved, and you didn’t bother informing me.”

“Because I knew you’d take me off the case!”

“What case? Principal Vickers let me keep my job on the condition that you wouldn’t be getting involved anymore.”

“But Danigail’s—”

“Excuse me. I didn’t make myself clear. By you not getting involved anymore? She didn’t just mean this case, she meant ever. As of right now, the agency is officially closed.”

Closed
. That’s the kind of word I like to hear after “case.” It’s not a word I like associated with my agency, with my only chance of redemption. It takes a moment for it to sink in, and then it’s like something inside me breaks a little. Another crack in my foundation. “She can’t do that.”

“She can, and so can I. What did I tell you was going to happen if you were wrong about that girl? You used my authority to vouch for her, and I
told you
what would happen if your theories didn’t pan out.”

“That’s the thing,” I say, my throat getting kind of tight. “I wasn’t wrong about her.”

He blinks, like he can’t believe what he just heard. “That girl’s a criminal. She’s dangerous, and she doesn’t belong at this school. I don’t know what kind of history you’ve got with her that’s blinding you to the truth, but she’s anything but innocent.”

“My history with her is the only thing making me see what you can’t. I’m not wrong about her. I wasn’t wrong about her when everyone thought she pushed Veronica, and I’m not wrong about her now that everyone thinks she pushed Alexis.”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no agency, and even if there was, you’re off the case.
And
,” he adds, letting out a deep breath and staring at his hands, “you’re suspended. For the rest of the week. That should give everyone enough time to get this all sorted out without any chance of interference.” He looks up, meeting my eyes. “That means I don’t want to see you on school grounds until Monday, you got that?”

I keep my mouth shut, too shook up to answer. It’s only a two day suspension, but it couldn’t be set for a worse time. The rest of the week? Danigail will be expelled by then. She’ll be blasted all over the front page of the paper, what’s left of her reputation up in smoke, if I don’t stop all this by
tomorrow afternoon
, when the paper goes to the presses.

“I
said
, you got that?”

I nod. “Yeah. Got it. No agency, no case. Danigail gets expelled.”

He slides open a desk drawer, the loud screech it makes hurting my ears. “Since you no longer represent me, I suppose you no longer have to dress accordingly.” He pulls out my trench coat, still folded up all proper and drawer-shaped, and hands it to me. He keeps his eyes down, sighing, like this gesture makes the finality of it all sink in.

I take my coat, my hands trembling, and hold it to my chest. “Thanks,” I mutter.

“And I’ll be taking your hall pass.”

“Can’t. I…” I can’t tell him what really happened to it, that I gave it up to protect Danigail. “I lost it.”

The sad, wistful look on his face crumples into anger, probably reminding him why he’s having to close down the agency at all. “You’d better go,” he says, his voice gruff. “Maintenance is installing a new lock on your office. Someone tipped them off that a student was hanging around in a condemned janitor’s closet.” He holds his hands up in defense as my mouth drops open. “For the record, it wasn’t me. Seems you’ve made some enemies, Madigan, pissed off the wrong people. But if there’s anything you want out of there…” He scowls at his watch and shakes his head. “You’re probably already too late.”

The one piece of paper that could prove Danigail’s innocence is in my office. It’s the only clue I’ve got, and maybe I misinterpreted it the first time around, but I know it’s the key to figuring this all out. I just need to re-examine it. Which means getting to my office before maintenance locks it up for good.

When I get there, there’s already a guy in a gray maintenance uniform replacing the doorknob. One I don’t have a key to. The old knob’s lying on the floor in pieces, and once he finishes installing the new one and closes the place up, that’s it. My only chance at saving Danigail will be lost.

“That’s my office,” I say, running up to the maintenance guy to stop him. My trench coat swishes behind me—something I’ve missed while Dodge had it captive.

“This is a janitor’s closet,” the guys says, chuckling a little to himself like he thinks I made that up.

“No, really. I need to get something. Then… then you can lock it up forever.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry, kid. I can’t let anybody in here. This place is condemned. Besides, shouldn’t you be in class?”

I take two deep breaths. After all the things that have gone wrong today, it would be really easy to just roll over and admit defeat. “Listen, this little hole in the wall might not mean anything to you—it might even be condemned—but for the last semester and a half, this has been my home away from home. It might be a hole in the wall, but it’s my hole in the wall, and you’re going to have to condemn me, too, because I’m going in there—”

“You’re killing me, kid.” He pauses what he’s doing and straightens his back, pulling out a walkie-talkie from his tool belt. “You’ve got till the count of three before I call security to take you back to class, where you belong.”

I don’t have the
carte blanche
anymore. Worse than that, I’m not even supposed to be in class—I’m not supposed to be on school grounds, period. If I get caught harassing a maintenance guy when I’m supposed to be calling my mom and going home on suspension…

“One,
two
—”

“Okay. Okay.” I hold up my hands and take a step back. “I’m out of here.”

“That’s more like it.” He slips the walkie-talkie back into his belt, keeping an eye on me as I round the corner, leaving him to his work.

Once I’m out of his sight, I press my back against the wall and take a deep breath, thinking this over. I
have
to get in there. If I don’t get back in somehow, I won’t be able to drag Danigail’s good name out of the mud. Well, what good name she has left. I won’t be able to prevent Principal Vickers from kicking her out of school. And any hope I might have of getting back in Dodge’s good graces and reopening the agency will disappear. And I’m running out of time.

Sweat prickles on the back of my neck. I run my hands through my hair, racking my brain for answers.

The squeak of wheels brings me out of it, along with Oliver’s voice. “Hey, Harper.” He sounds friendly enough when he says my name, though his mouth is turned down, his forehead kind of creased, and anyone could tell this hasn’t been his best day ever. Join the club. “I heard you had an… office?” He glances up and down the hallway, as if there’s a big sign with my name on it and he’s just missing it.

“Let’s just say it’s closed for remodeling.” More like its condemned status finally caught up to it, but Oliver doesn’t need to know that part.

“I came to see how you were doing. I mean, after what happened with my sister.”

“She didn’t push Veronica and she didn’t push Alexis, either.” I can’t believe he really thinks Danigail could be capable of that. Maybe they’ve got their differences, but… He should
know
. He should know that there’s a line that even Danigail wouldn’t cross.

He closes his eyes and grips the arms of his chair. “I wish that was true. Harper, I know you wanted to believe in her… and I’m sorry. If you want to stop by this weekend, to say goodbye—”

“Goodbye?”

“I don’t know how soon she’s leaving. Mom came and picked her up today, after she… after what happened to Alexis. She’s sending Danigail to a boarding school for troubled kids a couple towns over. Riverfront Academy.”

I shake my head. “She can’t do that.” She can’t send her away, and especially not to a place like Riverfront. They’ve been in the news five times in the past year. The inmates—I mean, students—there aren’t exactly the peaceful type. Most of them are armed, and all of them are dangerous. It’s the type of place parents send their kids to learn discipline and get their acts together. It’s the kind of place parents send their kids when they don’t know what to do with them anymore, and discipline is the last thing they learn. It’s at the end of the list, right after sleeping with one eye open, ditching class, and learning to sharpen the end of a plastic spoon into a makeshift weapon.

It’s the exact wrong place for Danigail if she’s ever going to be her old self again. It means everyone’s given up on her, even her own parents. Everyone but me. And maybe it’s too late for her to be exactly who she used to be, but I refuse to believe that makes her Riverfront material.

“She cut a deal with the school. To keep Danigail out of court. It was this or Juvenile Hall. What I’m trying to say is we’re not going to see her much anymore, so… I just thought you’d want to know. So you could say goodbye.”

“Danigail is
innocent
. You of all people should know that!”

He holds out his hands. “I don’t know what I think anymore. I could see her hurting Veronica, but Alexis is her friend.
Was
,” he adds, correcting himself. “Of course Danigail denied it, but she’s been so angry this past year, ever since my accident, and she’s changed so much. I just don’t know what to believe about her.”

“She didn’t do it, and I have
proof
. There’s a little piece of paper inside my office that proves Danigail didn’t sabotage Veronica—or Alexis. The PTA needs someone to take the blame for this, and Danigail was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Twice?” He wrinkles his eyebrows. I can tell he doesn’t know if he should feel sorry for me for being so gullible, or if he should actually consider what I’m saying. Then he shakes his head. “Harper, that’s ridiculous.”

“Come on, you
know
Danigail. Deep down, you know she didn’t hurt anyone. And I can prove it. I just need your help.”

“My help? What can I do?”

“If I don’t stop that maintenance guy from sealing up my office forever, in, like, the next two minutes, that evidence is going to be
gone
. All I need from you is a diversion.”

He chews on a fingernail, giving the floor a skeptical frown.

“Oliver, please. There isn’t time to think about it—just trust me, okay?

“The last time I trusted you—”

“I know.” I wince and glance away, unable to look at him in the chair, knowing it’s my fault. “I wouldn’t ask, but like you said, this is serious. Danigail’s going to go away for a long time for crimes she didn’t commit. You might not have noticed, but she doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends at this school. We’re all she’s got.”

Oliver’s quiet for a second, and then he says, “You know, Harper, when I had my accident… Even if there was motive behind it and it was meant for you—”

“You mean if
Connor Mills
meant to hurt me?”

He grits his teeth. “Maybe Connor meant to push you and got the wrong guy. Maybe it really was all an accident. Whatever. I don’t care how it happened, because dwelling on that just holds me back. I obsessed about it, for a while. I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. But I’ve moved past that, because I
had to
. Because it was the only way to keep living. I’m not dead and neither are you. I don’t blame you, so stop blaming yourself.”

“We’re running out of time—”

“I just mean you don’t have to do this. You don’t owe me anything. You don’t need to be a detective or whatever you’re playing at.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but he’s wrong. I do need to be a detective. And I do owe him, and I’m most certainly not
playing
at anything. The PTA doesn’t play around and neither do I. “I still have to do this. Danigail’s whole future is on the line, and maybe you think I don’t owe you anything, but I certainly owe her. Plus, like I’ve said a million times, she’s innocent, and Harper Madigan doesn’t turn his back on innocent clients. So are you with me or not?”

Oliver sighs. “Fine,” he says, already wheeling himself down the hall. “But if I end up in the hospital again? At least promise me you’ll visit this time. When I’m
awake
.”

He knew about that?

It doesn’t matter—I don’t have time to think about it. I peek around the corner, seeing the maintenance guy putting the finishing touches on the lock—but not closing it yet—as Oliver speeds towards him in his wheelchair. Before the maintenance guy realizes what’s going on, there’s a collision. It all happens really fast, and then Oliver’s lying on the floor, his chair toppled over beside him, the wheels spinning freely. The maintenance guy sounds panicky as he asks Oliver if he’s all right.

“I think it’s my panmutastic glandular ovalpod,” Oliver groans, lying on the floor and clutching his stomach.

“Your what?” the maintenance guy asks, scratching his head. “Is that serious?”

The name sounds fake, but the groaning sounds real, and I can’t help staring at Oliver, wondering if this is all part of the diversion or if he overdid it. But he catches me watching and jerks his head towards the door as if to say,
Go already!

I hurry into my office—my former office, I guess—and…

Someone’s been here. The place is trashed. The desk drawers are pulled out and dumped all over. Scattered office supplies litter the desk and what little floor there is around it. All my important papers are ripped up or crumpled.

I lunge for the only desk drawer still in place, the one where I keep my most important items. It creaks open and—

It’s gone. The little Ziploc bag with Connor’s note inside has disappeared. My whole body goes numb. It doesn’t take a detective to figure out who would have stolen it, or who would have trashed the place looking for it. I don’t care what Danigail says about my obsession with the enemy—this has Connor Mills written all over it.

The maintenance guy’s voice echoes in the hall, “Sure thing, just let me close up here,” and that’s my cue to get moving.

On a whim, I reach inside the drawer and grab the remains of Eugene’s lucky pencil. After all, the way today’s going, I need all the luck I can get. Then I hightail it out of there.