Novel - Half Moon Investigations (9 page)

I made a copy. But it was worthless. No court in the world would admit it as evidence. The image was blurred and the reversed letters were barely visible. I tried again, darkening the picture. Still no good. Now my entire arm was coming out black.

This was ridiculous. In this age of technology, I was being thwarted by a Stone Age photocopier. I needed a digital camera. Right now. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed as though the incriminating bruises were already fading. If only my family were here. Hazel’s cell phone had a built-in camera. But if I removed my cast in front of my mother to take a photo of a bruise, she would have had a nervous breakdown on the spot.

May Devereux had a camera connected to the computer in her Wendy house. And I knew where the key to the Wendy house was. The Devereux house was barely a minute from the hospital. In fact, Rhododendron Road was clearly visible from the main entrance. I could just saunter over there, snap a few quick photographs, and nip back to bed before anyone knew. In my fuzzy mind, this plan made perfect sense.

I belted my hospital gown, thrust my injured arm deep in the pocket, and pushed through the double doors into the reception area. In my semi-anesthetized condition I decided it would be a good idea to sing a quiet little song, so as to appear casual and certainly not up to mischief. Unfortunately, because my brain was buzzing so loudly, I sang like someone wearing headphones. Out of tune. And louder than I intended.

“To all the girls I’ve loved before,”
I warbled. My Dad’s favorite, forever on the CD player in the kitchen.
“Who’ve traveled in and out my door.”

A nurse blocked my path. She glared at me the way you might look at something that has crawled from a sewer leaving a trail behind it.

“Excuse me,
Julio
,” she said, hands on hips. “Would you mind reining in the voice? There are babies being born in this hospital. We wouldn’t want the first sound they hear to be your painful howling. There could be lawsuits.”

I would have been hurt, if I hadn’t already been hurt.

“Of course, nurse. I’m so sorry. I get carried away sometimes.”

“This could be one of those times if you’re not careful. Now, on your way. And keep the noise down, or I may decide to check your temperature, and believe me you don’t want that.”

The threat was accompanied by a steely grin, and suddenly having my temperature taken seemed like the scariest thing in the world. I scurried to a waiting area and pretended to be engrossed in a
Beautiful Homes
magazine.

“What’re ye in for?” said a man beside me, a ragged line of stitches running across his forehead.

“Ingrown toenail,” I replied, thinking he was joking. After all, my injuries were as plain as the nose on my face.

“Oh,” he replied. “Sore yokes, dem.”

“Yes. Terrible.”

I checked that the nurse had gone, and scampered out the front door, very quickly indeed for someone with an ingrown toenail.

It must have been very late, because there wasn’t a car on the road. I nipped across and leaned against a gate post on Rhododendron Road. The fresh air was not perking me up like I thought it would. In fact, I felt dizzy and nauseous. No throwing up, I warned myself. Especially not on clients. That would be very unprofessional.

The gate to May’s house was open. I crept in, sticking to the grassy verges to avoid crunching the gravel underfoot. Pretty smart thinking for someone suffering the aftereffects of anesthetic.

A fine mist pattered on to my head from the fountain. They must have gotten it fixed. The water was most refreshing, so I opened my mouth and tried to catch a few drops.

I caught sight of a shadowy figure in an upstairs window. Even in my foggy state it was clear that it was not May or indeed her father, unless one of them had sprouted a beard since we had last met.

I was immediately concerned. Was this my attacker? Had he moved on to his next victim? My heart pumped faster.

Who was this mysterious bearded man, and what was he doing in the Devereux house? It was too late to conceal myself in the bushes. I was standing under the moonlight in a pool of white gravel. There was only one approach to take. The direct one.

“Who are you?” I shouted, the words vibrating inside my fragile head. “What are you doing in there?”

The shadowy figure pressed against the glass, beard hair spreading like a halo.

“If you’ve done anything to May, I will find you.”

The window creaked open, and a tremulous voice drifted down to me.

“If you’re looking for May Devereux, she lives next door.”

I was, of course, outside the wrong house.

I retreated sheepishly, bowing slightly as if that would help. My little trip was no longer a secret. No doubt the person in the window would be burning up the phone lines between here and the police station as soon as I was out the gate. I had minutes before a couple of boys in blue came to drag me back to hospital.

I hurried next door, trying not to let my head wobble too much. The dizziness was worse now, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the rose garden and have a little rest. Perhaps if I went to sleep here, I would somehow wake up in my own bed.

Just a few more minutes and I could rest. Record the evidence, then back to bed. Two minutes at the most.

Two minutes would have been plenty if something hadn’t caught my eye. The entire side of May’s house was glowing a flickering orange. There was a fire somewhere nearby. I loped around the corner, feeling slightly duller than a jelly knife.

I heard the fire before I saw it. Pistol-crack flames and boiling hiss. Black smoke filled the garden, rolling in thick coils from a bonfire near the Wendy house. I staggered closer, trying to see what was being burned. All I could make out was the elbow crook of a sleeve, glinting with golden thread.

I gasped with sudden horrible recollection. May’s Irish dancing costume had gold thread.

She could be in the fire, I thought. May could be in there.

“Fire!” I screamed, and my head nearly exploded. The pain drove me to my knees in a bed of roses.

“Fire!” I howled again, and the unlikely combination of pain and anesthetic shut my entire body down for a few crucial moments.

I awoke to find myself somehow closer to the fire. Alive then, but only barely, judging by the pulpy feel of my skull. I staggered to my feet, working up to a sprint to the Devereux’s side door. Please, God, let May herself answer my knocking.

I reached up to check my nasal splint, and realized that there was a blackened stick in my hand.

That doesn’t look too good, I thought.

That was when two of Lock’s finest hurdled the garden wall and buried me deeper than the flower roots.

WHEN I WOKE UP in my hospital room, Chief Inspector Francis Quinn was perusing a copy of
Woman’s Way
from the magazine rack.

“Knit one, purl one,” he was mumbling when I sat up.

The chief was as close as it was possible to be to a human bulldog, just not as cuddly. He had black eyes buried in his head like driven nails, and red jowls that wobbled when he was talking, as he was now. I knew it should be impossible, but I had always thought that the chief slightly resembled his wife, Principal Quinn.

In spite of my situation, my mind began to drift.

I began seeing things. Suddenly Chief Quinn had a trident in his hand. It suited him.

“You have sinned, Moon,” he roared. “And now you are mine, and I will rotate your soul on hell’s barbecue for all eternity!”

A great fiery pit opened up below my hospital bed.

“So you think you’re tough?” continued Quinn. “We’ve got boys down here that will roll you up in a ball and play hurling with you. Then when they’ve finished, I’m going to rub your raw soul in salt and toss it to the hounds.”

And then we fell down, down, down, and all I could hear was the demonic laughter of Chief Francis “Lucifer” Quinn.

Okay. So maybe some of that didn’t happen.

“Fletcher!” shouted the chief, bring me back to reality, where I definitely did not want to be. “Are you listening to me?”

I struggled on to my elbows.

“Yes. Oh my God, is May all right?”

Quinn frowned. “Of course. I suppose she’ll miss the costume, but her daddy can easily buy her a new one.”

Costume. I sighed in relief. Just a costume.

“Good. That’s great news. Did you get the arsonist?”

Quinn swiveled a chair, straddling it.

“Oh, I think we did. We got him, all right.”

“Well, who was it?”

There were two officers flanking the door, and they threw each other incredulous looks. Eventually the chief spoke.

“I’m looking at him.”

It was a simple enough statement, but somehow it wouldn’t take root in my head.

“What?”

“The arsonist. I’m looking at him. We all are, except you.”

So, everybody in the room was looking at the arsonist, except me. Therefore the arsonist was in the room. And the arsonist was . . .

“Ah, hold on now a second.”

Quinn rested his chin on his arms.

“Watch this, guys. The denial of the century, coming up.”

I backpedaled along the bed. “I’m the arsonist? Me?”

“Oh! A confession. That was easy.”

Quinn lit a fat cigar, sucking like he was trying to siphon gasoline.

“I am innocent.”

“That may be true,” admitted Quinn. “But I have to play the percentages. A known nosey parker is found at the scene of an arson attack actually holding the smoking torch. Obviously in your twisted mind, May Devereux is responsible for the attack on your person yesterday, so this is your revenge. You are a lucky boy that no one was hurt.”

My life. Where had it gone?

I allowed myself six more words. “I want to see my lawyer.”

Of course I didn’t actually have a lawyer. I’m only twelve, for heaven’s sake. But I thought Quinn might back off a few steps if he knew legal representation was on the way. Of course he shouldn’t have been talking to me at all without my parents present.

Five minutes later my parents were present, and they did not look happy. What they did look was distraught and furious at the same time. Mom assured me that everything would be all right, fondly tugging my little toe, which was the only part of me not aching after my “arrest.” Dad paced the room, threatening everything in it, including me and the furniture.

“Forget what I said earlier,” he said. “From now on investigating is completely banned. Your license is revoked. You are a twelve-year-old boy, Fletcher. When are you going to start acting normally?”

That hurt more than my broken nose. I knew I was a bit different, but never thought of myself as abnormal.

“This is normal,” I whispered. “For me. I can’t make myself good at sports.”

Dad stopped pacing. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t want you to be me. You can be yourself, but couldn’t you do that without the cloak and dagger?”

Mom tugged my toe. “Come on now, Fletcher. Promise us you’ll forget all about this silly investigation.”

I opened my mouth and nothing came out but air. How could I make a promise that I couldn’t keep? I had to know what was going on here. Curiosity had me in a vise. With every breath I thought about the case.

I was saved by the arrival of the family lawyer, Terry Malone. He handled all the family paperwork, then I checked it for mistakes. If Terry were Santa Claus’s lawyer, then Christmas would be doing several life sentences for breaking and entering.

“Well, okay then,” said Terry, once he had switched on his recorder. “Let’s go over this story again.”

I sighed. “Last night I was assaulted outside the house. I had a theory that Red Sharkey could be responsible so I ran across to May’s house to photograph the evidence.”

“Which was?”

“A bruise spelling out his name. Backward.”

Terry fished a disposable camera from his tweed jacket pocket.

“Could we see this bruise?”

Mom’s knees almost give out. “You most certainly could not,” she shrieked. “It’s under the cast.”

“Oh,” said Terry, disappointed. “So what made you decide to torch May’s dance costume? Do you have a history of pyromania?”

“I did not torch anything,” I spluttered indignantly.

“Of course you didn’t, honey,” said Mom, slapping the lawyer’s shoulder. “Why would you say that, Terry?”

“You know what the police are like,” said Terry innocently. “Arguing over every little point. Anyway, I was hoping Fletcher would tell me the truth this time.”

“I am telling you the truth!” I protested, a touch too shrilly.

“Well then, why were you roaring and screaming outside the neighbor’s window?”

“I was at the wrong house.”

“Do you really expect anyone to believe that you went to the wrong house, when you visited the correct house only the day before yesterday?”

“It was dark. They both had fountains.” Weak. Pathetic.

“Okay,” sighed Terry. “Let’s move on. How do you explain the fact that you were found beside the fire holding a torch?”

That very same question had been gnawing at me.

“He must have put me there.”

“Who?”

“The
real
arsonist. Keep up, Mr. Malone.” I was starting to sound guilty, even to myself.

“Okay, okay. So, the arsonist dragged you to the fire, then what?”

“Then he put the torch in my hand and left me for the police.”

Terry consulted his notes. “That’s what you told me on the phone. At least you can keep your story straight. You wouldn’t believe how many of my clients can’t tell the same story twice.”

“It’s not a story, it’s the truth.”

Terry smiled wistfully. “If I had a penny . . .”

The throbbing in my head moved up a few cycles.

“Their case is flimsy,” I said. “There’s no real evidence.”

Terry winced. “Apart from motive, means, opportunity, fingerprints, and DNA.”

I cracked momentarily. “What do you want, Terry? Tell me and I’ll give it a go. Do you want me to pull a rabbit out of my splint as a witness? Or maybe I could rewind time and we could have a look at the action replay? How about that?”

I’m ashamed to say that I followed this outburst with a bout of hysterical laughter. Not just little chuckles either—these were big lusty howls. When I had recovered sufficiently to peep between my fingers, Terry was regarding me with new respect.

“Insanity,” he said. “I like it.”