The Big Splash (19 page)

“Yeah,” Mac said, frowning. “I'll just have a root beer.”

“Same,” I said. Sal went off to get them. I turned to Mac. “Let's see it.”

“It could be a mistake.”

“Just put it on the table, Mac. We'll make sense of it after I look.”

He nodded the way you do when you have to do something you don't want to do. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag. The photo was inside, so the rain wouldn't ruin it. He took it out and put it on the table.

I looked at it. It wasn't a newspaper clipping; it was the actual photo, in color. Joey was still smiling at the camera, with the lovesick grin that I remembered so well. Sitting next to him, smiling a smile that I had seen hundreds of times, was Liz Carling. There was a caption, handwritten on another piece of paper and taped to the
bottom of the photo; it said: “Joey Renoni and Elizabeth Carling, ‘just friends.'”

The cramp I felt in my stomach was the first indication that what I was seeing was real. My brain didn't want to believe it, but my stomach already knew it was true. All my energy for this case seeped out of me. “Did kids used to call her Beth in Ellie?” I asked Mac.

“How would I know?”

“You run a newspaper. It's your job to know.”

He sighed and looked away from me.

“Did kids in Ellie call her Beth?” I asked again.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly, as if he hated to admit it.

I pulled the note that Joey had given me, right before he had been rubbed out. It still said, “Remember what we had. Do it or get out of the way,” and it was still signed, “B.”

I sighed and rested my head in my hands. Sal came over with our drinks.

“Here ya go.” He put them down, and looked at us. “You guys okay? You look like your dog died.”

“We're fine,” Mac answered.

“Okay,” Sal said, clearly thankful that we weren't going to spill our guts to him. He was too busy to sit and listen.

After he hurried off, Mac and I sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Mac looked at me. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I'm going to ask her out for ice cream.”

“Seriously?”

“No. I'm going to take her in.”

“Yeah, but—” He paused.

“But what?”

“But … you like her, right?”

I was startled and couldn't hide it. It's always a shock to learn that you're transparent. “Maybe. I like a lot of people,” I said, trying to cover.

“Matt, it's not like I'm going to do a story on it.”

“If you already know, why are you asking me?”

Mac shot me an amused look. “I'm a reporter. I always check my facts.”

“All right, fine. I like her, but just a little, and less by the second.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Check it out. What else can I do?”

“Does she have a motive?”

“Yeah. Nikki wasn't on Liz's list of favorites.”

“How come?”

“Kevin had a crush on Nikki.”

“Who didn't?”

“And Nikki broke his heart.”

“She broke a lot of hearts.”

“Yeah, but Kevin's is the only one Liz cares about.”

“Hmm,” Jimmy said, nodding his head. “You really think Liz is capable of taking someone out?”

I thought back to the Peter Kuhn case: the kid with the perfect life who threw it all away for a bunch of Pixy Stix. “Anybody's capable of anything,” I said.

“Yeah, but she's so …”

“Small? Cute? Sounds a lot like Nikki when she first got started.”

“Yeah,” he paused, letting the noise from the room fill the gap. “I'm sorry, Matt.”

“Yeah. Me, too. It sucks when the girl you like is a cold-blooded assassin.” I couldn't help but laugh. “I doubt that'll be on a greeting card anytime soon.”

We both laughed a little harder than the joke deserved. I downed the rest of my root beer in three big gulps. I needed it.

“You okay?” Jimmy asked.

“Sure.”

“You don't look it.”

“Listen, Mac, I've got to wrap up this case by tomorrow, and this is the first break I've gotten. I've fallen hard for Liz, no doubt. But if she did it, I'm bringing her down, and I've got enough dough coming my way to make sure I've at least got a soft landing.”

“You sure that's not the root beer talking?”

“No.”

“Well, at least you're honest.”

I stood up and threw a couple of bucks on the table. “I'll see you tomorrow Mac, let you know how it all turns out.”

“Where you going?”

“Santini's.”

was in a two-story Colonial built sometime in the mid-1800s. The clapboard shingles had so many coats of white paint that it would take you a couple of hours to drill through it to get to the wood. The black decorative shutters were put up to give it that authentic, old-timey New England look, although I doubted they had molded plastic in the 1800s. It had been converted into a restaurant around 1967, when Mr. Santini took a gamble that people would pay to feel like they were having dinner at a friend's house. He was right.

Thursday was Kevin and Liz's night to help their dad
out at the restaurant, so I knew she'd be there. It was a bad decision to go there, but I didn't care. I had to talk to her, and it had to be right now.

Janine, the hostess, met me at the door. I could hear the hum of the dinner rush in the next room. “Hi, Matt! Little wet out there, huh?”

“Where's Liz?” I asked. It was almost a yell.

“Oh, uhhh, I think she's in the kitchen. Do you want me to get your mom?”

Before I could answer, Kevin came out, wearing a navy blue suit, with a white shirt and a red tie. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Nice suit. Where's Liz?”

“Get out of here, Matt.”

“No. I need to talk to Liz. Bring her out, or these people are going to get dinner and a show.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Around you or through you, Kev. What's it going to be?”

“Oh, right, Matt. What are you gonna—” I tackled him. We went tumbling through the open doorway into the bar area. On our way, we hit the hostess stand with a thump, pushing it back with a violent squeak. Menus fell
to the floor. Janine, who had been watching our exchange like it was a tennis match on fast forward, let out a yelp. Kevin was startled for a moment, giving me an advantage. I sat on his chest, my knees on his biceps, and pinned him to the floor. Water from my hair dripped into his face.

“I can't get Liz if you're sitting on me,” he said.

“You weren't going to get her anyway.”

“True.”

“Stop it!” Janine yelled, pulling me off of Kevin. I struggled against her, but it was no use. Employees rushed over to see what the ruckus was all about.

“Matt?” I heard my mom ask from the back of the crowd.

I looked around. The once-loud dining room was now in shocked silence. Every eye in the place, from diner to employee, was on me. I started to feel a little self-conscious. I'd been right: It hadn't been such a great idea to come to Santini's.

“Matt, what are you doing here?” my mom asked.

Before I could answer her, Janine spoke for me. “He came in and tackled Kevin. For no reason!”

I had a reason, but not one I was willing to share with this audience. I stood there silently, wishing I could slip through the floorboards and disappear.

“Matt?” My mom waited for an explanation.

Mr. Carling stormed over like a cop at a street fight, saving me from having to make up an excuse. He was tall and used to be solid, but what was once in his chest was now in his stomach. He wore a dark suit that didn't hurt him, but didn't do him any favors, either, and his hair was dark and slicked back smooth against his skull. “Sorry for the interruption, folks,” he said, addressing the dining room. “Please, go back to your meals.” His voice was lighter than what you'd expect to come out of that body.

The audience paused a moment to consider how invested they were in seeing the outcome. Then the sounds of conversations and silverware clinks started up again, but a little more timid than before. They were keeping one eye on us, in case we did something interesting again, like throw a chair through a window.

With the crisis averted, Mr. Carling turned his attention to us. “What is going on here?” he said in a loud whisper through clenched teeth so white, I could practically see my reflection in them.

“Matt came in here and tackled Kevin!” Janine honked. “Then they started fighting.”

“Is this true?” He tried to sound like a principal, but his voice lacked the authority. It didn't matter, though. I
may not have had to answer to him, but my mom did. I looked at my shoes; they were the only things in the room that weren't judging me. I begrudgingly gave him a nod.

“Okay. Show's over. Get back to your tables,” he said quietly to the crowd of employees. They dispersed slowly, as if they knew that the best was yet to come. Mr. Carling turned to my mom and put a finger in her face. “This is absolutely unacceptable!”

It was starting to sink in just how badly I had screwed this up. Not only had I let this case get to me, I had allowed it to bleed into my personal life. And now my mom was going to have to bear the brunt of it. It was unfair, but that was no excuse. Lots of things were unfair.

“Get your finger out of my face.” The voice sounded like my mom's, but the tone was all wrong. Her voice had never sounded that flinty before.

“What did you say?” Mr. Carling's mouth hung open like a trapdoor.

“You heard me. Drop it or I bite it off.”

“Don't you dare talk to me like that!”

“Or what? You'll fire me? Well, go ahead, Albert. Fire me.”

Kevin and I stood watching, our mouths open as wide
as Mr. Carling's. A couple of tables stopped eating and started watching again.

“It's just three little words, Albert,” my mom continued. “You've wanted to say them for so long. Here's your opportunity. Go ahead. Say them.”

Mr. Carling looked as confused as he did angry. It was as if he had a million things that he wanted to say to my mom but they got jammed before he could get them out. He opened his mouth, then closed it quickly. Open. Close. Open. Close. You could see him rejecting ideas, one by one. Finally, he settled on, “Clean this up. Get back to work,” and stormed off in the direction of the kitchen. “Kevin! Get over here!”

“We'll finish this tomorrow,” Kevin said as he rushed off. He wanted it to sound tough, but it didn't. It's hard to be tough and confused at the same time.

I looked at my mom. I had so many questions, I didn't know which to ask first. “Mom?” was all I could muster.

“Go home, Matt,” she said without looking at me. She bent over to pick up the fallen menus. “We'll talk about this later. Right now I have to get back to work.”

“But Mom—”

“Matt!” she barked, startling me. “Get your butt back
home, now. You have questions? Well, so do I. But now's not the time, got it?”

I nodded, but kept my mouth shut. I had fulfilled my daily quota of stupidity.

“Good. Home.” She pointed toward the door, in case I didn't know the way. I was so out of sorts that it actually helped.

As I turned to leave, I saw the kitchen door was open a crack. It was Liz. Her face looked tense. I wasn't going to get to her tonight, but there was no way she could hide from me at school tomorrow, and it looked like she knew it.

I went straight to my office when I got home. Before I did anything else, I pulled the sandwich bag of evidence out of my back pocket, just to make sure it was still intact. I looked at the photo; Joey and Liz smiled up at me from the past—young and innocent, without a care in the world. If they only knew then what they know now, their expressions would be drastically different.

My mom got home at 2:30 in the morning, late for a Thursday night shift. I assumed it was because she and Mr. Carling had a couple of things they needed to work out. She looked drained. I was wide awake.