The Big Splash (22 page)

There, on the top shelf, was a stack of notes. Katie pulled them down and looked at them. Melanie screamed and clawed, trying to get them out of her sister's hands. What she lacked in aim, she made up for in intensity. Some of the shots connected below the belt. Mac and I
both cringed, but Katie didn't even seem to notice, another reminder of the difference between boys and girls.

Melanie stopped attacking and started pleading. “Please, Katie. Don't.” I felt really bad for her. She was looking for mercy from Katie, the hardest case in middle school, which was kind of like looking for tofu at a barbecue joint. Katie was her sister, her own blood, and it didn't matter one bit.

“He made you to do it,” Katie said.

“No!” Melanie shouted. “I hated her! I wanted to do it!” She started to sob again.

Katie handed me the letters. “What do they say, Stevens?” she asked in a wooden voice.

The top letter was in Kevin's handwriting, but the words sounded nothing like him. It was a proclamation of love, written in language so flowery, my allergies almost acted up. At the bottom of the page was his signature, written in his neat, compact script. I flipped through the rest of the letters, skimming for content. Melanie tried to claw her way toward them, screaming and sobbing. Katie held her back.

A few phrases jumped out at me. “Do it and we can be together” was one of them. “Nikki's the only thing standing in our way” was another. I started to see the outline of the
plan as it had happened: the suggestion to go to Joey to see if he would do the job, the idea for the backup plan in case he wouldn't, even a brief description of how to imitate his laugh; it was all there, signed by Kevin.

“Is that his handwriting?” Katie asked.

“How would I know? What do you think, we pass love notes to each other in class?” I said.

“Is that his handwriting?”

“Katie, I don't know—”

“You know, Matt! I know you know! So just cut the crap and tell me!”

Yeah, I knew, but something was holding me back from ratting him out. Maybe it was the friendship Kevin and I once had. Maybe it was a nagging feeling that something wasn't right. Whatever it was, Katie wasn't going to give me time to think about it. She grabbed the front of my shirt and slammed me into the lockers.

“Look … bad … in the paper,” I sputtered, pointing to Mac. That ploy had worked earlier, but Katie didn't care about her image in the paper anymore. She didn't care about losing her post as hall monitor chief. The only thing she cared about was nailing Kevin Carling.

“Is. That. His. Handwriting?”

“Did. You. Have. Bologna. For. Lunch?” She would've
strangled me right there if Liz and Jenny hadn't walked up at that moment.

“Looks like you're making lots of friends today, Matt,” Liz said.

“Just call me Mr. Popular.”

Katie dropped my shirt and grabbed the notes from me in one swift motion. She shoved the notes into Liz's hands. “Is that your brother's handwriting?”

“What's going on?”

“Answer the question!”

Liz glanced at what she was holding. “Yeah, I think so. What's this about?”

“Your brother's dead,” Katie answered. “Let's go, Melanie. We're ending this now.” She stormed off. Melanie, still crying, shuffled behind her.

“Matt?” was all Liz was able to get out before Jenny cut her off.

“What's going on? Is this about my sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?” Jenny asked, then waited.

I sighed, then answered my client. “Looks like Melanie pulled the trigger, but someone else put her up to it.”

“Was it Kevin?” Jenny asked.

“Katie seems to think so.”

Jenny's mouth puckered like she had just eaten a bag full of sour candy. Without saying a word, she turned and sprinted down the hall in the same direction that Katie and Melanie had gone.

I looked over at Mac. He was writing furiously. Liz still looked like she had walked in on the middle of a movie that was in a language she didn't understand. “Matt?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Do you owe me an apology?”

“Looks that way. You want it now?”

“Do we have time?”

“Depends on how much you like your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's about to get sandbagged,” I said. “You might want to be there to pick him up.”

“Did he do it?” she asked.

“Depends on who you ask. We might as well get his version of the story.”

All three of us headed toward Kevin's locker. We didn't run, but we sure as hell didn't take the scenic route.

Liz, Mac, and I were speed walking to Kevin's locker, the bell rang. Kids poured into the hallway from all directions, like water into a sinking ship. We slowed down to a crawl. By the time we got there, Katie was already chewing on Kevin's hide. Melanie stood nearby, like a little girl watching her parents fight. Jenny looked like she wasn't sure who to hate yet.

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about,” Kevin said.

“Bull! You knew my sister had a crush on you, and you used it to get what you wanted!” Katie poked Kevin's chest
with every “you.” “You were scared of Nikki, so you let a little girl do your dirty work!”

“You're out of your mi—”

Katie cut him off with a swift right to the gut. Kevin went down to his knees, palms to the floor, like an obedient dog. Kids watched intently to see what was going on, but kept their distance.

“Big man,” Katie sneered at him, “taking advantage of a little girl. Well, how about this little girl?” she asked, pointing her thumbs at herself. “You want to try that stuff with me?”

“The craziest part of this,” Kevin coughed out, “is that you think you're little.”

She almost kicked him in the stomach. She seemed to have forgotten that she was in a hallway full of witnesses. I reminded her.

“Maybe you should keep your nose out of hall monitor business, Stevens.”

“That doesn't look like business to me. That looks like pleasure,” I said. “And I'm sure there's a couple of kids in this hallway who would agree with me.”

Katie looked around, her foot still cocked and ready. She quickly came to the realization that she was the center
of attention, and kicking a kid when he was down might not be good for her permanent record. She lowered her foot, but you could tell she wasn't happy about it.

“Thanks for setting a good example,” I said, “for the children.”

She gave me a response that was half grunt, half growl, then grabbed Kevin's left arm and twisted it behind his back. He winced, but didn't make a sound. He didn't want to give her the satisfaction.

“You're hurting him!” Liz yelled, but Katie didn't seem to hear her. She brought Kevin to his feet in what looked like the most painful way possible.

“Let's go, scumbag,” Katie said, and started to lead him off.

Jenny stepped in front of them. She took her time and made a show of it, shaking with fury, looking up at him with disgust, and finally rearing back and slapping him across the face. Kevin's head barely moved. “That's for my sister,” she said. She lifted her notebook and was about to beat Kevin with it when Katie started moving.

“Okay. You got your free shot,” Katie said, “now get out of the way.” She shoved Jenny aside and led Kevin down the hall. Liz followed close behind, making sure Katie didn't take any more cheap shots along the way.

Melanie tried to sneak out, hoping that she had been forgotten in the melee, but her sneaker squeaked loudly on the polished floor tile. Her luck, if she had any to begin with, had officially run out. Jenny grabbed her arm and spun her around. “You little witch! You were my friend! How could you!” Jenny reared back to hit her, but she wasn't fast enough. Melanie squirmed out of her grip and did the only thing she knew to do in a crisis: She ran after her sister.

Jenny ran two steps after her, but I grabbed her before she could get any farther. “Let go of me!” she screamed, and struggled to break free.

“You're in no shape for a hallway chase.”

“Let go of me!”

“Too late,” I said. “Melanie's long gone.”

“Great. Are you happy?”

“Calm down, Jenny. This is middle school. It's not like she hopped a plane to Mexico.”

She started to walk off.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Take a wild guess.”

“Don't do it.”

“What should I do instead? Huh, Matt? Just let them get away with a slap on the wrist?”

“Katie doesn't slap wrists. She knocks heads.”

“I want more.”

“I see. What happened to all that talk about wanting justice, not revenge?”

“You were right all along, Matt. Justice isn't enough.”

“So, you think getting an eye for an eye will make you feel better? Putting them in the Outs won't solve anything.”

“That's the difference between you and me, Matt. I don't want to solve anything. I just want them to hurt.”

“Spoken like Nikki Fingers's little sister.”

Jenny didn't look at me. She just reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled pile of dollar bills. She stuffed them into my hand. “Here,” she said, “you earned it. Thanks for everything. You're fired.”

“I'm not going to let you take them out,” I said.

“It isn't up to you.”

“It could be.”

“Matt,” she said, a small, angry smile on her face. She leaned in and kissed me lightly on the cheek. When she pulled away, it was clear that the innocent, little Jenny was gone. The true heir to Nikki Fingers was in her place. “Don't get in my way. This is the only warning you'll get.” She turned and walked off before I could respond, her ponytail swishing side to side in a way that used to make
me happy. Her crumpled ones sat in my hand like used tissues.

“Jenny always
seemed
innocent, but she was really the fiercer of the two,” Vinny said, appearing behind me.

“Not Nikki?”

“You'd think so, but no. Nikki was more … calculating.” Vinny looked over at Jimmy Mac. “Shouldn't you go cover the story?” There was nothing gentle about his suggestion. Mac didn't say anything, but he almost sprained his neck in agreement. He practically left skid marks on the tile.

Vinny waited until Mac was gone before he spoke.

“Are you going to try to stop her?”

“Jenny? I was thinking about it.”

“Don't think too long, if you expect to have any chance.”

“Sounds like you speak from experience.”

He smiled and nodded. “She's given me a bit of trouble in the past.”

“You don't seem to mind that much,” I said.

He shrugged as if that were an answer. “It's too bad it had to come to this,” he said. “I just wish I had seen it coming.”

“Well, you've got a lot going on.”

“Well …,” he said, missing my sarcasm, or pretending to, “congratulations on solving the case.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Of course. It makes perfect sense. Kevin had the means and the motive. He was crushed when Nicole left him behind.”

“So he put her in the Outs?”

“Kids have done worse for less reason. Maybe he thought there was someone else.”

“Was there?”

“I wouldn't know.” He started walking away. “Listen, forget all this. It's over. You solved it. Come by my table at lunch today and pick up the rest of your fee, plus a nice bonus.”

“Right.”

He stepped back toward me. “Really great job, Matt. Really great.” Before he walked off, he clapped me twice on the shoulder. I had no idea why, but I suddenly felt like a boxer who was being paid to take a fall, and Vinny's clap on the shoulder felt like the weak punch that was supposed to knock me out.