The Dead Girls Detective Agency (24 page)

“Whoa, Nance, sure you want to do that without protective gloves? You might mess up the evidence or put your fingerprint someplace it shouldn’t be,” Tess said leaning against the wall, crossing her arms and yawning.

“Don’t be silly, dummy, ghosts don’t have fingerprints,” Lorna said. “We lost them when we lost our fingers.”

“I think she was being
facetious
, Lorna, but well done for remembering,” Nancy said, riffling around in the stacks of papers and other crap for a few seconds more, before picking up a stack of unopened letters in sky-blue envelopes.

“What are these?” Nancy asked, holding one up to the light, like she was on a cop show or something. She looked at them more carefully. “Oh, wait, there’s a stamp on each: ‘Saint Bartholomew’s Library’?”

“Those are late slips they send to warn you you’ve got books overdue,” I explained.

“But there are, like, eleven of them!” Nancy said in disgust. “I can’t believe he’s this irresponsible.”

“Really?” Tess said, stifling another yawn. “Because the rest of the evidence was pointing toward Mr. Charlotte being such a together guy.”

“I bet he’ll do that with bank statements and bills when he gets older too. You’re lucky to be rid of him, Charlotte,” Nancy said, shaking her head.

“Forget those, look at
these
!” Lorna pulled a pair of mini hair straighteners out from under the debris. Trust her to discover the one beauty product among all that mess. David’s Spanish textbook clattered to the floor, taking a half-eaten, fuzz-covered apple with it. Good to see something had been decomposing for longer than me.

“
OMG
!” Lorna shrieked. “I’ll give him props—he must be very accomplished with these things. I would never in a trillion years have suspected he was fighting the frizz. His hair always looks great.”

Lorna stuck her head into a pile of folders and class notes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just seeing what else he has hidden back here,” she said in a muffled voice. “There’s no smoke without fire. Or heated irons without leave-in conditioner.”

Great, so now David was vain beauty addict? Did I ever know him at all?

“Wow, you were dating a genuine New York metrosexual,” Tess said, giving me her special poor-you face.

Despite myself, I really wanted to swing at Tess now. But what was the point? David’s arm would go right through her smug face without leaving a mark.

“Actually male grooming is increasingly
en mode
,” Lorna said seriously.

“Guys, fascinating as this isn’t, can we get on with it before the entire school shows up?” Nancy tried to put the letters and textbooks back neatly on one of the shelves, but they just fell off and joined the rest of the trash. She sighed and pulled David’s beat-up schedule off the inside of his locker door instead.

“Now according to this”—Nancy tried to flatten the crumpled piece of paper out, ignoring the coffee stain that made all of Friday’s classes illegible. Unless you spoke fluent mocha—“David’s first class of the day is, I think this says …
chemistry
?”

“Nuh-uh. Hell to the no,” I said firmly. “Even if you dig up my dead body and drag it here for me to walk over, there is still no way I am sitting through another blast of that.
Comprende?
David is simply going to have to play hooky from that class today.”

Nancy looked at me aghast. She was not the hooky type.

“Which will serve the double purpose of, one, not making me any more brain dead than I already am,” I continued. “And two, giving us a chance to walk around the school to see what’s going down.”

“Jeez, whine much, Charlotte?” Tess dramatically rubbed her ears.

I felt a familiar dry feeling in David’s throat—what was it? I hadn’t had it for
days
. It may have been all the “whining,” but something wasn’t quite right. I might be in charge of David’s brain, but his body was telling me he wanted something.

I put his fingers in the pocket of his combats and pulled out some coins, a paper clip, and a guitar pick (as if he had any real use for that) and went to get a Coke from the soda machine. I pulled back the ring pull with a
pssst
and downed the whole thing in one.

I belched so loudly Lorna flinched. Even with a girl at the wheel, guys were still gross.

“Hey, Maher, you’re here eaaaaarly,” a familiar-looking guy in black cords and an Iron Maiden T-shirt yelled.

I looked at the clock on the wall of the arch in front of me. It was 8:59 a.m. The students were arriving.

“Yeah, Ms. Jackson said that if I didn’t clean up my locker before lunch she was going to give me detention again.” I shrugged.

The guy was carrying a folder with
Camels on the Freeway
scribbled on the front. Okay, so he was one of the band. A quick glance at his frizzy chin confirmed that he was trying to grow a hipster beard. Figured. Tom or Pete or Plectrum? I had no idea. Even though I’d taken pictures of the Camels play before, it was so hard to recognize them in daylight instead of some dive bar.

“So …,” I said. Camel looked at me expectantly. “Soooo....”

Oh help, I was tanking here. I needed the Camel to go leave me to possess my ex alone. Someone distract him please, I thought to myself.

As if on cue, Tess Jabbed an old OJ carton precariously balanced on top of David’s gym bag. It tumbled out of his locker and onto the floor, spilling moldy orange grossness on the light gray tiles. Forget what I said about the apple. The OJ had been dead longer.

“Man, I do not normally agree with Ms. Jackson, but that is rancid, my friend,” Camel said.

“Rancid,” I agreed, trying not to laugh as the citrusy goop slid from tile to tile and right through Lorna’s right foot. Of course it didn’t stain her immortal Pretty Ballerinas, but she gave Tess a look that clearly said that was not the point.

“So, I guess I’ll catch you at band practice tonight then?” Camel mimed an air guitar strum with his hands. “We’ve got the downstairs room in Arlene’s from five to seven. My brother’s working the bar, so the manager said we could use it until the support act needs to tune up. We’ll be jamming where some of the greats have played.”

What, like That Band No One’s Ever Heard Of and the One Supporting Them?

“Excellent. Arlene’s at five.” I strummed back at him. Camel sloped off down the hall. See, pretending to be your ex-boyfriend was a piece of carrot cake. I could totally do convincing guy chat. You just shrugged a lot, repeated back what they said, and tried not to sound like you cared. Easy. Why had I been freaking out?

And why had the world gone black?

“Hey, gorgeous,” a female voice drawled in my ear.

Hey,
who
-geous?

“Guess who!” she asked.

Much as I hated to admit it, Mystery Girl Covering David’s Eyes could be one of very, very many.

“Um, Kaitlynnn?” I tried.

“No, naughty!” she scolded. The girl removed her hands, so I could see again, and stood in front of David’s body. A bit too close actually. Had she not seen
Dirty Dancing
? Was she not aware of the concept of other people’s dance space?

I took a step back to let David’s eyes focus and get a better look at her. Just-Call-Me J. “It’s me!” she trilled.

Even though there were only a handful of kids around, Jamie looked furtively up and down the hallway.

“I know you had to say I was Kaitlynnn out loud just now so that no one gets suspicious. And I know why—she said you told her that you don’t think you’re emotionally ready to exclusively date me
or
Kristen at the moment …”

Oh, had he now?

“But I just wanted to tell you that what happened between us last night”—Jamie leaned in and whispered in David’s ear so close that I could feel her warm breath in the part only Q-tips normally go—“it was really special. And when you’re in more of a relationship place, I hope you’ll give me a call.”

“Really special”? I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I still cringed. What had happened to David—had his standards died with me? If Jamie caught the weird look on David’s face (which was mine and read
what a giant boy slut
), she ignored it. Instead she thrust her number into his hand. OMG, this girl actually had little “call me” cards with lipstick kisses she’d personally puckered on them.

“Oh, cute!” Lorna said, eyeing one.

“Oh, heave!” Tess said.

Ohforgodsake, I thought.

The flirting and the kissing with the other two I could (begrudgingly, seeing as I was dead) take. Well, kinda. But this? This “really special” thing between them? It was the whore that broke the camel’s back.

It was time to get even.

I couldn’t stop David systematically working his way through every girl on the entire island, but I could ruin his chances with this one—right now.

“Actually, Kaitlynnn,” I called after her.

Jamie spun around to me and frowned. “My name’s not Kaitlynnn,” she pouted. “You do know that, right?”

I had David make a puzzled look. “Oh yeah, sure.
Sure
. It’s just that there are so many girls at the moment, I keep forgetting all your names.” We shrugged. A proper noncommittal shrug. The kind I imagine George Clooney gives whatever waitress he’s dating this week when she asks how he feels about settling down, having kids, and giving up summers in Lake Como.

“That’s not very nice, Davey.” Jamie brushed an invisible piece of lint off the retro
Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus
tee he was illegally wearing under his regulation blazer, and looked up at him from underneath her heavily mascaraed lashes. “But I forgive you.”

She batted him on the nose with her forefinger like he was a naughty, but adorable puppy dog. “You have sooo much going on in that cute head of yours right now, even I would have trouble remembering really important details—if I was you.” She stroked his man-bangs in sympathy.

Honestly, what was it with these women? They were like the cockroaches of the dating world. Trample on them and they just came back stronger.

“Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I made David say. “It’s kinda hush-hush, but I can trust you, right? I bet you could keep a secret better than Kristen or Kaitlynnn.”

“Oh, I can.” Jamie practically purred.

“You see, I do like you, but I have this little issue. A health issue.”

Jamie visibly paled.

“Sometimes I break out in …” David trailed off. Let her guess what it might be. “And, well, I don’t wanna go into it, but it’s kinda gross.”

She took a massive step back and bashed into a sophomore walking behind her.

“Maybe it’s the stress of what I’ve been through recently,” I said. “But I am pretty sure it’s not contagious. At least it hasn’t been in the past. And the doctor said he was thirty percent sure it wouldn’t be. But I just wouldn’t want you to catch anything that would cause a rash or blemishes on that beautiful face.”

I took two steps toward her and ran David’s thumb down Jamie’s flawless cheek. She jumped back like she’d been touched by a hot poker. A very hot, very unhygienic poker. “You get what I’m saying?” I asked.

Jamie looked at David in disgust. “Of course. That is, like … I … better get going. See ya.”

She bolted down the corridor. Job done.

“Wow, I’ve never seen anyone in five-inch wedges move that fast,” Lorna said, wide-eyed.

“That was a total waste of investigation time, but it was very, very cool,” Nancy said, putting her hand on David’s shoulder. “He deserved it.”

“You do realize that will be all around the cheersquad in about five seconds flat?” Lorna asked.

“Really?” I said. “Damn, I’d hoped they’d all hear it within three.”

Chapter 22

“
MAHER! MAHER! IT’S NINE FIFTEEN A.M.—ISN’T
there somewhere you should be?”

While the other kids trailed into their first-period classes, we took David’s body for a tour of the school to see what was going on. We were peering in the gym, discussing how pleased we were that phys ed was something that died with your body, when Ms. Jackson, my English teacher, appeared from nowhere. Wasn’t she supposed to be in class too? Like, teaching?

“David, why aren’t you in homeroom?” she asked. “As far as I know Advanced Hallway Loitering isn’t on the Saint Bartholomew’s syllabus. At least not this semester.”

“Oh, I like her,” Nancy said, stepping away from the glass and leaving the ninth grade class to their softball game. “She’s funny.”

“Though she has
the
worst taste in shoes.” Lorna was eyeing Ms. Jackson’s flat-booted feet.

“I bet she just walked here in those boots because they’re warm, and she’s going to change out of them when she has to teach a class.” For some reason Nancy had decided she was Ms. Jackson’s newest fan. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Ms. J looked rather like a grown-up version of Her Geekiness: black-rimmed glasses, brown hair that shone red when it hit the light, only a little lip gloss to pass for makeup and a bulging handbag that was big on the practical and small on the likely-to-be-featured-in-
Vogue
.

“In fact …” Nancy poked her entire head into the second bag Ms. Jackson was holding. “Lorna, get in here! See! She has some really cute pale-blue sling-backs ready to go!”

Lorna popped her head into Ms. Jackson’s green canvas Strand Book Store bag too. “Oh, they
are
lovely. Look at the bows! They match the little one on her belt and …”

“Oh, please, if you two don’t stop goofing around, I’m going to have to take charge and I think we all agree that is not something we want to happen,” Tess said. “Short of old Tree Trunk Legs in there”—she pointed through the gym window to Coach Brock, who was trying to break up a softball-induced fight between two girls who’d gone for the ball at the same time and nearly knocked each other out—“telling us we have to get down and give her twenty. So come on already.”

Chastised, they pulled their heads out of the bag and, as they did, Ms. Jackson looked down at it strangely, as if she were half expecting a wild animal to crawl out.