Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost (2 page)

“Someone set the grocery on fire,” said Angus Paine. “The only thing left is the back wall.”

“And you want me …”

“… to help me find out who did it. This grocery has been in our family for almost a hundred years. If I can trouble you to meet me, I'll show you the damage. If we don't get an insurance settlement for arson, my dad says we won't be able to rebuild it.”

“Well …,” I said. I cradled the phone on my shoulder. I didn't know one thing about arson, and the whole topic of insurance just shouted Boring Adult Business. I teased an orange plastic bracelet off one of the hooks and slipped it on my wrist. Even though we Clarks are tall and strong, we have dainty wrists.

I glanced around. Mrs. Dagnitz was coming toward me. She paused to fish for her sunglasses in her purse. After we were finished at Claire's we needed to stop at Whole Foods for the organic spinach she needed to make her vegetarian lasagna for Mark Clark's birthday dinner, which was still a few days away, and then at some special store where they sell only fish. We needed to stop somewhere else for something else, too. Something to do with aromatherapy. I closed my eyes. After my mom left my dad and moved to Santa Fe, I spent a year wanting her to come back. Now I wished she would go back to Santa Fe. Having her home was exhausting, and not in a fun way.

“If it's not something you think you can help me with, I understand completely,” said Angus Paine. “Arson is difficult to prove. And, you don't know me.”

“How
did
you find out about me?” I asked.

“The story in the paper,” he said.

“But how did you get my number?”

“Dialed Information, of course. There aren't too many Minerva Clarks in Portland.”

“Like, zero,” I said.

“Don't be so sure.” All of a sudden his soft voice turned sharp and mean, as if he'd handed off the phone to some evil twin. “I know you're a smart one, but you're not as smart as you think. There actually
is
another Minerva Clark. She's about ninety and raises potbellied pigs. I had a nice chat with her.”

“O-kaay,” I said. What was his problem? So there was another Minerva Clark in town.

“There's one other thing you should know,” said Angus. He'd calmed down. His sweet, polite voice returned. “Grams Lucille died in the fire. She lived upstairs, over the store. They found her sitting straight up in her favorite chair, completely burned. Her polyester pants were melted to her chair.”

“Oh jeez,” I said.

“The store just smelled like burned wood and electrical wires and melted plastic. But in Grams Lucille's apartment it smelled—”

“I get the picture,” I said. “That's awful.”

“It is,” he said. “That's why I hope you can help me. I hope to talk to you again.”

Then I heard dead space. A strange boy called with a
strange mystery for me to solve, then hung up on me just like that. Instantly, I wished I'd been friendlier, wished I'd said yes to Angus Paine and his burned-down family grocery store.

I whirled around and Mrs. Dagnitz was standing about two inches away from me, hands on hips, giant purse slung over one shoulder. How much of the conversation she'd heard I hadn't a clue. I don't know why I didn't want Mrs. Dagnitz to hear my conversations. I gave in to the sudden urge to lean over and shake out my hair. The thought of a new mystery—I knew already that I would call Angus Paine back, and soon—made my wild hair stick to my head, even in Claire's über-air-conditioning.

“Was that Kevin on the phone?” Mrs. Dagnitz asked as we left the store.

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

“Not really?” Mrs. Dagnitz laughed. “What does that mean?”

Claire's is on the third floor of the mall. We approached the first of two down escalators and I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs. I hate down escalators. They are evil incarnate. The steps look as if they disappear into a parallel world. Maybe they do. Maybe every time you hop on a down escalator, you're being deposited into a world that seems familiar but really contains new freakish realities, like your mother, who
doesn't even live with you, who doesn't have any business butting into your private life, grilling you like a police detective about your personal phone calls.

Mrs. Dagnitz and I rode the escalators to the bottom floor, one after the other. I tried not to look down. I held on to the rubber railing until I got a cramp in my hand. I was not about to grab her arm and show what a baby I was.

All the while, Mrs. Dagnitz kept asking how I had met Kevin (at the indoor water park, with my friend Hannah), how old he was (fourteen going on fifteen, one year older than me, almost exactly), where he went to high school (Jesuit), what his father did (how am I supposed to know).

“You don't know what his father does?” she asked as we left the mall and plunged into the parking structure. It was hot and smelled of car exhaust and something sweet and rotten. Mrs. Dagnitz forgot where we had parked. We walked up and down the aisles. She turned her head this way and that, checking out every big white SUV we passed. She mumbled to herself, “I can't believe I forgot where I parked the car. Why do I always do this?”

I was on the verge of moaning that my feet hurt, or complaining about the smell or the heat, but all of a sudden I felt bad for my mom. I could see her blond bangs sticking to her sweaty forehead. She was frantic. By the time I get old, there will be pills to prevent you
from losing track of where you parked your enormous white car.

“It wasn't Kevin anyway,” I said. “It was some boy named Angus who needs a mystery solved.” The instant that leaped out of my mouth, I knew it was a mistake.

At that moment we found the car, parked between two other white SUVs, on the ramp between the first and second floor. Mrs. Dagnitz said nothing. She opened her car door, slid inside, then reached over and unlocked my door. I got in. Mrs. Dagnitz was still dead quiet. She flipped the air-conditioning on high, and we roared off down the ramp. I reached over and turned on the radio. Mrs. Dagnitz reached over and turned it off. Uh-oh. A parent turning off the radio instead of turning it down can mean only one thing.

“I wanted to talk to you about all this nosing around you've been doing,” she said.

I rolled my lips inside my mouth and stared out the window at a Goth couple strolling into a 7-Eleven. I was not going to say a word. I turned the air-conditioning vent on my face, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on the dry, cool air blowing on my cheeks. My mom was an expert at saying the same thing over and over until finally you agreed with her just to get her to stop. Trying to tell your side of things only made the whole ordeal twice as long.

“Poking around into other people's business is just
asking for trouble. Not only that, it's dangerous and you could get hurt,” she said.

I looked out the window.

“That's what they have police detectives for, Minnow,” she said.

More looking out the window.

“That's what they get paid for, solving crimes. You keep this up and one day you'll find yourself in jail or … or worse!”

“Does the air inside the car get colder if you drive faster?” I finally asked.

“I'm serious, Minerva! This is not something you want to be doing. Life isn't a movie. What if you discover some drug addict is involved in one of these crimes? Those people don't mess around. They have guns.”

“I'm serious, too. Quills told me how air-conditioning worked once, but I forgot.”

“Next time please do me a favor and just call the police. Just have that Angus person call the police.”

“All right, fine.”

“Promise me.”

“I said ‘fine,' all right?”

The air-conditioning whirred as we tooled along in silence. I dared to imagine the conversation was over, reached over, and turned the radio back on.

“I just think there are other ways you can use your … new gifts,” she said.

“What new gifts?” I asked, just to be dense. I sank down in my seat and propped my knees against the dashboard. Mrs. Dagnitz and I had never really talked about the way I'd changed since my accident. I looked over at her. I couldn't imagine what she was going to say.

“It's just so nice to see you with all this self-confidence. You should take advantage of it. Have
fun
, enjoy it. I was thinking we could get your hair straightened. And I'd like to buy you some kicky sandals. Those tennis shoes you like are adorable, but you're old enough to learn about the world of shoes.”

“The
world
of shoes?” I snorted.

“Maybe you could straighten your hair before school starts. They have that new Japanese method. It'd be fun.”

“Fun? How is straightening your hair fun? That's like saying going to the dentist is fun.”

“Going to the dentist can be fun … having healthy, white, perfect teeth can make you feel good about your smile. And a pretty smile does wonders for your self-esteem.”

That word hung in the car like a huge invisible air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. “I already
have
self-esteem,” I said. “Straight Japanese hair wouldn't make me have more of it.”

“I said it was a method perfected by the Japanese,” said Mrs. Dagnitz, running a yellow light.

“Mark Clark says you can get a ticket for that.”

“All I'm trying to say is that you're young, Minnow. You've got your entire life ahead of you, and you just shouldn't be afraid to … what's the word you kids use? Work it.”

“That would be two words,” I said.

“You understand what I'm getting at?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Instead of doing something
interesting
I should be obsessed with trying to look like Paris Hilton.”

“I am NOT saying that at all,” said Mrs. Dagnitz.

She lies.

“Thank you. Drive through, please.” I couldn't believe I had said this to my mother. Mark Clark would have grounded me straight into the afterlife if I had said that to him.

“I just want you to be happy!” she cried.

“I am happy,” I said.
Until you showed up
, I wanted to say, but even I am not that mean. Luckily, we'd arrived at Whole Foods. Mrs. Dagnitz parked in the space farthest from the door.

“There's a space over there,” I said, even though I couldn't have cared less.

“I try to get in as much walking as possible during my day,” she said. “You should, too. It's a painless way to up your activity level.”

“Can I stay in the car?”

Mrs. Dagnitz sighed loudly. “I love you, Minnow.”

“Love you, too.” I looked out the window at a bum in a dirty hot-pink parka trundling by with a shopping cart full of empty bottles. It was so hot, how could he wear that parka?

Mrs. Dagnitz hopped out of the car without another word. I watched her narrow back as she marched away from the car, and then I called Angus Paine.

Mrs. Dagnitz dropped me off in front of Casa Clark after telling me three times to put the groceries away. Compared with the other pretty, wood-shingled houses on our street, our big stucco box looks like a Mexican restaurant. Quills, my brother who is the bassist for the band Humongous Bag of Cashews, says it is something called “eclectic,” a fancy word for “freakish.”

I grabbed the plastic bag full of groceries, hauled myself out of the car, and slammed the door a teeny bit harder than was necessary. Mrs. Dagnitz watched me from over her sunglasses. She didn't say another word about “working it.” Just the thought of that conversation practically gave me a seizure, which is how I always feel when I'm too embarrassed to even speak. Mrs. Dagnitz roared off to pick up Mr. Dagnitz from
yoga. Why they couldn't leave their yoga back in Santa Fe, I don't know.

When I saw Kevin's blue bike propped against the side of the house, I got a funny feeling in my chest, as if a helium balloon were stuck in there. It was such a relief to come home and see that dumb little BMX bike. Kevin was going into ninth grade and had a real summer job. He worked as a manny, a man-nanny, and spent his days playing Legos and opening juice boxes for Harvey and Otis, a pair of eight-year-old boys who belonged to his mom's coworker. Kevin made ten dollars an hour. In my humble opinion that is a lot of money for a ninth grader.

I dropped the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and tossed the halibut into the fridge. Last year in health we'd learned that leaving fish out on the counter could kill you. I'd put the other stuff away later. I figured I had a half hour until Mrs. Dagnitz returned.

From upstairs, I could hear Xbox sounds of cartoon bad guys getting blown up. I took the stairs two at a time. I was less happy to see Kevin when I found him in the TV room playing a video game with Morgan, my youngest older brother. Even though Kevin had been my official boyfriend for less than two weeks, I suspected that he came over to see my brothers as much as to see me. Kevin had a snotty older sister but no brothers. I have no sisters and three brothers, and it is more
or less Boy Central around my house all the time. Which is part of why it was a little strange having Mrs. Dagnitz flitting in and out. Luckily, she was not staying at Casa Clark with Mr. Dagnitz. Even though my dad, Charlie, was out of town on lawyer business until the end of the month, it would still feel bizarre waking up in the morning and seeing them sitting at the table drinking their coffee.

Kevin and Morgan were perched on the edge of Cat Pee Couch, so named because we once had an evil tabby cat that sprayed the legs of whoever sat in her spot. That tabby is long gone and the couch has been drenched with an expensive pet-odor remover, but on hot summer days you can sometimes still catch a whiff of that bad old cat. Kevin wore khaki shorts and a blue striped polo shirt. He was six feet tall, with shiny brown-blond hair and mountain-lake-blue eyes. I was pretty sure I would marry Kevin one day when we were thirty and he had gotten his PhD in marine biology and had saved the world's coral reefs and I had gotten tired of my life as a globe-trotting sleuth solving important mysteries they normally reserved for Scotland Yard and places like that. Only then would we be ready to buy our ranch on the island of Maui, where we would surf and raise Appaloosas. I wasn't quite sure what those were, but Kevin assured me they were most excellent.