Missing Pieces (20 page)

Chapter 85

Monday morning Mrs. Garcia ran
to Bryce and me outside the school. “Any news?”

I nodded. “I saw the girl who might be your daughter Friday. I tried to—”

“Where?” Mrs. Garcia said. “I have to see her.”

“But—but I-I—”

Bryce stepped forward. “Her mother warned Ashley to stay away.”

Mrs. Garcia’s eyes flashed. “She doesn’t want you to find my baby.”

“If this is your daughter,” I said, “she’s not a baby anymore.”

“I know that. Nothing will keep me from finding her. Tell me where you saw her.”

I couldn’t—not yet. I didn’t know who to believe anymore. “We have to go,” I said.

“Tell me where she is, Ashley,” Mrs. Garcia said. She stood in our way, hands on her hips.

“Hi, Mr. Forster!” Bryce yelled.

That was enough to get Mrs. Garcia to turn, and in that split second we were past her and into the crowd inside the school.

Chapter 86

I didn’t go near the cafeteria,
and Ashley met me outside for lunch. We planned how we would split up if Mrs. Garcia came out.

Derek saw us and walked over. I was afraid Randy had told him about my accusation, but Derek didn’t mention it.

“Randy wants you to come over tonight. Six o’clock.”

“What for?” I said.

“A team picnic. Guys coming to get their equipment. Said you might want to be there.”

When Derek left, Ashley said, “Be careful. Randy could be setting you up.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if he was lying and is going to make you pay for nosing around?”

“Ash, I watched the video. It’s not about mailboxes. It’s softballs banging off people’s legs, guys with big guts tripping over first base, that kind of stuff.”

“You still should be careful.”

Jeff Alexander saw us and waved. “How’s the new medicine?”

“I can’t tell much difference,” Ashley said. “Thanks for asking.”

He turned to me. “I talked with my dad about the bike trip this summer.” Jeff had a dream of riding in a benefit bike trip that raised money for cancer research. There was no way he could do it himself and his father had a bad back or something, so Jeff asked me to go with him on a tandem bike. “All we have to do is raise the money and we’re there.”

He held out his hand and I slapped it. “I’m with you.”

Ashley grabbed my arm and nodded toward the back door of the school. Mrs. Garcia had stepped out and was looking around. We scooted past Jeff and slipped inside before she saw us.

Chapter 87

The last thing I wanted
to do was tutor in Memorial that night, but Mom wouldn’t let me out of it.

“But what if I see Mrs. Z?”

She pressed her lips together. “I’ll be in the car in the parking lot. If anything happens, call me.”

“Let’s work in the library today, Angelique,” I said. “It’s more cozy.”

We played a game of Sorry, and before we started on her homework, Angelique went to the bathroom.

I sensed someone behind me and turned to see a young face with doe eyes, soft and pretty. Maria—or was it Danielle?

“You’re Ashley, the one my mom called.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Why did you take that hair from me?”

No way could I tell her the whole story. “I’m an amateur detective,” I said. “I just want to look at your hair and see what it says about you.”

“What it says about me?”

I nodded, searching for words. “Our bodies have codes that tell who we’re related to, things like that.”

“Really? Can it tell me who my daddy is?”

“Maybe. Don’t you know?”

She shook her head. “My mom won’t tell me. Except he’s one of the bad people.”

“The bad people?”

Maria nodded. “Bad people try to get me. My mom thinks you’re one of them. But Angelique says you’re the nicest.”

“I’m not trying to get you. I’m just—”

“Mom said if the bad people find us, we’ll have to move. She keeps saying it was a mistake to come here, that we should have gone far away. Sometimes I think
she’s
the bad people.”

What was I supposed to say to that? “Why?”

“She’s mean to me, yells at me, hits me sometimes. If I make a friend, she’ll say they’re bad and that I can’t play with them anymore. She won’t tell me why I don’t have a dad. But I have to have one, don’t I?”

My mind was reeling. “What if I told you your daddy might have been a soldier?”

“That would be neat. Is it true?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She thought for a moment, then plucked out one of her own strands of hair and handed it to me. Someone called her name, and she hurried out of the library.

Chapter 88

I helped Ashley put the hair samples
carefully in clear plastic bags, and Sam let us use his overnight shipping account to send them to St. Louis. The FedEx truck pulled into the driveway before 5:00, and the driver picked up the package.

“Maria won’t say anything to her mother about giving you the hair, will she?”

“I hope not,” Ashley said. “But she’s awfully young.”

I rode with Leigh to Randy’s. She thought I was just going there to play with Derek. He met us out front, and we shot baskets in his backyard for a while.

Finally, Randy called us in and pulled me aside. “Let’s see who takes the wood bat. Then you can call the police.” He was as interested in this as I was, which made me feel even worse about having accused him.

His teammates started arriving a few minutes later, and Randy fired up the grill. He had a cooler filled with sodas and more hamburgers than I’d ever seen stacked up beside it. Somebody brought out a TV and turned on the Rockies game. A few guys went into the field behind Randy’s house and shagged fly balls, while others sat talking or played horseshoes.

I was glad when it was time for everybody to go home because I wanted the mystery solved. Randy’s coach stood on a picnic table and gave out awards for most pulled muscles, most bruises, most valuable “prayer” (for the one with the lowest batting average), that kind of thing.

Then he talked about how he had let the team down for being such a poor representative of Jesus. “Frankly, I’m sorry for the way I acted a lot of the time. I wish I could go back and change things. One thing’s for sure: I’m workin’ on it and will do better next year, with the Lord’s help. A lot of you don’t come to church that often, and when you do, it’s only to qualify for the team.”

Some of the guys chuckled nervously.

“But church is not just some place to go on Sundays. It can be exciting, an adventure.” The coach pulled out a New Testament and read a few verses about how God loves everyone and sent Jesus to die for our sins. It was neat how everybody got real quiet and listened. In the end, he asked everybody to consider coming to church regularly to find out what a relationship with God was all about. It was probably the best sermon I’d heard that wasn’t a sermon.

“Congratulations on the championship,” the coach said, “and I’d love to have all of you back next season.”

Randy thanked everyone for coming and told them to take some more soda and burgers before they left. “And don’t forget to pick up your stray equipment.”

Guys crowded around the picnic table and picked up hats and gloves and bats. The wood one just lay there until a skinny guy with a fresh cast on his arm sauntered up and grabbed it.

I had to wonder if he’d broken his arm smacking our concrete mailbox. “Who’s that?” I whispered.

Randy told me, but I didn’t recognize the name.

As the guy took another cheeseburger I said, “Nice bat. How’d you get that notch in it?”

“It’s not mine. I’m picking it up for my cousin. He left it at practice last week.”

“He plays on the team?”

He turned and eyed me. “Been trying to get him to, but he won’t come to church. Plus, he’s a little young, ’bout your age probably. Name’s Aaron. Aaron Heckler. You might know him. Everybody calls him Boo.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me that Boo Heckler had been involved, especially with
our
mailbox, but there was no way he had driven the truck—he must have had help.

Sam drove me to the police station after school the next day, and I talked with one of the officers I had worked with before. He took notes, and I could tell by the way he lifted his eyebrows now and then that he was impressed.

“You’ve got quite a detective here, Mr. Timberline,” he told Sam. “We still have to find out who was in on this with Heckler, so we’ll confront him with the evidence and see what he says.”

“Does he have to know I turned him in?” I said.

“I won’t tell him if you won’t,” the officer said, winking.