Novel - Half Moon Investigations (10 page)

AFTER A FEW DAYS OF suspicious looks from the nurses, Dr. Brendan took off my splint and cast.

“No concussion,” he declared. “And the X-rays for skull fractures came back negative. Did you ever see those movies where the bad guys kick the devil out of the good guy?”

“I did,” said Sergeant Murt Hourihan, who had come to pick me up that evening.

“Well,” said the doctor. “That’s what happened to Fletcher.”

Murt had to sit down he was laughing so hard. It didn’t strike me as funny. Then again, I’d heard it before.

They sat me in a wheelchair and rolled me down the hospital corridor. I felt like Hannibal Lecter on tour. Nurses and interns lined the walls whispering things like
Don’t let him near the matches
. I was happy to be leaving, even if it was for an interview in the police station.

My parents had agreed to a formal interview provided they could be present along with Terry Malone. After this interview, Chief Quinn would decide whether or not there was enough evidence to send a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I was hopeful that this entire mess could be cleared up in a couple of hours.

Murt’s squad car was parked across the ambulance bay by the main entrance. I transferred myself from the wheelchair to the backseat. Murt took off at speed, honking impatiently at a line of elderly patients on the crosswalk.

We pulled onto Rhododendron Road, passing May’s house on the right. She had not come to see me in the hospital. Why would she? May probably thought I was the lunatic who burned her dance costume. And even if she didn’t believe that, her dad had surely crossed me off the list of welcome visitors.

“George Montgomery is filing a complaint, you know,” said Murt over his shoulder.

“Who?”

“Colonel George Montgomery. The Devereux’s neighbor. He’s filing a complaint. He phoned Quinn at home right after you showed up outside his house.”

I groaned. “I thought I was in . . .”

“Yeah yeah, May Devereux’s garden.” Murt blew out noisily through his nose. “What’s going on, Fletcher? Are you going through some kind of rebellious phase?”

I sat up. “No. Of course not. This is all a mistake. Red Sharkey assaulted me. He probably started the fire, too.”

“Red Sharkey. Right. We questioned him. He was at home the entire night. His family backed him up. As a matter of fact, his father requested protection in case you go after his son next. But about the assault, we found his hurl in the next garden to yours. With any luck we’ll match the blood and fingerprints, so we should get him for that at the very least, but you’re definitely in the frame for starting fires.”

My nose was throbbing. “This is ridiculous, Sergeant. You know me. You can’t believe any of this.”

Murt shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. As far as Quinn is concerned the case is solved. Your file is already gone to the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

“That’s not fair,” I blustered. “He was supposed to wait until after the interview.”

“Well, the chief didn’t want to miss the last mail pick-up. Don’t worry, Fletcher, we’re not beaten yet. I won’t give up my best civilian consultant so easily.”

Murt cocked his head suddenly, sniffing the air.

“Do you smell that?”

Moments later I did. Wisps of black smoke were floating through the air vents. Murt sniffed the fumes.

“Oil line I’d say. There’s a leak somewhere and it’s coating the engine.”

“Is that dangerous?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” said Murt conversationally. “The whole engine could go.”

He pulled over to the footpath, double-parking on a white line. “All out.”

Murt opened the security door and set me sitting on the path twenty feet away from the vehicle. The smoke was billowing from under the bonnet now, engulfing the entire car.

Murt winked at me. “I presume I can trust you not to run away, Fletcher.”

I half laughed. I barely had the energy to stand up, never mind run away.

The smoke was thicker now, almost solid. It didn’t seem to bother Murt. He strode into the middle of the cloud, rolling up his sleeves. No doubt he sucked down worse every day from the cigars in the interview room.

It never occurred to me that I was being busted out of custody. Things like that just didn’t happen in Lock. Nobody had been rescued in our town since Father Gannet Roche had broken young Bill the Butcher Turner out of reform school to play in the county hurling final.

It finally dawned on me what was happening when a mountain bike skidded to a halt by my feet. I looked up to see a rider who was wearing a striped ski mask.

“Get on the back, Half Moon,” he said. The voice was all too familiar.

“Sharkey!” I gasped.

“Could be,” said the figure.

I picked up some gravel from the gutter and threw it at him. The stones jingled harmlessly through the spokes.

Red rolled up the ski mask. “Honestly, you try to help some people.”

“Help!” I spluttered, too indignant to be scared. Almost. “You attacked me. You set fire to May’s garden. This is a dry month. That could have spread.”

Red swung off the bike, kicked the stand and hunkered down before me.

“Look, Half Moon, I heard about the letters on your arm, but my hurl was stolen, okay? Someone wanted me to be blamed. The same thing is happening to you. I know you’re too wimpy to set fire to a garden.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s not a compliment.”

“I didn’t really mean it.”

The sound of Murt swearing at the engine drifted up the road wrapped up in plumes of smoke.

“We have to go,” insisted Red.

I wasn’t convinced. “How can I believe anything you say? All I ever get from you are insults or threats. Your entire family has a history of theft, fraud, and assault.”

Red glanced toward Murt. “Forget all that, Half Moon. If you get back in that car, it’s all over. Your big investigation is finished. Whoever is messing with us will get clean away with it.”

“Us?” I asked.

Red rolled his eyes. “I’m rescuing a parrot, heaven help me. Yes,
us
. You, me, April, May. Us.”

Curiosity sliced through the weakness and uncertainty. True, this person had threatened to harm me, but if I went to the police station, then I would be blamed for the fire and the real culprit would get away unpunished. And if Red
had
started the fire, why would he want to rescue me when I was all set to take the blame? This question needed an answer.

“Why, Red? Why would you want to help me?”

Red dropped his eyes. “I felt bad about shoving that hurl at your throat the other day. I blew my fuse.”

This was all very noble, but there must be more.

“And?”

“And if this assault charge sticks, I could end up in juvie this time. I can’t let that happen.” I saw anguish in Red’s eyes for the second time. “This is not the way I want my life to go, and it’s going that way anyway. I thought if I just stayed out of trouble, then I could be my own man. But Sharkeys are like trouble magnets. You’re the one who got me involved in all this, so you can get both of us out. You’re the detective.”

My instincts told me that Red was telling the truth, but there was something between us that I couldn’t let go.

“If I’m going to be a detective, I’ll need my badge.”

Red studied an ant on the pavement for a moment, then dug the badge from his pocket, tossing it on the road between my feet.

“Sorry,” he said, still looking at the ground. “I lost my head. I shouldn’t have taken it, I mean, you
were
right. Herod did steal that organizer, even if he won’t admit it.”

I picked up my badge and polished the face on my shirt. Just having it in my hand made me feel smarter.

Down the road, Murt Hourihan discovered that someone had put an oily rag on his engine. He balled the rag in his fist, flinging it to the ground. His first thought was that this was mindless mischief. His second was that there was a purpose behind it.

The policeman pulled his head out of the smoke, squinting toward his charge. “Hey!” he spluttered. “Hey, what’s going on there?”

Red rolled down his ski mask. “Coming or going?”

Murt was running now, legs pumping under him. “Last chance, Half Moon. Was all that detective talk just talk, or are you the real thing?”

“Don’t you move, Fletcher!” shouted Murt, his voice rough with smoke. “Stay right where you are.”

Red kicked up the stand. “I bet your file has already gone in. I bet the PTA is already having an emergency meeting at the school, making sure you won’t be a bad influence. That’s what they do, you know.”

This was all happening too quickly. I liked to think things over. Make my deductions at a leisurely pace. Was any of this really happening? I flexed my fingers and the pain ran all the way up to my nose. It was happening, all right.

Red stared out from the eyeholes in his mask. “I didn’t do it, Half Moon,” he said. “I took the badge, and I’m sorry about that. But I never attacked you, or set a fire in May’s garden.”

Red held out his hand.

“There’s a mystery here, Half Moon. I know you can solve it.”

Mystery. The magic word. I took Red’s hand and he swung me onto the seat of the bicycle, like a cavalry officer rescuing his fallen comrade.

I held on tightly as Red put his weight on the pedals, building enough speed to outpace Murt Hourihan. Pain pinged my nose with every bump in the road.

“You pair of good-for-nothings!” wheezed Murt. “Get back here or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Hell to pay
. The phrase stayed in my mind long after the sound of Murt’s wheezing had faded in the distance. I had just escaped from police custody. There
would
be hell to pay. And I was the one holding the bill.

RED TOOK THE LONG WAY home, dragging me across several fields and a stream before he finally doubled back to his own house. By the time we reached Chez Sharkey the sun was painting the undersides of the clouds a deep orange, and anyone under the age of ten was being tucked in for the night.

Chez Sharkey was the most famous house in the southeast. It had once belonged to the American filmmaker Walter Stafford, but he had lost it in a poker game to Red’s grandfather. Over the years, the surrounding estate had been built up by developers, but the old house remained untouched. It stood proud yet ramshackle, a mock Tudor mansion in the middle of a dozen almost identical housing estates.

“This place must be worth a fortune,” I whispered as Red freewheeled down the back path.

Red shrugged, which is dangerous on a bike. “Maybe. Papa would never sell. Mom loved this house.”

Red’s mother had died several years previously. I still remember the day he got the news in lunch hall. Red had kept right on eating his sandwiches. Then, when he’d finished the last one, he crumpled the tinfoil and threw it in the garbage. We didn’t see him for three months after that. As far as I know, nobody had ever asked Red how he was feeling. He wasn’t really a touchy-feely group-hug kind of person.

We dismounted from the bike in a yard of cracked paving stones. Weeds clawed their way through every crack, and at least a dozen cats hissed at our passing. The back door was massive and black. The edges were chipped to reveal rainbow stripes of glossy paint beneath. A century’s worth of layers.

Red stowed his bike by the wall, then put his shoulder against the door. He was still wearing the ski mask, and I got the feeling he was comfortable in there.

“I haven’t cleared this with Papa yet, Half Moon,” he said, rolling the woolen cap from his face. “So you stay out of sight until I do.”

“Out of sight? I thought you had a plan.”

“I had the first part. The breakout. I thought you could handle the rest of it, bright spark.”

“My name is Fletcher, Red.”

“Oh, really? And what’s my name?”

I waited for my brain to supply the information, but it didn’t come. I had no idea what Red’s actual name was. He’d been Red since we were little.

Red winked at me, his point made. I had no idea what that point was, but as far as Red was concerned he had definitely made it.

We crept into the house. The ceilings were high, and faded wallpaper curled in the corners like pages from an old book. Red pushed me into a room.

“Just stay in there until I come and get you,” he whispered. “There’s a bed in the corner. The light doesn’t work, but that’s okay, because you probably want to spend your time thinking.” He handed me a disposable cell phone. “Here, take this; there’s no call credit, but you can send texts. The number is withheld so nobody can call you back.”

The door closed slowly against a buffer of air, and I was alone in a dark room in the house of someone I wasn’t sure I could trust. I felt a sudden welling of panic in my stomach. What had I done? I was a fugitive hiding in the lion’s den.

I lay on the bed and all my aches and pains came rushing back. The dregs of prescribed painkillers were still swilling around my system, but only enough to make me sleepy. I held the phone’s screen close to my face like a candle, and with numb fingers I typed out a short message.

HZL, IMOK. TELL M+DNO 2 WORRY. HOME SOON. MST FIND ARSNST. LUV U ALL. FLETCHR.

I sent the message to Hazel’s phone, then switched off. What had happened to me? This was not the way detective stories were supposed to go. I was supposed to be in my office, bent over my desk, examining the evidence. That’s how Bernstein described it in the manual. But the manual wasn’t the real world. This was the real world here and now, and I had dropped myself directly into the deep end without ever pausing to test the waters.

I threw the phone across the room then closed my eyes against the darkness. I kept them tightly closed for a long time, until eventually I fell into a deep sleep haunted by dreams of raging fires and broken bones.

I woke sometime later to see sunlight glowing through my eyelids, highlighting the veins. The warmth felt good, so I lay there savoring the sensation. Peace at last. A quiet moment in which to plan my investigation.

Something tugged on my toe. I looked down. A small, filthy child was slipping off my shoes. The boy was a miniature version of Red, with fiery hair and a wiry frame. It was Herod before his weekly wash and brushup.

“What are you doing?” I croaked.

Herod glared back undaunted. “You’re dying. What would you want shoes for?”

“I am not dying, go away!”

Herod straightened to his full height, the crown of his head barely cleared the mattress.

“You go away. This is my house. Buttercups, my eye.”

I wrestled my shoe from his grasp. “I will go away, far away. Bet on it. And next time you stash your booty, watch where you step.”

I sat up slowly, and was surprised to find my head remained relatively pain free. Now that I could see the room’s decor, I decided that the headaches would probably come back if I stayed here much longer. The bedcover appeared to have been cobbled together from a thousand other bedspreads, every one of them luminous. The walls were that particular bright green generally associated with the Caribbean, and the curtains seemed to be fashioned from some type of metallic foil.

In the light of a new day, my escape seemed utterly ridiculous. The police would have listened to reason. After all, I was a respectable student from a respectable family. Not anymore, I argued with myself. I had abandoned my studies and my family. And all to solve a mystery. Now there was no way back into my cozy life, except by solving that mystery.

“I thought you were leaving,” said Herod, chewing absently on a wart on his knuckle.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be gone soon enough. I just need to talk to Red. Where is he?”

The boy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “In the kitchen. They’re waiting for you. The three of them.”

This piece of news filled my stomach with acid bubbles. The Sharkey clan was waiting for me, and probably not with hot chocolate and croissants.

Herod left the room and I followed, deeper into the house. With every step, my own world seemed further away. The walls were old-house high, covered with ancient thick wallpaper that was coming loose at the top, curling over us like a rain-forest canopy.

We turned off the dark passageway through a rectangular doorway of light, into a stone-flagged kitchen. The Sharkeys were gathered around a huge pine table digging into heaped plates of sausage and bacon. I stood quietly, and for a brief, happy moment, nobody noticed I was there.

Then Herod cleared his throat noisily and three Sharkey heads swiveled slowly in my direction, like tank turrets. I knew every inch of their faces. I had read files on all of them. Nobody was smiling.

Red winked at me. He was going for jaunty, but all he looked was worried.

Papa was there of course, massive and hairy, a wiry beard sprouting just below the eye line. His police file was as thick as a redwood. Papa had been involved with every caper from ticket scalping to lobster poaching.

Red’s big sister, Genie, was there, too. Strikingly beautiful, with the trademark Sharkey red hair and lack of fashion sense. She had once been the lead singer with a girl band called Sharkey Attack. They had managed to build up quite a following on the local circuit. That was, until Genie had socked an admirer with a microphone, knocking out four of his front teeth.

“Morning,” I said weakly.

Papa stood. He was so tall that all I could see was a belly and a beard. “This is him?” he boomed in his movie-trailer-guy voice.

Red nodded. “Yes, Papa. This is Half Moon—I mean Fletcher Moon.”

Papa loomed over me, shaking his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“This little speck of a thing is
investigating
me?”

Red jumped from his seat, tugging on his father’s sleeve. “It’s not really investigating. It’s more play-investigating.”

Red winked at me.
Go along with it
, the wink said.

“Is that right?” Papa asked me. “Play-investigating?”

“Yes,” I began, then felt my badge dig into my thigh. “No, actually. It’s real investigating. I have a badge and a notebook. And if I were you and I had me on my case, then I’d be worried.”

Papa frowned. “Well, if you were me and you were on my case, then you’d be chasing your own backside.” This observation was followed by a huge bark of laughter that would have scared off a pack of wolves. Red laughed too, in relief. I tried to chortle along, but all that came out was a trickle of Morse code squeaks.

Papa’s laughter petered out, but its ghost remained. He didn’t see me as a threat. I didn’t mind. A lot of adults make that mistake.

“Sit,” he boomed.

I sat.

“Hungry?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to feed me or eat me.

“Half a grapefruit would be nice.”

Genie piled a plate high with fried pork, spinning it along the table like a Frisbee. It rotated before me for several seconds, spraying my shirt with grease.

“Or sausages would be nice, too.” I said, attempting a smile.

I ate slowly, feeling four pairs of Sharkey eyes boring holes in my skull. Nobody spoke, and my chewing seemed louder than a farmer striding across a field of mud.

For a while I cared about this, then I realized that I was famished and that the sausages were delicious. I devoured three rapidly, the third wrapped in a slice of soda bread.

“Shy little chap, aren’t you,” said Papa when I had finished.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve only had hospital food for the past few days.”

“Oh, yes, that’s where you told the police that my son assaulted you.”

“That’s what I thought at the time,” I said into the remains of my breakfast.

Papa sat at the head of the table, staring at me from under eyebrows that would have thatched a fair-sized cottage. His serious face was back in full force. “And now?”

“And now I think that probably both of us have been set up. Red for the assault, me for the arson.”

Papa popped a jumbo sausage into his mouth. It barely hit the sides on its way down.

“I don’t see what this has to do with me, Half Moon. The police have been setting us up for years, and now all of a sudden I need some kind of midget detective to help me out. A midget detective who said that this entire family has, and I quote, ‘a history of theft, fraud, and assault.’”

The last lump of sausage stuck in my throat.

“It sounds bad when you put it like that,” I admitted. “In my defense, you do have a history of theft and fraud. I may have been wrong about the assault.”

Papa bristled. “Theft and fraud?”

I suddenly felt invulnerable, as though this was all a dream. “Well, there was the time Red fed white bread to Byrne’s greyhounds before a race.”

Red sniggered. He couldn’t help it, even though he was trying to turn over a new leaf.

“Not to mention the time Herod stole the duck race machine from Tramore carnival.”

“Quack, quack,” said Roddy.

“And Genie was collecting money for her Confirmation until she was eighteen.”

Genie winked. “I’ll be going out next year, too.”

“Shut up, you lot!” roared Papa. “I’m jittery enough with this chap in the house.”

Red tugged his father’s sleeve again. “Papa, if I don’t clear up this assault thing, they could take me away. I know that I’ve been in fights before, but no Sharkey would ever sneak around in the night beating up midgets like Half Moon. Don’t underestimate him, though. He’s titchy, but he’s as sharp as a razor. He nailed Roddy fair and square for stealing Bella’s organizer.”

Herod slapped the table with both hands, his face distorted in a scowl. He looked like a redheaded monkey.

“I did not take that stupid thing!” he objected. “Half Moon set me up. I was framed!”

The Sharkeys laughed, all except Herod.

“Of course you were,” said Papa. “If I had a penny for every time you said that, I’d buy the Dublin Spire and feed the parking meter for a month with the change.”

Papa picked up another sausage, waggling it at Red. “The two of you have twenty-four hours to play Sherlock Holmes. After that, Half Moon goes home. His parents must be losing their minds. I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping, along with everything else.”

I frowned. Twenty-four hours. Not a lot of time to clear up a major case.

“I’ll need my stuff. My laptop and notes.”

“Not a problem,” said Red, looking slightly shifty. “Follow me.”

He led me down the hall past a dozen Sacred Heart lamps, into the end bedroom. Unlike the room where I had slept, the decor was quite tasteful. In fact . . .

“This is my stuff!” I shouted, gathering my duvet in my arms. “You burgled my house!”

“I thought you might need your detective gear,” said Red. “I told Genie and Roddy only to take your computer, and any maps or files. They got a bit carried away.”

I grabbed a reading lamp. “They didn’t hurt anyone?”