Novel - Half Moon Investigations (11 page)

“No. Your parents were out looking for you last night. It was perfect.”

I felt as though my heart had turned to ash and a good breeze would scatter it irretrievably. I had caused my parents pain.

“I need to go home,” I whispered.

Red took the lamp gently. “In twenty-four hours, Half Moon. As soon as you’ve solved this case.”

“How can I solve anything?” I asked, feeling desperate and alone.

Red shrugged, heading back to the kitchen. “You’re the detective, Moon. Detect something.”

I followed him, spreading my arms. “I can’t set foot outside the front door without being arrested.”

Red wiggled his eyebrows, as though he was the man with all the answers. “I have a plan.”

“What plan?” Suddenly I was nervous.

“Actually, it was Genie’s idea. We were working on it all night. It’s simple. You become one of us. A Sharkey. No one will look at you twice.”

I didn’t like the sound of this plan much. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Genie was suddenly fluttering around me like a shop assistant.

“Of course it will,” she said. “Your tan is coming on nicely.”

“What tan?”

Genie took my hand and led me to a full-length mirror. It barely registered that the mirror was from my own bedroom.

“You look like one of us already.”

Terror took hold of my gut. I couldn’t look.

“Go on,” said Genie. “It’s not that bad.”

That might have been encouraging had everyone not collapsed in fits of giggles.

“Oh, no, please no,” I said, because I had looked.

Someone had cut my dark hair while I had slumbered in a deep painkiller-induced sleep, and what was left of it was dyed red.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Dangling from my left ear was a large silver pirate hoop. Genie flicked the earring with a spangled nail. It pinged.

“Sign of quality,” she said. “I think it suits you.”

My complexion was several shades darker than normal. I tried to rub off the color, but it refused to shift.

“Hollywood Glow fake tan,” explained Genie. “It’s a bit patchy because I didn’t have time for moisturizer. That stuff won’t wash off for at least a week. Your elbows and knees may be brown for a few weeks. It says on the box not to use it on the facial area, but if you’re not burning by now, then you’re probably okay. Okay?”

My nose was still swollen, and between the dyed head, the swelling and the new color, I was a different person.

Genie rolled up my shirtsleeve, revealing a tattoo on my forearm.

“Don’t have a freak attack, Half Moon,” she said when I began hyperventilating. “It’s only henna. It’ll wear off in a few weeks.”

I lifted my arm, and read the tattoo. “‘Don’t X me?’”

“Don’t cross me,” corrected Genie, slightly miffed. “It’s a cross.”

I was grateful that my other arm was in a cast, or heaven knows what the Sharkeys would have done to it.

Red elbowed his way into my reflection, draping an arm around my shoulder. “Do you remember at the sports field?
You
said that being me would be easy?”

I nodded. I remembered.

“Well, now’s your chance to prove it.” Red held me at arm’s length, grinning. “Welcome to the family, Half Moon.”

I hadn’t just bent the rules of investigation, I had stomped on the manual, shredded the pages, and burned the strips. Instead of being the discreet detective on the shadowy outskirts of the case, I had become the case. My involvement was changing things. Now my own future depended on the outcome. This case was no longer just a job; it was my life.

I tried to concentrate on the facts, but images of my parents crept into my thoughts.

Twenty-four hours, I told myself. Twenty-four hours.

If I didn’t use the day to solve this crime, then I would always be seen as the crazy Moon kid who went around starting fires and playing detective. I decided to do what I always do when life won’t leave me alone. I lost myself in my iBook.

The Sharkeys had broadband. Not because they paid for it, but because they were piggybacking on a neighbor’s wireless modem signal. I opened my Internet browser and logged on to the police site. In a few keystrokes I was downloading all the September cases that were not related to the Sharkeys. I hadn’t done this at home because it would have taken hours with a regular modem and tied up the phone line. With broadband it took less than five minutes.

I searched through the files, looking for something unusual. Something an adult might view as trivial. I speed-read for half an hour until the phrase “chocolate report” caught my eye. That was nothing if not unusual. I opened the file and read the following statement:

Complainant: Maura Murnane. 18 yrs. Female.

I had been off the chocolate for ages. Six months and three days, that’s half a year. The trick is to avoid the stuff. There was none in the house. I never went shopping alone, and Mom made me leave the room during commercials. I was in the local paper as Slimmer of the Year.

Chocolate. I was off it. Staying away from it. Then one day, it just started showing up. I woke up and there was a Mars bar on my pillow. I thought I was dreaming. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again there it was. Looking at me like a chocolate kiss. Like the sweetest good morning you ever had. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. I thought it must be a joke. My little brother, maybe. Not a chocolate bar at all. Otto is like that. Once he
tied my dog to a bus fender. Mom threw the Mars bar away, but the next morning there was another one. And the next, and the next. It was like the chocolate fairies were stalking me. But I resisted. I was very good. So Mommy moved into my room, to try and catch whoever was planting the Mars bars. But there were no more Mars bars. And I thought that was the end of that, until one day at lunch, I made a sandwich. Brown bread, lean ham, and low-fat mayonnaise. I left it on the table for a minute, a second, but when I bit into it—ten seconds later, I swear—the ham had been replaced with After Eights. They were lovely, even with the mayonnaise. I’ve been hooked on those sandwiches ever since. Mayonnaise and After Eights.

There was a note underneath tagged on by the investigating policeman.

This is not a priority one case. The girl’s mother made her complain. Possibly Maura is sneaking herself chocolate, and invented this mysterious After Eight man to stay out of trouble.

I, on the other hand, was not so sure. Another one of Lock’s youth had been hit in the weak spot. The list was growing: April, May, Red, MC Coy, Maura Murnane, and of course, me. There was a conspiracy here. I was certain of it.

* * *

The Sharkey children obviously watched too much television. They gathered around my computer, expecting me to unravel this riddle with a few strokes on the keyboard and a knowing look.

“I have to go out,” I said.

Red headed for the bedroom. “I’ll get you some of my old clothes.”

Genie was disappointed. “Don’t you want to build a profile?” she asked.

“With what?”

“With all the evidence that you downloaded from satellite surveillance, obviously. Don’t you watch
CSI
?”

I ground my teeth. “I need to visit the crime scenes first, before they get even more contaminated.”

Herod punched Genie on the shoulder. “Moron. He has to visit the crime scenes.”

Genie swatted her little brother with a hairbrush. “I know that, Roddy. Don’t touch the jacket. I haven’t cut the security tag off yet.”

Red returned with an AC/DC T-shirt and a purple tracksuit. The tracksuit was so shiny that it seemed to crackle with static electricity.

“Put that on,” he said, throwing me the bundle. “It’s time to test your disguise.”

We left Chez Sharkey on foot, because two boys on a bicycle would fit the description doubtlessly being circulated by the police. I pulled the tracksuit sleeve well down over my cast.

There was a policeman leaning against the front gate pillar, on stakeout just in case the dangerous fugitive Fletcher Moon decided to wreak revenge on his attacker.

The officer on duty was a Cork man. John Cassidy from Cobh. He had once consulted me on a spate of burglaries across the bridge. I’d pointed him in the right direction and charged him a box of Maltesers. Cassidy had only spoken to me once, but he was a policeman and trained to recognize faces. Even ones covered with fake tan.

“Remember,” Red whispered out of the side of his mouth. “You’re a Sharkey now. People will treat you differently.”

My plan was to sidle past Officer Cassidy with a hand shadowing my face. This was not Red’s plan. He wanted to put my disguise to the test. He grabbed my elbow, steering me right into Cassidy’s line of sight.

“Hello, Officer,” he said, grinning broadly. “Have you met my cousin . . . eh . . . Watson?”

Watson? Oh, very funny.

Cassidy grunted. “Watson, is it. You Sharkeys certainly do pick names. Genie, Herod, and Watson. I have to ask, Red. Why Herod?”

“Mom wanted something Biblical. It was her last wish. Herod was all she could think of at the time.”

Red’s eyes were looking somewhere else. Into the past, where his mother was alive and made the house a home. For a long moment he was distant, then his trademark jaunty grin flashed back.

Cassidy turned his attention to me, and I felt as though there was a flashing arrow over my head with my real name written on it. He gave me a slow once-over.

“Just don’t go robbing anything while you’re in town, Watson. I don’t know how things work wherever you’re from, but here in Lock we take a very dim view of vagrant criminals.”

I was dumbstruck. This policeman had accused me of being a thief without knowing a thing about me, except that I was a Sharkey.

Red elbowed me in the ribs. Cassidy was waiting for a response.

“Okay, Officer,” I said sullenly. “I’ll stay out of trouble. No problem.”

Cassidy gave me his version of a scary stare.

“Just see that you do, or you’ll have me to deal with.”

We were eye to eye, and there wasn’t a flicker of recognition. People see what they expect to see.

“I’ll have to deal with you.”

“So long as you understand that, we’ll have no problem.”

“Not a problem in the world, Officer.”

And just like that, Fletcher Moon was invisible, hidden beneath an earring and a tracksuit. Watson Sharkey, however, was all too visible, and branded as a thief before he even opened his mouth to speak. Was this what being a Sharkey was like? If it was, I couldn’t wait to become a Moon again.

There was a line of cars outside the Moon house. Mom’s Mini, Dad’s Volvo, and a police blue-and-white. Through the net curtain I could see my mother sitting on the couch, her face whiter than her favorite emulsion, Arctic Snow. Dad was there, too. I caught sight of him as he paced past the window. A human pendulum. But the image that will always stay with me was the moment Hazel entered the room. She asked for something. A drink, or permission to use the house phone, and my Dad exploded. He turned on her, shouting, until she retreated up the stairs. Dad never shouted. Hazel never retreated. What was I doing to my family? Could it ever be undone?

Red punched me on the shoulder—his version of encouragement.

“Keep it together, Half Moon. They can either be sad for twenty-four hours or forever. You’ve got a job to do, so get on with it.”

Twenty-four hours or forever.
Twenty-four hours would seem like forever, at the very least. Better get on with it. Time to be a professional.

I nodded tersely. “Okay. Around the back.”

There was an eight-foot concrete wall running along the side of our house. Hazel and I were absolutely and utterly forbidden to climb it, and had been doing so since we were five. Red and I scaled the wall using well-worn hand and footholds. It took me longer than usual with my injured arm. A single crow stood sentry halfway down. The bird played chicken with us until we came too close, then rose in a squawking black flurry of feathers. To me the crow sounded louder than a full orchestra, but nobody came out to check on the commotion.

I dropped down beside the very bushes where my attacker had hidden. Red landed beside me, very quietly. Like someone used to prowling. It struck me that until yesterday, he had been my prime suspect.

“Been here before?” I asked him, forcing a smile.

“No,” said Red. “If I had, I certainly wouldn’t be here now.”

I thought about that for a second and couldn’t find a single reason why Red would return to the scene with his victim. Unless, of course, he was insane.

“Had any checkups recently? You know, with a psychologist?”

Red raked his fingers through the grass. “If you’re not going to search for clues, I am.”

I caught his wrists. “Stop it, Red. You’re destroying evidence.”

Red leaned back on his haunches. “Okay, detective. Detect.”

I studied the area behind the bush, where my attacker must have waited. I didn’t touch anything, just looked—sweeping my eyes across the ground like twin scanners. It had rained since the assault, so most physical evidence would have been washed away. But maybe there was something.

I found my something tucked in tight at the bush’s base. A single huge footprint.

I pointed it out to Red. “Look, a print.”

Red blinked. “That’s huge. Who is this person? A clown?”

I felt suddenly scared. “This is the biggest print I have ever seen. It must be a foot and a half from toe to heel. This person is a monster.”

We squatted there for a moment, staring at the print, imagining the man that left it. I don’t know about Red’s imagination, but mine was running riot, dressing the man in a black cape and covering his face with scars. He probably had an eye patch, too, and a hump.

“Where are the other prints?” asked Red. “Did this guy just pogo down from space on one foot?”

“The rain,” I explained. “It washed away the trail. This print was protected by the bush.”

Red pulled out his cell phone and used the built-in camera to photograph the print.

“Just preserving the evidence,” he said.