Novel - Half Moon Investigations (21 page)

“Of course it’s not true,” he said, smiling in fatherly reassurance. “I care about your dancing, of course, princess. But that’s all. I would never
do
anything. Never
hurt
anybody.”

May was convinced. Of course she was. He was her daddy.

“There,” she said to me. “I hate you, Fletcher.”

My heart quailed but I forged ahead.

“May had the motive and the opportunity, but there were a few pieces of the puzzle that just didn’t fit until you showed up on my radar, Mr. Devereux.”

“Oh, you have
radar
now,” joked Gregor, but nobody laughed.

“First there were the strange footprints left in my garden, by the one who attacked me. Giantlike prints. Then I realized that the marks were not made by feet alone, but by knee pads and toes. The kind of marks that would be made by an adult kneeling down. An adult pretending to be a child, wearing gardening pads. I see there are faint strap marks on the knees of your pants,
Gregor.
Are you wearing the same pants tonight?”

“Ridiculous,” scoffed Mr. Devereux.

“Maybe,” I said. “But my father uses a homemade fertilizer. An absolutely unique concoction. I am sure the police lab can match any soil from your soles to the fertilizer in our garden.”

Gregor Devereux was blinking fast and sweating. His bangs flopped into his eyes and he pushed them back, flattening the hair to his head.

“Nothing,” he said, appealing to the audience for support. “None of this means a thing. The delusions of a strange boy. We’ve all known it for years, haven’t we? We’ve all known that little Half Moon is not quite right. A midget detective? Please.”

He was right. People did think I was strange. They still do. But that didn’t change the truth.

“But let’s get back to Mercedes’s music. The missing mini-disk. We found your footprint under her window, and there was also evidence of a frenzied search. As though the thief had lost something. But what could he have lost?”

Hundreds of chairs squeaked as the audience leaned in.

“I forgot the most basic rule of investigation: the most obvious explanation is usually the right one. The only thing you could have lost was the thing you came to find, the mini-disk that you had overheard Mercedes talk about so many times.”

“Fantasy,” bellowed Mr. Devereux. “Pure fantasy!”

But his blink rate jumped, as though it were wired to the power grid. I was right!

“You lost the mini-disk during the break-in. I saw the flower bed outside May’s window. It was torn apart. You had no option but to return home and hope the mini-disk didn’t turn up before the talent show.”

My big speech had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. My entire theory was bordering on the incredible. It was a stretch. I knew it and so did everyone else. I needed a trump card, and Mr. Devereux provided it. He strode purposefully down the center aisle, vaulting onto the stage. He speared me with a withering look and grabbed the microphone. The Sharkeys were elbowed from his path. Herod stumbled at Gregor’s feet, remaining there for a moment before joining his sister in the wings.

“How much more of this insanity are we supposed to stomach?” he asked. “You all know me. Frank, Seamus. We play squash together. Is any of this the least bit credible? I don’t even know why I’m bothering to defend myself. Come on, honey, let’s go home.”

I motioned to Red, and he tossed me his microphone.

“One more thing, Mr. Devereux. The mini-disk.”

Gregor blew his fuse. “What about it?” he bellowed. “Conjured it up out of thin air, have you? Give it a rest! Haven’t you caused enough pain? Think of your parents.”

“Those pants you’re wearing, with the curious strap marks in the corduroy. Black, with plenty of pockets. Big cuffs, too. I’m guessing they are your sneaky pants. . . .”

“Work pants!” spat Gregor. He rolled his eyes. “Why am I explaining myself to you?”

I took a step closer. “If a small disk were to fall out of a person’s pocket, it could easily slip into one of those cuffs. You’re right-handed, so in the right cuff. If that disk were to survive the washing machine, it could still be there.”

Devereux’s laugh was short and sharp, like the warning bark of a territorial dog. “Get away from me, Moon. I’m not subjecting myself to a search from you.”

I met his wild gaze with a steady one of my own. “Just one second to bend down. One second and everyone knows I’m a lunatic.”

“Shove your second, Fletcher. And shove your accusations. I am sick of being the polite, responsible adult. I’ll say what we’re all thinking. Your parents have to take a firmer line with you.”

May moved toward her father. He smiled triumphantly and reached out a hand. She did not take it.

“I’ll show him, Daddy,” she said. She knelt by his right pant cuff and quickly found the disk tucked in there.

“Oh, Daddy,” she sighed, with a sorrow that squeezed my heart.

Gregor was flabbergasted. “That’s impossible. That can’t be. What?”

I hammered home my advantage. “There it is. The stolen disk. Explain that,
Gregor
, if you can.”

May’s father took the disk in a trembling hand. His face was wrinkled with incomprehension. “May, you have to believe me. I . . . this . . .” The words wouldn’t come. His mouth churned uselessly for several moments until he finally blurted: “Don’t you understand? I wasn’t even wearing these pants that night!”

The room was silent for an instant as everyone digested the importance of this statement, then Red raised both arms to the crowd.

“Confession!” he roared, and the crowd went crazy. This was real entertainment.

“You attacked me!” I accused, through the commotion.

Gregor looked around desperately, as if he was expecting a rescue from somewhere.

“I attacked a garden gnome!” he shouted. “You came out of nowhere. I would never hurt anyone. All I wanted to do was destroy the gnome and leave Red’s hurl so that he would be blamed. That’s all. May, you have to believe me.”

In the eye of the hullabaloo, tears dripped from Gregor’s eyes as his daughter turned from him. The tears turned to ice and he took three quick steps across the stage and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he growled. “May is fragile. She is still recovering from her mother leaving.”

I wriggled, but Gregor had me in his strong gardener’s hands. Red was the first to react. He hurtled across the stage, tackling Devereux below the waist. But he was only thirteen, and Devereux was a six-foot-plus plank of fitness. Red bounced off him like a bird off a window. All the impact did was remind Devereux where he was.

“Stay back,” he warned, hoisting me off the ground. “Let me think. Give me room.”

I don’t think now that Gregor Devereux was in his right mind on that evening. I don’t think he was aware that he was dangling my legs over the orchestra pit.

Cassidy took a few steps onstage, palms raised. “Come on, Devereux. God knows none of us are fond of Half Moon, pain in the behind that he is, but you have to put the boy down before you drop him.”

“In a second, Cassidy,” said Devereux calmly. “I just need to find the right words, to explain things to May.” He pulled a face. “Her mother will have a field day with this.”

My future at this point was uncertain, and I had only myself to blame. I’d pushed a man over the edge in uncertain circumstances.

I heard something. The sharp smack of metal striking wood. The noise came again and again. Increasing in intensity until a rhythm was established.

The pressure on my shoulders eased slightly. “May,” whispered Devereux.

I realized what the noise was. Dancing shoes. May was dancing. With tears streaming down her cheeks, May Devereux was performing her competition routine to distract her own father.

Devereux was instantly transfixed. The real world was forgotten. The current crisis took a backseat to the talent competition.

“Come on, honey,” he said. “Head up, back straight.”

May danced like she had never done before, somehow finding coordination in her flashing feet. The noise of her tap shoes silenced the crowd as they realized that something special was happening.

Gregor’s head bobbed along with the routine. “Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and heel, toe. Fingers crossed now, honey.”

Gregor held his breath. The click-kick was coming. May had never managed this in her life. Tonight she did. Her legs flashed straight as rulers four feet up, heels smacking together on the descent. She finished with a deep bow.

Gregor Devereux ran across the stage, dragging me with him. He glared at the judges seated in the first row. “Well?” he demanded.

Sister Julie B. Winters, the chief judge, looked to her co-judges for support. When none came, she spoke haltingly. “Good . . . I mean
excellent
presentation. Nice technique and form. Impressive click-kick. I would say, definitely, first place. First, no doubt about it.”

Gregor’s face cracked with relief. A mountain of stress lifted from his shoulders. “You won, honey. We won. It was all worth it. All the practice. All the . . . everything.” He turned back to the judges. “Where’s the trophy? Isn’t there a trophy?”

Sister Julie picked up the marble trophy at her feet and passed it into the waiting hands of Gregor Devereux.

Gregor Devereux’s hands were empty and waiting to receive it, because he had cast me aside.

Cassidy should have had him, or any one of a hundred adults in the wings, but they didn’t, because my mother never gave them the chance. The text of my presence had reached her cell phone from one of the mothers’ circles. She had immediately jumped into the car and driven to the hall. At the exact moment Gregor dropped me, she was barging through the crowds in the wings. When Mom realized what was going on, she pulled a curtain rail sampler from her shoulder bag and charged Gregor Devereux, who had an eight-inch and eighty-pound advantage over her.

Devereux was in the act of hoisting May’s trophy when a foot length of cherrywood struck him on the temple, swung with the strength of motherhood. Gregor pirouetted once, then dropped like a sack of stones.

May flung herself on his chest, sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the one girl who had ever liked me. “It was the only way.”

May raised her head long enough to say the words that have haunted my dreams since that night. “What my daddy did was bad,” she said, her bleary eyes like dark stones underwater. “But what you did tonight was worse.”

Maybe I could have persuaded her otherwise, but my mother smothered me in her arms and the moment was lost.

Now it is too late. Now she hates me for life.

Join the club.

MY NAME IS MOON. Fletcher Moon. And I’m not sure if I want to be a detective anymore.

It had been almost a month since the talent competition fiasco. It was big news for a while, thanks to over a hundred amateur video and phone recordings. I even made the national news. So much for undercover work. Not that it mattered. I was finished with investigative work. May was hurt. Wounded. I never wanted to do that to someone again. Her mother had left her and now, in a way, her father was gone, too. Gregor Devereux was no longer the shining knight that every dad should be. All because of me.

My parents read me the riot act, and watched me so closely that I couldn’t take on any cases even if I wanted to. Mom checked my room a dozen times a night to make sure that I was still here. Dad wrote a daily timetable for me, filled with menial tasks, the theory being that I would be too exhausted to even think about detection. And, of course, they confiscated my badge.

I spent my time faking the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder to avoid facing everyone. I walked around staring into space, hoping that nobody would try to strike up a conversation. This tactic proved successful. My sister, Hazel, was very happy with the new me, and was making a documentary on my progress.

At school, most people left me alone. Even the remains of
Les Jeunes Etudiantes
were afraid to stir up the hornets’ nest.

Sergeant Murt Hourihan was the closest thing I had to an ally. He stood up to Chief Quinn, insisting that the investigation against me be scrapped. Of course Gregor Devereux is suing me for slander, but his case has about as much hope before a jury as a house of straw has before the big bad wolf. Especially since Devereux made a full confession at the police station. His lawyer advised him not to press charges against my mother for assault, as he had just been threatening her son.

Murt came over to the house when things had settled down. “How are you holding up, Sherlock?” he asked when he had finally managed to get me alone at the kitchen table.

“Sherlock Holmes is a creation,” I said sullenly. “At the end of the book, he moves on to the next adventure. I can’t move on. I live here.”

Murt leaned back in the chair, popping a jacket button.

“That was a nice trick, planting the mini-disk in Gregor Devereux’s cuff. Lucky he didn’t spot the plant.”

“It was an Elvis track, from the hall sound system. Herod did it when Devereux pushed him over. We had it set up.”

“Totally illegal, of course. It’s entrapment.”

“I don’t care about procedure anymore. I’m finished with law and order.”

Murt sighed. “There was once this poet fellow by the name of Keats,” he stated.

Murt was full of surprises. “What about Keats?”

“Well now, young Keats was well known for immortal lines, and my own particular favorite is ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ Do you see what I mean?”

“I’m not sure. What do you think you mean?”

Murt spun his cap onto the kitchen table like a Frisbee. “Ah, nice to see a spark of the smart alec we all know and love. What I
think
I mean, is that truth is priceless. Or to give it the Sergeant Murt Hourihan treatment: Tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or go directly to jail. When you exposed Gregor Devereux, you gave everyone in that hall the gift of truth.”

“May didn’t see it as a gift. She hates me.”

Murt snagged an apple from the fruit bowl. “Look,” he said. “Life is like an apple.”

I raised my head out of my hands to look at the apple. This should be good.

Murt stared at the apple for several moments, then ate it in half a dozen bites. “Okay, I can’t finish that simile. But give me some credit for the Keats. Come on, I looked that up on the Internet.”

“You better change your police site password,” I said guiltily.

Murt gave me the eye. “Why do you say that?”

I avoided his gaze. “I guessed it. Blue Flew. Too obvious.”

“Hmm. I think you’re right. Anyway, better you guessing it than someone dangerous. There are people who would have a field day with that information.”

I nodded listlessly.

“Come on, Fletcher. Gimme a smile. May despises you now. She blames you for what’s happened. But do you really think that this is your fault? You did the right thing, however unorthodox your methods.”

* * *

Truth is beauty.

It was a few weeks later, and I was sitting on my own in the lunch hall.

Life was rolling along with no regard for my personal gloom. Kids were chatting, flirting, fighting, and occasionally eating.

Didn’t these people realize how depressed I was? I had turned my back on two things that were very important to me. My chosen profession and an unlikely friend. Red.

It had been awkward between us since the talent competition. We had been partners, I suppose, maybe friends. But now I was back in my own world, and he was still in his. I didn’t even look much like a Sharkey anymore. The earring was gone, the fake tan had worn off, and there were only patches of red left in my hair. So maybe Half Moon wasn’t tough enough to be a friend to Red Sharkey. It was a pity. I could have used a friend.

Then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Red appeared. He slid along the opposite bench, looking as he always did: hurried, harried, and cool. His fiery hair stood in shocked stalagmites, and his freckles had multiplied in the unseasonable autumn heat.

“Half Moon,” he half whispered. “I’m in trouble this time. Real trouble. I’m sunk, done for, up the creek. You have to help me.”

Red Sharkey was actually asking for help. This must be serious.

“What happened? I’m not supposed to be talking to you, by the way.”

Red ducked low, his chin an inch from the tabletop, as though someone was watching. “Forget that. This is important. Life or death stuff. We can worry about your parents later.
You
are the only one who can help me.”

I could feel eyes on me. I looked around and spotted Hazel standing by the juice vendor, pointing her video camera at me, hand on hips. Her body language was saying
You are so busted
. But then her gaze met mine and her features softened. She put away the camera and placed a hand over each eye.
See no evil.
For some reason Hazel had decided to give me a break. Maybe she could sense that I needed one.

“Hello, by the way,” I said. “How’s the family?”

“Good. Papa is delighted with me. A Sharkey who was genuinely innocent. Oh, and Roddy wants to be a detective now. How long that will last I don’t know.” He glanced up nervously, as though he half expected someone to be watching. “Now, my problem. Will you help?”

I felt a brushstroke of dread coat my stomach. “I don’t know, Red. After our last case . . .”

Red slapped the table. People jumped. “Snap out of it, Half Moon. I need help. I need the truth, and the truth is your speciality. What are you going to do? Mope for the rest of your life?”

Red was right. He needed my help, and I should give it. Without selfish hesitation.

“Okay. Tell me quickly, before I chicken out.”

“Excellent,” said Red, grinning his pirate grin. “This is a real stumper. Someone will write books about this one someday. Last year I did some work on a country estate. A summer job for this American guy who’d inherited a title.”

“Summer job. American nobleman. Okay.”

It was enticing. So far, classic mystery setup. For a moment my depression lifted.

“So the American’s family has this curse on it . . .”

A curse. No such thing, as far as detectives are concerned. But they can have a devastating effect on superstitious people.

“According to this curse, every lord of the manor gets done in by a . . . eh . . . fox.”

I began to sniff a rodent. “A fox?”

“Yeah. Big fox. Enormous. Roams the moor sniffing for the American guy. Just dying to take a chunk out of his backside. . . .”

“Wait a second,” I said, unable to swallow a smile. “You’re making this up, or rather, stealing it from Arthur Conan Doyle. I believe the story you are butchering is
The Hound of the Baskervilles
.”

Red was smiling back at me. “Okay. I’m not in trouble. But tell me your heart didn’t start beating for the first time in a month.”

I couldn’t deny it. So I didn’t.

“You’re a detective, Fletcher. That’s what you’re good at.”

“My dad took my badge.”

Red wagged a finger at me. “Just because you don’t have a badge, doesn’t mean you don’t
have
a badge,” he said trying to sound wise. And strangely, I understood exactly what he meant.

Red cleared his throat nervously. “Anna Sewell, the girl who wrote
Black Beauty
, said that “with cruelty and oppression it is everybody’s business to interfere when they see it,” which means that you were dead right to stand up to Gregor Devereux. He was certainly cruelly oppressin’ us.”

“Have you been talking to Murt?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” admitted Red. “I’ve been helping him out with a few cases, since you’ve been out of action. He says that I am not as reliable as you. Well, what he actually said was that you may be thick, but I make you look like a certified genius.”

“Typical Murt.”

“I thought you might like to know that Ernie Boyle is back in school, so some good has come of all our meddling.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s disgusted. Oh, and April Devereux’s parents are moving her to a private boarding school in Dublin after her stay on the farm. Apparently some of her friends here were having a bad influence on her.”

“That’s rich.”

“Tell me about it.”

We sat quietly for a moment. Red was waiting for me to make a decision. I was trying to make it.

“So, are you volunteering to help with all this crime solving?”

Red was insulted. “Help? We’re partners, Fletcher. Or we would be if you hadn’t been ignoring me for the past month.”

“I didn’t know . . . It’s not as if . . .”

Red winked. “Unfinished sentences. A sure sign of guilt.”

“Sorry, Red. I haven’t been myself. I’ve been trying to be someone else, but it hasn’t worked out.”

“We should have a name for our agency.”

“
Our
agency?”

“Yes, our. You can be the boss, the brainy one. And I’ll be the good-looking one who takes all the risks.”

I felt my life’s breath returning after a month’s absence. We would have to be low profile. Work on the QT until Mom and Dad were ready for the idea. But we would be a good team. We had already broken one case wide open.

“What about Crimebusters?” Red was saying. “Or Junior B Men?”

“What?”

“Names. For our agency, remember?” Red squinted at me craftily. “You’ve already been thinking about this, haven’t you? You already have a name. Let me guess: Moon Investigations.”

I grinned at my new partner.

“You’re half right,” I said.