Novel - Half Moon Investigations (8 page)

Something rustled outside the house, startling me. I turned off the bedroom light, dropping my gaze to the back garden. After a few moments, my night vision kicked in and I could make out the familiar shapes of walls and bushes. One of the bushes seemed to be moving. Unusual. It was unlikely that I was witnessing the birth of a new mutant species of bush, so I concluded that there was someone behind the plant.

I was correct. Seconds later a hooded head popped from the foliage. This was followed by an arm, which beckoned me down. Strange. Why would someone wish to talk to me at this time of night? Someone roughly my own age, judging by the height.

It’s perfectly reasonable, I told myself. You are a detective on a case. Everyone knows about the investigation, thanks to May. This person lurking in the evergreens must have some sensitive information.

I made sure I had my notebook, pulled on my jacket, and resolved to make my e-mail address more widely available in future so this kind of skullduggery wouldn’t be necessary.

My parents were in bed, having had a rough day raising their children. Hazel was in her bedroom acting out all the parts in a new play entitled
Not So Happy Now, Are You?
It was a simple matter for me to sneak downstairs.

I did pause for a moment, listening to the voice of reason inside my head screaming:
Are you insane? Don’t you watch horror movies? Go back upstairs.

But I was a detective. How could I turn away from this development? Even so, I thought it best to play it safe and take a shortcut through the garage. Maybe I could get a look at my snitch before he got a look at me.

I padded across the kitchen and through the adjoining door to the garage. I had been this way so many times that I picked my way through years of junk without causing the slightest clatter.

One slipped bolt later and I was in the garden, crouching behind Dad’s prized gnome. Dad’s gnome looked pretty traditional, but when Hazel accused him of being old-fashioned, he claimed it was a post-modernist ironic gnome that was mocking its own heritage.

I heard footfalls nearby, and peeked over the gnome’s pointed hat. A huge mistake, as it turned out. Something sliced through the darkness at speed, heading directly for my head. A club of some kind, definitely being wielded as a weapon. I heard the prowler grunt from the effort, like a tennis professional serving for the match. No sooner had I raised my hand to protect my face than it was pinned to my forehead, and everything above my neck seemed to be on fire. The force of the blow lifted me six inches from the ground, sending me sailing into a rock garden.

I lay there unable to do anything except wonder why the stars were going out one by one. I still had the darkness, but no more stars.

I WOKE UP ALONE, which I felt was highly unfair. I had always known that someday I would be knocked unconscious; it went with the job. But for some romantic reason I had believed that when I came to, there would be a crowd of concerned family members and admirers hovering around the bed. But there was nobody. Just a sterile hospital room.

The pain was something else I hadn’t bargained for. Every time I moved, it felt as though brain jelly was seeping out through cracks in my cranium. There weren’t, in fact, any fractures in my skull, just bone bruising. A very cheerful doctor explained this to me when he arrived much later on his morning rounds.

“Did you ever see those movies where the bad guys kick the devil out of the good guy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s what happened to you.”

Dr. Brendan would have been a dead man if I could have raised my head without squealing like a schoolgirl. Obviously he thought I was four years old.

“The point is,” continued Dr. Brendan, “that those movie guys aren’t really hitting each other. In actuality.”

“You don’t say.”

“No really, I’m serious,” continued Dr. Brendan. “It’s all pretend. Human beings aren’t built to take that kind of punishment.”

I closed my eyes, hoping he would go away.

“A knock like you got. Well, you’re lucky to be alive. Okay, you don’t look so good, right now, but most of the damage is just deep bone bruising, except for the nose. Your left hand took most of the force.”

I opened my eyes. “What was that about my nose?”

“Snapped like a wishbone. We’re going to be setting it this evening. And your hand was pounded like a raw steak. Nothing broken, but you won’t be playing the violin for a few months.”

“My head is ringing.”

Dr. Brendan checked my ears with a penlight. “An aftereffect of the trauma. But again, it’s temporary.”

In my mind’s darkroom, a picture of Frankenstein’s monster began to develop.

“You’ll be on painkillers after the operation. Maybe you should get a pair of dark glasses, too.”

“Why? Will the light hurt my eyes?”

Brendan giggled guiltily. “No, just to stop you from looking at yourself in the mirror. You’re going to be quite the troll for a while.”

“Troll?”

“I’m afraid so. For at least two months, ugly is going to be your middle name. And quite possibly your first and last name, too.”

I moaned. Several bubbles popped in my nose.

Dr. Brendan took pity on me. “I’m sorry, Fletcher. I thought a joke might get your spirits up.”

“Spirits up!” I groaned, each syllable sending a laser burst of pain through my nose. “Are you crazy?”

Dr. Brendan hooked my chart on the bed’s foot rail.

“No no,” he said gallantly. “Just doing my job.”

Dr. Brendan held up a few fingers, then decided that I wasn’t concussed and went to fetch my family from the hall.

Mom nearly passed out when she saw my bruised face.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I assured her, trying my best to smile. From the look on my mother’s face, I guessed that smiling made things worse.

“Oh my God, Fletcher,” she cried. “When we found you, we thought you were dead. Hazel heard a noise, and your Dad went outside. What happened? Tell me.”

I told the absolute truth. “I saw someone in the garden, so I went outside. I was attacked with a hurl or bat and I woke up here.” I tried to put a brave face on it, but most of my face was buried beneath a mask of bruises.

Mom wanted to cradle my head, but she had to make do with hugging an imaginary head eight inches to the left of the real one.

“This is terrible. In our own garden. Outside our own door. And you, you fool, going outside in the middle of the night! Some detective you are.”

The sympathy was drying up fast.

“Yes,” agreed Hazel. “Don’t you ever watch horror films?”

She held out a small tape recorder. “By the way, could you describe exactly how you felt at the moment of impact? I’m writing a short story . . .”

“Put that away, Hazel,” hissed Mom. “The poor boy is in pain.”

Hazel persisted. “Would that be a white-hot pain? Or more of a dull, throbbing pain?”

Dad cut across my sister’s research.

“Is this anything to do with your investigation?” he asked me.

“Maybe. I don’t know. All I was doing was looking for a missing keepsake.”

“Well, whatever. This investigation is over, as of now. We put up with this detective bit because it was harmless. I won’t ban it completely, because I know it’s your passion. But from now on, all cases go through me. Understood?”

I nodded gently. There was no point in arguing while everyone was so emotional. I could present my case at a later date when I wasn’t sporting a face that would cheer up Quasimodo.

Hazel took something from her pocket when my parents weren’t looking.

“I have something for you,” she said, holding it up so I could see. Lying in her palm was my notebook.

“You dropped this in the garden.”

“Thanks, Sis,” I said.

That evening Dr. Brendan was having difficulty telling the difference between over-tens and under-fives.

“Want a lolly?” he asked.

“No. Thank you. You don’t by any chance have a pacifier?”

The doctor frowned. “No. But I’m sure one of the nurses . . .”

“I was joking. Just trying to keep my spirits up.”

“Good soldier. Now let me explain what’s going to happen when we knock you out.”

Dr. Brendan took a nasal splint from his pocket.

“Now, young man. What do you think this is?”

“It’s a nasal splint.”

“No. It’s actually a . . . ah, yes, you’re right. It is a nasal splint. You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”

“There was a module on emergency first aid in my diploma course.”

Dr. Brendan was phased. “You sure about that lolly?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, your nose has to be set, and one of these put on. The swelling has gone down quickly, so we’re going to do that now. Obviously, you don’t want to be awake when I start hauling your broken nose into line, so were going to inject some sleepy potion . . .”

“You mean anesthetic?”

“Erm . . . Yes, anesthetic, into your arm. And when you wake up, everything will be okeydokey.”

“That’s just wibbly wobbly wonderful, Doctor.” My private-eye patter was really coming on.

Dr. Brendan searched my battered face for signs of sarcasm. I’m sure he found plenty.

“I’m sure it won’t hurt, too much.”

I had no smart answer to that.

They lifted me onto a gurney and wheeled me down to the operating room. An anesthetist stuck a drip in my arm and pumped in a syringe full of white liquid.

“Now, Fletcher, count backward from ten to one.”

I did so. Slowly.

“You still awake?” asked the anesthetist, who looked about seventeen.

“Nope,” I replied.

Dr. Brendan had dropped the kiddie lingo. “Fletcher is a real brainiac, you better give him a little extra just to stop those thoughts spinning around his head. And if he stays asleep longer than usual, I’m sure no one will mind.”

The anesthetist took a larger syringe from his tray. This one looked about the size of a German sausage.

“Are you sure?” I asked, alarmed. I decided right then and there to stop being funny with medical personnel.

“I know what I’m doing,” said the anesthetist. “I
am
in my second year in college, you know. Now, count backward from ten.”

“Ten,” I said.

A person has vivid dreams under anesthetic. My mind replayed the events of the past twenty-four hours in glorious Technicolor and surround sound.

I could hear vague conversations and crunching noises coming from the world outside my head, but I decided to ignore these because I suspected the crunching was being caused by my own nose being hauled into line.

Time passed and a theory emerged. The sequence of events seemed simple enough: I am hired to investigate the Sharkeys. May tells Red Sharkey about this, and so he decides to do something about it. The
something
being attacking me in the middle of the night. But I had no proof that Red was my assailant. Or had I?

If it was Red Sharkey who attacked me, then he had probably used the same weapon as he had to threaten me earlier. His hurl embossed with his own name. His own name!

I woke up in the recovery room and immediately tried to fill the nurse in on my theories, but she merely stroked my forehead with a cool hand until I had no choice but to go asleep again.

I woke up for the second time. Sort of. My head was awake, but my body was pleading for sleep. I ignored it. This
Red
idea needed to be acted on now. Tomorrow would be too late. The proof would be lost in a pool of blood.

I had no idea what time it was. Night. It was dark in the room but I could see a slit of light under the door, and hear the slap of nurses’ rubber-soled shoes in the hall.

I sat up in bed. Too quickly. I felt as though my head was balanced like a ball in a cup, and would plop off if I jiggled too much. I was back in my own hospital room now, and the nurse was gone. Nobody to lean on.

Take it slow, then. I swung my legs onto the cold floor, testing my strength. Weak but steady. The walls seemed to be flexing slightly, like fun house mirrors. That was the anesthetic. In all probability, the room was not spinning.

I stumbled into the bathroom, grabbing on to anything I could to support me. One of these things was the radiator. It could have been hot. I wasn’t sure. My fingers were still buzzing from the anesthetic.

The bathroom was cramped, which suited my lack of balance. I could lean against a wall and still face myself in the mirror. But did I really want to face myself? Did I want to see what had become of my head? Would I recognize the battered remains of once-normal features?

With a swollen head, it might be hard to see how severe my injuries actually were. Dr. Brendan had assured me that I was fine, apart from the nose. But my eyes felt like two marbles in a ball of jelly. A ball that could split its skin at any moment. Maybe I should just go back to bed.

Before this idea could take hold, I grabbed the light cord and yanked. After a moment’s wincing, I focused. It was not a pretty sight. Dr. Brendan had been right, ugly was going to be my first, middle, and last name for quite some time. In fact, the best looking thing on my face was the nasal splint, a small aluminium V clamped onto my nose. The rest of my features looked as though someone had dropped a pound of rare steak onto my face, and it had stuck.

“Focus,” I told myself. I had to act now, or the evidence could be lost.

My left arm was bound from elbow to knuckle in a soft cast. I tugged on the Velcro straps with my teeth, all the time arguing with my sensible side. The pressure eased, and my arm seemed to expand like an inflated rubber glove. I expected some pain but none came. However, beyond the anesthetic, I sensed that my body was screaming at me just how stupid this idea was.

I slipped off the cast with my good hand. My left arm was even uglier than my face, which was saying something. The single blow had managed to connect with every inch of skin facing the weapon. I forced myself to study the bruising. There were several colors, from sickly yellow to angry red. And running from my wrist to my hand, a deep purple trio of distinct marks. My evidence.

I held my arm to the light. And there in the mirror was my proof. Three letters. R.E.D. The round-headed tacks on Red Sharkey’s hurl had etched their signature into my arm.

My detective’s brain accessed my file on bruising. Bruises fade quickly. Sometimes in hours. This purple bruising would quickly soften and spread. I needed to preserve the evidence before it blended with the rest of the tissue damage. There must be a way.

Of course, in a perfect world, I would simply press the call button and tell the nurse that I needed a digital camera immediately. But I knew from experience that adults did not react well to boy detectives. The nurse would more than likely look at me as though I had two heads and one of them was purple. I would be bundled into bed and possibly sedated until the bruising had faded. On top of that, I would be lucky to wake up without a child psychologist in the room.

I would have to do this on my own. I found my sneakers and a hospital gown in the closet. It took a minute to get the sneakers on, because my feet felt like they belonged to someone else. I scolded my toes as though they were misbehaving infants.

“Now, now, boys. Keep still. Good little piggies.”

A part of my brain realized that the anesthetic still had a grip on my good sense, but the rest of me had evidence to process and was determined to be professional.

The hallway was clear. I could hear conversation on the wards, but there was nothing but floor tiles between me and the nurses’ station. I strolled across confidently, as if I had a medical reason for being there. The station was bordered by a semicircular counter, and behind that a few worn chairs. There was an extension cord on the floor. Plugged into it were a kettle and a photocopier.

I switched on the copier and waited, shuffling impatiently while it heated up. At last the red light flashed green. I pulled back the lid and plonked my arm on the glass. That really should have hurt, and probably would later, but at that moment I felt no pain.