The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (14 page)

“I think I have had enough for today,” I write.

“Come on!” Devon writes. “We are getting close to something, I can feel it!”

“Devon, don’t you even realize that someone was trying to
kill us?”

“Oh, they were just trying to scare us off,” Devon writes.

“Well, it worked. I’m scared and I’m off this.”

“This is just peeking around online. And, besides, now we have this noble beast to protect us.”

He has a point, though not about Ace. We probably aren’t going to get shot in my computer room. Plus, I have a hunch that there might be something very interesting on that Chamber-Maids page.

“Come on,” I write. “Upstairs.” A gesture to Ace is all he needs to follow us.

Devon seems impressed by my computer. The Halpins, if you haven’t noticed, aren’t exactly rolling in dough, but a brother like me needs a nice PC. So I modified an old computer we got at a yard sale with a motherboard we bought used on eBay. I cobbled together some freeware and other (ahem) sort of freeware that I downloaded. Then I sort of stole the Internet connection from our neighbor’s wireless and was good to go. It is a sweet setup, if I say so myself.

“You ready?” Devon writes.

“As I’ll ever be,” I write back.

We set about the task of hacking Pat’s locked page. Truth
is, I’ve only ever hacked a few passwords: my dad’s, which was easy (“KenDog,” his dubious nickname for himself), and the one on the computer at my old school, which was, believe it or not, “password.” To hack into Pat’s, I do some quick math and try a few variations of his name and the year he was born. Nothing. Then I try a few words that, although officially banned by Principal Kroener’s latest “language law,” I had seen come off Pat’s lips. Nothing, nothing, and nothing.

Again, the page locks itself, saying “sorry 4 u, suckah.” Was Pat smarter than I gave him credit for? I pound both my fists into my forehead and slump over in a big mound. Ace nudges me sympathetically with his cold snout. Devon takes the exact opposite approach, suddenly leaping up all hyper and spazzy. He looks deep in thought for a moment, then taps a few buttons on the keyboard. The page slowly scrolls to life.

I make the face that universally means “How the crap did you do that?” And then I punch Devon in the arm. He does that weird eyebrow wiggle he always does. I punch him again.

“It was easy,” he writes, elbowing me aside to get at the keyboard. He opens up the word processor and types: “You just have to know your subject.”

“What do you know about Pat Chambers?” I type.

“I know that passwords often require a number along with a name. The name is, of course, his own, as Pat is totally in love with himself. Or was.”

“That much I knew.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t think about what number would come to mind when someone like Pat had to think of a number.”

He is right—I didn’t.

“It’s his football number!!!! Forty-five!”

“You would know that,” I typed.

“I would and I did, and you’re just jealous. To be a good forensic scientist, you have to know everything about everything in life, not just the things that you think are important.”

“Tru, n u suck.”

We had assumed Pat’s ChamberMaids page was devoted to the ladies of his life.

It is.

Pictures and pictures and more pictures scroll up on the screen of various women in various degrees of undress. It seems as though Pat had taken them with either a cell phone camera or a hidden device somewhere in his room. The pictures are grainy and blurry. We can’t see too many faces, but there is a blond ponytail I clearly recognize. Even in her compromising, uh, position, it is obvious who it is. Devon recognizes it too.

“
I-S T-H-A-T M-I-N-D-Y S-P-A-R-K?
” he signs. Of course. We high-five. I’m not sure at all why we do this.

The moment passes as we both recognize the prettiest girl in the world. Pat captured a picture of Leigha, mostly unclothed, on his bed. All her naughtiest bits are covered, but still I’m blushing and feeling a heart attack coming on. Pat is smirking cockily, while the look on her face is … hard to read. I haven’t seen any girls in the throes of passion, but I’m pretty
sure they don’t look like this. Her eyes are vacant, and her mouth is tight and grim, like she’s scared. Was she? Devon pats me on the back in a consoling way. Thanks? Does he notice what I see in her face? Is it really there, or am I just wishing?

Before this sinks in, Devon moves on to the next picture. There is a detail we can see very clearly beyond any doubt: a tattoo of a dolphin leaping out of the left cup of a lacy black bra. The bearer of that tattoo was in Pat Chambers’s bedroom. The bearer of that tattoo was, shock and awe, Miss Prefontaine.

Devon and I stare at each other wildly. Our mouths open and close silently like a pair of dying trout. Neither of us can speak. Finally, I am able to sign three shaky letters. “O-M-G,” I say to Devon.

Devon repeats, with a little embellishment: “O-M-F-G.”

Thing is, we knew, or thought we knew, that’s what we would find. But actually seeing it there is still a shock.

So, should we tell someone? I look at Devon and nod once, the sort of solemn greeting you’d give a fellow mourner at a funeral. Yes, we should.

What to do? Who to call? Shouldn’t there be a pamphlet about this kind of thing like the ones they have in the nurse’s office explaining menstruation and bipolar disorder? I picture those cartoon circle heads explaining teacher-student affairs. They should have a tip line like they have for guns in school or suicide. “Have evidence that your math teacher is showing her dolphin to one of your classmates? Call 1-800-EDU-SXXX.” Hmm … While I’m lost in this thought, Devon
taps me on the shoulder. He has fired up the Crony and is typing a question.

A lie, but a harmless one.

I nod, and he reaches for his phone. I type fast before he can dial.

We chat about how this is going to be a huge scandal. There will be tons of questions, possibly lots of publicity, and if it gets back that Devon and I were the ones who ratted out Prefontaine … Well, let’s just say that Pat wasn’t the only one who enjoyed having The Dolphin around. Neither of us needs any more reasons for people to beat us up.

We decide to make a fake e-mail account with a sincere crime-stopper name ([email protected]) and set to composing a really cheesy message. We want it to seem like it
was sent by an old person, so we use the computer’s thesaurus to make our vocabulary ancient and formal. Old people love e-mail. Also, because I’m a total genius, I find a way to mask my IP address so no one can trace where our letter comes from.

We sit back and admire our handiwork. There is no way anyone could guess that it was written by a high school student. But, still, I feel nervous. Even though we haven’t really done anything felonious, we check and recheck a dozen times to make sure the incriminating JPG is really deleted from my computer. And now we wait for whatever comes next. How long will it be until Good_Citizen’s actions set the trap that snares The Dolphin?

Behold the pernicious reach
of technopower. That very night the local TV news is flashing a slightly fuzzed-out picture of the dolphin tattoo and running a clip of Miss Prefontaine with her head hidden under a jacket on her way into the police station. I watch as they play that clip over and over and over again. It becomes the headline of the Sunday local news and even makes that little crawl at the bottom on the weather channel. From what I can figure (my grasp of the facts is hazy due to some epically bad closed-captioning), here’s what happened:

Not long after we sent the e-mail, the cops went to Miss Prefontaine’s house. They couldn’t have gone in with the idea that they were going to arrest her from just an anonymous e-mail, right? So it must have been simply to question her about the picture and the message. However, apparently they found a “sick shrine” to Pat Chambers in her apartment. Miss
Prefontaine started acting hysterical, and the cops brought her to the police station. Somehow the local press got wind of it, and the cameras were there to film her arrival. Even with the stupid misspellings of the closed-captioning, I could figure out that she wasn’t “fried” but rather undeniably fired.

The rabid newshounds are interviewing anyone they can find. Mr. Arterberry is on camera pretending to be shocked, although I am pretty sure he had to know about it. How could he not? Thinking about it now, how could anyone not have known? The cameras also find Planders somehow. His mouth hangs half open, and he says the word “uh” more than a dozen times in two sentences.

There are also some random students I barely recognize (who are these people?) saying clichéd things.

“She was always really nice.”

“I’m really shocked.”

“It’s just not right. She was a good teacher. I learned so much.”

This all sounds eerily familiar, like
she’s
the new dead one.

The whole thing is so … savage. Was sending the e-mail the right thing to do? Did I have pure motives? Did Devon? Now all anyone wants to talk about is the teacher Pat was getting it on with.

I start to wonder: What were Pat’s thoughts on this? Was nailing her something he felt like he had to do? Was his whole life just doing things he had to do?

And why do I keep finding myself thinking: Are we missing a clue? How did I get myself caught up in this mystery thingy anyway? Why do I even care? I can’t answer that, even to myself. But I am in it. Deep.

Later that night
I feel the teasing vibrations of my Crony and jump up, thinking maybe it is Melody or Leigha, although that is as likely as my winning the Boston Marathon. Now, maybe if it was a Boston Cream Pie Marathon … mmmm.