Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless (8 page)

Chapter 11

FIVE CRIMES I HAVE ACTUALLY COMMITTED IN MY LIFE

1. Speeding (who doesn’t?)

2. Sneaking into a second movie after the one I went to let out (Eva’s idea)

3. Jaywalking (again—who doesn’t?)

4. Copying a friend’s CD (Eva’s)

5. Trespassing (in Eva’s neighbor’s yard to jump on their trampoline)*

*Note: Looking back, I think Eva may have been a bad influence on me.

I don’t know what the others are doing, but I’m trying to process everything that
just happened. I understood the words that came out of Mr. Solomon’s mouth, of course,
but they didn’t seem like they belonged in that particular order. Is he putting us
under some kind of work arrest? Is that even possible?

The alarm on my watch sounds, but I manage to squeeze the silence button after only
two chirps. It’s time for another blood-sugar check, but I’m not going to interrupt
everything to do it now. I feel fine.

“Well, this sucks,” Sammi finally says.

“Are we, like, under house arrest or something?” Gabe wonders.

“He can’t do that, can he?” Tyson looks at me, then the others. “Make us stay here,
I mean?”

“He definitely can’t.” Sammi stands up. “And he can’t do this bullshit grounding-us-at-work
thing, either.”

“Technically, we’re still on the clock,” Micah says. “So, I think he can ask us to
do whatever he wants.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Sammi, wait.” I stand slowly. “If we just figure out who did this, we’ll be out of
here.”

“What are you, Nancy Drew?” she says.

“It’s better than sitting around waiting for the cops,” I say.

“Fine.” She drops into a chair. “Whoever did it just say so, okay? I don’t want to
be here any longer than I have to.”

“Did anyone here do it?” I ask.

“How do we know you didn’t do it and you’re just asking the questions to mislead us?”
Sammi quirks an eyebrow in challenge.

“Because I didn’t do it,” I answer.

“Well, neither did I,” she replies.

“Me neither,” Gabe says.

“It wasn’t me,” Zaina adds.

“I didn’t take it,” Tyson says.

“God as my witness, I did not take the money.” Micah lays a hand on his chest.

Sammi makes a derisive sound. “Whoever did this needs to frigging confess already.
I want to get out of this craphole.”

“We’ve already established that no one here did it,” Tyson reminds us.

“No, what we’ve established is that no one here is willing to confess,” Sammi counters.

A few people groan, defeated.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I say. “We need to figure out a way to prove we
didn’t do it.”

“Oh, all right, you can strip-search me!” Gabe holds his arms wide.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” Micah says in all seriousness.

“Nobody’s taking their clothes off!” Sammi says, giving Gabe a stern look. I can’t
help but notice it’s the first time she’s spoken directly to him. He looks a little
surprised himself, and for once, he doesn’t have a snappy comeback.

“There’s no way to prove we didn’t do it,” Zaina says. “You have to trust someone
if you’re going to believe them. What reason do I have to trust any of you?”

“I’ll swear on a Bible,” Micah says. “A stack of them!”

“No one thinks you did it, Micah.” I reach out to squeeze his wrist.

“Why not? I could have.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Sammi says.

“Yes, I could.”

“Micah, you’re the kind of guy who would drive across town to give a penny back to
the store if they gave you too much change,” I say. He’s like the Abraham Lincoln
of GoodFoods.

He looks at me, confused, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he can’t imagine there’s
an alternative to that drive across town. “It would be the right thing to do.”

I nod. “Exactly. There’s no way you embezzled a bunch of charity money.”

“I’m just saying I could have.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Tyson, Gabe, and Sammi say simultaneously.

Micah startles back at the loudness of their combined voices, then looks at his hands
in his lap. “I did something bad once. Here at the store.” He looks up without lifting
his head, giving him a slightly crazed expression.

“No way.” Gabe laughs.

“I did.” Micah raises his head now, his face earnest.

“What?”

“I’m not sure I should say.”

“Out with it.” Sammi nudges his chair with her foot.

“You know how Mr. Lincoln let me try out as a cashier a couple weeks ago?” Micah is
the only other person besides Mr. Solomon who calls Kris “Mr. Lincoln.”

“Yeah.”

“My register came out wrong.”

“And?” Gabe and I exchange looks and he tilts his chair back on two legs, gripping
the table for balance. Registers come out slightly off sometimes. It’s not a big deal.
Usually it’s just a few coins.

“I must have given somebody too much change.” Micah clamps his hands on his head.
“It was
ten dollars
off!”

“What did Kris say?”

Micah shakes his head. “Nothing. I didn’t tell him.”

Gabe thunks his chair onto all four legs again. “You lied?”

I totally get his accusing tone. I can’t believe it myself.

“Not exactly.” Two spots of color appear on Micah’s cheeks. “I put in some of my own
money.”

Everyone groans. “Come on, man!” Gabe protests.

“What?” Micah asks. “I didn’t want to cause trouble.”

“It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” I clarify.

“Yes, of course.”

“Then why do you think it would have been trouble?”

“It was ten dollars!” he reminds us.

“Micah, seriously,” Gabe says. “It was just ten bucks.”

Micah shakes his head. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, there is no way you stole a bunch of charity money,” Sammi says, standing up.
“Micah is now the official standard of truth in this room. If you can swear on Micah’s
head you didn’t do it, I believe you.”

Taking a deep breath, she lowers her hand onto Micah’s blond head, palming it like
a basketball. “I solemnly swear on the head of Micah Yoder that I did not steal the
charity money.”

“We already established that the thief would lie,” Tyson reminds her.

Growling with frustration, she shoves Micah’s head as she lets go of it, then walks
to the other side of the room and boosts herself onto a low counter. “We’re never
going to get out of here.”

“Maybe we should start at the beginning.” I reach into my apron to pull out my little
notebook, and flip to a clean page.

“You’re actually going to take notes?” Sammi says.

My cheeks burn. “I thought it would help keep it all straight.”

“Oh brother.”

“Go ’head, Chloe.” Tyson gives Sammi a dirty look. “You were saying?”

I hesitate, but Tyson nods. “We should start at the beginning.”

“In the beginning there was the Word . . . ,” Gabe intones.

“A little more recent than that, dipshit,” Sammi says.

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?” he tries.

“How about we stick with today?” I suggest.

“Suit yourself.” Gabe leans back and props his ankle on his opposite knee. “You wanna
know what I had for breakfast, or should I start with when I got here?”

“How about this: Did anyone see anyone else near the money box when they arrived?”
I’m asking everyone, but I focus on Zaina since she’s the only one I know for sure
would have gotten close to it this morning.

She shakes her head. “There was no one out there when I put my money in the box. Then
I came here to punch in.”

“Anyone else?” I try the others. The only responses are negative.

“So, nobody saw anything,” Gabe says in a flat voice. “Great. We’ve got nothing.”

“We just need to think this through!” I exclaim. “We’ll figure it out.”

“No, we won’t. Whoever did it is going to lie about it anyway. Maybe we should just
let the cops come,” Gabe says.

“Do you really think he’s going to call the police?” Micah asks.

“Why would he lie?” Zaina asks.

“What’s he going to say?” Sammi says. “‘I think someone stole some money, but I don’t
know how much’?”

“But if he actually saw people putting money in on the security tapes . . .” Tyson
taps his chin.

“The tapes only keep for forty-eight hours,” she reminds him. “So, he saw a few people
put money in the box. There’s money in the box. Where’s the crime?”

“My money is missing,” Zaina reminds us. “My mother’s, I mean. I put more than one
twenty-dollar bill in there.”

Sammi deflates. “Oh, yeah.”

“It doesn’t really matter if there was an actual crime. If he calls the police, they’ll
come,” I say. “I have an aunt who calls the cops all the time. There’s never been
an actual crime when they got to her house.”

Gabe laughs. “Seriously? Why does she call?”

“She always thinks people are trying to break into her house.” I shrug. “Apparently
there are a lot of unsavory characters out there interested in collectible German
figurines.”

“What do they do when they get there?”

“Not much. Look around for signs of a break-in. There’s never been anything missing.
Mostly they just tell her to call the nonemergency number unless she thinks she’s
in danger.” I realize they’re all staring at me, and my cheeks get hot again. “I guess
she’s kind of weird.”

“I love it,” Sammi says.

“So, okay, he calls the cops and they come look at the box,” Gabe says. “The lock
isn’t broken and there’s money inside. We all go home, right?”

“They could fingerprint us,” I say.

“You think?” Tyson asks.

“Maybe.”

“They can’t do that,” Sammi says. “Not if we’re not under arrest.”

“I think they can if we volunteer to have it done,” Micah says. “I’m not up on the
law.”

“Fine. We get fingerprinted, and we get the hell out of here,” Gabe says. “Let Solomon
go ahead and call. I want to get this over with.”

“No,” Sammi says. “I don’t want to get fingerprinted.”

“Why?” Gabe says. “I don’t care if they fingerprint me. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Well, I care,” Sammi snaps. “I don’t want the Five-Oh to have my prints on file.”

Gabe cocks an eyebrow. “Planning a life of crime we don’t know about, Samantha?”

“Don’t call me that, asshole.” She flicks a paper clip at him.

“Now, now.” He shakes his head sadly. “There’s no need to resort to violence.”

“Fine.” She sticks her middle finger up at him and he grins.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” he says in a high, squeaky voice. I’m pretty
sure they’re making up for whatever went down before Sammi cut herself, but it’s definitely
the weirdest apology I’ve ever seen.

Suddenly my watch starts chiming again and I slap my hand over it reflexively. Darn.
I must have snoozed it before instead of shutting it off.

“What’s wrong with your watch?” Micah asks.

“Nothing. It just alarms sometimes.” Or, you know, every time I’m supposed to check
my blood sugar.

“I can turn that off for you. I’m good with technical stuff.” Micah holds his hand
out to take it from me.

“It’s fine.” My ears are hot again, but this is the old standby heat. It’ll go away
if I can get them to talk about something else.

“Did anyone see anything weird today?” I ask.

Gabe barks out a humorless laugh. “You mean apart from Coupon Lady and Melon Sniffer?”

“The chick in the bathroom?” Sammi looks at me with a smirk.

“The woman with all the rice,” Zaina adds.

“What woman?” Micah asks Zaina.

“Today I had a customer with twelve bags of rice and one two-liter of Dr Pepper,”
she says.

“Nice.” Gabe’s face lights up with interest. “All right, who can beat it?” He reaches
in his pocket and comes out with some change. “I got . . . eighty-three cents for
the weirdest purchase today.” He slams his hand down on the table, making it shiver
and quiver with fear. Poor table is not up to this kind of abuse. The coins stay in
a small, linty pile when Gabe lifts his hand.

No one speaks up.

“Anyone? Come on. Who can beat twelve bags of rice and Dr Pepper? There’s money on
the line here, people!”

“All right, I got one,” I say. “Diapers, a bottle of gin, cat litter, and three dozen
eggs.”

“Not bad, not bad . . .” Gabe nods slowly. “Who else?”

“Umm . . .” Micah opens his mouth, but then shakes his head.

“What?” Gabe asks.

“No. Never mind.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m making fun of people if I play.”

“You are,” Sammi says, the “so what?” implied.

“But they don’t know it,” Gabe reasons. “Who are you hurting?”

“And we’re not saying they’re bad people,” I say. “It’s just that sometimes people
buy weird combinations of things.”

“I guess so.”

Gabe is watching Micah. “You got something, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on. Tell us,” he urges.

“Are you sure?”

“Tell us,” Gabe repeats in a low voice.

“I was bagging on Agnes’s lane”—Micah’s voice rises at the end like a question—“and
there was a customer”—another questioning tone—“and he bought chicken nuggets, whipped
cream, a five-pound bag of onions, and two packs of ex-lax.”

“Winner!” Gabe declares, pushing the money across the table to Micah. Micah doesn’t
touch it, but he smiles a little.

“You guys, this isn’t helping,” I say. “We’re supposed to be figuring out who stole
the money.”

“Chloe, give it a rest,” Gabe says. “Nobody saw anything, and no one here is going
to admit it, even if they took it. I say we wait for the cops, get fingerprinted,
and get out of here.”

“My fingerprints will be on the box,” Zaina says. “I put money in every time I work.”

“What’s the deal with that anyway?” Gabe asks.

“My mother gives it to me.”

“But isn’t your family . . . ?” I start to ask, but immediately wish I could suck
the words back in. My busted filter is at it again.