Uncovering Sadie's Secrets (16 page)

Connie said nothing at first but just leaned against the sink, twisting her mouth to one side as if deciding what to reveal and what to keep hidden. I’m not sure if her reasons included an in-depth analysis of “need-to-know” requirements. I think it was more along the lines of “if I tell Bianca, will she feel like she won something here?”

Whatever the outcome of her inner debate, it was interrupted by Tony, who flew into the kitchen. Mom had told him the night before he had to take me to school today. She was already at work, putting in extra hours to earn Christmas money.

“Come on, Bianca! I’m going to be late!”

I grabbed my backpack from the kitchen floor and shrugged into my blue blazer. “Well?” I asked Connie one last time.

“I have a few databases I can check, a few friends I can call,” she said nonchalantly. “Things and people a PI knows. Internet search engines have their limitations.” She turned to the sink and began washing the breakfast dishes.

I harrumphed as best I could and briskly followed Tony to the door.

W
HEN
I arrived at school there was little time to stew about Connie’s smugness or her secretiveness or her arrogance. Right away, I ran into Kerrie, who proceeded to overwhelm me with her enthusiasm for the flapper costume. She’d brought it with her, neatly folded in a paper grocery bag (Kerrie’s family didn’t believe in plastic bags), and made me take a look at it in the locker hall before class.

I have to admit I was expecting maybe a slightly better version of a K-Mart costume. You know the kind—thin fabric with designs glued on in sparkles or sequins, maybe a plastic mask thrown in for good measure. This was more like the Neiman Marcus version of that. It was a gorgeous mauve colored silk with real beading and fringe sewn on. It came with a matching cloche hat, purse, shoes, and tons of sparkling jewelry. In fact, this didn’t look like a costume at all. It looked like the real thing—something a flapper had actually worn.

“Wow,” I said, stretching my descriptive powers to the limit. “This is great.”

“I knew you’d like it,” Kerrie said. “If the shoes are too big, maybe you can stick tissue in the toes or something.”

“Hmm, how should I do my hair?” I reached up and touched it. Today it was pulled back in a scrunchie in a fetchingly uncomplicated “natural” look. In other words, it was a little on the messy side.

“Oh, let me do it for you! Come over early. I have a crimper and a curling iron. Or, you could come in the afternoon and I’ll set it in pin curls.” Kerrie was practically squealing with joy. And I have to admit that having her do my hair was probably better than trying to do it myself. At least if Kerrie did it, I could blame it on her. And that included blaming it on her if it looked really good.

You have to understand that looking too good, or looking like you try too hard to look good, is just as bad as looking bad. So, having someone else responsible for part of your look was a great way to look good without worrying about looking like you tried hard to look good. You can sort of shrug and say, “Well, Kerrie did it,” and everyone would understand that you just
had
to look this good because Kerrie’s feelings would be hurt otherwise.

Am I making myself clear here?

“Okay,” I agreed. “We can make a plan later.”

We parted ways for class, and hardly had a moment the rest of that busy day to catch up. Even the lunch hour was filled with announcements and special activities. Kerrie was starting a Christmas donation fund and stood at the cafeteria mike giving out detailed lists of items she would need to make the project work.

I like Kerrie, but even
I
was rolling my eyes after the thirtieth description of the kind of toys that were
not
acceptable as donations. “Nothing made in China, if you don’t mind. Nothing on the Consumer Safety Products Warning List. Nothing made by BonCo Toys because they use child labor in India. . .”

By the time she was done, I felt like running to the mike myself and sobbing to the mesmerized crowd, “I confess, I confess”—quite a few of the forbidden toys were stashed away in my old toy box. My mother hadn’t been as enlightened, I guess, when she’d played Santa Claus.

My guilt at inadvertently exploiting the underprivileged played second fiddle to other, more immediate concerns. First off were the encounters with Doug.

Deciding how to react to Doug, how to interpret his reactions, and plotting future encounters with him was beginning to occupy a lot of my time at school. Not that some classes weren’t interesting enough to divert me. My history teacher, for example, was one riveting lady who made us all work so hard we forgot we were working hard.

Hmm. . . history would come in handy in my new career path—World Court High Justice (I’d moved up from the Supreme Court, you see.)

Anyway, I saw Doug a few times during the day and once he actually smiled and said, “Kerrie’s party!” while pointing his index finger at me. In the shorthand of the day, I was sure he really meant, “I cannot wait until our tryst, my darling beloved.”

Kerrie’s party, in fact, was beginning to take on mythic importance. It would give me the opportunity to be with Doug, maybe even dance, hold hands (that sent a shiver down my spine), and generally be close. It would make up for those encounters of the fouled-up kind we’d been having. Or not having.

And I also had a kind of electric feeling that something big would happen at the party. Sadie had been invited, and probably was going to come. Thus, there might be opportunities to pry more information out of her, or to observe her or learn something new about her. I wasn’t sure how. Maybe someone would show up dressed as a medieval torture chamber operator, and could scare information out of her.

My mind was so full of hope because of Doug that I was beginning to think anything could happen: a revelation from Sadie; an admission of devotion from Doug; a job offer from Kerrie’s lawyer father. The possibilities were endless.

Of course, part of my hope for getting info out of Sadie was buoyed by my simmering resentment of Connie. I wanted to show her up, to uncover Sadie’s secrets on my own, and make Connie feel bad for offering me anything less than the equivalent of a partnership in her PI agency. It’s amazing what an energy boost resentment and anger can provide.

As it turned out, I didn’t see my sister much the rest of the week. She was busy on an insurance fraud case, my mother told me on one of the nights Connie’s chair was empty at the dinner table. And one night Connie actually had a date—with Kurt of all people. I wondered if my mother had ever seen the guy.

These Connie-less dinners were actually nice occasions to chat with my Mom, who was usually pretty frazzled from work. Tony was out a lot that week, too, because of his college and work schedule, so that meant lots of bonding time for me and Mom.

On Thursday night that week, I talked to her about Sadie, explaining how odd she was and how Kerrie and I didn’t think she was telling us everything.

My mother grimaced while her fork of macaroni and cheese paused in mid-air.

“There are a lot of girls who don’t have the best home life,” she said philosophically. “Have you ever met Sadie’s parents?”

I didn’t want to tell her about Lemming Lady and Ice Man, so I just said “no.” Besides, I really didn’t think they were her parents. They wanted something from her all right, but it wasn’t a daughter’s affection.

“Have you ever seen any signs of trouble, of abuse?” Mom asked. “You know, funny bruises, black eyes, anything like that?

“Heck no,” I answered quickly. “If anything, Sadie seems to be alone. Like her parents don’t exist.”

Mom got even more serious.

“Do you think she could have run away from home?” she asked me.

“Connie thinks that’s a possibility. But how could she live on her own at the age of fifteen?” I asked. “How would she support herself?”

My mother didn’t answer at first, but ate silently for a few seconds. Then she blurted out her theory.

“What if Sadie was earning money to support herself? Does she have a job?”

“No. No visible means of support.”

“Do you think she’s into drugs, prostitution?” My mother peered at me through squinty eyes, obviously concerned that I’d be hanging out with a bad type.

“No!” Methinks I dost protest too much, my inner (Shakespearean) voice declared. I
had,
of course, suspected Sadie of those things. I just hadn’t articulated them.

In truth, Sadie’s life did not paint a picture of goodness and light. Look at the people around her. The knife-wielding, tough-talking Lemming Lady was no saint. Just thinking of her gave me the creeps. And then there was the condo—owned by a jailed drug dealer. Finally, Ice Man looked as if he had seen his share of trouble and liked it that way.

“How would you know?” my mother asked, and I began to fear we’d soon be treading into dangerous waters.

“Uh, well, you know. Kids talk. You hear things,” I said. I stood and took my plate to the sink, scraping the scraps into the garbage disposal.

“If you hear things, you should tell me. You should not let friends engage in dangerous behaviors.” Mom, too, stood and did the plate-scraping routine. We loaded the dishwasher together.

She was right, of course, and if I ever saw Kerrie or Nicole doing or saying anything that led me to believe they were headed for trouble, I’d make sure responsible people knew so they could help.

But, despite Sadie’s unseemly circle, I sensed in her a desire to be wholesome, as if she might have run away from a seamier life and was trying to start over.

“Do you have homework?” my mother asked. She placed the last dish in the machine, poured detergent in the little compartments, and flipped the thing on.

“A little. I need the computer,” I said, improvising. I needed it all right, but to look up more stuff about Sadie Sinclair and Melinda McEvoy. Sure, I had a one-page essay to write, but I could do that pretty quickly.

“Well, I’m going to watch the news.” As she went by, Mom gave me a cheery punch in the shoulder and headed for the living room, where she settled in her favorite chair and flicked on the tube. As I heard the sounds of the evening newscast skittering into the room, I plunked myself in front of the computer and got to work.

To my credit (if I do say so myself), I whipped off the one-page essay on “a discussion of internal and external conflicts in the play
Antigone
” first. Then I turned the sound off so as not to disturb my mother, and started up the old Internet engine.

I revved up my imaginative and investigative instincts to a high pitch. Sadie seemed to be running away from something. She had a California car that had belonged to Melinda McEvoy. Had Melinda McEvoy employed her? Abused her? Been her mother?

With lightning speed, I raced through search after search trying to find out if Melinda McEvoy had had any children. Her obit did-n’t list survivors. I tried plugging in “Sadie McEvoy,” “Melinda Sinclair,” “Melinda Sadie,” any combination I could think of. Nothing.

I tried looking through on-line archives of newspapers in California searching for a clue, using anything I could think of. But the brick wall I kept running into was this—if Sadie was running from something, chances were she wasn’t using her own name. Chances are she’d faked a lot of stuff, maybe even a driver’s license.

After an hour and a half of this, I gave up and disconnected. Checking the voice mail on the phone, I found I had three messages. My heart leapt for joy. Surely one of the messages would be from Doug.

But Tony’s cold voice greeted me instead.

“This is Tony. I’m stuck at Burger Boy. My car won’t start. Battery’s dead. Can you come help me out?”

Next message: “Tony again. I still need a jumpstart. Nobody here has cables.”

Final message, five minutes before I got off the Internet: “If that’s you on the phone, Bianca, you’re gonna pay. I need someone to come get me. For crissake, get off the phone!”

So that Mom would not be disturbed by Tony’s cursing, I thoughtfully erased the messages. Then I informed her of his distress.

She immediately jumped up and muttered, “Oh, dear,” then ran for her purse and coat.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so. Stay off the phone and the Internet in case I need to call you,” she said at the door.

After she left, I was all alone. And despite Mom’s warning about staying off the phone, I knew that she wouldn’t be in a position to use a phone for at least twenty minutes, maybe even more, until she reached Burger Boy.

So, for a brief period of time, I would be in teenage paradise— an empty house and access to the phone. Thinking quickly, I checked the time. It was nearly seven-thirty.

Seven-thirty,
eastern
time. It would be four-thirty on the West Coast. That meant offices there would still be open.

To heck with the Internet, I thought, picking up the receiver. I would go directly to the source. I flipped through the phone book looking for the area code for Sadie’s old stomping grounds. Finding it, I punched it in and the number for information. When the mechanical voice came on asking me what I was after, I blurted out, “Department of Social Services.”