Finding the Forger Page 3

  Back downstairs, the front door was open, which meant Tony was already outside revving up the car. I yelled a goodbye to Connie and she returned the affectionate farewell with her own chipper “Don’t forget, you’re fixing dinner tonight since you messed up last night!” and I was off to school.

  Tony gave me a few sideways glances en-route, like he was still trying to figure out what was different about me. My guess was he didn’t even remember what color hair I had, let alone whether it was curly or straight. Tony’s goal in life was to become a millionaire. I got the distinct impression he saw his family members solely as obstacles to that goal.

  After he dropped me at school, I rushed into the locker hall to dump my stuff and get ready for first period—Western Civ. Kerrie was nowhere to be seen, which was odd, because we usually hooked up in the locker hall before school, especially on days like this one, when we didn’t have many classes together. Sarah was there, though, and that meant Kerrie was someplace nearby since they usually came in together. Sarah had her own car.

  “Wow,” Sarah said, looking at my hair. “What happened to you?”

  “An unfortunate incident involving my hair and a permanent wave set.”

  “What made you do that?” she asked, twirling her combination lock. “Nobody does perms any more.”

  “Call me a rugged individualist, I guess.” I didn’t see any point in laying the blame at Kerrie’s feet. She’d only been trying to help.

  Trying to help or not, Kerrie was probably avoiding me because she felt guilty. Now, I could forgive her for the perm disaster, but I was annoyed that she’d stay out of my way because of the guilts.

  “Where’s Kerrie?” I asked as I stashed my lunch bag and grabbed some books.

  “Don’t know. She had her dad drive her in.”

  Uh-oh. If Kerrie had her father give her a ride, that meant she was miffed at Sarah big-time. This was getting tiresome. I might need to fly in a negotiator and work out a truce.

  “Did you get hold of Connie?” I said as casually as I could. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to her last night.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “I didn’t. But I did give her number to Ms. Dexter.”

  “I thought you said they already had a private investigator working on something.”

  “I don’t think she signed anything with him. I think she’s shopping around.”

  “Well, thanks. Connie’ll be happy to get the work.” I leaned against the locker. “But what’s it for, anyway?”

  “I’m still not sure.”

  “Why’d the alarm go off yesterday—is it connected to that?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody’s being cagey. Even Hector.” She grimaced.

  “You said you overheard your boss mentioning him. Are you afraid he’s in trouble?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No! I’m just afraid if something’s wrong, they’ll point fingers at him because … well, because he’s a Latino …”

  “Yeah, but what’s wrong? What’s going on there?” This was getting frustrating. I took a deep breath. “Just tell me what you know, what you’ve seen.”

  She frowned and looked around again as if afraid someone would overhear.

  “They seem to be doing a lot of ‘restoration’ work lately. On new stuff, modern stuff, that doesn’t need restoration, okay?”

  How was I supposed to know? I was lucky if I could draw a stick figure without giving it three eyes. Come to think of it, that might qualify as modern art, so maybe I wasn’t out of my league after all.

  “If it’s really new, I can’t imagine why they’d need to—what do you mean by restoration work, anyway?” Frustration gave way to curiosity. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Or, actually, frizz up.

  “They have a room where they touch up old paintings. Artists do it, with some art students helping out. It’s neat. I’ve seen them work.”

  “So that’s why your boss is looking into hiring a private investigator—because the new stuff is deteriorating too fast?” Maybe they didn’t need Connie. Maybe they needed an environmental protection agent. It sounded like something was toxic in that museum.

  “No. Well, yeah. I mean … I think Ms. Dexter is having stuff restored to check it out. To make sure it’s real.”

  I felt like hitting my head with my hand. “Forgery! That’s what you think has happened. Someone has forged some new works and they’re privately checking it out!”

  “That’s why I thought she should call Connie. The guy she’s been talking to—well, every time she gets off the phone with him, she goes looking for Hector and starts asking him questions.”

  Sarah’s convoluted explanation left me hankering for more information, but just then, just as the sands of time had almost finished drifting through the time-before-class hourglass, Kerrie rolled in—with Doug! With Doug’s arm around her shoulder! Hey, this wasn’t fair! Her eyes were red and her face streaked, which meant she’d been crying.

  “Kerrie, what’s the matter?” I asked, rushing to her side. Sarah hung back.

  “She had a fight with her dad,” Doug said.

  I got the picture—they both arrived at school at the same time, Doug saw her crying, and Doug, being a good guy, tried to comfort her. Good old Doug. So why did this make me uneasy?

  Kerrie thanked Doug and went to her locker, but the look Doug threw her way was enough to send up alarm bells. Doug was a softie. And I was beginning to get impatient with Kerrie.

  “What happened this time?” I asked, maybe a tad too snappily.

  Doug looked at my hair, probably for the first time, and I could have sworn he curled his lip. “Kerrie told me about your hair, Bianca. It will grow out.”

  I felt my face grow warm from an angry blush. Kerrie told Doug about my hair? And not only that, she must have told him about it in such a way that he was predisposed to dislike it! She stole my comfort! Doug was supposed to console me, not her! This was a gyp! I wanted a refund. I was the one who had first dibs on Doug’s comfort!

  “It’s not that bad,” I said defensively.

  “I think it’s kind of cute,” Sarah said, lightly fingering the frizzy ends sticking out from under my bandana. Some fell off in her hand, and she wiped them on her skirt.

  Doug said nothing. Kerrie sniffled.

  “What happened with your dad?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, turning her lock.

  The buzzer screeched, signaling we were supposed to be in our homerooms. To heck with that—they always gave us a few minutes grace time, and I was not leaving until I got some information, or at least a kind word from Doug.

  “It had to be something. You were crying.” I moved in closer to Kerrie.

  “It’s nothing, really!” Kerrie grabbed her books and slammed the locker door shut. “I have to go. I’m going to be late. That’s the last thing I need today!”

  After she left, I looked at Doug and raised my eyebrows, which in Balducci language meant, “What the hey is going on here?”

  Sarah seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she hovered nearby, awaiting Doug’s explanation. He disappointed us both.

  “I don’t know. You better get it from her,” he said, then ran off to class with a quick “later” in my direction and an affectionate punch to my arm.

  Sarah and I shrugged, and she ran off to class, too.

  I felt like sitting down and crying. I’d wanted more information from Sarah about the ruckus at the museum, but got sidetracked by Kerrie’s mysterious crying jag, and Doug’s touching but misdirected sympathy.

  And, oh yes, it was misdirected. I was supposed to be soaking up the sympathy because of my hair. When I hadn’t been able to reach Doug last night, I had worked myself into a buzz thinking about how darned sympathetic he’d be when I rested my head on his shoulder and sobbed out the story of the misguided perm. But Kerrie had sucked his sympathy dry! There was none left for me.

  Feeling sad, annoyed, and curious, I stomped off to class.<
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  Chapter Four

  MY DAY WENT from bad to worse. First, in Western Civ, I found out I had written a deadline in my notebook wrong, which meant that while all the other students handed in their papers on the causes of World War II, I was left sitting as unprepared as the French had been at the Maginot line because I’d thought the paper was due the week before Christmas. Then, when I told the teacher about my mistake after class, he just shrugged and said, “if you get it in by the end of the week, I’ll take just one grade level off.” One grade level? Great. That meant I’d have to write an A-plus paper just to get a B-plus. That’s a real motivation spiker, let me tell ya.

  Later, in chorus, Mr. Baker spent virtually the entire session lecturing us in a “how could you?” tone of voice about the number of “please excuse my son/daughter …” notes he was receiving from kids who wanted out of the Christmas concert. Hey, it was scheduled on the last day of classes and a bunch of kids were taking off for their grandparents. Families are spread all over the country now, but I guess in ol’ Baker’s day, they’d stayed close to the central hearth.

  Later in that class, I saw Sarah and managed to pass her a note asking if she’d thought any more about Kerrie’s party. Mr. Baker, meanwhile, took us through a rendition of “Feeling Groovy” because he wanted to do some “popular music” in the spring. Yup. Popular music. Maybe when he was a kid. Hmm … Mr. Baker as a kid. I saw him in knee pants and bow tie … Anyway, Baker caught Sarah trying to write me back and made her put away her notebook.

  And finally, I happened to see Kerrie later that morning heading into study hall—with Doug! Doug talking to her real confidential-like, leaning down toward her. And she looked all weepy-eyed again, which meant she was still vacuuming up all his sympathy supply, and again leaving none for me!

  So my morning was a linear progression from goofy teacher, to information void, to potential heartbreak.

  Maybe lunch would be better, right?

  Wrong. Whatever happened with Kerrie and her dad had ratcheted up her animosity toward Sarah. For the first time since enrolling at St. John’s, together, Kerrie spent a lunch hour at another table. When I saw her heading for a group of girls in her homeroom, I cheerily waved her over to our usual table at the back of the bright-white cafeteria near the doors to the auditorium lobby.

  “Sorry, Bianca,” she said kind of coldly, “I have a group project due before Christmas and I thought I’d get a head start on it.”

  Since when does any student use lunch period to get a head start on a class project?

  Normally, I would have tried to nudge Kerrie back into the straight and narrow path of our friendship. But today, after seeing how she’d used my boyfriend as a sympathy sop, I decided I couldn’t care less who she ate lunch with as long as it wasn’t Doug.

  Then Sarah plopped down at my table with a tray loaded up for a nuclear winter—pizza, salad, corn chips, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and a container of milk. I opened my bag and pulled out my PB&J on nearly stale whole wheat. We only eat whole wheat bread at my house because of Connie’s fascination with health food. If I want white bread, I have to bring it in special, like contraband shipped across enemy lines.

  “Mrs. Taney made a comment about your bandana,” Sarah said as she opened her milk carton. “She’s not sure it’s legal.”

  “Gee, thanks, Sarah. Maybe you want to go eat with Kerrie, too, huh?” I was in no mood for teasing, or even a “helpful” heads-up from a friend warning me of a potential dress code violation and detention.

  “Whoa. Calm down. I’m just trying to help. You might want to stay away from Taney, that’s all.” Sarah looked over at Kerrie and her eyes narrowed.

  “Okay. I give up,” I said after washing my sandwich down with a half liter of iced tea. “What’s happening with Kerrie, and let’s talk some more about the museum thing, okay?” That’s what I needed—other people’s problems to keep my mind off my own.

  “I still don’t know what’s up with Kerrie. Doug might know, though. She seemed to be talking to him a lot today.” Although Sarah said it noncommittally, I couldn’t help wondering if she was trying to plant seeds of doubt in my mind about Kerrie. After all, if she and Kerrie were in Tension Universe, she might want to have me in her Command Central, aligned against Kerrie. Hmm … I really did need that negotiator, or special envoy, or someone, for crying out loud.

  On to Topic Number Two, which I was increasingly interested in because my motto was fast becoming “when in doubt, snoop.”

  “What did the cops find when they came to the museum yesterday?” I asked.

  Sarah wiped her mouth and broke off a piece of cookie. She obviously subscribed to the life advice about eating dessert first. I liked that advice, too. I wished I’d had some dessert with which to implement it, but I only had an apple, and an apple just isn’t the same thing as a cookie—I don’t care what nutritionists tell you.

  “Some alarm tripped. Nothing special. Electrical snafu or something.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Hector.” As soon as she said it, her face reddened. Hector— the “Latino” she was afraid her boss was fingering for … whatever.

  “Is Hector a good worker?”

  “Yeah! Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering if that’s why you overheard your boss talking about him—you know, complaining.”

  “I don’t know why she was talking about him. That’s part of the problem!” Clearly, talking about this upset Sarah. She suspected something, but was afraid to voice it. I’d have to back up and get her to calm down if I wanted to get more out of her.

  Ever since I got involved in Sarah’s own mystery earlier in the fall, I found I had a hankering for mysteries in general. I thought I might have some talent in that regard—figuring things out. And I wanted my sister Connie to hire me to help out in her fledgling private eye business next summer. It would be a lot better than working at Burger Boy, which was Tony’s place of part-time employment. And a lot better than babysitting, which was what my mother was trying to line up for me.

  Me as a babysitter? That had disaster written all over it. The only thing I knew about miniature people was that they leaked—their noses ran, their mouths drooled, and other parts were always wet and needing changing. Not the right kind of job for “glam girl.”

  No, I saw myself in trench coat and Fedora finding Maltese Falcons and kidnapped heiresses. Which brought me back to the museum, Sarah, and Hector.

  “Does your boss know that you and Hector are friends?” I asked.

  “No. Don’t think so. It’s all business in the office. I stay pretty busy. And Hector has his rounds and all.”

  “So when do you get to talk to him?”

  “On his breaks. He takes his breaks outside in this small parking lot in the back. Next to the dumpster.”

  Wow. How romantic. A rendezvous near the dumpster.

  “Does your boss see you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, if she doesn’t know you’re friends with Hector, you might be able to get some info out of her. Ask her some pointed questions.”

  Sarah brightened. “Like what?”

  “Well, you could get her talking about the alarm. Ask her if she suspects foul play—if someone tripped it on purpose.”

  “Yeah.” Sarah liked that idea, and frankly, so did I. While I had every intention of pumping my sister for info if she got the museum job, I also could use my own powers of investigation—by using Sarah as my agent, my plant, my mole—my whatever!

  “And then you could casually ask her if they ever had that problem before—someone tripping the alarm. And then kind of casually say something like ‘who would even know how to do that—the guards?’ and see what she says, see if she says anything about Hector.” I was getting excited about this. I knew exactly how I would handle the investigation. I could even envision myself “casually” asking all those questions.

  “Thanks, Bianca. I’ll try that the next
time I’m there.”

  Okay, that mystery was percolating, so onto the next one—like what was up with Kerrie. After gulping down my sandwich, which was no mean feat considering it was dry as kindling, I sashayed over to Kerrie’s new lunch table. I didn’t care what she thought. I was going to get to the bottom of this. Hmm … this hair thing had an “up” side. It was emboldening me, giving me a “devil may care” attitude about life. I mean, after you suffer through hair humiliation, the only way to go is up, right?

  “Kerrie, do you have a sec?” I asked, standing next to her table. She looked surprised.

  “Uh. Yeah. What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

  Reddening, she stood and followed me out of the caf to the dim lobby in front of the auditorium. Maybe she was motivated by fear that I would berate her about my hair in front of her new friends, warning them to stay away from the newest Hair Terminator. “See what she’s done to me? Go back! Go back!” I could have yelled, ripping the bandana from my head with a flourish. Hmm … not a bad scenario. I’d have to remember it in case Kerrie continued to act goofy.

  “What?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked. “You come into school all weepy, then sit with others at lunch. Did I do something?” Of course I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who did something. But I needed to ask this question to make her wrong-headed attitude completely clear to her.

  “No, you didn’t! It’s just that …” Her eyes started to water and I wanted to scream. Here we go again. “Sarah. You’re sitting with Sarah. And she did something really nasty to me last night.”

  I mentally rolled my eyes. Okay, maybe I really rolled my eyes. But I made sure Kerrie wasn’t looking when I did it. “What did she do?” I asked, trying to sound understanding but not too sympathetic.

  “She roped my dad into taking her to Boston for the weekend.”