Ninth Key (15 page)

I was still trying to puzzle all of this out when Marcus, who’d shepherded me to the front door, produced my coat. He helped me into it, then said, “Aikiku will drive you home, Miss Simon.”

I looked around and saw another Japanese guy, this one all in black, standing by the front door. He bowed politely to me.

“And let’s get one thing straight.”

Marcus was still speaking to me in fatherly tones. He seemed irritated, but not really mad.

“What happened here tonight,” he went on, “was very strange, it’s true. But no one was injured….”

He must have noticed my gaze skitter toward Tad still passed out on the couch, since he added, “Not seriously hurt, anyway. And so I think it would behoove you to keep your mouth shut about what you’ve seen here. Because if you should take it into your head to tell anyone about what you’ve seen here,” Marcus went on in a manner one might almost call friendly, “I will, of course, have to tell your parents about that unfortunate prank you played on Mr. Beaumont…and press formal assault charges against you, of course.”

My mouth dropped open. I realized it, after a second, and snapped it shut again.

“But he —” I began.

Marcus cut me off. “Did he?” He looked down at me meaningfully. “Did he really? There are no witnesses to that fact, save yourself. And do you really believe anyone is going to take the word of a little juvenile delinquent like yourself over the word of a respectable businessman?”

The jerk had me, and he knew it.

He smiled down at me, a little triumphant twinkle in his eye.

“Good night, Miss Simon,” he said.

Proving once again that the life of a mediator just ain’t all it’s cracked up to be: I didn’t even get to stay for dessert.

Dropped off with about as much ceremony as a rolled-up newspaper on a Monday morning, I trudged up the driveway. I’d been a little scared Marcus had changed his mind about not pressing charges and that our house might have been surrounded by cops there to haul me in for assaulting Mr. B.

But no one jumped out at me, gun drawn, from behind the bushes, which was a good sign.

As soon as I walked in, my mother was all over me, wanting to know what it had been like at the Beaumonts — What had we had for dinner? What had the decor been like? Had Tad asked me to the prom?

I declared myself too sleepy to talk and, instead, went straight up to my room. All I could think about was how on earth I was going to prove to the world that Red Beaumont was a cold-blooded killer.

Well, okay, maybe not a cold-blooded one, since he evidently felt remorse for what he’d done. But a killer, just the same.

I had forgotten, of course, about my new roommate. As I approached my bedroom door, I saw Max sitting in front of it, his huge tongue lolling. There were scratch marks all up and down the door where he’d tried clawing his way in. I guess the fact that there was a cat in there was more overpowering than the fact that there was also a ghost in there.

“Bad dog,” I said when I saw the scratch marks.

Instantly, Doc’s bedroom door across the hall opened.

“Have you got a cat in there?” he demanded, but not in an accusing way. More like he was really interested, from a scientific point of view.

“Um,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Oh. I wondered. Because usually Max, you know, he stays away from your room. You know why.”

Doc widened his eyes meaningfully. When I’d first moved in, Doc had very chivalrously offered to trade rooms with me, since mine, he’d noted, had a distinct cold spot in it, a clear indication that it was a center for paranormal activity. While I’d chosen to keep the room, I’d been impressed by Doc’s self-sacrifice. His two elder brothers certainly hadn’t been as generous.

“It’s just for one night,” I assured him. “The cat, I mean.”

“Oh,” Doc said. “Well, that’s good. Because you know that Brad does suffer from an adverse reaction to feline dander. Allergens, or allergy-producing substances, cause the release of histamines, organic compounds responsible for allergic symptoms. There are a variety of allergens, such as contactants — like poison oak — and airborne, like Brad’s sensitivity to cat dander. The standard treatment is, of course, avoidance, if at all possible, of the allergen.”

I blinked at him. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

Doc smiled. “Great. Well, good night. Come on, Max.”

He hauled the dog away, and I went into my room.

To find that my new roommate had flown the coop. Spike was gone, and the open window told me how he’d escaped.

“Jesse,” I muttered.

Jesse was always opening and closing my windows. I hauled them open at night, only to find them securely closed come morning. Usually I appreciated this since the morning fog that rolled in from the bay was often freezing.

But now his good intentions had resulted in Spike escaping.

Well, I wasn’t going looking for the stupid cat. If he wanted to come back, he knew the way. If not, I figured I’d done my duty, at least so far as Timothy was concerned. I’d found his wretched pet and brought it to safety. If the stupid thing refused to stay, that wasn’t my problem.

I was just getting ready to climb into the hot, steaming bath I’d run for myself — I think best when submerged in soapy water — when the phone rang. I didn’t answer it, of course, because the phone is hardly ever for me. It’s usually either Debbie Mancuso — despite Dopey’s protests that they were not seeing each other — or one of the multitudes of giggly young women who called for Sleepy…who was never home due to his grueling pizza-delivery schedule.

This time, however, I heard my mother holler up the stairs that it was Father Dominic for me. My mother, in spite of what you might think, doesn’t consider it the least bit weird that I am constantly getting phone calls from the principal of my school. Thanks to my being vice president of my class, and chairwoman of the Restore Junipero Serra’s Head committee, there are actually quite a few completely innocuous reasons why the principal might need to call me.

But Father D. never calls me at home to discuss anything remotely school-related. He only calls when he wants to ream me out for something to do with mediating.

Before I picked up the extension in my room, I wondered — irritably, since I was wearing nothing but a towel and suspected my bath water would be cold by the time I finally got into it — what I had done this time.

And then, as if I’d already slid into that bath, and found it freezing, chills went up my spine.

Jesse. My hasty discussion with Jesse before I’d left for Tad’s. Jesse had gone to Father Dominic.

No, he wouldn’t have. I’d told him not to. Not unless I wasn’t back by midnight. And I’d gotten home by ten. Earlier, even. Nine forty-five.

That couldn’t be it, I told myself. That couldn’t possibly be it. Father Dominic did not know about Jesse. He did not know a thing.

Still, when I said hello, I said it tentatively.

Father Dominic’s voice was warm. “Oh, hello, Susannah,” he gushed. “So sorry to call so late, only I needed to discuss yesterday’s student council meeting with you —”

“It’s okay, Father D.,” I said, “My mom hung up the downstairs phone.”

Father Dominic’s voice changed completely. It was no longer warm. Instead, it was very indignant.

“Susannah,” he said. “Delighted as I am to find that you are all right, I would just like to know when, if ever, you were going to tell me about this Jesse person.”

Oops.

“He tells me he has been living in your bedroom since you moved to California several weeks ago, and that you have been perfectly aware, all this time, of that fact.”

I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I’d always known, of course, that Father Dominic would be mad when he found out about Jesse. But I never guessed he’d go ballistic.

“This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard.” Father D. was really warming to the subject. “What would your poor mother say if she knew? I simply don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Susannah. I thought you and I had established a certain amount of trust in our relationship, but all this time, you’ve been keeping this Jesse fellow secret —”

Fortunately, at that moment, the call-waiting went off. I said, “Oh, hold on a minute, would you, Father D.?”

As I hit the receiver, I heard him say, “Do not put me on hold while I am speaking to you, young lady —”

I’d been expecting Debbie Mancuso to be on the other line, but to my surprise, it was CeeCee.

“Hey, Suze,” she said. “I was doing a little more research on your boyfriend’s dad —”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, automatically. Especially not now.

“Yeah, okay, your would-be boyfriend, then. Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know that after his wife — Tad’s mom — died ten years ago, things really started going downhill for Mr. B.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Downhill? Like how? Not financially. I mean, if you ever saw where they live…”

“No, not financially. I mean that after she died — breast cancer, diagnosed too late to treat; don’t worry, nobody killed her — Mr. B. sort of lost interest in all of his many companies, and started keeping to himself.”

Aha. This was probably when the first onset of his “disorder” began.

“Here’s the really interesting part, though,” CeeCee said. I could hear her tapping on her keyboard. “It was around this time that Red Beaumont handed over almost all of his responsibilities to his brother.”

“Brother?”

“Yeah. Marcus Beaumont.”

I was genuinely surprised. Marcus was
related
to Mr. Beaumont? I’d thought him a mere flunky. But he wasn’t. He was Tad’s
uncle.

“That’s what it says. Mr. Beaumont — Tad’s dad — is still the figurehead, but this other Mr. Beaumont is the one who’s really been running things for the past ten years.”

I froze.

Oh my God. Had I gotten it wrong?

Maybe it hadn’t been Red Beaumont at all who’d killed Mrs. Fiske. Maybe it had been Marcus. The
other
Mr. Beaumont.

Did Mr. Beaumont kill you?
That’s what I’d asked Mrs. Fiske. And she’d said yes. But Mr. Beaumont to her might have been Marcus, not poor, vampire-wannabe Red Beaumont.

No, wait, Tad’s father had told me straight out that he felt sorry for having killed all those people. That had been his motivation for inviting me over all along: He’d been hoping I’d help him communicate with his victims.

But Tad’s father was clearly a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. I don’t think he could have killed a cockroach, let alone another human being.

No, whoever had killed Mrs. Fiske and those other people had been smart enough to cover his tracks…and Tad’s dad was no Daniel Boone, let me tell you.

His brother, on the other hand…

“I’m getting a really bad feeling about all this,” CeeCee was saying. “I mean, I know we can’t prove anything — and despite what Adam thinks, it’s highly unlikely anything my aunt Pru would have to contribute would be permissible in court — but I think we have a moral obligation —”

The call-waiting went off again. Father D. I’d forgotten all about Father D. He’d hung up in a rage and was calling back.

“Look, CeeCee,” I said, still feeling sort of numb. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow at school, okay?”

“Okay,” CeeCee said. “But I’m just letting you know, Suze, I think we’ve stumbled onto something big here.”

Big? Try gargantuan.

But it wasn’t Father Dominic on the other line, I found out, after I pressed down on the receiver: It was Tad.

“Sue?” he said. He still sounded a little groggy.

And he still seemed to have only a slight clue what my name was.

“Um, hi, Tad,” I said.

“Sue, I am so sorry,” he said. Grogginess aside, he sounded as if he meant it. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I was more tired than I thought. You know, at practice they run us pretty hard, and some nights I just conk out sooner than others….”

Yeah
, I said to myself.
I bet.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Tad had way bigger things to concern himself with than falling asleep during a date.

“But I want to make it up to you,” Tad insisted. “Please let me. What are you doing Saturday night?”

Saturday night? I forgot all about how this kid was related to a possible serial killer. What did
that
matter? He was asking me out. On a date. A
real
date. On Saturday night. Visions of candlelight and French kissing danced in my head. I could hardly speak, I was so flattered.

“I have a game,” Tad went on, “but I figured you could come watch me play, and then afterward we could maybe get a pizza with the rest of the guys or something.”

My excitement died a rapid little death.

Was he kidding? He wanted me to come watch him play
basketball
? Then go out with him and
the rest of the team
? For
pizza
? I wasn’t even
burger
material? I mean, at this point, I’d settle for Sizzler, for crying out loud.

“Sue,” Tad said when I didn’t say anything right away. “You aren’t mad at me, are you? I mean, I really didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

What was I thinking, anyway? It would never work out between the two of us. I mean, I’m a mediator. His dad’s a vampire. His uncle’s a killer. What if we got married? Think how our kids would turn out….

Confused. Way confused.

Kind of like Tad.

“It wasn’t that you were boring me, or anything,” he went on. “Really. Well, I mean, that thing you were talking about
was
kind of boring — the thing about that statue with the head that needed gluing back on. That story, I mean. But not
you. You’re
not boring, Susan. That’s not why I fell asleep, I swear it.”

“Tad,” I said, annoyed by how many times he’d felt it necessary to assure me I hadn’t been boring him — a sure sign I’d been boring him senseless — and of course by the fact that he could not seem to remember my name. “Grow up.”

He said, “Whaddya mean?”