Res Judicata (10 page)

Andy stopped tossing around a pile of old newspapers and went, “What? Sorry. Can you say that again?”

He went, “Mithing? You know, gone. Ith anything gone?”

I felt like saying, “Would you just put your teeth in?” but I didn't. I didn't even answer. Who cared about anything else? Was anything else due Tuesday? I shook my head and sort of growled under my breath.

Andy ignored me. She looked at Chuck and went, “Why?”

Chuck licked his finger and pushed his glasses up. “I don't know. Maybe there wath a robbery and the perpetrator took the thee dee too.”

Andy slapped her hand on her cheek.

“Of course! That's it, Chuck! I bet we were robbed!” She looked at me like, See! I told you I didn't do anything.

It was so stupid I couldn't even get mad. I made my face go all flat. I went, “What would anyone steal from us? We don't...have anything...worth taking.”

Andy dropped her jaw and bugged her eyes out at me. She went, “Cy-ril!” all insulted and everything. “We've got lots of stuff other people would want!”

I couldn't control myself anymore. I did this spokes-model-from-hell thing with my hands. “For instance, this lovely, secondhand, twelve-inch, black-and-white television
set with its matching cardboard entertainment unit—otherwise known as a box.”

Andy was mouthing “ha-ha” and desperately looking around the room for something worth stealing.

I ran over to the windowsill. “Or this state-of-the-art 1976 radio–alarm clock with its unique Screeching Zombies reception system.”

She went, “That works perfectly well. It's vintage. People pay a lot of money for vintage radios.”

I picked her fourteen-dollar Salvation Army “fur” coat up off the floor. “Or, of course, this new-to-you designer mink, complete with bright red ketchup accent and fuzzy pocket mints!”

I threw it back down on the floor. I went, “Well, looks to me like all of our valuables are safe. So much for the robbery idea.”

I tipped over the beanbag chair. I found a pair of socks I hadn't seen since grade four and about a buck in change but no
CD
.

Andy went, “My toe rings! They're...they're gone!”

I ignored her. I knew what she was up to. Another one of her diversionary tactics. I wasn't falling for it. I got down on my knees and looked under the love seat. The dust bunnies were breeding. Another reason we needed Biff.

I would have stayed under the love seat until the grief counselors came and took Andy away, but my asthma was starting to kick in.

I got up. Andy and Chuck were over by the window, looking all devastated. Andy was saying, “They were right here! I'm sure of it. I was sitting on the floor doing my toenails and I put them here and now...” She paused as if it was too painful to go on. “And now, they're gone!”

She got those toe rings on the street, five for two bucks. Like someone's going to break into the apartment for that. They would have been better off stealing our recycling bag.

Chuck was nodding and tapping his finger against his lips as if he was Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of some international diamond thief or something. He went, “Hmm. Yeth. Anything elth dithappear you can think of?”

Andy scoped the room like she was some emo snowy owl looking for prey. I wanted to kill her. Why did I have to put up with this garbage?

She gasped and fell against Chuck. “My
Catcher in the Rye
is gone!”

I looked at the busted
TV
we use as a coffee table. Andy was right.
The Catcher in the Rye
was gone.

That might not sound like such a big deal to most people. It's this beat-up old book held together with an elastic band. You can pick up one just like it at almost any yard sale for a quarter.

But this was serious.

Andy loved that book more than anything in the world (with the possible exception of me and cigarettes, although not necessarily in that order). When she was living on the street, she used it as a pillow. When other mothers were reading
Go, Dog. Go
! to their kids, she was reading me
The Catcher in the Rye
. She liked to keep it close enough that she could flip through it whenever she needed a little hit of Holden Caulfield to make it through the day. She always kept it on that busted-up
TV
like it was a little shrine or something. Her friends all knew how important it was to her.

Call me crazy, but for a second there I started to think someone might have stolen some stuff after all.

Andy was sitting on the love seat, rocking back and forth, going “Holden! Holden!” like someone had just kidnapped her kid. Chuck was patting her back. I couldn't tell if he was trying to comfort her or burp her.

The
CD
with my entire project on it disappears, and this is what I get? What a touching scene.

I came to my senses.

I went, “Would you just quit it! It wasn't a robbery. The windows are all locked. The door wasn't kicked in. No one came in here. Why would they bother? For your rings? My video project? Some old beat-up copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
? I don't think so. That stuff isn't worth anything to anybody. It's only important to us.”

For a second, Andy's lip stopped quivering and she looked like she was going to argue with me, but then her face changed. Her eyes squinted up, all mean. If she had been outside, I'm pretty sure at this point she would have spit on the ground. Instead she just turned up her nose as if something smelled bad and said, “You're right. And I bet that's
exactly
why he took it.”

I didn't need to ask who she meant.

Circumstantial Evidence
Evidence in a trial which is not directly from an eyewitness
or participant and requires some reasoning to prove a fact.

I guess that would have been the time to mention that I'd seen Biff hanging around outside the apartment. I could have told Andy how he lied about being there, how he hid when I waved at him.

But I didn't. Biff even daring to show his face in our neighborhood would be all the proof Andy needed to convict him of breaking into our apartment and robbing us blind—if stealing someone's toe rings amounts to robbing them blind, that is.

I kept my mouth shut. I still wanted to believe there was another reason for Biff to act the way he did. I mean, I sort of thought of him as my friend. You know, my buddy. Even—this is kind of embarrassing—my dad or at least my almost dad or, like, I guess, my almost stepdad or whatever.

I had to admit it didn't look all that good. I'd seen Biff skulking around. He had a key to the apartment. He wouldn't have needed to break in. He knew all about Andy's
Catcher in the Rye
obsession. He knew how much losing that book would bug her. He cleaned the apartment all the time too, so he was probably the only person who knew where she usually
left her toe rings (or the nail scissors or the clean towels or the egg flipper, for that matter).

The evidence was piling up against him, no question about it, but I just couldn't believe it. I mean, Biff just didn't seem to me like the type of guy who would do something like that. I know that's what people always think. No one ever suspects. Reporters interview the little old lady who lives next door to some deranged serial killer and she always says, “Why, I can't believe it! He was such a nice man. So polite and quiet!” She never asked herself why he always seemed to be out digging holes in the backyard at 2:00
AM
. She figured he was just doing a little late-night gardening, I guess.

Well, call me Myrtle, because I couldn't believe it either. Biff cleaned the compost bin! He gave us his love seat! He did lots of nice stuff for us he didn't need to do.

He made me that chicken dinner just because he knew I liked it and probably wasn't being fed all that well since he left. And okay, I did end up getting sick after I ate it, but I went to the bowl that day after school. I got home a lot later than I should have. The food had probably been sitting out in the warm hall for a while, growing bacteria or whatever, so, like, maybe it was my own fault. I bet he didn't mean to poison me.

And he probably hadn't seen me when I waved to him or heard me when I called him, and it's not that hard to forget the name of a street, even if you walk by it every day. He probably had other things on his mind.

He was a nice guy. He was.

He was.

I was almost sure of it.

Appeal
A process for making a formal challenge to a verdict.

I didn't need this right now. I really didn't.

I blew up. I went, “Quit dreaming, would you? Nobody stole anything! You might have time for this garbage, but I don't. I'm leaving! I've got to redo my entire stupid project thanks to...”

I shook my head. I shut my mouth. I didn't want to get into it with her right now.

I kicked the beanbag chair and stuff sprayed out as if it was choking on a mouthful of crackers.

Andy went, “Cy-ril!”

I just waved my hand at her and went, “While I'm gone, do something useful, why don't you, and clean your room! It's a pigsty.”

Somebody had to be the grown-up around here.

I stormed out of the apartment. I didn't even look around to see if Biff was hiding in the bushes anywhere. I was sick of adults and their childish behavior. This was like recess at the Big Baby Daycare or something. I had one kid playing Make Believe, another one playing Hide-and-Go-Seek and another one who was having major teething trouble.

Get me out of here. Even doing homework was better than this.

I was lucky it was another slow night at the library. Hardly anyone was there. I couldn't even see a librarian. I sat down at the computer and Googled Ernest Sanderson. I was just waiting for the lab footage to come up when I heard this lady's voice go, “Ah, ‘scuse me? Excuse me?”

No one answered. I tried to ignore her but she started doing that “Yoo-hoo!” thing. I figured some poor sucker's mother had just come to pick him up and/or publicly humiliate him. This I had to see. I was usually the one trying to disappear into my hoodie.

I peeked around. I didn't want to be too obvious about it. I've got a heart.

It wasn't anybody's mother. It was Shannondoah, waving and calling to someone. I looked behind me to see who it was.

There was nobody there. My face got all prickly. I swallowed. I turned back around really slowly.

Shannondoah was still waving and smiling. She said, “No, no. I mean you.”

That's what I was afraid of. I pointed at my chest and went, “Me? You...um, ah...me?” I must have come across like Tarzan of the Apes or something. (Right. In my dreams. Tarzan of the Spider Monkeys was more like it.)

She nodded again, lifted her eyebrows and smiled some more. My heart bounced off the roof of my mouth and nearly gave itself a concussion. Shannondoah was really pretty when she smiled. It wasn't just her teeth—although I had to admit that Gleamoccino stuff was amazing. Her eyes sparkled too. She didn't look tired at all when she smiled.

“Sorry to bother you,” she called out. “I can't find anyone to give me a hand around here, and you teenage guys all seem to know so much about computers. Could you just help me for one itty-bitty second? Please?”

Sure. Once I regain control over my limbs, I'd love to help you.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. My voice came out like it belonged to Dora the Explorer or something.

I walked over all Mr. Roboto and sat down next to her. I felt like I was about five and my feet were dangling a foot off the floor. It was so weird. It was like having the world's prettiest babysitter. I couldn't even look at her.

Shannondoah grabbed the arm of my chair and pulled me toward her. “Now don't be shy! I won't bite.” She smelled nice. She smelled like someone Biff would go out with.

She went, “You're going to think I'm the worst old dummy. I come into the library every day, but I still haven't got the hang of these computers.”

She smiled again. I didn't think she was a dummy at all. It was weird. The more she smiled, the smarter I thought she was. Or maybe just the less I cared.

She picked up her notes and put them in a neat pile next to the computer. “Okay,” she went. “Now tell me what I'm doing wrong here. I'm trying to look some stuff up, and the librarian said I had to go to this, ah, searching thing...”

“Search engine?”

“Yeah, something like that. So I just type it in...”

I didn't know how she could type with those big long nails. It was like tap-dancing on stilts or something. She looked around the keyboard for a couple of seconds, then went, “Oh! There it is!” and hit the Enter button.

“See what happens?” she said to me. Her eyes were this amazing light green, like a lime popsicle or something. “It keeps saying it can't find the site.”

I looked at the screen. I was glad to have something to look at other than her. My tongue was starting to dry out.

I went, “Oh. Ah...yeah. It's, ah, like—you know—Google. com—not gargle.com.”

She looked at the screen, then she looked at me, then she let out this huge laugh. (The librarian would have thrown her out for sure had he caught her.) It surprised me. She didn't look like the type that would have a huge laugh, but it totally suited her. It made me kind of laugh too.

“Oh, that's funny!
Google
, that's what he said! I couldn't figure out why the librarian wanted me to gargle sea lice. I get plenty in my coffee every day, thank you very much...”

I got up to go, but she grabbed me by the arm.

“Sorry. Can you stay for a second or two longer—just to make sure I'm doing this right?” She tilted her head and looked up at me with these big green eyes, and it was kind of corny and cheesy, but hey. It worked. Who cared about my project? I could just call this research. Maybe I'd find out something about Ernest that I could use in my video.