Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (21 page)

THE NEXT MORNING the bell rang and everyone sat down. Tony and Patrick had walked to school separately. Tony was sulking. Patrick was depressed. It was sunny out and the windows were open, letting in some air. Miss Kleinschmidt took role and noted that Mimi's desk was still empty. She stood to announce her Today in History headline.“Class, it's May 23rd, and on this day in 1430, Joan of Arc was captured by the British,” she said. “She would soon face trial and be burned alive at the stake.”

Mimi walked in.

Everyone watched her moving slowly to her desk. She looked a little pale. For breakfast she had eaten two bites of a blueberry Pop-Tart and a half a glass of Slim Fast chocolate shake because the sight of her brother's Fruit Loops turning the milk pink made her want to barf.

“Miss Maloney, so nice of you to finally join us,” Miss Kleinschmidt said. She walked over to Mimi's desk to demand a note from her parents explaining her two-day absence. But before she could say so, Mimi handed her a note her mother had written.

Dear Miss Kleinschmidt
,

Please excuse Mimi for missing two days school this week. She apparently had some virus, but she's feeling well enough to return.

Mrs. Maloney

Miss Kleinschmidt sniffed and took a step back. “Well, I hope you aren't going to get the rest of us good and sick now. Are you feeling well enough to be breathing on us?”

Mimi nodded yes.

Miss Kleinschmidt turned to go back to her desk, and Mimi turned around to say something to Tony. His head was down.

“Hi, Tony,” she whispered.

Tony, nodded, but kept his eyes on the wood grain of his desk.

“I'm looking forward to the graduation dance with you,” she whispered.

Tony looked up. “You are?”

Mimi nodded yes and turned back around facing the front of the class. Tony could smell the shampoo fragrance from her hair. “The Stars and Stripes Forever” played in Tony's brain. He sat up straight and smiled.

There was a knock at the door.

Everyone turned to look. It was Detective Kurtz. His blue shirt, shiny badge, and weapons belt were in perfect order. This was going to be a big day for Detective Kurtz. He was ready to finally solve the case. Patrick closed his book on Dillinger and tensed his legs to get up for his interrogation.

“Mimi Maloney,” Detective Kurtz called out.

Patrick's legs relaxed.

Mimi stood up.

“Could you please come with me?” Detective Kurtz asked.

She walked around the rows of desks, without much spring in her step.

“So, I hear you've been sick,” Detective Kurtz said as they walked down the steps.

Mimi worked up a cough and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, yes, I hope you don't catch it. I'm still contagious.”

Detective Kurtz deflected her possible attempt to discourage a full session of questioning. “Don't worry about me, Miss Maloney. I never get sick.”

At the bottom of the steps Mimi spotted the girls' room. “You mind if I use the bathroom real quick?”

“OK, but don't take all morning in there.”

“Yes, sir.” She gave him a fake courtesy and ducked in the bathroom. The door closed behind her. She stood in front of the mirror and messed up her hair to look a little deranged. Then she practiced making strange eyes in the mirror and took some deep breaths to look like the Hunch Back of Notre
Dame. The toilet flushed and a second grade girl came out and looked at Mimi. Mimi ran some water and pretended to be just washing her hands.

“You're too big to be in here,” the second grade girl said, noticing how Mimi had to lean down to reach the sink.

Mimi smiled at her and kept washing her hands. “You're right, I'm too old for this shit.”

When the girl left, Mimi reached in her pocket and pulled out her secret weapon. It was a two-tablet packet of Alka-Seltzer. Tearing the foil wrapper, she took out an Alka-Seltzer tablet and crushed it into little pieces. Then she hid the pieces in a paper towel and tucked the paper towel in her pocket. Her plan was to fake some coughing later, and then bring the paper towel to her mouth to get the Alka-Seltzer pieces in her mouth. That way, her mouth would foam up and she could convince the investigators that she was nuts.

“You OK in there?” Detective Kurtz said knocking outside the door.

Mimi scurried into the stall to flush the toilet to make it sound official.

“Coming.”

MIMI WALKED INTO the interrogation room. Detective Kurtz shut the door behind her and sat down behind the desk. Father Ernst was there, like before, sitting on the bench cushion. The room was bright from the overhead lights and the desk lamp shining down on a list of class names. She took her seat, feeling a little weak and warm, but ready to put on a show.

“So, tell me,” Detective Kurtz began, “How do you spell meticulous?”

Mimi blinked. The question suggested Detective Kurtz had dove deeper into her grade school file than she had anticipated. But there seemed no harm in playing along for now, even if he knew about her fainting over the word in the fifth grade spelling bee.

“M-e-t-i-c-u-l-o-u-s,” she said.

“Very good,” Detective Kurtz said smiling. “I was curious after reading in your file about the spelling bee if you remember the word.”

“You always remember the word that got you,” Mimi said.

Father Ernst said nothing, watching the questions and answers like a ping-pong match.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Detective Kurtz said, faking a friendly tone. “It's like police work. You always remember the case you couldn't solve. I also imagine that when a word like ‘meticulous' stumps a spelling bee contestant, that she would learn and never forget the meaning of that word.”

Mimi nodded. “I suppose so.”

“You seem, for instance, to be a very meticulous girl.”

“Oh?”

“Why, yes, a girl capable of handling a large project that requires attention to detail, strategy … intelligence.”

“I don't know. My grades are average.”

“Grades don't always tell the story of the real person and how meticulous she is inside, now do they?”

Mimi shrugged. “What's all this got to do with anything?”

Father Ernst looked over at Detective Kurtz, wondering how he would move onto the next level, or if he had the proper footing to make the climb.

Detective Kurtz got out the envelope containing the fake letter from Holy Footsteps Academy, the one saying the school looked forward to Mimi coming there in the fall.

“Your mother was kind enough to lend me this letter,” Detective Kurtz said running his fingertips over the address and postage stamp with the fake cancellation. “I don't know if you've seen it.”

Mimi coughed. “We get a lotta letters. Which one is that?”

Detective Kurtz took the letter from the envelope, holding onto the envelope, and handed the letter to Mimi for her to read.

She took it from him and looked it over, acting as if she were reading it for the first time. “Why, this is just another boring letter from the school.”

“That's the same reaction I had at first,” Detective Kurtz said, “It seems like a standard form letter. A letter from a school where you have been accepted saying they're looking forward to you going there.”

Father Ernst posed a question. “Are you looking forward to going to Holy Footsteps?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Such a nonchalant answer,” Detective Kurtz said, “But this is no ordinary letter. It's a letter that arrived the very day two boys tried to steal the mail from the mailman, or so I thought, until I noticed the postage stamp.” He handed the envelope to Father Ernst to examine again. Then Father Ernst gave it to Mimi. She looked at the address, avoiding eye contact with the stamp.

“Look at the stamp,” Detective Kurtz said, “It looks canceled, but on closer examination, we see it did not run through an official stamp cancellation machine at the Post Office. Someone drew cancellation lines on it with an ink pen.”

“Really?” Mimi said, sitting up a little and acting surprised.

“That's right,” Detective Kurtz said, “So I checked with the school, with the principal, Sister Flourie, and she told me that no such letter was sent out or signed by her. It's a complete fake.”

“Well, what do you know about that?” Mimi said. She was waiting to see where he would go.

“I didn't know what to think,” Detective Kurtz said. “Why would someone go to such great lengths to steal a letter from the mailman that is essentially true? I mean let's look at the facts. You have been accepted. You are expected to go to this school. Right?”

“Yeah.” She dazed her eyes and breathed a little heavy like she had practiced in the bathroom.

“So, this letter, which by its fake cancellation we know never went through the mail, must have been composed to replace another fake letter from the school, a letter that arrived despite the efforts of two boys to steal the mail that day.”

“How can you prove that? Have you got another fake letter?” Mimi asked. She was feeling better about her case.

“I don't have another fake letter, and I don't need another fake letter, because it's not important.”

“It sounds pretty important to me,” Mimi said looking over at Father Ernst. When she looked, she noticed her eyes hurt moving to the side, the way they would with a fever.

“What's important is that two boys showed up to steal the letter, boys in their underwear and masks,” Detective Kurtz said. “This took place during the time your class takes recess. So, let us imagine two boys from the school, oh, I don't know, let's say Patrick and Tony.”

Mimi worked up a coughing jag to put the Alka-Seltzer tablet in her mouth. But Detective Kurtz was looking right at her. She had to wait for him to look away. “Why Tony and Patrick?”

Father Ernst handed Mimi a packet of photographs of them at Forest Park together, the last two showed her kissing Patrick and then kissing Tony.

“Don't you take weekends off?” she asked, handing the pictures back.

Father Ernst put the pictures down on the bench. “We've been working this case all weekend,” he said. “And apparently three students were working it, too. They sneaked into the school Saturday night.”

“I don't know anything about that,” Mimi said.

“SOMEBODY MOVED YOUR TEACHER'S CRACKERS TO MAKE HER LOOK CUCKOO!” Detective Kurtz shouted.

Mimi and Father Ernst looked at him.

Detective Kurtz rubbed his elbow, still tender from the fall he took on the bike rack. He lowered his voice. “Let's forget about whoever broke into the school. That's just a sideshow. The main show is this mailman robbery outside your house on the day this fake letter supposedly arrived. For the two boys to wear masks shows what? It shows they wanted to conceal their identity.”

“So?”

“So, for them to strip to their underwear tells me that their regular clothes would have revealed their identity. Now what type of clothes would do that?”

“Designer jeans?”

“Bullshit.”

Mimi coughed up some more, and as Detective Kurtz shot Father Ernst a frustrated glance, she brought the paper towel to her mouth—pretending to spit in it—and put the crushed Alka-Seltzer on her tongue.

“We're thinking they took off their clothes because they were school uniforms,” Father Ernst said gently. “They didn't want the mailman to know they go to this school.”

“Mmm,” Mimi said as the Alka-Seltzer began to dissolve. Powerful bubbles were stirring and stinging, generating a surge of saliva.

Detective Kurtz raised his voice again. This time his case was coming to a finish, and he wanted Mimi to squirm. “So then, the question is why are Patrick and Tony helping you with your little mailman problem? It can only be because you're helping them with the snow globe investigation. After all, stealing a snow globe and putting it on a roof is boy shit. Your shit is to make up all these lies that everybody told us. We knew it was you because you're
meticulous
. That's what gave you away, Mimi. You're too meticulous.”

Spit bubbles started to form on the corners of Mimi's lips. She knew as soon as she spoke they would come lathering out even more, so she thought about what to say. But nothing came to mind. So much spit was piling up inside her mouth, she was forced to swallow. It was a chalky blend of popping crystals now dragging down the back of her throat.

“Let's make a clean confession,” Father Ernst said. “Just tell us who put the snow globe on the roof and you'll feel better.”

“That's right,” Detective Kurtz said, lowering his tone back to a friendly balm, “you give us the boys and we'll forgive you for anything you ever did wrong. We don't want you. We want the boys who did the snow globe shit and a whole lot of other crimes around town that can't go unpunished.”

Mimi rubbed her throat, keeping her mouth shut as more saliva bubbles blossomed.

“I'll tell you what,” Detective Kurtz said leaning forward. He held out an ink pen to Mimi and she took it. “You don't have to say their names. Just stand up and come over here and put a little mark on this list of the class, a little mark by the names of the boys who did it. That way, it won't have come from your mouth.”

Mimi stood up. She felt dizzy. She took a step forward and raised her right hand holding a shaky pen toward the paper on the desktop. The pen tip was like the nose of a distressed jetliner losing altitude, approaching a runway of boy's names. Detective Kurtz leaned forward to watch the pen tip descend.

Mimi's face was hot. The chocolate shake and two bites of a blueberry Pop Tart she had for breakfast were coming in for a landing. She tried to swallow, but instead everything came hurtling out, sloshing in a chunky puddle on the list of names, splashing up fizzy particles on Detective Kurtz's shirt and face.