We Know It Was You (7 page)

I love you and you're my best friend. Your smile makes my day!

I love you and you're my best friend. Never ever change!

Corny began carefully taping the notes to the locker doors, using tape she'd sprinkled with pink and silver glitter. She'd stayed up until two a.m. writing a special note for every girl on the varsity and junior varsity cheer squads, each with a unique message to lift their spirits and help get everyone through this sad and awful week.

I love you and you're my best friend. You have the most beautiful hair!

She taped up the last one with a flourish, and then plopped down on a bench. She closed her eyes and made herself breathe in and out. It was important to take a moment for yourself every now and then. It was called self-care. Corny had read that in a magazine.

“Okay!” she said after five seconds. She opened her eyes.

This locker room is disgusting,
she thought. Stuff was strewn everywhere—clothes, bras, pairs of tennis shoes. No one had bothered to clean up after the game on Friday. Everyone had just gone home and cried. And now it was like a moment frozen in time, the moment before Brittany's light had gone out and left the world a darker place.

Corny noticed a puddle on the floor near the pom-pom closet. It looked like urine.
Gross
. Had someone been so sad they'd peed themselves? Grief pee? Maybe that was a thing. Corny got up and went closer to it, to see if it really was pee. It was disgusting, but she couldn't help being curious. Then she realized it was coming from under the pom-pom closet door.

Oh my God,
she thought.
There's someone in there.

There was a burgundy backpack leaning against the door. It had initials embroidered on it:
GWC
.
Gerard Cole
. She knew Gerard came in and out of the locker room sometimes to refill their pink Gatorade. No one really minded—Gerard was practically one of the girls. But did he, like, hang out in there when they were all gone? Just by himself? That was kind of weird.

“Um . . . Gerard?” Corny knocked gently on the closet door. “Gerard, what are you doing in there?”

She heard him groan softly.

“Don't be embarrassed,” Corny said. “I think we all deserve to cry in the pom-pom closet today. Let me in and we can cry together.” She jiggled the door handle, but it was locked.

“Did you pick a fight with Trevor again?” she asked through the door.

She waited, but he didn't seem to be moving.

“I'm going to get the spare keys from the lounge. And a mop. Don't go anywhere. I'll be back in five minutes, and I'll give you a nice foot massage.”

She gave Gerard's backpack a little push with her foot so the urine puddle wouldn't touch it. Then she dashed from the locker room, buzzing with all the love inside her.

The AV lab, 12:30 p.m.

Skylar Jones sat in the dark, blinking back tears. He was in the equipment closet, watching
The Lion King
on Mr. Rashid's laptop. The circle of life—it was so beautiful! Skylar swiped a match against his pant leg, preparing to light up for the third time since breakfast. On a day like this you really couldn't be too high, Skylar figured. Everyone was freaking out about Brittany Montague. Apparently she'd jumped off the bridge in her mascot suit and was dead. About a hundred people had seen her do it, right in the middle of the football game. Skylar
shuddered, not wanting to think about it. He turned up the volume on Mr. Rashid's computer.
Hakuna matata
, right?

Ding ding!
It was the little bell at the front desk. Skylar considered ignoring it. The school was barely functioning today. Half the student body hadn't even shown up, and the other half was crowded into “grief circles” in the guidance hall.
Ding ding!
The bell rang again. Skylar sighed and paused the movie. He poked his head out of the closet to see who was there.

Great. It was that Scooby-Doo guy and god-awful Virginia Leeds. Just being in the same room with Virginia was a buzzkill. She'd worked at the AV desk for a few weeks at the beginning of the semester, and she'd driven Skylar crazy. The AV lab had always been Skylar's place to chill out, but Virginia's vibe was anything but chill. She was always in your face, and she was incredibly nosy. He'd even caught her going through his backpack once. When he asked her what the hell she thought she was doing, she said, “I'm just trying to get to know you!”

And now here she was, leaning across the desk and holding a small digital camera. “Skylar, can you give us the checkout history on this camera? It has a library barcode. Just tell us how often it gets checked out.”

“Um . . . no?” Skylar said. “We don't fork over that information.”

“We're just trying to return it,” Virginia said. “We found it on the ground. . . . Are you crying?”

Skylar wiped his eyes. “Shut up.”

“It's okay to be one with your emotions,” Virginia said, smirking.

The Scooby guy looked impatient. “Yes, yes, everyone's upset. So can you give us the checkout history?”

“You just found it on the ground?” Skylar asked. “Why do you care who checked it out?”

“Why do
you
care that
we
care?” Virginia said.

“I
don't
,” Skylar said, scowling, wishing he'd never left the equipment closet.

“If you could just check,” the Scooby guy persisted.

Skylar sighed loudly and scanned the barcode on the camera. He squinted at the computer screen. “Um . . . nobody checked this out. Well, not a student anyway.”

“Yes they did,” Virginia said. “It was definitely a student.”

“Well if you know so much, why are you asking me?” Skylar sighed.

“Here, let me look,” Virginia demanded, leaning over the desk to see the computer screen for herself. Her elbow bumped a cup full of pens.

Skylar swatted her away. “Quit. You're knocking things over. Let me a do full scan.”

“Patrick Choi,” Virginia said, reading the scan result. “Mr. Choi? The pep band conductor? Mr. Choi?”

“Mr. Choi?” Scooby repeated. “Mr.
Choi
?”

Now Skylar
really
needed a joint. “Let's say ‘Mr. Choi' five hundred more times.”

Virginia grabbed the camera and started walking off with it, followed by her nerdy friend. “Thanks, Skylar.”

“Hey, you have to give that back,” Skylar shouted after them. They ignored him. He sighed and returned to the equipment closet, resolved not to come out again until he was high enough to tune out this entire day.

The girls' bathroom, 2:45 p.m.

Virginia stood at the mirror, spritzing herself with perfume.
I can't believe I used to think Skylar was cool,
she thought. She'd applied to work at the AV lab in September because Skylar Jones had seemed like the most mysterious boy in school. He was a senior, he wore sandals, he had a bumper sticker on his car that said
THE TAO OF CHILL
, and Virginia had started the school year determined to be his girlfriend. She had spent every free period in the AV lab, probing Skylar's mind for the mysterious, philosophical thoughts that she was certain must be in there somewhere. But after a few weeks Virginia learned the important lesson that some people who seem mysterious are actually just incredibly stoned.

Virginia eyed the camera in her backpack.
Mr. Choi?
she thought for the hundredth time. It was so weird and random. Maybe he'd been paying Brittany to do his lecherous peeping for him. Except that didn't make sense, because the Montagues were already rich.

“That smells really nice,” came a girl's voice from inside one of the stalls.

“Thank you,” Virginia said, taking a final spritz of the perfume.

“It smells like . . . I dunno. Like a rose.”

Virginia frowned, annoyed. She didn't want to smell like a rose. She wanted to smell like
yearning
or
eternity
.

“Can I use some?” The stall door swung open, and a tall blond girl stepped out, dramatically wobbling on a pair of high heels. One glance at her face and it was obvious that the girl was way on drugs. But for once Virginia reserved her snotty judgments, because this wasn't just some druggy lowlife skulking in the girls' room. This was Angie Montague.

Virginia's mouth hung open stupidly for a moment.
What is she doing here?
Half the school was missing today, and Angie was the last person anyone expected to show up. And who could blame her for wanting to drug out—only why was she doing it
at school  
?

“Uh, sure,” Virginia managed to say finally, holding out the perfume bottle.

“Thanksss,” said Angie. She reached out and swiped the perfume, then immediately dropped it. The glass bottle shattered on the filthy bathroom tiles, and within seconds the air was thick with the pungent smell of perfume. Angie looked at her hand with confusion, as if she expected the perfume bottle to rematerialize. Then she burst into tears.

“I'm so sorry!” she cried out, crumpling to her knees. The perfume's smell wafted up from the floor.

“Whoa, it's okay,” Virginia said, coughing a little from
the smell and wondering if she should go get a guidance counselor.

“I'll pay you back!” Angie said, sobbing into her knees. “How . . . how much was it?”

“Um, forty dollars . . . but don't worry about it, really.”

“Forty dollars?” Angie gasped. “Where am I going to get forty dollars? MY PURSE WAS STOLEN!” Then she collapsed in tears, burying her face in her hands.

Virginia felt her lip curl in irritation. She'd been prepared to excuse Angie's histrionics, but this was just insulting. She didn't need to make up some story about her purse being stolen. She was Angie Montague; she could probably reach up her ass and pull out forty dollars.

“I said don't worry about it,” Virginia said icily. “You can write me a check.”

“Do you have anything to eat?” Angie demanded. “I'm fucking starving.” And she actually looked kind of starving. Her cheeks were hollow and colorless, and she seemed weak.

Virginia rummaged in her bag and found a crumbly old granola bar. “Here,” she said, handing it to Angie. Angie took it, but then just stared at it.

“So . . . are you gonna eat it or what?” Virginia asked her.

Angie glared at her, and her eyes were suddenly clear and ferocious. “Oh my GOD, get OUT of here! I want CORNY! I want a HUG! Not you and your disgusting trailer-trash perfume!”

Virginia stumbled backward, startled by Angie's outburst.
“Sorry,”
she muttered. The heavy perfume was making her dizzy. She turned and ran out the door, and immediately crashed into the soft, hefty chest of Corny Davenport.

“Sorry,” Virginia found herself saying again. “I think I touched your boob.”

“Is she in there?” Corny breathed urgently.

“Yeah . . . she was asking for you.”

Without another word Corny whirled past her. Virginia watched her dash on her tiptoes toward the bathroom, the door whooshing open in front of her. Virginia peered in for a second—and immediately wished she hadn't. It was possibly the saddest thing she'd ever seen: Angie Montague weeping on the filthy bathroom floor in a puddle of perfume.

The music hall, 2:50 p.m.

Benny leaned his ear against the heavy wooden door. Silence. He knocked lightly. No answer.

In a way he was relieved. He hadn't planned what to say if Mr. Choi had actually answered. The two things detective work required were intuition and authority: the ability to see through your suspect and the ability to make him crack in front of you by trickery or intimidation. But Benny didn't know if he could do that with a teacher. Benny was the kind of guy who said “yes, sir” compulsively, even to Rick the janitor who was twenty-four years old and always laughed at him. He had been raised to be respectful.

He looked for the appointments roster on the door. It took him a moment to find it, because the door was covered with posters of famous jazz musicians. Mr. Choi was obsessed with jazz. He was in the house band at the Sapphire Lounge, and was always trying to persuade his students to come see him play. But the Sapphire Lounge was in the bad part of town, and Benny knew there was zero chance that his mom would ever let him near it. “Monday through Thursday, I'm always there!” Mr. Choi was constantly reminding the class. Nobody ever went. It used to make Benny feel guilty, and also kind of embarrassed. It seemed a little desperate, not to mention inappropriate, for Mr. Choi to be inviting his students to a place like the Sapphire Lounge.

Benny found the roster half concealed behind a black-and-white print of Charles Mingus. The roster was blank, except for the hour between three-thirty and four:
Marty Robeson. Private lesson. 3 and 3:30.

Benny Flax,
he wrote beneath it.
Question.

The football field, 3:20 p.m.

Benny felt a little weird watching the cheerleaders halfheartedly doing stretches on the field. He knew he probably looked like some clueless pervert hoping to prey on one of the grief-stricken girls after practice. It didn't help that Gerard Cole, the sappy water boy, was there too, staring at the cheerleaders and periodically weeping.

I wish Virginia would get here already,
Benny thought. She'd left a note on his locker reading, in bright pink marker,
Meet me at cheer practice this aft —important clue to discuss.
It was just taped to the front of his locker for anyone to see. Virginia had yet to absorb the finer points of investigating a crime, for instance that you don't advertise to the world when you have an “important clue.”