You Killed Wesley Payne Read online

  SEVENTH PERIOD FUN WITH CHAUCER

  Dalton fished three twenty-dollar bills from his pocket and slid them across the desk.

  “Quick learner,” Miss Bucket said. “That’ll come in handy around here.”

  “So would an ATM.”

  She smiled. “I heard about your… performance. In the parking lot. Very impressive.”

  “Already? From who?”

  Honey Bucket flapped her arms without generating anywhere near the requisite lift. “A little birdie.”

  “That little birdie happen to be on your little payroll?”

  “My job is to know what there is to know. When people sing, I listen.” Honey Bucket looked both ways. “There’s a calm before the storm, but the storm is definitely coming.”

  “What’s that? Haiku?”

  “Rockers or jocks. A new fish like yourself would be smart to pick a side.”

  Dalton thought about Chuff. For about two seconds. “I’ll take rockers for a hundred, Alex.”

  Honey Bucket laughed, folding Dalton’s cash into her waistband before handing over a new schedule. This one had a normal class load. She filed his paperwork behind a stash of contraband with handwritten prices. There were brass knuckles and some cheap nunchucks. There were also comics, celebrity magazines, naked celebrity magazines, sugared cereals, duct tape, and NoDoz.

  “See anything you like?”

  Dalton’s answer was muffled by a loud bang.

  “No shooting in the hallway!” Miss Bucket called, waving away the noise with splayed fingers. A few kids ran past, chased by a few other kids. They were carrying balloons. One of the balloons popped. Bang.

  Miss Bucket shrugged. “Honestly, around here you never know.”

  In the other direction walked the girl with the blond pixie. She wore a butterfly barrette with tiny emeralds embedded in the wings. Dalton tried to catch her eye, but she gave him a blank look and kept going.

  “I think you struck out there, stud. You want some advice? I’d say lose the tie, for starters. You look like a politician. Or an undertaker.”

  Dalton tightened his Windsor knot. “Is there a difference?”

  “Just make sure you stay current on your reading.” Honey Bucket handed him two pamphlets. The first was called Violence and Salt River and You. The second was called Not Calling the Cops: Keeping Trouble In-House. “In the meantime, you need to saddle up and see the principal.”

  “Why?”

  “All new students do. School policy. Second door on your left, just past the Fack Cult T Lounge. Welcome to Salt River.”

  The frosted pane read PRINCIPAL INFERENCE. Dalton turned the knob. Locked. He knocked. No answer. At the end of the corridor, Honey Bucket was typing with her back to him, pecking one finger at a time. Dalton slipped his mother’s old credit card from his boot and edged it between the bolt and the socket, pulling on the handle to keep a steady friction. Amazingly, the knob turned.

  He closed the door quietly and began knocking on the walls with his knuckle. You were supposed to be able to hear if it was hollow or something. He looked in a fruit bowl, lifted up the rug, and checked the file cabinet. Just police reports and minutes from Fack Cult meetings. He checked Inference’s desk. Erasers, test scores, detention slips. The largest drawer, at the bottom, was full of makeup and tampons. Dalton picked up a tampon and marveled at it. He knew what it did, but wasn’t entirely sure how it did what it did. He dropped the thing back among its wrappered cousins as the door clacked open. Principal Inference backed in balancing a coffee, a leather purse, a lipstick, and a hand mirror. She jumped as he tried a preemptive ass covering.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  The coffee slammed to the floor. Principal Inference stared. Red hair ran down her back in a glistening wave. She was wearing a tight red dress that showed off considerable leadership talents. He could tell she was trying to decide if she should explode or play it cool. Cool won.

  “Ah, Mr. Rev. Have a seat.”

  Inference said nothing as she closed her obviously rifled desk drawer with one knee. Dalton was about to try out something suitably ruthless-ish, when he noticed a man in a blue pin-striped suit staring in the window. When he blinked, the man was gone.

  “I know why you’re here, Rev.”

  “Valuable life skills. And if I study real hard, maybe even a diploma.”

  Inference clacked a few keys before turning her computer screen. A website blinked: DALTON REV, PRIVATE DICK—I SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS.

  “You and I, Mr. Rev, are now having what’s known as a Student Diagnostic.” She began scribbling on a take-out menu. “There. It’s done. I’ve officially diagnosed that this school is not for you. The exit’s down the hall to your left.”

  Dalton unfolded the Tehachapi High transfer papers stuck in a compartment in his tie. They were in triplicate, signed and notarized. Inference poked through them and then sighed.

  “You’re wasting your time. Wesley Payne was a suicide. The case is already closed.”

  THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #6

  Always speak Truth to authority.

  If you have no idea what the Truth is, speaking Obnoxious to authority sometimes works too.

  “The case is closed when I close it.”

  Inference’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t like that tone of voice around here.”

  “So don’t use it.”

  She filled out a demerit form with big, looping strokes. “Very clever. You can now spend the rest of the semester investigating the mysteries of detention.”

  “Thirty percent.”

  Inference looked up. “Of what?”

  “The money that was stolen out of your office. The hundred grand. Deal I’m offering is: I find it, you give me thirty percent. Plus, while I look into The Body, you keep the Fack Cult out of my way.”

  “How do you know about the money?”

  “It was a rumor,” Dalton said. “That you just confirmed.”

  A drop of sweat carved a runnel through Principal Inference’s blush. Dalton could tell she was trying to decide if she should let loose a real smashed-lamp hair-puller, or be all I have no idea what you’re blah blah blahing about.

  “Six percent.”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Ten. That’s as high as I go, Rev. Ten is sheer gravy.”

  Dalton needed that gravy. Bad. But it meant he’d only have till the weekend to find a killer and a stack of cash. He’d spent six months setting up a deal for his brother. After Saturday at midnight it was going to turn into a moldy pumpkin.

  “Deal.”

  Inference settled somewhere between pissed and relieved as Dalton gestured to the painting behind her, an amateurish job of a jowly man in a cheap suit.

  “My father. Hannibal Inference.”

  “I take it the cash was stuffed behind him?” In Another Day, Another Dahlia, Lexington Cole had found a missing diamond stiletto concealed by an heiress’s portrait.

  She frowned, then got up and pulled the hinged frame aside, revealing a small wall safe. Next to the dial were freshly drilled holes, corkscrews of metal filings resting on the sill.

  Dalton crossed his legs. “So, okay, you’ve been squeezing cliques for a weekly skim of their rackets. No surprise there. What I don’t get is how you didn’t figure sooner or later one of them was going to decide it’d be easier to hit your stash than spend the semester stealing Euclidian lunch money.”

  Inference’s eyes flashed. She leaned forward to rest her chin on the steeple of her fingers, her face about six inches from Dalton’s. “Did I mention, by any chance, Mr. Rev, that I called your parents this morning?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would.”

  They stared at one another. Parents, like libraries, sporting events, and little sisters, were off-limits.

  “Nice woman, your mother,” Inference continued, pressing her advantage. “She’s worried, unsurpr
isingly, about your grades. Your father is of the opinion that if you’d only apply yourself more, you could be college material.”

  THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #7

  The weaker the play, the weaker the bluff. Also, never trust a redhead.

  “There are dogs barking in your hallways, Inference. Balls on one side, Caskets on the other. That leaves you in the middle, cashless. Why call my parents and risk extra heat? The way I see it, you didn’t call anyone. And while you weren’t calling, you didn’t say shite.”

  Principal Inference played with her bangs. “Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  “Yeah, you can. You can blame a girl for just about anything.”

  Principal Inference stood, a foot taller and forty pounds heavier than Dalton. Even so, he could see the man in the blue pin-striped suit over her left shoulder. The suit ducked behind a tree as Inference punched something into Dalton’s gut. “You’re late for class. Here’s your permission slip.”

  He took it and walked to the door, trying to breathe.

  “One more thing, Rev. Crack the books. You talk a good game, but that’s not going to help if you fall below a C average. You go below a C and you’re out of here, like that.”

  Dalton took one last look out the window, but the pinstripe was gone.

  As soon as the door closed, Principal Inference punched the intercom.

  “Miss Bucket?”

  “Cute, isn’t he?”

  “Get Kurt Tarot out of class. Now.”

  Honey Bucket gulped. Something dropped from her desk and broke. “Out of class? What should I say?”

  Principal Inference looked at the portrait of her father, Hannibal, who stared back with marked disapproval.

  “Tell him we have a problem that needs immediate fixing.”

  CHAPTER 3

  EYES LIKE BURNING FIRE. AS OPPOSED TO THE OTHER KIND.

  As soon as the door was closed, Mole materialized out of nowhere, slapping Dalton’s back. “I’m telling you, crackstar, that action with the scooter was classic.” He did a western six-shooter routine, spinning imaginary Colts on his fingers. “Huffing up to Chuff? Trust me, no one huffs to Chuff.”

  “I just hate when there’s mud on my helmet.”

  “Whatever, Johnny Rambo!” Mole held out his knuckles for a bump. “What do you say we head over to the biology lab and free some POWs?”

  “Maybe after lunch,” Dalton said, bumping back.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We?”

  “Okay, what are you doing now?”

  “I need to go see my client.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Whoever pays.”

  “What if I paid?”

  “Paid for what?”

  “To be your sidekick.”

  “You want to pay me to hire you?”

  Mole pushed his glasses up his nose. “Everyone needs a sidekick. Even Aquaman had a sidekick.”

  “He did?”

  “Squid Boy. Crab Boy or whoever. Helping unbeach whales and foil polluters. I could do that.”

  Dalton held out a hand. “You’re hired. That’ll be two hundred bucks.”

  Mole pretended to search his pockets, coming up empty. “Do you take checks?”

  Dalton turned toward his next class. The hallway of Salt River High was exactly the same as every other school: dirty tile, broken lockers, porcelain water fountains, and walls covered with handmade posters for events that had happened years ago. They entered the slipstream of students, forced to the edge, shouldering into couples mid-grope, the cinder-block walls wet with smoochy condensation.

  “It must be spring; there’s love in the air.”

  Mole smirked. “Yeah, the Pilgrims called it necking. In the fifties it was making out. Goths say suck-facing. At Salt River it’s just between classes on a Monday morning.”

  “You make that up or read it in a magazine?”

  Mole tapped his temple three times. “Thank Bob I’m a Euclidian.”

  They passed a janitor mopping up something red. It could have been blood. It could have been a spilled smoothie. Near the janitor was a skinny kid with a newly bandaged thumb. Some other kids surrounded him, all of them asking “You got shot?”

  “No, I got a blister,” he kept saying.

  Dalton found his locker. It was blocked by cliques showing off their wares: stolen test scores, fake iPods, and rodent cashmere. A few Face Boi were selling soda bottles from a cooler, the name RUSH handwritten over the old labels with a Sharpie. “Got an important quiz to study for? Buy it now—I only got six left!”

  A pale kid handed over a twenty and twisted the top open, pupils immediately pinned. He let out a manic whoop and ran in place for a minute, spit caked in the corners of his mouth, before taking off down the hall. A line quickly formed, pushing and shoving until the last bottle was gone.

  “They say Rush is made out of Euclidian blood. It’s supposed to make you smarter.”

  “Who says?”

  Mole shrugged, tracing a rectangle in the air with two fingers. “Check it, new bumper sticker: Guns Don’t Kill Kids, Rush Kills Kids.”

  “And you believe it?”

  Mole pulled at his goatee hairs, considering. “Some people say that’s why they did Wes Payne. Drained him for his sangria. Since he was, you know, the smartest dude in school.”

  As Dalton fiddled with his locker, a hatchet-faced kid slid in front of him. “Here’s my offer: Five bucks to open it for you now, or, twenty a month to remember your combination on a permanent basis.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  The kid shrugged, already latching onto another prospective sale.

  “Scam Wow,” Mole said. “Guy would steal your liver, sauté it with onions, and charge you extra for rice.”

  Dalton’s locker banged open. Twenty inches of banana peels, gym shorts, and old quizzes moldered at the bottom. He closed the door as whispers swelled down the hall, building like an electrical storm, little buzzing clouds forming under the asbestos ceiling panels. Bull Lemia stopped hawking goods. Silverspoon stopped giggling at private jokes. Dalton turned as they all parted, a girl suddenly owning the hallway like she’d just grabbed the mic at center stage. She was Asian, with dyed pink hair, thigh-high leather boots, and legs that went on practically forever.

  She was absolutely smoking.

  She was disco atomic.

  She was Fat Man and Little Boy.

  Dalton recognized his cue. It was the exact moment Lexington Cole would have turned on a Cuban heel, walked over without a word, and crushed his lips against hers. He’d done it to Minka Lynx in There Are No Corners in a Rubber Room. He’d done it to Calumny Ride in Who Isn’t Buried in Trotsky’s Grave? Lex would have smoldered her silly, and then pulled back, saying something like You taste like doom, baby.

  Dalton, instead, did nothing.

  Mole made an imaginary rectangle with his fingers. “Check it, new bumper sticker: Your Kid May Be on the Honor Roll, but That Chick Is a Whiskey Lick.”

  “A whiskey what?”

  “Dude, that’s Cassiopeia Jones. Head of Foxxes.”

  “Fox’s?”

  “Dos equis. Two x’s. New clique in town.”

  “What’s their angle?”

  Mole shrugged. “Aside from handing out dagwoodies like Halloween candy? Half the guys in school with rodneys at attention twenty-four/seven? Got me.”

  Cassiopeia sauntered over. Her black lipstick glistened.

  “Gossip said there was a new fish around. Said some real hard case row, row, rowed his boat down the Salt River.”

  Dalton eyeballed Cassiopeia’s outfit. “You look different. What’s with all the war paint?”

  “You know her?” Mole asked.

  “You mean biblically?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “More like Judas.”

  The Crowdarounds laughed, their numbers swelling as Text Mob LOL texted the play-by-play to the rest
of the school. A tall, thin teacher came around the corner, urging everyone to go to class. They ignored him. He alluded to detention. Someone slipped him a five and he went away.

  “Go away, Lester,” Cassiopeia said.

  Dalton raised an eyebrow. “Lester?”

  Mole looked down at the pineapples on his shirt, a purple pattern that hung over his protruding belly. “Mole. Molester. Hilarious. Say it a few times. Get it out of your system. Can we move on?”

  “Yes, you can,” Cassiopeia said, snapping her fingers. A dangerous-looking girl with a single blond braid stood at Mole’s elbow. He instantly faded into the Crowdarounds.

  “Dalton, Dalton.” Cassiopeia sighed. “Still with the detective routine?”

  “It’s not that complicated. Add killer, subtract body, solve for x. What can I say? It’s a career.”

  “You’re not even eighteen. You’re failing algebra.”

  “And you killed Wesley Payne.”

  Cassiopeia didn’t even blink. “I suppose I could have. But honestly? I’d have to say no.”

  “Then enough with the junior varsity patter. This interview is over.”

  Cassiopeia twisted the silver ring in her eyebrow. “Listen, we both left some messy things behind at Tehachapi, okay? I just didn’t know that messy thing would follow me here.”

  “I had no idea you transferred to Salt River.”

  Cassiopeia bent closer. She smelled like an extra hour of daylight. “Dalton, what happened to us?”

  “What us?”

  “So I got tired of waiting around! So I went to the prom with someone else!”

  “Yeah, some haircut. What was his name? Keith?”

  “Keith was nice. Keith bought me a corsage.”

  “Sounds like a keeper.”

  “Why do we talk like this? It makes me feel empty inside.”

  Dalton fished in his pocket for some change. “So open your mouth. I’ll drop in a quarter and we can all listen to it clang around for a while.”

  The Crowdarounds roared with laughter.

  THE PRIVATE DICK HANDBOOK, RULE #8

  Never fall for a girl named after a constellation or a European city. Especially not twice.