"Hey," I said. "It's me, Jess."
"Hi, Jess," she said. But she didn't sound as excited as she had the day before. "How are you doing, honey?"
I said, "Fine. I got some more addresses for you."
She didn't sound like she was any too eager to take them down, though. She said, "I don't suppose you saw the paper, did you, hon?"
"About the reward, you mean?" I scraped at the words Fuck You, which someone had carved into the metal door over the change slot of the pay phone I was using. "Yeah, I saw about the reward. But that seems kind of wrong to me. Collecting a reward, for something any decent human being would do for free. Know what I mean?"
Rosemary said, "Oh, I know what you mean, honey. But that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the little girl you called about yesterday. You told Larry they'd find her by a tree."
"Oh," I said. I was keeping an eagle eye out for Mrs. Pitt. I was determined not to let her catch me this time. All I saw, however, was a black car that had pulled up in the teachers' parking lot. Two men in suits got out of it. Undercover cops, I thought. Somebody had obviously narked on somebody. "Yeah. I thought that was kind of strange. What was she doing by that tree, anyway?"
Rosemary said, "She wasn't by the tree, honey. She was under it. She was dead. Somebody murdered her and buried the body where you said they'd find it." Then Rosemary said, "Honey? Jess? Are you still there?"
I went, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here." Dead? Little Whatever-Her-Name-Had-Been? Dead?
This wasn't so fun anymore.
And then it really wasn't fun. Because I noticed that the two undercover cops were walking toward me. I thought they'd been going into the administrative offices, which would have made sense, but instead, they walked right up to me.
Up close, I could see that they both had very short hair, and that they were both wearing suits. One of them reached into his breast pocket. When his hand came out again, it was holding a small wallet, which he flipped open and held out toward me.
"Hello, there," he said in a pleasant voice. "I'm Special Agent Chet Davies, and this is my partner, Special Agent Allan Johnson. We're with the FBI. We have some questions we'd like to ask you, Jess. Will you hang up the phone and come with us, please?"
In my ear, I could hear Rosemary saying, "Jess, honey, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to have anything to do with it, but they made me."
Special Agent Chet Davies took me by the arm. He said, "Come on, sweetheart. Hang up the phone."
I don't know what made me do it. To this day, I don't know what made me do it. But instead of hanging up the phone, like the agent asked, I punched him in the face with the receiver as hard as I could.
And then I ran.
I didn't go very far, though. I mean, once I started running, I realized how stupid I was being. Where was I going to go? I had no car. How far was I going to get on foot? This was the FBI. It wasn't our Podunk town cops, who are so fat they couldn't chase a cow, let alone a sixteen-year-old girl who'd won the two-hundred-yard dash in P.E. every year since she was ten.
No offense, guys.
But it was like I went mental or something. And when I go mental, I usually end up in the same place. So I decided to cut to the chase and go where I'd probably end up anyway. I ran into the counseling office, threw open Mr. Goodhart's door, and collapsed into the orange vinyl chair by the window.
Mr. Goodhart was eating a cheese Danish. He looked at me over it and said, "Why, Jess, what a pleasant surprise. What brings you here so bright and early?"
I was panting a little. I said, "Two FBI guys just tried to pull me into their car for questioning, but I punched one of them in the face and came here instead."
Mr. Goodhart picked up a coffee mug that had Snoopy on it and took a sip from it. Then he said, "Okay, Jess, let's try that again. I say, 'What brings you here so bright and early,' and you say something like, 'Oh, I don't know, Mr. Goodhart. I just thought I'd drop in to talk about the fact that I'm doing poorly in English again, and I was wondering if you could help convince Miss Kovax to give me some extra credit.'"
Then Mr. Goodhart's secretary, Helen, appeared in the doorway. She looked flustered. "Paul," she said. "There're two men here—"
But she didn't get to finish, because Special Agent Chet Davies pushed her out of the way. He was holding a handkerchief to his nose, from which blood was streaming. He waved his badge at Mr. Goodhart, but his gaze, which was blazing, was on me.
"That was pretty slick," he said, sounding a bit nasal, which wasn't surprising, since I guess I'd broken some cartilage or something. "But assaulting a federal agent happens to be a felony, little lady. Get up. We're going for a drive."
I didn't get up. But just as Special Agent Davies was reaching for me, Mr. Goodhart went, "Excuse me."
That's all. Just, "Excuse me."
But Special Agent Davies pulled his hand away from me as if I'd been on fire or something. Then he threw Mr. Goodhart this very guilty look.
"Oh," he said. He groped for his badge. "Special Agent Chet Davies. I'm taking this girl in for questioning."
Mr. Goodhart actually picked up his Danish, took a bite, and put it down again before he said, "Not without her parents, you're not. She's a minor."
Special Agent Allan Johnson showed up then. He flashed his badge, introduced himself, and said, "Sir, I don't know if you're aware of the fact that this young lady is wanted for questioning in several kidnapping cases, as well as a murder."
Mr. Goodhart looked at me with his eyebrows raised.
"You've been busy, haven't you, Jess?"
I said, in a croaky voice, because suddenly I was as close to crying as I'd ever been, "I was just talking on the phone, and then these two men I've never seen before told me I had to get into a car with them. Well, my mother told me never to get into cars with strangers, and even though they said they were FBI agents and they had those badges and all, how was I supposed to know they were real? I've never seen an FBI badge before. And that's why I hit him, and, Mr. Goodhart—I'm afraid I'm going to cry."
Mr. Goodhart said, in his teasing way, "You aren't going to cry, Jess. You weren't really afraid of these two clowns, were you?"
"Yes," I said with a sob. "I really was. Mr. Goodhart, I don't want to go to jail!"
By the end of all that, I'm embarrassed to say I wasn't close to crying anymore. I was crying. I was practically bawling.
But, come on. You would have been scared, too, if the FBI wanted to question you.
While I was sniffling and wiping my eyes and blaming Ruth in my head for this whole mess, Mr. Goodhart looked at the FBI guys and said, in a voice that wasn't teasing at all, "You two go and have a seat in the outer office. She isn't going anywhere until her parents—and their lawyer—get here."
You could tell by Mr. Goodhart's face that he meant it, too. I had never felt such a wave of affection for him as I did at that moment. I mean, he may have doled out the detentions pretty strictly, but he was a stand-up kind of guy when you needed him.
The two FBI guys seemed to realize this. Special Agent Davies swore loudly. His partner looked a little embarrassed for him. He said to me, "Look, we didn't mean to scare you, Miss. We just wanted to ask you a few questions, that's all. Maybe we could find someplace quiet where we could just straighten out this mess."
"Sure you can," Mr. Goodhart said. "After her parents get here."
Special Agent Johnson knew when he'd been beat. He nodded and went into the outer office, sat down, and picked up a copy of Seventeen and started to flip through it. Special Agent Davies, on the other hand, said another swear word and began pacing up and down in the outer office, while Helen, the secretary, watched him nervously.