Famous Mistakes Page 8

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I think you lost a button,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the button we had found in Brady’s room.

  I didn’t think it was possible, but his face went even paler and his eyes wider. I don’t know if it was the look on my face or that he knew where he had lost it, but after a second’s hesitation, he turned and ran.

  I didn’t think; I just ran after him.

  “Nancy! Wait!” I heard Ned call from behind me, but I had worked too hard and we were too close for me to wait.

  I followed the man as he ran down the hall and through a door, which led to a flight of stairs. I sprinted down. The pale man was surprisingly fast, and I wasn’t gaining any ground on him. I could hear his footsteps echoing ahead of me. Behind me I could hear my friends hurrying to catch up.

  We went down three flights of stairs until I watched another door open. I ran after him to find myself in a huge open space. It looked like it was the storage area; there were leftover construction materials, racks full of costumes for future performances, teaching supplies, and items I couldn’t identity covered in tarps.

  I stood in the doorway and listened, but all I could hear was my own labored breathing as I struggled to catch my breath from my sprint.

  I saw a flash of movement to my right and headed in that direction, picking my way through the jumbled maze. I couldn’t imagine where all this stuff had come from. The Arts Complex had only been open for a few months.

  Suddenly there was a noise behind me, but before I could pivot to see what it was, something smashed into the back of my head and the world went black.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Confession

  I FELT LIKE I WAS on a boat being rocked back and forth.

  “Nancy! Nancy!” I heard vaguely, as if someone was saying my name far away, through a bank of fog, making the noise muffled. I was aware of a throbbing pain in the back of my head.

  “Nancy, Nancy!” I heard again, and the world sprang into focus. I saw Ned’s face hovering above mine, his expression worried.

  “Thank goodness you’re awake,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my forehead gently.

  My surroundings were strange and I struggled to remember where I was. Suddenly it all came rushing back to me and I sat bolt upright.

  “We have to catch that man!” I said, frantically trying to get to my feet, but as I rushed to stand, the world started to spin, and I felt my stomach turn. I sat back down with a thud, cradling my head.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Ned said. “We caught him.”

  “What?” I asked, quickly looking from the floor to his face and regretting it immediately.

  “He’s right over there,” Ned said. He moved a little to his left, where I saw the man sitting calmly in a chair. George and Bess were standing on either side of him, guarding him. He didn’t seem like he was trying to get anywhere, though. If anything, he seemed relieved to be sitting in the chair.

  “What happened?” I asked. “How did you catch him? Did he confess?”

  Ned laughed. “Slow down. I can only answer one question at a time.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “First tell me what happened.”

  “George figured he wouldn’t lead you into the basement if there wasn’t an exit down here, so she recorded some audio of us talking and came in here playing that, so he thought all of us were here. Meanwhile Bess and I ran as fast as we could to the other side of the building. We found the exit and waited for him. He walked right into us.”

  “Literally,” Bess said.

  “Here, listen,” George said. She held up her phone and I heard George say, “Through here,” followed by Ned saying, “Do you see Nancy?” And Bess, “I don’t like this. I think we should call the police.” Then “We can’t leave Nancy alone!” Ned reprimanded her.

  I laughed. “That’s really great,” I said. It was a pretty ingenious plan, too, especially since they’d had to come up with it on the fly.

  “I’m just sorry we didn’t get here before he gave you that nasty crack on the head,” Ned said.

  I shrugged. “It’s a risk of the job,” I said.

  “Only when you go charging after someone without waiting for your backup,” Bess scolded me.

  I blushed. “You’re right. I should have waited. I was just so excited to solve this case.”

  “It’s not the first time; it won’t be the last,” Bess said knowingly.

  I was so lucky to have friends who would go to such lengths to help me. I felt guilty that I had taken off without them. I wanted to say that it wouldn’t happen again, but I knew that Bess was right. I would do it again. When I got hold of a clue, it was almost like I was possessed. I had to follow it, even if that meant getting into dangerous situations.

  I took a deep breath. I needed to focus on this case. I looked over at the man. His facial expression hadn’t changed once. It was completely impassive.

  “Did he confess?” I asked Ned.

  “We wanted to make sure you were okay before we talked to him. Besides, we thought the honor should be yours.”

  I nodded, wincing in pain.

  “Can you help me up?”

  Ned put his hands under my shoulders and helped me to my feet. The world spun again, but after a few seconds it stilled. Slowly, Ned keeping his arm around my shoulder, we walked in front of the man.

  “Let’s start with your name.”

  The man checked his watch before answering. “My name is Louis Flynn,” he said calmly. “And I am the man you are looking for.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “You’re the teenagers trying to figure out who is harassing Brady Owens, right?”

  “How do you know that?”

  Louis shrugged. “Just from around town, I guess.”

  I exchanged looks with my friends. I had only been working on this case for half a day, and the whole reason I had been brought on was to keep it low profile. It seemed odd that he would have heard of us. “What exactly did you do?” I asked.

  “I broke into Brady Owens’s hotel room and trashed it. I also run a fake Twitter account that stoked people’s anger toward Brady. My sister was mugged and she ended up in the hospital. What Brady said made me furious,” he said calmly.

  “What about Brady’s notebook? Did you destroy that?”

  Louis hesitated for a second before nodding. “I guess?”

  “You don’t remember?” I asked.

  “I destroyed the room. If there was a notebook in there, it’s possible that got destroyed too.”

  This seemed odd to me. Each page had been ripped into dozens of pieces. It didn’t seem like something someone had done casually and wouldn’t remember. It had seemed deliberate. I was formulating my next question when Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

  He looked toward George. “I deduce that you are the techie of this crime-stopping group.” I could almost feel the hackles go up on the back of George’s neck. He sounded condescending, like he was making fun of us for investigating this case.

  Louis offered the phone to George. “You’ll find proof that I ran the Twitter account here.”

  George looked at me before taking the phone, as if asking for permission. She could sense something was off too. It felt like a trap, but the back of my head ached and I still felt foggy, like I was processing the world 75 percent as fast as normal. I nodded toward George to take the phone. I didn’t have any better ideas.

  George flipped through the phone. Within a minute she was saying, “He’s telling the truth. He does control the account.”

  We were all quiet for a moment. Then, “Well, I guess that’s it,” Ned said. “Case solved.”

  “Yeah . . . ,” I said. And I guess it was. I had what I needed: a confession and proof. But it felt anticlimactic. Louis had confessed too easily, too calmly. In my experience, most culprits put up a fight to the very end or confess in a fit of righteous anger, justifying why they did wh
at they did. No one had ever just stated it as if they were telling me what they’d had for lunch.

  “Joe,” Ned said on his phone. “It’s Ned Nickerson. We have your culprit and proof, too.”

  Ned walked to another part of the storage area and I could no longer make out what he was saying. Suddenly the pain in my head became acute. I grimaced, and I must have looked bad because Bess came rushing to my side.

  “We need to get you to a doctor.”

  “I’m okay. I just need some aspirin and maybe some ice,” I said.

  “Well, I can take care of one of those things,” she said. She reached into her huge purse and pulled out aspirin and a bottle of water.

  “I love your magical purse,” I said.

  Ned came back. “Joe will be here in a minute.”

  Sure enough, a minute later, Joe sauntered in, a security guard at his side.

  “Louis? Really?”

  Louis shrugged.

  I handed Joe the phone, and George explained how Louis had sent inflammatory online posts to incite the protest against Brady’s show tonight. “I can’t believe this,” Joe said. “He confessed?”

  Louis just nodded his head and looked to the floor.

  Joe sighed and rubbed his head, then turned to the security guard who had accompanied him. “All right, take him to the police station.”

  The security guard crossed to Louis, who put out his hands to be handcuffed.

  “I can’t believe I hired you to teach painting here after you told me that your work stopped selling and that you were desperate for a job. This is how you repay me?” Joe said, the anger finally pushing through his shock.

  Louis kept quiet, and Joe shook his head in disgust.

  After they left, Joe turned to me. “Good job, Nancy.”

  “So Brady’s show, it’s on?”

  Joe nodded. “My security team is doing a great job keeping the crowd outside controlled, and now that you caught the culprit, I feel confident that there won’t be any more hijinks during his set.” He clapped his hands together. “As they say, the show must go on!”

  Ned grinned broadly and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “I need to go make sure everything is proceeding correctly, but thanks a lot, Nancy.”

  Joe left and Bess turned to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a doctor? We can take you right now.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to see the show.” Even though the case was solved, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t over.

  We exited the basement and headed back upstairs to the theater. We called Brady and he got us on the list to come in through the backstage area, so we could easily get in without having to weave through the crowds. I peeked through the window on the way to see the protesters below. The security team was there and the protesters were out of the street and were staying behind the barricades the guards had set up. They had plenty of room and no one was stopping them from holding signs or shouting slogans and they were not impeding people who wanted to attend the show. It seemed like everyone was getting along out there.

  Brady greeted us, and he quickly thanked me, but I could tell he was distracted getting ready for his show and I didn’t want to throw him off. This was a big night for him. We promised to catch up with him after the show and tell him everything that had gone on.

  We were the first people in the theater. It was nice to sit in the quiet for a while, but I still felt on edge. I couldn’t tell if it was just the leftover adrenaline from being attacked by Louis or something else.

  “Everything okay, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  “I don’t know. I just feel weird,” I said.

  “You’ll feel better once the show’s over and you know the case is solved for good,” Bess reassured me.

  The theater started to fill up and there was a steady line of people streaming in. My dad came in, and we waved as he took a seat near the back. The protest had succeeded in getting a lot of people to show up outside the theater and yell, but it didn’t seem like it had stopped anyone from actually attending. To my surprise, I saw Tami slide into the back. I gave her a little wave and she smiled back at me.

  Soon the lights dimmed, and a spotlight on the stage came up, focusing on a plain wooden stool with a microphone in front of it in the center of the stage. A few seconds later Brady strode onto the stage. A feeling of electricity shot through the crowd. There were some cheers but also some boos. Brady didn’t seem bothered. He just picked up the mic, moved the stand to the left of the stool, and sat down.

  “Hello,” he said. “How was your day? Me, personally, I’ve had better.” There was a chuckle through the crowd, tentative; the audience seemed caught off guard by his casual opening. “Have you ever heard that phrase, ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’?” he asked. There was a louder chuckle. It was like a rising tide, as people allowed themselves to be amused. “I decided to test the limits of that phrase. I figured that the best way to start a tour is to make everyone hate you. It’s a brand-new viral marketing technique. You should all try it.

  “In all seriousness, I need to say something.” He paused again. “I’m sorry. I should have said this two weeks ago when I encouraged that crowd to mug that heckler. It wasn’t funny and I should have never said it. So I want to thank the River Heights Victims’ Rights Advocates for organizing these protests these last couple of weeks. Their hard work has forced me to admit to myself and to you that I had made a mistake. I just wish I had realized it earlier. This is what happens when you procrastinate, kids: things get worse.” The energy in the room shifted; the crowd was now fully on board with him. I looked over at Tami; even she was nodding in appreciation.

  And then Brady jumped up off the stool. “And that’s the last serious thing you’re going to hear from me all night, folks. Who’s ready for some jokes?” he said loudly.

  The crowd cheered. Any trepidation they’d had was gone.

  “As some of you may know, I went to college in River Heights.” The crowd cheered. “I am so happy to be back and in this beautiful Arts Complex. My friend Joe Archer runs it, so when he called me and asked if I would come perform here, I immediately said, ‘How much are you paying me?’ No, I’m kidding. Joe’s a great guy. We were roommates in college. Do any of you have roommates?”

  And with that he was off and running. He didn’t tell jokes so much as tell stories that made you laugh. He may have felt like his notebook was essential, but to the audience, you’d never know he felt unprepared. He kept the audience laughing.

  “See?” Ned whispered. “Everything’s fine.”

  I was about to nod, when all of a sudden a fire alarm started blaring. “Fire! Fire!” a mechanized voice said. “Please exit the building! Fire! Fire!”

  “Something is going on,” I said as we stood up. Ned, Bess, and George all nodded. This was not a coincidence.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Real McCoy

  OUTSIDE, MY MIND WAS RACING. The audience from the show was mingling with the protesters. No one knew what was happening. Joe and Brady stood off to the side. I caught Joe staring at me, disappointed. It felt like a punch to the stomach. I had let both of them down. I couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling in my gut anymore.

  “I think we got it wrong. I don’t think Louis is the guy.”

  “He confessed. You saw his phone,” Ned insisted.

  “Yeah, but it was too easy. He was too calm. He was motivated because of his sister, but he talked about what happened to her in broad generalities and was completely emotionless.”

  I turned to Bess and George. “You two have been by my side as I’ve caught dozens of culprits. How many have acted the way Louis did?”

  My friends looked at each other. “None,” they said in unison.

  “But why would he lie?” Ned countered. “He went to the police station. He’ll end up in jail.”

  “Will he? I don’t think the Twitter account is illegal. He’ll get in trouble for the room, of co
urse, but with a good lawyer, all he’ll end up doing is paying for the damages.”

  “Guys!” George exclaimed. “Louis is a pretty well-known painter. I just looked him up on Wikipedia. He’s an only child. He did a whole series of paintings about the life of an only child. He was definitely lying about his sister being mugged.”

  We were silent for a moment as we processed what George had just told us.

  “Okay,” Ned conceded. “But why?”

  “I think he was covering for someone. I think all this has been a distraction. The room was designed to scare Brady. The tweets were designed to get more people protesting. It feels like when a magician waves their right hand around so you don’t pay attention to what their left hand is doing.”

  “Okay, so what is he distracting us from?” George asked.

  That was the million-dollar question. Fire trucks pulled up and parked in the loading dock where the van had been parked. Maybe that van really was carrying The Zebra Finch. Suddenly incidents that had happened earlier started flashing in my head. It was like a montage in a movie: Joe telling me that because of the size of the protest, he was pulling security off the move-in of The Zebra Finch. The tweet that I now knew Louis had written that mentioned that same painting. The way Louis had kept looking at his watch as we had questioned him.

  “Nancy, what is it?” Bess asked. My face must have given me away. “What did you figure out?”

  “We need to get to the arts wing, right now!” I yelled. I didn’t wait for them; I just started running. I got five steps before I remembered where this had gotten me the last time, and I slowed down long enough to let my friends catch up.

  Together we rounded the corner to the arts wing. Inside an alarm was blaring, a different sound from the fire alarm.

  “George, do you have your lock picks?” I asked.

  “Do you even have to ask?” George responded.

  She stepped in front of me, pulling a set of lock picks out of her pocket. Without hesitation, she brought two of the picks up to the lock, but when she went to put them in place, the door pushed open on its own.