So, yes, I decided it was pretty likely that Mr. Browning paid someone to dress up as his daughter while he disposed of Ashton’s body, not backstage at a play or anything, but maybe in the basement of one of the properties his bank foreclosed on. I didn’t have any proof, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least run my theory by one of the cops in our search party. I didn’t get the chance, though.
I had just broken ranks and started to walk down the line to where the first cop was when I stepped on something in the deep grass. It made my ankle do that thing where it turns sideways real fast and hurts like you’ve just been shot by a crossbow. I’m like, “Arrrrgh!” and buckled to the ground. That’s when I found it. What I’d stepped on was a shoe. A blue running shoe.
CHAPTER 10
They never told us what to shout if we found a clue. Probably it should’ve been something official-sounding, but all I could get out was, “Holy crap, I found her shoe! I found her shoe!”
Immediately, the cops rushed over. I was holding the shoe up by the loose shoestring, and the first cop goes, “Weren’t you listening? You weren’t supposed to touch anything!”
So I dropped it back into the grass, which pissed him off all over again. The second cop was already on his walkie-talkie. He’s like, “Captain, I found a blue running shoe in sector four.”
For real. That’s what he said: “I found a blue running shoe.” Completely stealing the credit. I mean, this was a big discovery. If this really was Ashton’s shoe, it didn’t look good for her. Unless, of course, someone else came out here disguised as her.
Everybody had to stay perfectly still—like we were playing freeze tag—until the captain and his entourage showed up. He wanted to know exactly where the shoe was found, so the uniformed cop had to give it up that I was really the one who found it. Then I got reamed all over again for moving it from its original place. You’d think they’d be grateful.
I showed the captain the exact spot where I stepped on the shoe, and he’s like, “It was probably transported to this location by an animal”—not to me but to his flunkies. Still, this seemed like a pretty good time to offer up my theory, so I’m like, “Captain, it might be good to test that shoe for DNA in case someone else might have come out here disguised as Ashton Browning as a trick.”
“What are you talking about?” He looked at me kind of like a teacher will when you say the exact wrong answer in class, only more so. Then he looked at the uniformed cop next to him. “What’s this kid talking about—a disguise?”
The uniform shook his head.
But I didn’t think I should give up that easy. “Have you seen that show Andromeda Man?”
Captain Lewis looked at me again, this time like he couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t disappeared yet. “Everybody, stand back,” he shouted. And the next thing you know, he was on the walkie-talkie, and a few minutes later our search party got replaced by the first team.
Audrey’s like, “Really? Andromeda Man? Are you kidding me?”
“Hey, at least I found the shoe. What’d you do?”
Trix stepped over and goes, “That really was pretty cool. You’re quite the detective.”
“Yeah, right,” said Audrey, but I was thinking, Hmmm, maybe I should be the one flirting with Trix.
Then, after about a half hour of watching the police and their dogs scour our sector without finding anything else, Trix came up with a superb suggestion: “You know what? Since they took over our job, why don’t we head back to the tent and see if they’ve started on those burgers.”
Yes, all of a sudden I had a whole new outlook on her.
CHAPTER 11
Only one other search party had returned to the tent by the time we got there, so we nabbed some good seats. Green plastic chairs and tables with white tablecloths had been set up while we were gone. It was weirdly festive considering the circumstances. As for the burgers, all I can say is they were a revelation.
First we filed past a long table where all the fixings were: warm whole-wheat buns, cheeses I’d never heard of, crisp leaves of rich green lettuce, deep red tomatoes, crunchy onion circles, three kinds of pickles, five kinds of mustard, four kinds of mayonnaise, and gourmet barbecue sauce.
I admit I put one kind of mustard on the top bun and another on the bottom. Then, along with the Camembert cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion, I went with all three kinds of pickles. And of course, zero mayonnaise. I won’t go into all the side dishes, except to point out they had no French fries, so I chose the fancy macaroni and cheese, which, by the way, was white, not yellow, and had jalapeños in it.
Now, I’m not going to declare the meat was grilled better than anyplace else, but I can guarantee this—the ingredients were mind-blowing. The freshness of the produce, the texture of the Kobe beef, everything was amazing. It dawned on me that this must be how it was for rich people every day—the best of everything. I could just imagine what Topper’s could do with ingredients like this.
Sitting at our table, I guess I must have been going on about all this a little too much because Trix’s like: “What’s with him? Hasn’t he ever had a hamburger before?”
“Oh yeah,” Audrey said. “He’s had a few in his time.”
Trix turned to me and goes, “God, I thought you were going to have an orgasm.”
I was just thinking how sexy it was, the way she said the word orgasm, when this tall blond guy—obviously a Hollister student—stopped next to our table. “Hey, Trix,” he said with a smile like the white cliffs of Dover. “Mind if we sit with you guys?”