Read Online The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines - Free Book Online
Authors: Kathryn Miller Haines
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flattered that I made such an impression on you. I ran into Bill the other day and he was telling me that you knew the best way to get in touch with Randall Smythe.”
There was a lot to learn from this brief exchange, even if I didn’t know the details of the Smythe case. Pop knew that by implying that Gloria wouldn’t remember his fictional alter ego, she would insist that she did just to get out of a potentially embarrassing situation. Hoping to cover up her own lie, she was then eager to tell Pop whatever she knew. After all, if she didn’t, he might suspect she was bluffing.
It was a brilliant scheme, and from what I could tell, it worked almost every time.
There were real connections that Pop relied on, too. He had friends at the phone company, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the utility offices who could call up phone extensions, addresses, and other information in a matter of hours. He always opened his requests with questions about how their families were doing, displaying a remarkable skill for remembering spouses’ names and the pursuits of various children he’d probably never met. He seemed to understand that the best way to get people to want to help you was to show them that you were interested in them.
I tried to put what I had learned from Pop to practical use during my time at school. I trained myself to sit in a classroom and take in every detail about the students around me: what did they wear, who was sitting where, what could I tell about them from the choices they made? I studied those who seemed to be looked up to by everyone else, those who could get away with things, and those who could not. I began to know the people around me intimately. It almost made up for the fact that I had no real friends.
The person I watched the most was Tom Barney. He’d returned to school a week after his arrest, appearing no worse for wear. When he came back, so did his bounty, or at least part of it. The purses and wallets he’d stolen, including my own, were turned over to the front office, where those of us who’d been victimized were invited to retrieve them. I did so, though, like everyone else, I found my purse empty and my money long gone.
From the little I was able to pick up in the halls, Tom had been sent to a juvenile detention center for the duration of his absence and was let back into P.S. 110 on a probationary basis. I was fascinated by someone who could rob his peers and so easily slip back into the school without showing a hint of remorse for what he’d done. Maybe everyone else was willing to let bygones be bygones, but I wanted him to know how much he’d upset me. I didn’t have the courage to just go up to him and confront him, though. Instead, I watched him from afar, biding my time in the same way I was biding it with Pop. Someday Tom might talk to me again, and when he did I’d give him a piece of my mind.
In the middle of September, as I sat in the lunchroom longing for the clock to move faster, I was greeted by Suze. “Hey, baby girl. Long time no see.” I hadn’t seen her since that first day in the girls’ bathroom, and I responded to her reappearance with a mixture of relief and fear. Here, after weeks of being ignored, was a somewhat friendly face. At least I hoped she was friendly.
“Hi,” I said.
She peeked under the table and took in my skirt. It was pencil cut, conforming closely to the curve of my hips. Pop had bought it for me as a peace offering. “Nice rags.”
“Thanks.”
“So what’s tickin’, chicken?”
In front of me was the notebook I was using to write down all the details I was trying to recall after giving myself one minute to look around the room. It was a way of testing my memory, and I believed that after two weeks of doing it, I was already becoming much better at analyzing my environment.
But it wasn’t the kind of thing that you could share with someone. Even I knew it was kind of weird.
“Just homework,” I said.
“You do
There was a lot to learn from this brief exchange, even if I didn’t know the details of the Smythe case. Pop knew that by implying that Gloria wouldn’t remember his fictional alter ego, she would insist that she did just to get out of a potentially embarrassing situation. Hoping to cover up her own lie, she was then eager to tell Pop whatever she knew. After all, if she didn’t, he might suspect she was bluffing.
It was a brilliant scheme, and from what I could tell, it worked almost every time.
There were real connections that Pop relied on, too. He had friends at the phone company, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the utility offices who could call up phone extensions, addresses, and other information in a matter of hours. He always opened his requests with questions about how their families were doing, displaying a remarkable skill for remembering spouses’ names and the pursuits of various children he’d probably never met. He seemed to understand that the best way to get people to want to help you was to show them that you were interested in them.
I tried to put what I had learned from Pop to practical use during my time at school. I trained myself to sit in a classroom and take in every detail about the students around me: what did they wear, who was sitting where, what could I tell about them from the choices they made? I studied those who seemed to be looked up to by everyone else, those who could get away with things, and those who could not. I began to know the people around me intimately. It almost made up for the fact that I had no real friends.
The person I watched the most was Tom Barney. He’d returned to school a week after his arrest, appearing no worse for wear. When he came back, so did his bounty, or at least part of it. The purses and wallets he’d stolen, including my own, were turned over to the front office, where those of us who’d been victimized were invited to retrieve them. I did so, though, like everyone else, I found my purse empty and my money long gone.
From the little I was able to pick up in the halls, Tom had been sent to a juvenile detention center for the duration of his absence and was let back into P.S. 110 on a probationary basis. I was fascinated by someone who could rob his peers and so easily slip back into the school without showing a hint of remorse for what he’d done. Maybe everyone else was willing to let bygones be bygones, but I wanted him to know how much he’d upset me. I didn’t have the courage to just go up to him and confront him, though. Instead, I watched him from afar, biding my time in the same way I was biding it with Pop. Someday Tom might talk to me again, and when he did I’d give him a piece of my mind.
In the middle of September, as I sat in the lunchroom longing for the clock to move faster, I was greeted by Suze. “Hey, baby girl. Long time no see.” I hadn’t seen her since that first day in the girls’ bathroom, and I responded to her reappearance with a mixture of relief and fear. Here, after weeks of being ignored, was a somewhat friendly face. At least I hoped she was friendly.
“Hi,” I said.
She peeked under the table and took in my skirt. It was pencil cut, conforming closely to the curve of my hips. Pop had bought it for me as a peace offering. “Nice rags.”
“Thanks.”
“So what’s tickin’, chicken?”
In front of me was the notebook I was using to write down all the details I was trying to recall after giving myself one minute to look around the room. It was a way of testing my memory, and I believed that after two weeks of doing it, I was already becoming much better at analyzing my environment.
But it wasn’t the kind of thing that you could share with someone. Even I knew it was kind of weird.
“Just homework,” I said.
“You do
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