Almanac Black and the Plan of Attack
Thursday, December 16th, 2007
I have come out of retirement.
I had to get a new detective logbook, of course, because it just wouldn’t do to have a Pokemon notebook at this stage in my career. I enlisted Lily to help me find a new notebook, but she was less than helpful.
“Again, Al? I thought you’d gotten over the whole detective thing,” she said as we were perusing the paper wares at Longs Drugs. “Remind me. How many years has it been since you solved a real case?”
That was a bullet straight to the gut. It had been five. I remember the day well. It was the last day of fifth grade, and the air was thick with the smell of hotdogs and summer vacation. Ms. Jenkins had confiscated Tommy Flanders bag of candy, and placed it on the top shelf by her desk. We returned from lunch to find it missing. By the scene of the crime was a heavy chair and Air Jordan footprints. I had quickly deduced that to reach the shelf, the criminal would have to have been tall, and to move the chair, would have to have been strong. Out of the three boys in our class with Air Jordans, I announced that only Jorge McGee fit the physical profile. We found the bag of candy in his backpack.
“Yes, I remember that,” Lily said dismissively. “But Jorge was a two hundred pound ten year old. I thought it was pretty obvious, Al.”
“I think I’m going to be Almanac again,” I informed her, tilting my purple fedora.
She rolled her eyes. “I am not calling you Almanac. I will call you Alan, Al, or Alan Black, but the days of Almanac Black, Child Detective, are gone. Dead. Deader than your dead cat.”
“Don’t speak ill of Chairman Meow,” I said. “You always were a stubborn dame.”
“That’s it,” she said, picking up her backpack. “I’m going home. When you’ve come to your senses and taken your meds, call me.”
Lily Connolly. She has such a way with words.
Since I’ve come out of retirement, I’ve been doing a fair bit of research. Lily would say that “reading Tom Clancy novels and watching noir doesn’t constitute as research in the least, Al,” but she doesn’t know everything. And I know what went wrong, back in the old days. Then, I was doing this stuff for fun, charging a quarter per case, maybe with a few homemade cookies for a job well done. It was the good life, and Almanac Black was known as Larkspur’s most talented prepubescent celebrity.
And then middle school happened, and all of a sudden no one wanted any mysteries solved. No, they were plenty capable of finding their own damn lost watches all of a sudden. If they thought someone stole their stuff, there was no need for a formal investigation, just a quick showdown. Almost like in Western movies, only with less tumbleweeds and bullets and more awkward punches and boys calling each other pussies. I tried to get in the middle once, because the evidence pointed to another culprit. That’s how I lost this eye.
That was a joke. I still have both eyes. They’re blue. I’m really bad at telling jokes. Sorry.
People stopped calling me Almanac, which was a tribute to my uncanny ability to remember every detail about a scene. They pretty much stopped calling me anything at all. So then I started in with my film noir obsession, and started talking like Magnum PI, which got my mom worried, because I kept talking about my two light-packing friends—my gun and my hip flask. They gave me pills to take, but they made me feel like a zombie, so I stored them up and gave them to David Johnson, the foremost (meaning only) drug dealer at Our Lady of Perpetual Indifference Catholic School. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, and I’m pretty sure I’m a drug supplier, but if I can help some overachiever stay awake for 48 hours to get his mountain of Psychics homework done, I’m happy. Or as happy as I can be if he’s got my meds. Okay. Enough about me, onto the case.
CASE 001: THE MID-TERM PAPER MYSTERY
Let’s review the facts. There aren’t many.
--I need an A in Sophomore English to be considered for the State University summer writing program
--everything was going just fine until last week. I hadn’t missed one assignment all year.
--Sister Mary Joseph is a blight upon humanity
I spent a whole month working on that midterm paper, and given the topic (explore the metaphor of Oedipus blindness, ick. Now I want to stab my eyes out), I thought I did pretty well.
And then Sister Mary Joseph came up to me during class yesterday. In noir terms, she’s a broad, not a dame, a broad all over. And with a face that suggests that someone upstairs had a funny sense of humor, no one’s surprised she became a nun.
“Mr. Black, is there a reason you failed to turn in your midterm paper?” she asked, leaning over my desk, as menacingly as a woman in a black sheet can be.
I panicked. Instead of a clam, logical explanation of how I had turned it in, she had even glanced over it and disapproved of the Courier font, all I said I was the paper must have been stolen, that I knew I turned it in on time, because that was the day she’d been having that skin rash,.
It didn’t go over well. The pleading continued and I got close to tears (fake tears. Yeah, fake tears, let’s go with that in the final write-up) and she finally held up her wrinkled hand.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Black. I don’t accept late homework.” I began to protest. “However, if you can legitimately prove that someone has taken your paper, you may get credit.”
“But couldn’t you be wrong?” I asked. “Couldn’t you have misplaced it?”
“I was wrong once,” she conceded. “That was in 1972.”
So here we are. The mission: to find my lost midterm paper and save my writing career. The consequences if I fail are dire. My future…I would say my reputation, but that’s mostly a lost cause anyway.
Step 1: Get Lily on board.
Step 2-56: ?
Step 57: Apprehend the culprit.
I think I’ll focus on step 1 for now.
Thursday, December 16th, 2007 3:45 PM approximately 45 minutes after that last entry
We have Lily.
The royal “we”, Al? Honestly? You’re a detective—scratch that, you aren’t a detective, you’re a lonely little boy who—
That was Lily. Who apparently enjoys sounding like my psychiatrist—
Well, it’s not a bad idea since you’ve never listened to any one of your nine psychiatrists in your entire life, so—
Lily, you’re supposed to be my secretary, stop writing in my logbook.
I’m sorry, your SECRETARY? Oh, sure, just let me get you a cup of fucking coffee.
...Okay, she’s gone now. She can be sort of touchy sometimes, Lily. So after we picked up the new logbook at Longs (it’s black, because of my name, which is Almanac Black in case you forgot, and black like my soul. That was a joke. I’m just going to stop telling jokes), we headed back to school for Catholic Ethics in the Modern World class, also known as How Gay Marriage and Abortions Destroy Everything.
So as we were roleplaying a scene in which Satan tries to convince pious Mary Margaret that she should kill her babies, have wild indiscriminate sex, and become a Wiccan because “everyone else is doing it,” Sister Agatha noticed I had my logbook out and my old purple fedora on.
“Oh, dear,” she said, writing me a pass. “I think I’d better send you to Ms. Murphy, again, Alan.”
Ms. Murphy is the school’s resident psychiatrist and NOT a nun, because being a Bride of Christ apparently means you give up all dreams and aspirations for the chance to have hot, hot sex with Jesus in the afterlife.
Ms. Murphy started off the session as she usually did, which was sigh obnoxiously and click her heavily lacquered nails against her desk.
“Al…” She took out my personal folder. She calls me Al because it allows her to believe that we’re friends and I care what she tells me.
“Al, you need to get over this detective obsession,” she said. “It’s just not healthy.”
“It’s not an obsession,” I said, which was a lie, but you’re supposed to lie to psychiatrists. “It’s what I’m going to do when I grow up.”
She smiled, the kind of smile you use on the puppy you just kicked and kids with visible deformities. “When I was a little girl, I thought for certain I was going to be a horseback rider, a jockey.”
“Wow.”
She glared. “And I read everything about horses and I worked and I worked, but once I got to college, I realized that there were other things I liked to do, ones that I could get a real job in. And just look at me now.” She swept her hand around her small, immaculate office.
“You’re a high school psychiatrist,” I said. “No offense, but you’re not really in a position to tell me to reach for the stars.”
That was enough. She gave me some more pills, funny green ones this time, and told me that if I got sent to her again within the next week, she’d call my mother. The investigation begins tomorrow.
Friday, December 17th, 2007, 8:31 AM
I’m screwed. No, really, I’m screwed screwed screwed screwed and not the nice, sex kind of screwed, an The Entire World is Conspiring Against Me My Life is Ruined A Kind And Loving God Would Just Kill Me Now kind of screwed.
“Well, that’s kind of dramatic, Al,” Lily said, looking over my shoulder.
But it’s true. I have no leads, no suspects, and as far as Sister Mary Fucking Joseph is concerned, no crime.
“Oh for the love of God, stop whining,” Lily said, and slammed my notebook shut.
“Whining? I’m not whining!”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Al, you are acting just like my seven year old brother. No, on second thought, my four year old brother.”
“Lily, this is not whining. Whining is when you demanded that every pronoun mentioning God in our Bibles be changed to He/She.”
Lily went pink. “That’s beside the point. What I mean is…” She folded her arms. “If you want your evidence, you’re going to have to go looking for it. This isn’t one of your old cases, you’re working for yourself now.”
I grimaced. I was so out of practice with my trade. “Okay, maybe, but where does the evidence come from? A hijacked midterm doesn’t exactly leave a trail of blood and guts.”
“Do you have to be so gross?” Lily wrinkled her freckled nose. “Go back to the crime scene.”
“Which is…?”
“Sister Mary Joseph’s classroom, obviously.”
The bell rang, signaling ten minutes until first period.
“She’s always late to class, she goes and gets tea,” Lily said. “Just do it now, I’ll make sure no one goes in.”
I picked up my bag and notebook. “But I might get caught.”
Lily fixed me with her patented Sweet-Jesus-You-Are-Dense look. “Yes, you might,” she conceded. “But when has that stopped you before?”
Okay. So this is what I found. After Lily posted herself outside the door, I went straight to the She Devil’s desk. It’s all the way the corner, presumably so she won’t have to interact with us uniformed spawn of Satan any more than she has to. Anyway, the desk was a mess. Not even like the kind of mess any self-respecting teenager leaves their room in, but a full-blown paper and candy bar wrapper hurricane.
I started digging through it, thinking her untidiness was excuse enough to get a passing grade on my paper, but after five minutes and only a confiscated prescription bottle of what looked to be the pill, a rosary missing half of its beads and five trashy romance novels all featuring Scotsmen with mullets, I was getting nervous. As I started to return Highland Flame to its original location, I noticed the far corner of the desk.
It was neat. It was a only a stack of paper, but it was painstakingly, methodically arranged, with the name on its paper just above the one above it, and aligned with the edge of the desk. I rifled through it, flicking bits of red nail polish off the top. Those were my classes’ midterms, and mine had been carefully removed.
That settled it. This was not a freak accident. It was not a product of a slob of a teacher. Someone was out to get me.
“Oh, no, she’s not here, Father McCauley.” I froze. “Well, she is, I guess, she’s inside, but she’s having a bit of a moment, if you know what I mean.” A pause. “Yes, womens’ issues, something along those lines.”
I heard footsteps clomp down the hall, and Lily poked her head in the door. “Come on,” she said, “It’s four minutes ‘till, everyone’s going to be here soon, let’s go!”
We reconvened at our lockers own the hall.
“Here,” I said, tossing her the pill bottle. “A surprise present of birth control. Go crazy.”
“Lovely.” Lily examined the bottle. “But this isn’t the Pill, Al.”
“It’s not?”
“No. The Pill doesn’t come in a prescription bottle, it —oh, stop looking so uncomfortable, they do teach us sex ed here.”
“But it says something about fertility on the side.”
Lily shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. If it was on Sister Mary Joseph’s desk, I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
Friday, December 17th, 2007, 9:50 AM
I have a preliminary list of suspects. Check it:
1. David Johnson.
Occupation: Suburban Drug Pusher
Clue: The Prescription Bottle
Why He Stole My Midterm: I stopped getting a big dose of Adderall a while ago (the psychiatrist chalked it up to “improvement”) and I don’t think David believed me. He thinks I’m giving my pills to the rival up-and-coming drug dealer, who’s like five feet tall and has coke-bottle glasses.
2. Andrew Dumont.
Occupation: Professional Pain in the Ass
Clue: The OCD-esque arrangement of the paper
Why He Stole My Midterm: Andrew (affectionately called That Fucking Annoying Kid) is the genius of our grade. 4.0, got a 1600 on the SAT he took in ninth grade, and can solve a Rubik’s Cube in a minute flat. But Andrew has always come in second place in English class to Yours Truly, and it’s taken a toll on his elephant sized ego.
Okay, so I only have two suspects. It’s true, I admit it. I don’t have to admit it, you can see for yourself. That was probably an unnecessary sentence. Sorry. It’s written in pen.
Half an Hour Later
I decided to start off with David, since I knew where he hung out during second period. The boy’s bathroom wasn’t my favorite place to be, especially not when David was letting people test out his pot stock, but I really had no choice.
“Your fucking midterm paper? You are interrupting me at work for your fucking midterm paper?”
What can I say, David’s a classy guy.
I cringed as David pushed me up against the bathroom wall.
“Rou-Routine questions, Mr. Johnson. I’d appreciate an answer.” I swallowed. “I’d also appreciate it if you’d stop digging your names into my arm.”
He let go reluctantly. “Fine, man, I did not take your pansy-ass midterm.”
“Do you mind telling me where you were on Monday, after school?”
He accepted money from a twitching redheaded kid, and tossed him a paper bag. “Yeah, I do mind. But since you’ve been so generous with your stash…”
I sighed and relinquished the last of my Adderall. He tucked it in his shirt.
“Thank you,” he said, and checked each stall. “If you tell anyone what I told you, I’ll hit you so hard your kids’ll be born retarded.”
I clasped my hands. “I understand completely.”
He checked the stalls once more, and bent over. “Every Monday afternoon,” he whispered, “I go to ballet. Le Dance Space, just off of Main Street. You can call them and check. But uh, they know me as Jacques Laport there.”
I smartly waited until after I had left the bathroom to begin laughing hysterically. I then wanted to begin crying hysterically, because I was 0 for 1, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Next was third period, and that class I had with Andrew. I wasted no time in getting to the point.
“Where did you put my midterm paper you jealous bastard?”
Okay, I hadn’t meant to be quite that upfront. Andrew did not appear to be overly offended.
He rolled his eyes and adjusted his knee-high socks. “You,” he lisped. “Are tho immature.”
“You’ve always been jealous of me, you have every reason to steal it.”
“Excuse me, Alan, I am trying to focus on class, tho if you would thop talking—”
I shut up for a minute and tried to concentrate on World History (How the Catholics Destroyed Every Native Culture Ever) but I failed.
“Tell me where you were on Monday,” I demanded.
He glared at me. “Why thould I?”
I leaned closer to him. “Because if you don’t, I’ll tell everyone about that test you flunked.”
His mouth dropped open. “That was in third grade!”
I shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
Andrew balked, spluttered, and then spilled. “I was thick with the thomach flu, okay? I was absent from class all day, but don’t tell, I had a perfect attendance record!”
And just then, Ms. Murphy’s voice came over the intercom. “Alan Black to the Psychiatrist’s Office, Alan Black to Psychiatrist’s Office, please.”
Our impromptu meeting did not begin well.
“I hear you’ve started up the Almanac Black business again,” she said as I set my books down on her desk. “I’ve had some worried calls from your teachers, Alan.”
“I didn’t start off anything,” I said. “I just have some stuff I’m figuring out.”
“I see,” she said. “Would you mind removing your fedora, then?”
I did. She had begun drumming her fingernails again, and straightened the folders on her desk.
“Alan, I just wanted to confirm that you’re taking your medicine.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was taking it. Taking it to David Johnson.
“Well, then maybe this… “case” will convince you to try other things. We can’t be the same people we were in elementary school.” She smiled thinly. “We all have to grow up someday.”
I didn’t have to listen to some self-righteous shrink with a botched nose job tell me what do.
“If I can’t be immature at fifteen, when can I be immature?” I snapped, and scooped my books off her desk. She didn’t bother to call me back, and I walked out to lunch 0 for 2 on suspects and tempted to buy antidepressants off of David Johnson.
Friday, December 17, 2007 4:30 PM
So here’s how it all went down.
At lunch, I’ll admit it, I was sulking. After fifteen minutes, Lily had had enough.
“Alan Black, I am finding it very hard to eat my bagel and cream cheese with you sighing like that. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, I’m just trying to think of what to name my new cat.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“I was thinking of Battlestar Gallacticat.”
“Al—”
“Or if we wanted to continue with the Dictator thread, Benito Catalini—”
“Alan Black, what is wrong with you?”
I explained the suspect lit failure, though I may have embellished twisting David Johnson’s arm and threatening his life to get him to talk. Just a little.
“Hmm,” Lily said. “Well, why don’t you do what you always did, Almanac Black?”
I could only blink at her.
“Go back to the crime scene in your head, and see what you remember.” I hesitated. She smiled. “I’m not going to think you’re crazy, you want to name your cat after Mussolini, I already know you’re nuts.”
I closed my eyes and shut them tightly. I could see everything, just a little fuzzy at the corners. There were the romance novels, the coffee-stained paper with blue ink, the broken rosary, the dent in the desk by the corner of the desk, the carefully arranged stack of paper covered in—
“I got nothing,” I said. “But I am going to fail the Algebra test today. Great.”
Lly sighed. “Here, I’ll get your book.” She reached into my stack of textbooks, and pulled one out. Then she giggled. “Uh, Al, I don’t think you really need this book.”
I took the book she was holding. It was entitled So You Want a Baby Right Away.
I groaned. “Great,” I said, I must have left my book in—
And there it was. Just like it had been so many years ago, that light bulb above my head, the brightness, the clarity that came when—
“I got it!” I cried. “I got it, I got it!”
Lily jumped, startled. “What? Algebra?”
“No, no!” I said, jumping up. “I know exactly who stole my paper!” I grabbed Lily’s hands and pulled her up, spinning her around. “I did it, I figured it out! I figured it out!”
“That’s great, Al,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Now could you please tell me who it is?”
I explained the situation rapid-fire, and Lily’s expression turned from skeptical, to amazed, to determined within five minutes. She checked her watch.
“Ten minutes,” she said, “Perfect. Come on.” She sped off across the courtyard, her plaid skirt swinging.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To have an utterly cliché unveiling scene, of course,” she replied.
“How?”
Lily winked, and opened the door to the Administration building. “Oh, you leave that to me.”
We arrived outside our location. “Lily?” I said.
“Yes, Al?”
“I’m just warning you, I’m about to abuse noir dialogue big time.”
I swung open Ms. Murphy’s door with more force than necessary, but damn did it feel good.
“Ms. Murphy,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “We would like to have a word with you.”
“Evidently,” she said, eyes wide. I seated myself across from her and crossed my legs. Lily trailed in behind me.
“Why did you do it, Murphy?” I asked, tipping my fedora away from my face.
“Excuse me, do what?” She asked, folding her arms.
“You know why I’m here, sugar, and you know what’s up. Don’t play dumb with me, Lord knows you’re good at that.”
“Alan Black—”
“My first clue was the neat way you arranged the desk in Sister Mary Joseph’s room. Any fool can tell from your office that you’re a real neat freak, lady, obsessive compulsive if you ask me, not that you ever do. Your files here are laid out just like the ones on the broad’s desk.”
She spluttered, but I held up a finger.
“Easy, dollface, I’m just getting started. Second, there was nail polish residue all over the top sheet.”
“All women wear nail polish!” she interjected.
“Actually, it’s against dress code for students,” Lily said. “And furthermore, light pink is what’s in right now, not that horrible fire engine red you’re wearing.”
“And thirdly,” I said, sitting on her desk so that I was practically in her lap. “You’re expecting. Or expecting to expect, you might say. You dropped your pills on the desk.” I tossed her the half-empty pill jar. “Fertility pills. What’s up, Murphy, hoping to get a bun in your oven?”
“Oh, that is so grossly offensive,” interjected Lily from the sidelines.
Ms. Murphy didn’t say a word. She was biting her lip so hard it had turned white. She drummed her nails, and looked up at me coolly.
“That was a lovely story, Mr. Black. And it is certainly possible that your paper went missing in a deliberate attempt to teach you a lesson about snooping around in everyone’s business.” She stood. “Because, my dear,” she tapped me on the nose. “Though you can hit every nail on the head, you are about to have a real-world lesson.” She smiled thinly. “Go ahead and tell whoever you like, because I assure you the word of a tenured, respected adult far trumps the word of a delusional, medicated little boy.” She motioned to Lily. “Now you and your girlfriend get to class, and we’ll meet again on Monday, when I’m sure your attitude will have vastly improved.”
Lily smiled. “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” she said sweetly.
Ms. Murphy did not appear intimidated. “And why not?”
Lily paused. “Well, I’m sure after hearing all of that, Father McCauley will want to talk to all three of us,” she motioned toward the intercom system, whose red power button was glowing ominously.
Ms. Murphy gasped, and ran to shut it off. “Has it—the whole—” she stuttered.
Lily rose and smoothed out her skirt. “The whole time, yes,” she said. “It was a conversation I didn’t want anyone to miss.”
Ms. Murphy began to hyperventilate then, and Lily came over to congratulate me, and Father McCauley arrived at some point to take over, but all I can remember clearly is thinking about my summer writing program, the one I now had a shot at. The application’s essay question was to write a five-page memoir detailing your proudest moment.
I finally had a topic.