Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:25:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Wess Subject: Double E: Part 6 "Well, if it isn't the amateur sleuth, Elijah Sherlock Holmes," Carrie Fisher said, as I entered the school newspapers office the next day. She glanced up at the clock, with her round eyes. "Shouldn't you be somewhere right now?" "Shouldn't YOU be somewhere right now?" She smiled. "Touche." Leaning back in her rolling chair, she took a long studious look at the many scars and cuts on my face. "I see you met Rocky Katz last night. I told you he was dangerous." I let out a great guffaw. "That's putting it mildly. You failed to tell me that he was a fucking psycho. The guy practically ripped my head off. I ask 'did you know Georgina Cloves' and he reaches out and throws me across the floor." I lifted up my pant legs to show the burns on my knees. Carrie winced. She laced her fingers together, folding them under her chin. "Can I ask what your real reason is for doing this? Judging by the lack of information you know about Georgina, I'd say you never once met her in your life. So what's your motivation? You told me the police are trying to indict the wrong person. Who is this person?" I hesitated. Carrie wrote for the gossip column. How could I trust she wouldn't release this information? Yet, I wanted and needed her on my side. I felt I had to tell her the truth. I pulled up a chair from the neighboring desk, and sat down leaning in close to her. "Do you promise not to print a single word of this in the paper?" "Please, Elijah, the gossip stories I do are like 'is the school really investing in a new pool?' crap. Murder is heavy material." Even so, her eyes were alive with curiosity and it made me feel uncomfortable. "My brother, Eliot is the one they're trying to pin the murder to." Her jaw hit the desk. I frowned. "Pick your jaw up," I snapped. "I'm sorry - but I have had several classes with Eliot. He's always been really nice to me..." her voice drifted off. "You and I both know he isn't capable of murder," I said under my breath, despite the fact that there was no one else in the room. "I need your help." I could see her eyes changing their mind. I quickly continued, "The police are being completely close-minded. As far as they are concerned the case is already closed. They just need Eliot's finger prints and they're going to haul him off to jail." Carrie remained silent. "Elijah...I just don't know...this is police work. I mean, if we go marching into places and face people like Rocky Katz, we don't have much hope. We're talking about tracking down a cold-blooded murderer. Who, if he or she gets one whiff of what we're up to, will place a bullet through our heads. And what's in it for me?" I shrugged. "Gives you something huge to write about." I stood up to go. "But you don't have to help. I just thought you might want the inside scoop for your future stories." My hand was on the doorknob when she called out. "Well, hell, Elijah, I just met you yesterday and you are already asking me to join on this life-threatening situation. I'll do it for Eliot's sake and for my future in writing." I smiled at her. She was shaking her head in disbelief. "You know, you are exactly like your brother: self-assured, cheeky, and quick working." "I'll take that as a compliment." I said and left, still smiling. Just by chance, Carrie and I had the same lunch period. She was holding down a corner table by the windows. Luckily, there didn't seem to be much of demand to sit at the table. Carrie just looked like a friendless student, sitting in her own world. I slid into the seat next to her. She barely glanced up from the papers she was studying. "Hello, Elijah. I've been doing research." Munching on a tuna sandwich she pushed a few papers under my nose. I waited for an explanation. With her pinky finger Carrie pointed to the top right hand corner. It read "Georgina Cloves." "I never told you how I met Georgina. She worked for the newspaper for like, a week, and then quit. But during that week she wrote some pretty hardcore gossip stories." I guessed that's what I was holding in my hands. Carrie had already been through the stories and highlighted names. I caught names like "Steve Gander" and "Amanda Werner." "Possible leads," Carrie smiled. "They might know stuff. To get this story, Georgina had talked to them." "So Georgina gets too chummy and they shoot her?" I offered a solution. "I don't think it's that easy." We both jumped as J.J. dropped into a chair opposite us, practically slamming his tray on the table. "Okay, Elijah, enough bullshit." I stared at him. "You missed math class, you've been snooping around and you're now clearly trying to hide papers!" Before I could react, his hand shot out and he grabbed the papers. His eyes scanned them with furry. I hoped it would just look like gossip stories, but J.J. wasn't dumb, he noticed the stories were written by Georgina. I waited for his response. "I knew it!" he exclaimed, he slammed his fist on the table. Carrie had to act quickly to keep her iced tea from spilling. She shot him a nasty look. J.J. leaned forward and said in a whisper, "You're working on her murder case, aren't you?" "So what's it to you?" Carrie snapped, taking back the papers. His eyes widened. "You're in on it too! Elijah, what's with keeping me out in the cold?" I felt guilty. "Listen, it was going to be just a one-man job, but like you said, Carrie would have connections." Even though I couldn't see her, I could tell a satisfied smirk was creeping across her face. J.J. was not happy. "If you want to help then you won't say a word of this to anybody," I continued, trying to search for understanding in his expression. I didn't see any. My stomach dropped a notch as J.J. stood up, tray in hand, and left the table. "He'll get over it," said Carrie in a would-be soothing tone. She lightly rested her hand on my arm. For some reason, I felt a trickle of pleasure produced by her touch. Her theory that J.J. would soon get over it proved to be false. He said nothing to me. If you ask me, the fact that we had almost every class together and sat next to each other made it more hurtful. His hostile silence was breaking my mental concentration. During economics, I spoke to him in a rapid whisper trying to explain to him why I was leaving him in the cold, and if he really wanted to, he could join. But before I could finish my explanation, my teacher purposefully cleared her throat, her hawk eyes bearing down on me. I was forced to sit up and shut up, unless I wanted to share my secrets with the class. I could just imagine how well that will go. "Well, you see guys, I'm currently tracking a murderer..." At the end of the day when we usually meet at the lockers, J.J. was not there. His absence killed me. Second day of school and already we were fighting. I slowly trudged back to the car with the masses. Genevieve was already there. She was leaning against the car, picking at her nails. Eliot was nowhere in sight. "Your guess is as good as mine," Genevieve said, reading my mind. "You mean he didn't meet you at your locker?" She shook her head. "I even gave him a few extra minutes." We decided to give Eliot another ten minutes. We waited around the car. Slowly, but surely the parking lot cleared out. By the time I decided I should take action, even the teachers were leaving. It was my chance to get revenge. Feeling angry that he kept us here waiting, right after he scolded me for being late, I stormed back to the school. Where the hell was he? I knew the words I had in mind, too. "You fucking hypocrite." Short, sweet, and to the point. Those three words were on the tip of my tongue as I moved up and down the empty corridors. First I checked his locker. No one was there, not even a janitor. Just as I hurried past an empty classroom, I caught sight of Eliot. Excellent - I had almost forgotten what I was going to say to him. I started to head in, then realized he wasn't alone. A woman was with him, talking to him. She must be a new teacher; she was only about twenty five with seductive looks. I grinned. Poor Eliot. Was he getting reprimanded? I tipped my hat to the teacher for being straight up with him. I hoped she would say everything to Eliot that I have always wanted. Like, "You fucking hypocrite." In the next moment, the teacher had put both her hands on Eliot's chest and pushed him against the wall. I froze. She had pressed herself against Eliot like static cling, and she went on her way to unbuttoning his shirt, exposing his bare chest. Then she kissed him, right on the lips. Eliot stood there for a moment, then his hands came up. I waited for him to push her away, hoping he would be sensitive about it, not hurt her feelings. But I watched, dumbfounded, as Eliot's hands slid slowly up her thigh and disappearing under her skirt. He angled his head so they could kiss better. She was tugging at his belt, her miracle hands running all over him, through his hair, down his abs, into his pants. I stepped back, not breathing, feeling like I was going to hurl. Oh, God. Eliot's pants dropped. His boxer briefs were tenting. Her blouse opened, her breast supported in a black lace bra. I didn't want to see anymore. Spinning on my heel, I raced down the hall and into the bathroom. I locked myself in a stall and sat down on the closed seat. Cold sweat was beading on my forehead, and I felt shaky and chilled, as if I'd just fought for my life. The image of Eliot holding his teacher closer, tilting his head, opening her blouse, popped up in my brain. Closing my eyes did nothing to stop it. My breaths were shallow and fast, and I felt rage roiling in my stomach like acid. Standing up, I left the stall and splashed cold water on my face, cringing as they stung my scars. I was fine. I mean, why would I even care? Maybe it proves how straight he really is, a voice in my head said. I suppressed a bellow of frustration, gripping the edge of the sink hard so I wouldn't ram my head into the wall. I loosened my tie, unbuttoned the top of my shirt and tried to push the scene out of my mind. Way out my mind. Somehow I made it back to the car. Genevieve was fuming. "I thought you and him ran off!" I explained to her that I searched the entire school and could not find him. She was about to open her mouth to protest, when she exclaimed, "There he is!" I slowly turned. Sure enough, Eliot was heading towards the car. Pants were up, shirt was tucked in and buttoned, and his tie was back in place. There were so many things I wanted to shout at him, but all those words just disappeared. "Where the hell were you?" Genevieve raged. "You're about, uh let's see, an hour late!" "I had some business to attend to," Eliot said defensively. "I bet," I muttered under my breath. Thankfully, Eliot didn't hear a word. At five o'clock, I arrived at Wiltshire Park where Carrie and I had agreed to meet. At home I had changed from my preppy school uniforms to jeans and a Bon Jovi T-shirt. I was still disturbed about Eliot and at the sight of Carrie sitting at a picnic bench, I remembered about J.J. Carrie noticed I wasn't my usual self two seconds after our greetings. "Is that thing with J.J. still bothering you?" she wanted to know. I told her it was, but I had no intentions of telling her that I just saw my own brother make out with his teacher. Pulling a manila envelope out of her shoulder bag, Carrie placed it on the table in front of us. "Okay, so there are a lot of people we can start to question about Georgina. However, we need to think of a motivation. Why was Georgina a targeted victim?" I thought for a moment. Images of the teacher kissing Eliot popped into my head. "Sexual relations," I said promptly. "At the time of her death I only assumed she was single. Maybe while she was on the date with Eliot, her current boyfriend or perhaps obsessed ex-boyfriend finds out and bam! shoots her dead." Carrie began writing notes down, nodding her head. "Very cliche, but very plausible." "Also, Eliot told me Georgina was a big advocate of saving the environment" (Carrie gave a confirming nod) "so perhaps some crazed anti-environmentalist notices Georgina's picketing or whatever and shoots her." Carrie stopped writing and glanced at her notes. "We have a good start, I'd say. What we really need though, to draw to more conclusive hypothesis, is evidence." "And how do you propose we do that? The police already have everything. I'm sure it will go over well if we waltz into the station and ask for the evidence." "You know what you're problem is, Elijah? You assume too much. The police have a lot, yes. However, the Chief Medical Examiner has some stuff, too." I cocked an eyebrow. She smiled. "I guess you don't know then." "Know what!" I finally blurted out, tired of her beating around the bush. "The Chief Medical Examiner is none other than Patti Fisher, my mother."