The Chronicles of Ben Merriman #02

"Whoa," repeated Stevie.

Adam was immediately up in arms. "Punish everyone! Mister Edelstein, you can't do that!"

The man was unmoved. "I can," he said coldly, "and I will. I will not allow cheating in my classroom."

The investigator in me reared its head. "Is the sheet handwritten?" I asked. "Writing style may tell us quite a bit."

"It is typed," the man replied.

"What color font?"

"Black."

"How can you be sure it came from one of us? What if someone else dropped it?"

"No one else was in range."

"Circumstantial," I said with a shrug. "Even so, you are willing to punish six innocents in your quest for the justice of one? Does that end justify those means?"

Mister Edelstein was very angry now. "This discussion is over, Mister Merriman. There is a cheater among you and that person will be discovered. In thirty minutes, I will return. By then, perhaps, the perpetrator will have come forward."

And with that, the man left.

"Whoa," said Stevie, for the third time.

Adam rounded on the group instantly. "Who the fuck cheated?" he cried. "If you fucking cheated, you'd better come clean."

"Calm down, Adam," I said. "Let's talk about this rationally."

He was unmoved. "No! I will not calm down, especially when it's obvious who did it." He pointed a threatening finger at Stevie. "You're the fuck up here. Edelstein probably knows it's you already. Just confess and let us go. I have important things to do."

Stevie spread his hands. "Dude," he said in his typical stoner drawl, "chill. I didn't do anything, man."

"Right," Adam pressed, "like we're supposed to believe that."

"Look," I interjected, growing tired of Adam's grandstanding and realizing that something needed to be done, "from where I'm sitting, Adam, you're equally as likely to be guilty as Stevie. In fact, you're more likely, since you have more to lose should you get a bad grade. Stevie, come to think of it, is theleastlikely person to have cheated. What does he care about a bad grade."

Adam opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. He realized I was right, and that shut him up.

I examined the women, who had yet to raise their voices. Tara and Heidi seemed to be watching intently, although in truth, they could've been staring off into space for all I knew. Susan was paying attention, I knew, and looked concerned, but not overly so, while the always shy Elizabeth had her eyes rooted to the desk, which was also not uncommon.

"Anyone have any ideas about how we settle this?" I asked. Tara raised her hand. "I'm not a teacher, Tara. You can just tell us what you think."

Tara lowered her hand. "We have cheer practice in, like, twenty minutes, so we need to speed this up."

I rolled my eyes. "I don't think you people understand something here. Mister Edelstein is a petty, mean-spirited teacher. He'll keep us here as long as he wants, and will definitely follow through on his pledge to fail everyone if no one comes forward."

No one spoke for a long moment, and when someone did finally speak, the speaker and subject were very surprising.

"Were you at our football game against West Mountain?" Heidi asked, looking at me with a weird sort of look on her face. It was the same look Heather had been giving me for days, and suddenly things began to click into place.

"When was that?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Like, I don't know, like, a week ago?"

I pretended to think. "Yes, I was."

"What the fuck are we talking about?" Adam cried. "How is any of this important?"

Tara got in on the action. "Did you meet . . . I mean, like, did you see . . . do you know anyone from West Mountain?" she asked.

I figure the following happened: after our night together Courtney told her friends about it, those friends told other friends, and soon the whole West Mountain cheer squad knew we'd hooked up. Cheerleaders are usually popular and have friends from other schools who are also cheerleaders, and so the story spread until it reached the girls from Rembrandt. I knew, however, that no one knew my last name; Courtney and I had not given them to each other. But there were only a few Benjamins to choose from, so it could not have been too hard for the cheerleaders at school to narrow their list.

I shrugged. "A few people," I admitted.

Heidi and Tara were leaning forward, as if this was the most interesting thing they could think of hearing—no doubt, if able to confirm the rumor, the whole detention experience would be considered worthwhile in their eyes.

Heidi asked, "Any cheerleaders?"

"A few," I repeated.

Right on the heels of that, Tara asked, "Do you know a girl named Courtney? Courtney Daly?"

So that was her last name. "We're friends," I told them, and that was as far as we got before being interrupted. Really, though, it was all they needed if they had half a brain between them—which, as I said, was not likely.

"Excuse me!" Adam's voice was shrill, much like an angry mouse might sound if it knew how to speak. "I don't care about whatever the fuck you idiots are talking about. Can we figure out what the fuck we are going to do?"

"I never knew how foul your mouth was, Adam," I said casually. "You've always seemed so controlled. Might be tough on a young politico to go places and accomplish things if he's constantly peppering his discourse with the wordfuck."

It might not have sounded like much, but it hit him harder than if I'd used my fist. Luckily, he did not have to respond, for at that moment there was a knock on the door.

Knocking meant that someone other than Mister Edelstein desired to speak with us—the teacher himself wouldn't knock to his own classroom, and in any case the thirty minutes were not up yet. I had a pretty good idea who our mystery visitor was, however, and when Principal Cross entered with a soothing smile upon her face, my guess was proven correct.

"Hello, students," the woman said.

Addison Cross was not your average, every-day educator. She was young and attractive in a sexy librarian kind of way: brunette hair tied up in a bun, sharp, conservative clothes with just a hint of playfulness beneath. There were plenty of on-going jokes among the male populace regarding how hot the woman was, not to mention what she'd be like in the sack. Personally, I'd always figured her as the type to know about each and every story out there, and revel in them.

"How are we doing?" she asked as she moved to the front of the room.

Surprisingly, it was Susan who answered with a tiny little laugh, saying with plain amusement, "It's been a very interesting discussion so far." Yes, I thought, the girl was a smart one.

Principal Cross leaned back against the desk in the front of the room, and said, "Mister Edelstein has communicated the situation to me. It's unfortunate that someone went to such great lengths to create a cheat-sheet, when that time could have more effectively been used to actually study. It's also unfortunate that this incident occurred ninth period, which allowed for the decision to keep the seven of you after. I am fully aware most of you are faultless. However, I must back my teacher for the time being and leave you here to try and resolve this issue." She studied the room before her eyes fell, surprisingly, on me. "I'm sure you can figure out what to do."

And then she rose, nodded her head, gave another compassionate smile, and left. Which left me to wonder exactly why that last comment had been directed at me.

"What do we do now, dudes?" asked Stevie.

"Wait for you to confess, moron," Adam sneered.

And then it hit me. "I'll confess," I said, and Adam turned slowly to face me.

"What?"

"I'll tell Edelstein I did it."

"No!"

The word had not come from Adam, but rather from Elizabeth Macintosh, who had been very quiet up until this point. She was staring at me with wide eyes before she realized what she was doing and lowered her gaze again as she said, "Um, you're a smart guy, Ben. You wouldn't need to cheat. Why would you tell them you did?"

I smiled at her. "For exactly that reason. I will confess to appease Mister Edelstein, but make it painfully clear to Principal Cross that I find this whole thing ridiculous. Also, that I am innocent. If they still want to punish me, knowing I am innocent, well . . ."

"You would do that?" the girl asked, and this time her eyes were raised and locked on mine.

"Of course, he would!" Adam exclaimed loudly. He jumped all over the opportunity to be exonerated and be done with the whole thing, even if it meant sending another man in as a sacrifice. "It's a great idea!"

Tara and Heidi just continued to stare at me with confused expressions. It was obvious they still had not wrapped their heads around the fact that it was, in fact, me whom Courtney had been talking about. Fleetingly, I wondered what the ramifications of such information getting out about me were going to be.

It was shortly thereafter that Mister Edelstein returned. His face was grim. "What have you accomplished?" he asked coldly.

I raised my hand. "I would like to speak with the Principal, sir. I have something I would like to tell her."

Mister Edelstein stared at me. "You are going to confess?"

"I will only speak with the Principal, sir. You might as well let the others go."

"I want a confession now, Mister Merriman."

I kept my tone civil, but firm. "You won't get it, Mister Edelstein, and you'll have fourteen angry parents breathing fire down your neck by dinner. I will speak to the Principal, or not at all."

The stare continued, but I did not back down. I stared right back, dead in the eye, and won. "Very well," he said at last. "The rest of you may go."

Which is how I found myself in the head office, sitting in the chair opposite Principal Cross while Mister Edelstein waited outside. She was looking at me, curiosity etched on her face, and then she said, "I am surprised, Benjamin. I would not have expected someone to come forward. Nor would I have expected that someone to be you. In fact, as you might have noticed when I visited the classroom, you were the one I expected to come up with some sort of positive solution."

I shrugged. "I have, Miss Cross," I told her. "I've not confessed—not yet, at least—so as of right now, I've done nothing wrong, except perhaps in the eyes of Edelstein. I am prepared to take the heat on this, however, but there are three things you should know first."

A slender eyebrow arched inquisitively. "I'm listening," she told me.

"First, Edelstein only required someone to confess to ownership of the cheat sheet, not to its use. I am prepared to confess to the ownership of it, as he wishes. Second, you should know it was not actually mine to begin with, nor did I cheat in any way on the test. Also, I don't think any of the others did, either."

She frowned. "I'm not sure I understand."

I shrugged again. "I know who actually did create the sheet; I figured it out when we were all talking. I don't think this person used it during the test, nor deserves to be punished. This is not a person I think has it within them to cheat. I guess I could be wrong, but I'm not."

"I see," she said thoughtfully. "And the third thing?"

"That the method used by Edelstein is ridiculous."

She was with me until that point; it's not like students can go around speaking ill of teachers, even behind closed doors. She was about to raise an objection, about to say exactly that and admonish me for it in her own easy way, but I continued too quickly—I knew I needed to finish before she spoke again.

"Punishing innocents for the crimes of one," I added, "which he would've done and is within his authority, I guess—something you might want to reexamine, by the way—is a poor way to seek justice. Therefore, I decided the best course was to speak with you directly, so that you may deem what course is suitable—and know the truth, which is that I'm doing this to protest his actions, and to protect the other students in that classroom, whether they realize it or not."

It was quite the speech. I was amazed at how level and logical it sounded.

She was silent a long moment, her brown eyes still thoughtful as they studied me. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, which I realized just then were clearly quite large. She was, truly, a very beautiful woman.

Finally, she said, "You've put me in a difficult position, Ben." I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand and I stopped. "I know, I know: that was your intention all along. You believe your innocence and sound reasoning will protect you." She sighed. "You're right, of course. Very impetuous and very presumptuous, but right."

I grinned. "I figured you'd say that."

"You're a smart boy, Ben. Your classmates are lucky to have you on their side. I'll take your word for it—no small thing, mind you—that the person you think wrote the sheet will not do it again, although I would like you to get back to me if you learn more. All this does not, however, answer the question of what I should do with Mister Edelstein. He is out for blood." My grin widened, and she added, "Let me guess: you have a suggestion."

"Actually, I do," I told her. "Suspend me for a day. Tell Edelstein I confessed to ownership, but you're satisfied I did not actually use it. Tell him he is barred from speaking of it, that the suspension will serve as punishment enough, and you will report back to my parents about it. Do not put the suspension on my record."

She considered for a long moment. "You've thought this out, haven't you? Given those conditions, the suspension would amount to a day-off from school."

I grinned again. "Consider it my reward for chivalrous behavior."

She chuckled, finally, and I knew my plan had succeeded. "I might have to keep an eye on you, Benjamin," she said. "I had no idea you were so . . ."

"Intelligent? Brilliant? Charming?"

It was her turn to grin. "I was going to go with cunning, but those work, too."

And that was how my visit with the Principal went, which was as good as I could have expected.

* * *

There was someone waiting for me when I left the Principal's office. She was sitting just outside the administration building, on a stone bench overlooking a grass quad, eyes rooted to the ground in front of her, and she was alone. School was long since over.

I walked over and sat down next to her before she even knew I was there. She jumped, startled, and when she saw it was me, her eyes widened even more. She was waiting for me, but she was obviously nervous about it, and so I took it upon myself to jump-start the conversation.

"Why'd you do it?" I asked softly, looking at her.

Elizabeth raised her face and met my gaze. We were good friends, her and I, though in a casual kind of way, much in the way two people on the social fringe might share a common bond and find friendship. We shared, as I said, several classes together. She'd never had a problem speaking to me in private; it was speaking in any kind of public setting that terrified the poor girl.

But there was strength in her, I'd always thought, if only she could see it.

Her eyes were wide and brown behind her glasses. Not for the first time, I wondered what she would look like if she took even the smallest pains to make herself look presentably feminine. Her eyebrows were a too thick, her hair not that well taken care of, her skin shiny, etcetera, but she was kind and warm to those who knew her well, a good person, and very smart.

Which is why it had come as a shock when I reasoned out that she was the guilty party, and why I really wanted to know what had prompted the desperate measure—although, in truth, I had my assumptions.

"I . . . I didn't . . ." She was having a difficult time of it and her eyes dropped to the ground again.

I reached out and took hold of her chin, and lifted her head. "Don't worry," I told her, "your secret is safe with me."

And then something unexpected happened: Elizabeth Macintosh flared to life.

"I didn't cheat!" she cried. "I made it, yes, but not to cheat! I've always made little cheat sheets to help me study, and I keep them in my pocket for good luck! I've been doing it since eighth grade! I never looked at it, not once!"

I smiled. "Good to know. I had wondered why."

She looked at me then, curiously. "If you knew it was me, why didn't you say anything? Why did you turn yourself in?"

"It seemed the right thing to do," I told her with a shrug. "I knew Cross would see it my way once I talked to her, and Mister Edelstein has no right to act that way, and once I figured out it was you, I knew there had to be a good explanation for it. I'm just glad you didn't say anything."

She whispered, "I was so scared."

"I know, it was one reason I figured you out."

She looked at me for a long moment, blushed, smiled, then lowered her eyes again. "Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you so much. You have no idea what it means to me. I'll find a way to make it up to you, I promise."

I shrugged again. I found myself shrugging a lot these days. "No worries," I told her. "We're friends, and friends look out for each other."

Surprisingly, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. This was surprising on many levels: one, she'd rarely shown an affinity for affection; two, she was extremely shy and the hug she gave was anything but; and three, she sighed girlishly as she did so, and Elizabeth very rarely acted girly. I did not mind, however, and hugged her back.

And with that, the school day ended.

* * *

There was a staff meeting scheduled at Discretion for five o'clock, so it was a good thing the whole Edelstein mess cleared itself up with relative speed. The damn thing could have taken hours had we not come up with an agreeable solution.

"First order of business," my father said as Beau, Caroline, and I settled into our seats in the main conference room, "is an update on Veronica. As you all know, she is working the Christy Tyler case in Arizona. Christy is being blackmailed by unknown subjects; Veronica is out there running down leads. One of those leads back to a Los Angeles strip club, the Red Velvet."

Beau whistled. "That place has ties to the Mora crime family," he said.

"True," Frank agreed, "though Veronica has reason to believe Giovanni Mora is not involved and has no knowledge of the scheme. I would have to agree. Giovanni is under significant heat from the feds right now; I doubt a blackmail scheme by an underling would be approved. Blackmail's never been one of Mora's things to begin with, much less the blackmail of a Hollywood starlet."

Caroline asked, "You think someone within the organization is acting alone?"

My father shrugged. "Veronica seems to think so. At least, she thinks a Mora man is acting as brawn to someone else's brain. The blackmail evidence is a series of pictures with Tyler . . . well, let's just say she's cozying up to another scantily-clad female at an A-list house party in the Hollywood Hills. A Mora man could not have been in position to take such photographs."

"There have been rumors of her bisexuality for some time," Caroline said thoughtfully.

"Exactly. Our client does NOT want those pictures circulated, nor does she want to have to pay two million dollars to retrieve them."

I have to admit, working with my father's firm was the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine: gorgeous movie stars, crime families, blackmail. Every day brought something new.

"What's the plan, Hefe?" Beau asked.

"Two-fold," my father replied. "First, we speak with Giovanni Mora."

Beau whistled again as Caroline asked, sharply, "Why?"

My father grinned. "He needs to know what his people are doing. He does not want additional heat from the feds brought down upon him. Mora himself is a source of information, and an easy way to ensure the photos never surface."