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“What relationship? I’m telling you, Jayme had no relationship with Dave. Only I did.” She shifted in her seat, and pressed the tissue to her eyes once more. “Besides, if Jayme was the culprit, don’t you think you’d have found that turtle in our house? Or the murder weapon? God knows your people searched long enough. It took me hours to clean up the mess they made.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“I know you are.”

The two women were silent for a moment, then finally Hester got up to leave, and shook Odelia’s hand. “I just want to thank you for all that you’ve done.”

“I wish I could have done more. But I’m afraid my hands are tied.”

“I know you did your best, and that’s all anyone can ask.”

After Jayme’s grandmother had left, Odelia sat there thinking for a moment, then glanced over to me. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Max. You don’t happen to have an idea, do you?”

“Not really,” I had to admit. “The case seems open and shut.”

She nodded.“She’s a juvenile, so she won’t be tried as an adult. At least there’s that.”

I felt bad for Jayme, and her grandmother, but the case against her was strong. Except that the murder weapon still hadn’t been found. “There was nothing in Eddie’s house?”

“Nothing,” said Odelia as she leaned back and stretched her arms. “Not a thing.”

“So Danny is in the clear?”

“Looks like. Though that kid…” Her face took on a hard look. “If there’s anyone I think might be capable of this, it would definitely be him, not Jayme.”

“We can’t pick and choose our suspects,” I reminded her. “All we can do is follow the evidence wherever it leads.”

“So what will happen now?” asked Dooley.

“Now Hester will need to find a lawyer for Jayme. And if they can’t afford one, they can get a public defender instead. And because she’s still only seventeen Jayme will then be tried as an adolescent offender and her case will appear in Youth Court before a judge. If sentenced she’ll serveher sentence in a special facility for youthful offenders.”

“And in the meantime?”

“She’ll be held in a separate wing of a secure juvenile detention facility to await trial.”

“Let’s hope she’ll be allowed to spend the pretrial period at home with Hester,” I said.

“I doubt it,” said Odelia. “This is murder, Max. Even though she’s a minor, they don’t allow murderers to go home. They’re considered a threat to society.”

“So Jayme will go to an actual jail? But that’s terrible!” said Dooley.

“I know,” said Odelia.

Dooley turned to me.“You have to do something, Max. You have to work that big brain of yours and come up with something.”

“I’ll try, Dooley,” I said.

“For Jayme.”

“For Jayme.”

I didn’t want to give him false hope, but he was looking at me so desperately I didn’t want to dash his last hope either. And so there I found myself, between a rock and hard place: I had no idea how to prove that Jayme didn’t kill her benefactor, and I didn’t want to give up either.

Ugh.

Chapter 26

That evening I wasn’t myself. It was a more subdued version of Max who spent time with his family and friends. My big brain, as Dooley had called it, was working hard, trying to connect up the many elements in this most confounding case, and so far nothing was percolating.

And so when Gran invited Dooley and me to participate in yet another shoot for her comic strip, it was with extreme reluctance that I joined the others and subjected myself to be squashed by Brutus or to be on the receiving end of prickly comments from Harriet.

The location of the shoot was Gran’s own bedroom, and when we entered she’d already closed the curtains.

“What’s the scene?” asked Harriet excitedly.

Scarlett was there as well, of course, playing her part as scriptwriter-slash-script girl, and as she read from the script, telling the others where they needed to be and what they should expect, my mind wandered off again and returned to the case. But no matter from which angle I looked at it, twisting and turning the elements in my head, I simply couldn’t exculpate Jayme.

“Max,” said Gran, and when I didn’t respond the first time, she repeated, “Max! You’re over there.”

Like an automaton I did as I was told, and stood where she told me to stand.

“And now… action!” she said, and suddenly the room was plunged into darkness, and I wondered how she was going to create a comic strip without any light. Then again, I’d already learned not to question Gran’s artistic choices, since it only got the old lady worked up if I did.

And just when my thoughts once more returned to the case, suddenly I experienced a sort of wet sensation against my lips. And when I frowned and wondered what this could possibly be, suddenly Brutus’s voice rang out, “Hey, why are you kissing Max!”

The lights were switched on, and indeed Harriet was right there, kissing me!

When she realized her mistake, she immediately jerked back, which I have to admit stung me to some degree, or at least my frail ego, and said, “Max! Why did you kiss me!”

“I didn’t kiss you,” I said. “I was just standing where Gran told me to stand.”