I would like to say that I reacted like a pillar of strength and clear-headedness to seeing Jack unconscious, but that would be, well, a total lie.
Fortunately, due to their older brother’s occasional “bad trips,” Roxy and Tom had experience finding passed-out bodies on the floor and knew exactly what to do.
Tom and I dragged Jack out from under the Fabinator’s love arena,49 then Tom bent down to inspect him. “His pulse is steady and he’s breathing, but his pupils are dilated. That means someone drugged him. He’ll be fine once he sleeps it off.”
“So then we don’t need an ambulance,” I said, recradling the phone I hadn’t even realized I had picked up. I looked down and saw my hands were trembling.
“It’s too bad Alyson isn’t here to stick her finger up his nose,” Roxy said. “That would wake him right up.”
“Don’t invoke the name of the Evil Henches,” I said. “They’ll hear you.”
“He looks peaceful,” Polly said.
“As peaceful as a guy with a cut on his forehead and his hands tied behind his back can look,” I said. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn to the roller rink. I fingered the place on his jacket that was missing the button. There was some purple fuzz like the carpeting from the car that tried to hit me on the front of the jacket, and a little in his hair.
Hair that, I learned by comparing them, did not match the dark hair we’d found on the driver’s seat of the car. But there was one of those, too, on his shoulder. “I think whoever tried to run me over last night must have conked Jack on the head first and put him in the backseat of the car.”
“But who was it?” Tom asked as I handed him the envelope with the hairs back.
I thought about that. “Alyson said it was a man with a beard and at the time I decided to ignore her, but what if she was telling the truth?”
“You mean like your Caftan Man. I guess we just have to wait until Jack wakes up to figure out what is going on,” Tom said. And then he said, “Jas, why are you undoing his belt?”
“I’m looking for evidence,” I explained. “There may be something on his person that will tell us who did this and where to find them.”
“Something in his underwear?” Tom asked.
“You never know where you will find evidence.”
“Why don’t we start with untying his hands and looking through his pockets?” Polly said, stopping me before I could undo the top button of his jeans.
“I can’t take off his pants? He saw my underpants. It seems only fair. And a lot of evidence could be trapped there.”
“Maybe you could start with his shirt,” Polly said gently.
“Oh, fine.” I put his belt back on (while surreptitiously using my fine detective skills to ascertain that he was wearing boxers with what looked like Snoopy on them. Snoopy! How could I ever have thought he was a bad guy?).
Little Life Lesson 47: If everyone just went around in their underwear all the time, there would be less crime because it would be easy to tell who was nice—people wearing Snoopy boxers!—and who wasn’t—people wearing satin jock straps with holster attachments.50 Also, there would be a lot less stealing because people wouldn’t be able to hide things in their, ahem, pockets.
We rolled Jack onto his side so we could free his hands. “We should cut the cords but keep the knot intact,” I said, “in case we need it later for evidence.”
“What kind of evidence can you get from a knot?” Roxy asked.
“Maybe there’s something special about the way it’s tied,” I said. “It looks kind of complicated. I think it might be a sailor’s knot.”
“How do you know?” Polly asked. “You’ve never been sailing.”
“No, but I have watched Horatio Hornblower every time it’s on TV,” I told her. “I am a storehouse of nautical facts.”
Polly muttered something about my only being interested in the parts where Horatio had his shirt off, while I used the scissors from her pocket-size auxiliary sewing kit to cut the knot off. Even with his hands freed, Jack didn’t wake up. It was sort of weird, like having a Jack doll you could do whatever you wanted with.
Unless of course you were with my friends. In which case the possibilities were severely limited. I will admit, however, that given how things turned out, their caution was all for the best.
When Jack’s arms were loose it was easier to check the pockets of his jacket. What we found was a little strange. There was an invitation to the party the night before, a Velcro wallet with $31.64 in cash and no ID of any kind, and an unopened bag of Pounce kitty treats.
“He could have been on a diet,” Polly said. “My father’s third-to-last girlfriend said cat food is the best diet she knows.”
“You made that up,” I said.
“I wish. You should have seen what she was like at restaurants.”
“I don’t think Jack is dieting. If I had to guess, I’d say these were for Mad Joe. Fred’s cat.” I started patting down Jack’s jeans pockets. “I am not being perverted,” I told the room at large. “I am just trying to be thorough.51 Tom, stop looking at me like that.”
“Touchy touchy,” Tom said.
Little Life Lesson 48: cf. Little Life Lessons 43–45.
“Well, isn’t this a cozy scene,” a familiar voice said from the doorway behind us.
I turned around slowly and saw my good friend L. A. Curtis standing just outside the bathroom, staring at us. He had one hand on his hip.
And his other hand on his gun.