“I didn’t do it!” Alex protested.
“Look, Alex, you have to be straight with us,” I said. “The cops are going to question you. We already know you put a rubber spider in the grapes at Ashton’s on my first day, and Scott suspects that. He’s going to point suspicion at you.”
“Especially since you have previous misdemeanors,” Robyn said.
Alex stared at her, then at me.
“I never said a word,” I told him.
“I did,” Nick said. “You never made it a secret, man. You told me like you were proud of it.”
Alex looked down. “Some kids think that’s cool. Like you’re tough, you know? I didn’t know what you guys were like now. I mean, I knew you in kindergarten. That’s a long time ago.”
“Alex, you don’t have to break the law to make friends,” Robyn said.
“You don’t get it, Robyn,” Alex said wearily. “You’ve lived here your whole life, had the same friends since you were four. People expect you to prove something when you’re new. You can’t let them know you’re scared when they test you. ”
“So spraying graffiti on a police station is a test?” asked Robyn.
“Basically, yeah. If you have the guts to do it, they respect you.”
“Except they tricked you,” said Robyn.
“I know,” Alex said.
“Look,” I said. “The fact is that Scott already suspects my friends because you were there the day that old lady freaked out with the spider. Alex has already said that if the police are doing their jobs, they’ll know all about his record. So Alex is suspect number one.”
“But I didn’t do it,” said Alex. “I wish you never told the police about the spider in the smoothie.”
“We had to,” Robyn said. “You can’t withhold information from the police.”
“Yeah, but now they think I did it,” Alex said.
“We need to start investigating who else might be responsible, so you don’t get framed,” I said.
“Well, I know one person who has a pretty strong motive,” Nick said.
“Who?” I asked.
“I doubt we’re going to get a warm welcome here,” Robyn said. She looked at the address, then the weed-ridden patch of front yard. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
I checked the scrap of paper in my hand. At Ashton’s, I’d gotten the name of the woman who had been fired on my first day and found an old employee contact list in the staff room that still listed her address. “I think so.” Nick and Alex had gone down the back alley to look for clues in the backyard and around the garbage bins.
Plastic toys littered the yard, and the front-window curtains blocked any view of the inside of the house. The screen door leaned sideways on one hinge. A small flower bed contained nothing but dog droppings and a pile of old adver-tising leaflets.
I rang the bell. I waited a long moment, then a balding guy with a sleeveless T-shirt and three days’ growth of beard opened the door. “Yeah?” he said roughly.
“Um. We’re looking for Mattie Hoff. Is she here?” Robyn said.
The guy eyed us with suspicion. “What do you want with her?”
“I work at Ashton’s. She…uh…gave me some advice before she left. I want to talk to her about it.” I swallowed. This guy had a menacing quality about him, and I had no doubt that this was a very bad idea.
“Just a sec.” The guy turned away. “Mattie! Someone here for you,” he yelled.
Mattie appeared behind him, looking even worse, if it was possible, than the day I had seen her in the store. She wore ratty pajama pants and a grubby white hoodie with some kind of food stain on the front. Her hair was wild and unwashed, and the odor of cooking grease clung to her.
“What?” she said irritably.
I cleared my throat. “Hi,” I said, feeling inadequate with both of them glaring at me.
“Hi.” Mattie folded her arms across her chest.
Robyn nudged me in the ribs. We couldn’t waste this chance.
“You probably don’t remember me, but I was at Ashton’s the day you left. You bumped into me on your way out and…said some stuff.”
“Yeah?” Mattie rolled her eyes. “So what?”
This wasn’t going well. Robyn gave me a desperate look. “The manager’s a real jerk,” I burst out. This was a lie, of course, but I figured it might get her to say something.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Mattie snarled, but her expression had relaxed the tiniest bit.
“You said he’d do the same thing to me if I didn’t watch out,” I said, warming to this approach.
“Oh, yeah, kid. He’ll treat you like crap. He does it to everybody.”
“He’s accused my friend of tampering with the food,” I continued.
“He never did, but someone’s been messing with things there. It’s been all over the news,” I said, watching her expression carefully.
Her eyelids flickered. “I heard.”
“And now,” Robyn continued, “something awful has happened.” She stopped and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Someone hid a rubber spider in a package of raspberries, and I ground it up in a smoothie and almost fed it to my little cousin. It could have killed her!”
Mattie did react then. “That’s terrible,” she said, recoiling. Her face grew red and her eyes narrowed. “Ashton’s is garbage. I wouldn’t work there again if they paid me a million bucks.”
“What I want to know is why you kids are here, telling Mattie all this stuff,” her husband said.
“Um.” My mind went blank. “Well…because I’m getting treated the same way. And now my friend and I are suspects in the tampering, and I don’t know what to do about it,” I finished in a rush.
“Quit, dum-dum,” said the guy.
“Uh, well, yeah,” I said lamely.
“What I think,” the guy leaned forward, menace etched in his face. “Is that you came here because you think Mattie might be messing around with that food.”
“Oh. No. Not at all,” I said, my knees shaking.
“It’s Trevor’s first job,” Robyn put in quickly. “He doesn’t want to quit. But we thought Mattie’s experience with the company might help us understand what to do next. How they operate with their employees, you know.”
The guy gazed at Robyn like she was speaking Swahili. “What?” he said.
“Look, Doug. They’re just kids,” said Mattie.
“Nosy kids,” Doug said. “Better go, dude. Before I have to get mean.”
Meaner than he already was? Yikes. I began to back down the steps. Doug pulled Mattie inside and slammed the door.
“Come on,” I said. Robyn trailed me slowly down the porch.
“This stinks,” she said.
“Yeah, it does.” The wind had picked up, and the stench of the dog poop in the flower bed wafted around us. I held my nose.
“No, not that.” Robyn looked at the flower bed and shook her head with impatience. “I mean, it stinks that we didn’t get any information—” She broke off and her eyes widened. “Trevor, wait!”
“What are you doing?” I stared as Robyn ducked down beside the porch, right next to the piles of dung.
“Come here.” She beckoned.
“Are you kidding?” I said in disbelief.
“Hurry!”
I knelt down beside her, almost gagging. “What?”
She pointed to the advertising flyers stacked beside the dog droppings.
“So?” I said.
“Look.” Robyn grabbed the flyer on top. It was an Ashton’s flyer. Several specials were circled. Dinner buns, bakery ginger cookies, coffee—and raspberries.
“She said she didn’t shop there anymore. These are all items that were tampered with, Trevor,” Robyn said in an excited whisper. “If she planned it, which items to do, we have the evidence right here!” She tucked the ad into her jacket. “Maybe there’s more. Maybe there are items she circled that she hasn’t tampered with yet, or groceries from the other incidents. We have to look!”
Fighting the overpowering smell, I helped her scrabble among the papers, looking for Ashton’s ads. A small scraping noise made me look up. Above us was the living room window. The curtains were no longer drawn across it. A sick feeling of dread grew in my stomach. Doug stood there, glaring through the glass.
“Robyn, come on. We have to go!” I pulled her up.
“Wait, I found one!” She wrenched out of my grasp and reached for a leaflet.
“Now!” I hauled Robyn to her feet. I heard the sound of a gate latch clicking open and a series of booming, deep-throated barks. The creators of the poop were about to come around the corner of the house, and they didn’t sound friendly.
“Run!” I yelled.