Frank. That was Cooper’s first waking thought. The horror of the robbery closed in on him. He felt like he was getting sucked into a bad dream. Cooper’s goal Friday morning was a no-brainer. Survive the day without getting caught.
Hiro ran to meet Cooper and Gordy just as they reached the bus stop. Thankfully, the only other kids around gathered at the corner of Fremont and School Street, barely two blocks west. “Did Gordy tell you?”
Cooper looked at his cousin. “Tell me what?”
Gordy didn’t look too anxious to tell him anything. “I thought we’d tell him together.” He nodded at Hiro like he expected her to take it from there.
“We have a suspect.” Hiro fingered the necklace.
“Hold on,” Gordy said. “You have a theory.”
Cooper held up his hands. “Tell me later. First we have a new problem to deal with.” He had to get this off his chest.
Gordy gave him a questioning look.
“My backpack. I left it under the table at Frank’s last night.”
Gordy leaned back against the street sign post like his legs couldn’t support him any longer. “We’re dead.”
Hiro groaned. “The police would have found it last night. I’m surprised they didn’t pick you up already.”
Cooper glanced down the street. Still no sign of the bus. “There was nothing in it to trace it to me. I’d dumped the whole pack on my bed before going out to meet you. The thing weighed a ton.”
Hiro looked skeptical. “Your name wasn’t on your backpack anywhere?”
Cooper shook his head. That was one thing he was sure about.
“No notebook inside? Papers?”
“Just my English book—but I never wrote my name in it.”
“You’re sure?” Her voice sounded hopeful.
“Absolutely. I stuffed my hoodie in there just before I left, too.”
Gordy looked alarmed. “What about your name in your sweatshirt?”
“C’mon, Gordy, what do you think, I’m five or something?”
“Hey,” he held up his hands in protest, “some people write their name on things like that.”
“I guess we’re lucky it was Coop’s sweatshirt left behind and not yours,” Hiro said. She raised her eyebrows with that “gotcha” look.
Gordy let that one go and stood upright. “Okay. Your name wasn’t in your backpack anywhere. So we’re good. Right?”
Cooper shook his head. “Not completely. They’ll trace it back to Plum Grove.”
Hiro said, “That’ll narrow the search field.”
Cooper slid his old backpack off his back. “For now, I’m using my backpack from last year.”
Gordy stepped closer and poked three fingers through a gaping hole in the front pocket. “Physical Science. Seventh grade. I knocked a lit Bunsen burner onto it and burnt a hole in it.” He smiled slightly. “And the best part was-”
“Gordy,” Hiro interrupted. “We were all there, remember? We need to tell him about Lunk.” She stepped closer. “Last night—before I rode home,” she eyed Cooper like she wanted to make sure he was listening. “I went back to Frank ‘n Stein’s. With Gordy.”
“Hey,” Gordy raised his hands up. “None of this ‘with Gordy’ stuff. It was your idea all the way.”
Hiro ignored him. “We wanted to tell you before the bus gets here.”
Cooper felt like the bus just hit him.
Now he felt like he needed something to lean on. She rattled off the details, her voice rising in pitch as she did. He just looked at her, trying to listen, but also hardly believing what he heard. They’d all agreed to lay low.
“Hiro,” he finally interrupted. “Why’d you chance it?”
She looked at him funny. Like it surprised her that he even had to ask. “Frank. I had to make sure he wasn’t … still alone.”
He nodded. If he’d thought it would have helped Frank, he’d have done it himself. But it was so risky. “Sometimes criminals go back to the crime scene just for thrills. What if they’d been there?”
“I think they were.”
“I tried to stop her,” Gordy said. “But Detective Yakimoto wouldn’t listen.”
“I agreed to keep quiet,” she said. “But I can’t hide and do nothing.”
They needed to hide right now. Stay safe. He shook those thoughts off. “You think you saw them?”
“I saw Lunk. Wearing his work shirt.”
Cooper watched as kids lined up to board the bus. “Okay. So Lunk was there. Wearing his work shirt. So?”
“He looked real nervous. Scared. I’ve never seen him like that before.”
Cooper pictured the 15-year-old the only time he’d ever seen him scared—in the back of the police car. The guy who’d made Cooper’s life miserable had needed his help; so Cooper had helped. Gordy and Hiro still didn’t trust him, but Lunk never bullied Cooper again—and sometimes he actually tried to be friendly with him. The bad blood between Lunk and Hiro had lessened slightly since the incident, but still only slightly.
“His boss was murdered,” Cooper said. “That’d shake anybody up.”
Hiro told him about the man Lunk argued with—and how they followed him at a safe distance.
“He looked mean,” she said. “Creepy mean. He’s connected. I know it.”
Cooper shook his head. “You followed a mean-looking stranger?”
“A suspect.”
“You’re not a cop. You do know that, right? I know you want to be one someday, but—”
“I can take care of myself.” She raised her chin. “Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
Cooper heard the bus round the corner and head their way. Terrific. He had hoped the bus would be late to give them more time to talk. “So what happened?”
“We followed him to Lunk’s house. The creep is living in the shed.”
Definitely strange. Cooper had to admit it. “Okay, so that’s weird. But what does it prove, really?”
The bus slowed to a stop and swung open it’s doors.
“An inside job,” she said. “The man is Lunk’s dad.”