EPILOGUE
MY NAME IS MOON. Fletcher Moon. And I’m not sure if I want to be a detective anymore.
It had been almost a month since the talent competition fiasco. It was big news for a while, thanks to over a hundred amateur video and phone recordings. I even made the national news. So much for undercover work. Not that it mattered. I was finished with investigative work. May was hurt. Wounded. I never wanted to do that to someone again. Her mother had left her and now, in a way, her father was gone, too. Gregor Devereux was no longer the shining knight that every dad should be. All because of me.
My parents read me the riot act, and watched me so closely that I couldn’t take on any cases even if I wanted to. Mom checked my room a dozen times a night to make sure that I was still here. Dad wrote a daily timetable for me, filled with menial tasks, the theory being that I would be too exhausted to even think about detection. And, of course, they confiscated my badge.
I spent my time faking the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder to avoid facing everyone. I walked around staring into space, hoping that nobody would try to strike up a conversation. This tactic proved successful. My sister, Hazel, was very happy with the new me, and was making a documentary on my progress.
At school, most people left me alone. Even the remains of Les Jeunes Etudiantes were afraid to stir up the hornets’ nest.
Sergeant Murt Hourihan was the closest thing I had to an ally. He stood up to Chief Quinn, insisting that the investigation against me be scrapped. Of course Gregor Devereux is suing me for slander, but his case has about as much hope before a jury as a house of straw has before the big bad wolf. Especially since Devereux made a full confession at the police station. His lawyer advised him not to press charges against my mother for assault, as he had just been threatening her son.
Murt came over to the house when things had settled down. “How are you holding up, Sherlock?” he asked when he had finally managed to get me alone at the kitchen table.
“Sherlock Holmes is a creation,” I said sullenly. “At the end of the book, he moves on to the next adventure. I can’t move on. I live here.”
Murt leaned back in the chair, popping a jacket button.
“That was a nice trick, planting the mini-disk in Gregor Devereux’s cuff. Lucky he didn’t spot the plant.”
“It was an Elvis track, from the hall sound system. Herod did it when Devereux pushed him over. We had it set up.”
“Totally illegal, of course. It’s entrapment.”
“I don’t care about procedure anymore. I’m finished with law and order.”
Murt sighed. “There was once this poet fellow by the name of Keats,” he stated.
Murt was full of surprises. “What about Keats?”
“Well now, young Keats was well known for immortal lines, and my own particular favorite is ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ Do you see what I mean?”
“I’m not sure. What do you think you mean?”
Murt spun his cap onto the kitchen table like a Frisbee. “Ah, nice to see a spark of the smart alec we all know and love. What I think I mean, is that truth is priceless. Or to give it the Sergeant Murt Hourihan treatment: Tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or go directly to jail. When you exposed Gregor Devereux, you gave everyone in that hall the gift of truth.”
“May didn’t see it as a gift. She hates me.”
Murt snagged an apple from the fruit bowl. “Look,” he said. “Life is like an apple.”
I raised my head out of my hands to look at the apple. This should be good.
Murt stared at the apple for several moments, then ate it in half a dozen bites. “Okay, I can’t finish that simile. But give me some credit for the Keats. Come on, I looked that up on the Internet.”
“You better change your police site password,” I said guiltily.
Murt gave me the eye. “Why do you say that?”
I avoided his gaze. “I guessed it. Blue Flew. Too obvious.”
“Hmm. I think you’re right. Anyway, better you guessing it than someone dangerous. There are people who would have a field day with that information.”
I nodded listlessly.
“Come on, Fletcher. Gimme a smile. May despises you now. She blames you for what’s happened. But do you really think that this is your fault? You did the right thing, however unorthodox your methods.”
* * *
Truth is beauty.
It was a few weeks later, and I was sitting on my own in the lunch hall.
Life was rolling along with no regard for my personal gloom. Kids were chatting, flirting, fighting, and occasionally eating.
Didn’t these people realize how depressed I was? I had turned my back on two things that were very important to me. My chosen profession and an unlikely friend. Red.
It had been awkward between us since the talent competition. We had been partners, I suppose, maybe friends. But now I was back in my own world, and he was still in his. I didn’t even look much like a Sharkey anymore. The earring was gone, the fake tan had worn off, and there were only patches of red left in my hair. So maybe Half Moon wasn’t tough enough to be a friend to Red Sharkey. It was a pity. I could have used a friend.
Then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Red appeared. He slid along the opposite bench, looking as he always did: hurried, harried, and cool. His fiery hair stood in shocked stalagmites, and his freckles had multiplied in the unseasonable autumn heat.
“Half Moon,” he half whispered. “I’m in trouble this time. Real trouble. I’m sunk, done for, up the creek. You have to help me.”
Red Sharkey was actually asking for help. This must be serious.
“What happened? I’m not supposed to be talking to you, by the way.”
Red ducked low, his chin an inch from the tabletop, as though someone was watching. “Forget that. This is important. Life or death stuff. We can worry about your parents later. You are the only one who can help me.”
I could feel eyes on me. I looked around and spotted Hazel standing by the juice vendor, pointing her video camera at me, hand on hips. Her body language was saying You are so busted. But then her gaze met mine and her features softened. She put away the camera and placed a hand over each eye. See no evil. For some reason Hazel had decided to give me a break. Maybe she could sense that I needed one.
“Hello, by the way,” I said. “How’s the family?”
“Good. Papa is delighted with me. A Sharkey who was genuinely innocent. Oh, and Roddy wants to be a detective now. How long that will last I don’t know.” He glanced up nervously, as though he half expected someone to be watching. “Now, my problem. Will you help?”
I felt a brushstroke of dread coat my stomach. “I don’t know, Red. After our last case . . .”
Red slapped the table. People jumped. “Snap out of it, Half Moon. I need help. I need the truth, and the truth is your speciality. What are you going to do? Mope for the rest of your life?”
Red was right. He needed my help, and I should give it. Without selfish hesitation.
“Okay. Tell me quickly, before I chicken out.”
“Excellent,” said Red, grinning his pirate grin. “This is a real stumper. Someone will write books about this one someday. Last year I did some work on a country estate. A summer job for this American guy who’d inherited a title.”
“Summer job. American nobleman. Okay.”
It was enticing. So far, classic mystery setup. For a moment my depression lifted.
“So the American’s family has this curse on it . . .”
A curse. No such thing, as far as detectives are concerned. But they can have a devastating effect on superstitious people.
“According to this curse, every lord of the manor gets done in by a . . . eh . . . fox.”
I began to sniff a rodent. “A fox?”
“Yeah. Big fox. Enormous. Roams the moor sniffing for the American guy. Just dying
to take a chunk out of his backside. . . .”
“Wait a second,” I said, unable to swallow a smile. “You’re making this up, or rather, stealing it from Arthur Conan Doyle. I believe the story you are butchering is The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Red was smiling back at me. “Okay. I’m not in trouble. But tell me your heart didn’t start beating for the first time in a month.”
I couldn’t deny it. So I didn’t.
“You’re a detective, Fletcher. That’s what you’re good at.”
“My dad took my badge.”
Red wagged a finger at me. “Just because you don’t have a badge, doesn’t mean you don’t have a badge,” he said trying to sound wise. And strangely, I understood exactly what he meant.
Red cleared his throat nervously. “Anna Sewell, the girl who wrote Black Beauty, said that “with cruelty and oppression it is everybody’s business to interfere when they see it,” which means that you were dead right to stand up to Gregor Devereux. He was certainly cruelly oppressin’ us.”
“Have you been talking to Murt?” I asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” admitted Red. “I’ve been helping him out with a few cases, since you’ve been out of action. He says that I am not as reliable as you. Well, what he actually said was that you may be thick, but I make you look like a certified genius.”
“Typical Murt.”
“I thought you might like to know that Ernie Boyle is back in school, so some good has come of all our meddling.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’s disgusted. Oh, and April Devereux’s parents are moving her to a private boarding school in Dublin after her stay on the farm. Apparently some of her friends here were having a bad influence on her.”
“That’s rich.”
“Tell me about it.”
We sat quietly for a moment. Red was waiting for me to make a decision. I was trying to make it.
“So, are you volunteering to help with all this crime solving?”
Red was insulted. “Help? We’re partners, Fletcher. Or we would be if you hadn’t been ignoring me for the past month.”
“I didn’t know . . . It’s not as if . . .”
Red winked. “Unfinished sentences. A sure sign of guilt.”
“Sorry, Red. I haven’t been myself. I’ve been trying to be someone else, but it hasn’t worked out.”
“We should have a name for our agency.”
“Our agency?”
“Yes, our. You can be the boss, the brainy one. And I’ll be the good-looking one who takes all the risks.”
I felt my life’s breath returning after a month’s absence. We would have to be low profile. Work on the QT until Mom and Dad were ready for the idea. But we would be a good team. We had already broken one case wide open.
“What about Crimebusters?” Red was saying. “Or Junior B Men?”
“What?”
“Names. For our agency, remember?” Red squinted at me craftily. “You’ve already been thinking about this, haven’t you? You already have a name. Let me guess: Moon Investigations.”
I grinned at my new partner.
“You’re half right,” I said.
EOIN COLFER is the New York Times best-selling author of the Artemis Fowl series, The Supernaturalist, Eoin Colfer’s Legend of Spud Murphy and Legend of Captain Crow’s Teeth, and The Wish List. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.
To learn more about Eoin Colfer, visit his Web site at www.eoincolfer.com
Eoin Colfer, Novel - Half Moon Investigations
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