Forensics Squad Unleashed (6 page)

“
FIG
?” Lloyd says with a laugh. “No one ever told me that before. But I think I like it.
FIG
.” He says the word to himself as if he is trying it on to see if it fits.

The man from building services turns up exactly on time. Mrs. Lu is with him, as well as two other cleaners. “Let’s start by getting those windows open!” the building-services guy tells one of them. Mrs. Lu dips her mop into her bucket, and I can feel her watching us, waiting for us to leave the cafeteria so she can begin cleaning the floor.

Mason and Nathaniel are still photographing the scene. “Okay, forensic photography team, we’re done here!” Samantha tells them.

Nathaniel leans down to snap one last photograph of the cafeteria floor. Nico must not be worried about getting grease on his clothes, because he drops to the floor. Then he stretches out on his side, waves his hands and sticks out his tongue. “Photo bomb!” he shouts. I am starting to wonder whether Nico ever takes anything seriously.

We head back up to the conference room to have our snacks and watch a video. Samantha tosses Nico a pair of gray shorts and a T-shirt. “They’re from the lost and found,” she explains. “But at least they’re clean. The chair of the department would have our heads if you got grease on the furniture.”

Nico’s eyes light up, and I brace myself for another bad joke. “So you’re saying the chair is worried about her chairs?” he asks.

Lloyd groans.

“Don’t encourage him,” Samantha tells him.

Stacey predicts the video will be about analyzing footwear evidence. Muriel hopes it will have something to do with digital forensic science. “That’s when forensic scientists look for evidence on people’s computers,” she says.

Mason sits across from me at the conference table. He sighs when he sees what his mom has packed for his snack: a baggie of celery and carrot sticks. He eyes my slice of lemon pound cake. “Any chance you’d want to trade?”

“Not a chance. But thanks for asking.”

Mason crunches on a celery stick. “Celery has no flavor,” he says after he’s eaten it.

I break off a chunk of pound cake and hand it to him.

“Hey, thanks.” Mason pops the cake into his mouth.

Nico is back from the bathroom, dressed in the fresh clothes, which are a little baggy. Stacey and her cousins have the same snack: cubes of cheddar and apple slices. Only Stacey’s are packed in separate reusable containers.

“I can’t stand when different foods touch each other,” she says when she catches me watching her.

The video is stored on a memory card. Samantha has trouble getting the card into the forensic department’s laptop. She fiddles with the card, turning it upside down and trying it that way, but it is still not sliding in the way it should. Then she tries another hub, but that one is too narrow. “Hmm, I don’t know what the problem is,” she mutters to herself.

“Let me try,” Lloyd offers, only he cannot get the card into any of the hubs either.

Muriel watches them as she pops a cube of cheddar into her mouth. “There could be some dust in there,” she says after she has swallowed the cheese. “D’you want me to try something?”

“It’s all yours,” Samantha says, stepping away from the laptop to make room for Muriel.

Lloyd hands Muriel the memory card, which she inspects carefully. Then she crouches down so her face is level with the side of the laptop and blows into the second hub. When she tries inserting the card, it slides right in. “Ta-da!” she says. “The
SD
card hub was clogged. It happens sometimes, especially if a computer hasn’t been used in a while.”

“Thanks for the save, Muriel.” Then Lloyd turns to Samantha and shrugs. “Can you believe we couldn’t figure that out?”

“I know,” Samantha says. “It’s humiliating. And she’s only thirteen. Do you realize that in twenty years these kids could be leaders in the field of forensics? We could end up taking orders from them!”

So what if Muriel solved the problem? I still feel proud. After all, I’m one of those future leaders Samantha is talking about.

EIGHT

It’s obvious the video is homemade. It has no title or music, and at first the screen is hazy, and all we can hear is a buzzing that hurts my ears.

But then a round face appears from out of the haze. Mrs. Lu is sitting at a desk in what looks like a small office, talking to someone, though we cannot see—or hear—who that someone is. Whoever is filming is not doing a very good job, because the image wobbles. The words
Ming Lu, cafeteria employee
, appear in white block letters at the bottom of the screen.

Mrs. Lu’s face is shiny with sweat. She is not wearing her hairnet. Instead, her black hair is tied back in a red bandanna; a few gray hairs poke out at the front. I did not notice before how high her cheekbones are. “I did not vandalize the cafeteria.” Mrs. Lu’s shoulders are straight, and she sounds upset, as if she is insulted that anyone would accuse her of committing a crime.

“I don’t get it!” Nico says to his sister. “When did they have time to make a movie? The cafeteria just got vandalized last night.”

“It wasn’t really vandalized, silly,” she tells him.

“Shhh,” Stacey says to Muriel. “We’re trying to listen.”

Mrs. Lu stares right into the camera. “Why would I make more work for myself? I have to clean too much already. Those students who come to the cafeteria—not the kids at forensics camp; those ones seem okay to me—I mean the university students. They do not clean their tables. They leave garbage all over the place. And what bothers me even more is that they do not say
good morning
or
thank you
to me. Never! They treat me like I am—what is the word in English?—invisible.” Mrs. Lu smacks the desk when she finds the right word. “I do not like my job very much, but I am still proud of the hard work I do. In any case, I cannot quit. I need money to support my family.” Her dark eyes soften when she mentions her family. I don’t think Mrs. Lu is making this stuff up.

Offscreen, we can hear a woman’s voice—could it be Samantha’s?—ask Mrs. Lu, “If the cafeteria smelled so bad that it needed to be closed, wouldn’t that mean you’d get a few days off from work?”

“That is possible,” Mrs. Lu says, shaking one finger in the air. “And they would have to pay me too—which would be very nice. Like a holiday.”

The screen goes gray again. Nico pops up from his swivel chair. “Guilty!” he calls out. “Mrs. Lu even looks guilty! I could see it in her eyes!”

“Nico,” Samantha says, “sit down right now! You seem to have forgotten something. Forensic scientists”—she emphasizes the word
scientists—
“never, ever jump to conclusions. They base their findings strictly on scientific evidence. There is nothing scientific about your observation that Mrs. Lu looks guilty.” I have never seen Samantha’s cheeks get red before. I think she is finding her job a bit challenging.

“Okay, okay.” I can tell from the way Nico is gripping the arms of his chair that he wants to swivel. “I’m just really getting into this.”

“Getting into it is good,” Lloyd tells him, “but jumping to conclusions—not so much.”

Next up is a middle-aged guy wearing a chef ’s hat. He has a craggy face and a long thin nose. From the information at the bottom of the screen, we learn that this is Leo Tessier, head chef at the university cafeteria. Leo Tessier has a thick handlebar moustache and a small neat beard. Like Mrs. Lu, he begins by denying he had anything to do with the vandalism. Unlike Mrs. Lu, he does not look at the camera when he speaks.

“See how he’s not making eye contact?” Nathaniel says. “That’s suspicious!”

“Nathaniel!” Lloyd says sharply. “What did Samantha and I just say about jumping to conclusions before you collect and analyze your evidence?”

Leo Tessier speaks with a French-from-France accent. “Eet ees true,” he says, twirling one end of his moustache (I don’t say anything about that, though it strikes me as slightly fake and suspicious), “that it was not my dream to
be head chef at a cafeteria.” His head drops a little when he admits this. “I always thought I would be head chef at a great
restaurant
”—he switches to French to say the word
restaurant—
“a Michelin three-star
restaurant
. That was my life’s ambition. But it does not mean I do not cook like a great French-trained chef. The students adore my
rôti de boeuf
, my roast beef, and on Fridays, my
sole amandine
never fails to sell out.

“My only complaint is that I work too much—all the time, nonstop. If I had a day off during the week, I would have time to apply for a better job.” Chef Tessier closes his eyes as if he is imagining himself preparing
rôti de boeuf
and
sole amandine
in one of those three-star
restaurants
. When he opens his eyes again, he looks sad, and I notice the baggy skin under his eyes. “Zee smell in zee cafeteria.
Epouvantable!
Awful! We will have to close the cafeteria for at least three days to air it out. Perhaps four.”

If anyone else thinks the chef did it, they are not saying. I guess we all figure it is better to keep our hunches to ourselves than get lectured by Samantha and Lloyd.

Our next suspect is Amelia Lester, the assistant chef. The first thing I notice is that her hair is the same color as Samantha’s—only Amelia has dreadlocks. Her blouse has puffed sleeves—it looks like it probably came from a vintage shop. Amelia does not mention the vandalism. Instead, she starts talking about her boss. “Leo Tessier is not a bad person,” she says, “but when it comes to food, he is living in the past. He pays no attention to trends or to the environment. If you ask me, it’s irresponsible.” I can hear Stacey going,
“Hmm” in the background. “People,” Amelia continues, “especially young people, want more vegetarian options these days—and it’s not only a matter of taste. They want to eat sustainably and responsibly. If I ever get to be head chef at this cafeteria, the first thing I’m going to do is take his
rôti de boeuf
and
sole amandine
off the menu and replace them with soybean burgers and lentil loaf. That’s what people want, and that’s what our planet needs!”

Stacey claps.

“Why are you clapping?” Nico asks. “This whole thing is fake.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Stacey tells him. “Besides, even if it is, it’s very inspiring!”

There is still one more potential suspect on the video. This one is a young guy around Lloyd and Samantha’s age. He is wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and a black beret like Che’s. The bottom of the screen says
Jonah Cartwright, student
. “I don’t know why anyone would think I vandalized the cafeteria,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I have way too much schoolwork to do something dumb like that. But I want to be up front with you: it is true that I have been involved in a number of important student strikes. But those were different. We were protesting possible tuition hikes. Look, I’ll even admit that the police picked me up one night for defacing university property—but that was two years ago. I’m through with that kind of stuff. I swear I am.”

The same woman’s voice we heard before asks Jonah whether he eats meat and fish.

“Absolutely not!” Jonah sounds insulted, “I’m vegan.”

The woman asks whether Jonah has any problem with other people eating meat and fish and whether he thinks the university cafeteria should have more vegetarian options.

“Now that you mention it,” Jonah says, “more vegetarian and vegan options would be cool.”

“I hope you guys took notes,” Lloyd tells us when the video is over.

Stacey looks up. “I made a list of everything they said.”

“You’ve just met your four suspects,” Samantha tells us. “I think you’ll agree that each one has a plausible motive for vandalizing the cafeteria.”

Lloyd needs Samantha’s help to get supplies for our next activity, and so for a few minutes it is just the six of us at the conference table.

Nico does a double swivel in his chair. “I still think Mrs. Lu did it.”

“Even if she feels frustrated, I don’t think Mrs. Lu would risk losing her job. Not when she has a family to support,” I say.

Mason grins at me from across the table. “Now who’s talking about forensics camp as if it’s real?”

NINE

When the counselors get back, they are each carrying a long tub with sand in it. Lloyd arranges the two tubs side by side on the floor. “Most people don’t realize how much information footwear evidence can provide. I need two volunteers for our next activity. How ’bout Mason and Tabitha?”

“Sure!” I say. I want to learn everything I can about footwear evidence. And not just because no one took footwear impressions at the scene of our break-and-enter.

Lloyd asks us to walk on the sand. “Just the way you’d normally walk. Without thinking about it.”

Mason and I walk through the sand, and then we all gather to examine the evidence.

We can see right away that my feet are smaller than Mason’s, but Lloyd also shows us how the tracks in the sand reveal that Mason is wearing runners and I have sandals on.

“What else do you see?” Lloyd watches for our reactions. He obviously takes being
FIG
seriously.

Nico raises his hand. “I see two tubs of sand!”

Lloyd ignores Nico. “I want you guys to think about the different ways people walk. A person’s walk is kind of like their signature. For example, I’ve noticed that Tabitha walks quickly, with her chin leading the way.”

I do? That’s news to me. I pat my chin. Maybe observing other people is easier than observing ourselves.

“Now, Mason takes his time when he walks.”

That, on the other hand, is definitely not news. How many hours of my life have I spent waiting for Mason to catch up to me? “I want you to look carefully. Can you find evidence of those habits in their footwear impressions?”

When Lloyd asks that question, it’s like a lightbulb goes on over my head—just like in a cartoon. When I look at my footwear impressions, I see the indentations are deeper at the toe than at the sole. Mason’s indentations are more even. How cool is that!