A Detective's Guide to the Perfect Crime

VI

Margo stepped out onto the school's front steps. She scanned the parking lot until she spotted the pretentious white corvette parked in a professor's reserved space. She walked over to the driver's side window and rapped her fist against its tinted surface.

Daley rolled the window down. "Hey! Don't do that! I just had this thing washed. You're gonna get fingerprints all over it."

"Any leads?" Margo asked.

"You seriously called me all the way over here for that?" Daley scoffed. "Do you have any idea how much gas costs? And don't get me started on the high quality stuff.."

Margo gave him a healthy eye roll. "No one cares about your car, Daley." She let the words hang in the air for a second before continuing. "I have some information. But I wanna know what you have first."

Daley sighed. "Alright," he leaned back in his seat, "we've got the name of a woman. Samantha Pfizer. She owns a coffee shop called 'Green Coffee'— something about environmentally friendly cups or whatever. But anyways, me and another detective are going down there today to ask her some questions."

"Okay, cool."

"Granted, she's not as good of a detective as me." Daley smiled. "Then again, who is?"

Margo ignored his stupid comment. "Okay, so, I did some digging." She fished out a photo of Rooke from her purse that she had cut from the school's yearbook. "This is Rooke, Tori's son."

Daley rolled his eyes. "You really think I didn't know that?"

"Okay..." Margo bit her tongue to avoid any kind of snarky remark. "Well, he moved to Arkansas a while ago when his family disowned him." She handed him the picture. "Then this guy fell off the face of the earth. Now, I don't have the assets you do, so I, unfortunately, need you to figure out what happened to him."

"I'm sorry." Daley slid his sunglasses up into his dark brown, messy hair, "Who's leading this investigation?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Probably the person who actually cares?" She gestured to herself. "I'm gonna go home and see what I can find, but there's only so much I can do."

"Yeah, okay." Daley said. He shooed her away and rolled up his window. His car engine rumbled to life.

"'Thanks, Miss Jameson, for all your hard work'." Margo mumbled as she watched him tear out of the lot. "'It really means a lot.'"

Her eyes followed as he ran a red light just past the school. This guy really thought he was some sort of something. With his fancy car that he somehow managed to own on a New York detective's salary. And his status as some big shot from up north.

"Hey, Margo." A familiar voice sung in Margo's ear. She turned to see Penny Whitaker skipping towards her. Her black afro bounced on her head. "How are you? We haven't talked in a while..."

"Yeah, I know." Margo shrugged. It was very much on purpose. She wanted so badly to add. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Penny stood beside her. "Just waiting for my dad to come pick me up." She paused for a moment. "Oh! I heard you had a date with Casey the other day! How'd it go?"

Margo clenched her jaw. "It went fine." She started walking away.

"Oh! Wait!" Penny chased after her. Something told Margo that she'd regret stopping, but she did anyways. "Does your dad... oh what was his name?" Penny thumbed the space of skin between her perfectly manicured eyebrows. "Peter!" She snapped. "Does Peter still pick you up from school?"