“It’s cool.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe and pocketed the butt. “You know I don’t need much. I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine, which made her feel worse. “I’m sorry.”
“Looks like you had a rough night, too.”
Emily couldn’t think about her appearance right now. The shed was on the opposite side of the house, but Cheese could’ve heard what happened in the kitchen last night if he’d stood outside the garage. “What time did you get here?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Started out at home, but Mom was off the rails. Dad went to the station and I just …”
She watched his lower lip start to tremble. He hadn’t heard anything. He had his own problems.
“Anyway,” he said. “I’ll walk you to school.”
Emily let him take her book bag. They had to wait for her mother’s car to circle round. Esther looked out the back window, then looked again. For a split second, her poker face melted away. Emily could hear her mother’s thoughts—Was it the Stilton boy?
By the time the car made it to the driveway, Esther had regained her composure.
Cheese remained oblivious. He shook another cigarette out of his pack. They walked down the winding driveway in a companionable silence. Emily tried to remember the first time she’d met Cheese. Like most of her casual school friends, he had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. They had probably been thrown together in pre-school or kindergarten. If she tried to think of her first memory of him, it was of a shy boy sitting in the corner watching everyone else have fun. He had never quite belonged, which was why Emily had always gone out of her way to talk to him. Even within the clique, she had often felt like she was on the outside looking in.
Especially now.
“Okey-dokey,” Cheese said. “You gonna tell me what’s up?”
Emily smiled. “I’m okay. Really.”
Cheese smoked in silence, clearly disbelieving.
Emily thought of something. “Were you in the shed this time last month?”
He looked concerned. “If your parents got mad because—”
“No, no,” she assured him. “They don’t care about that. I just wondered because I came home really late that night—the night of the twenty-sixth. And they were very angry at me for busting curfew. I wondered if you’d heard anything or if you remembered anything.”
“Jeesh,” he said. “I’m sorry, Emily. If I was in the back, I didn’t hear a peep. Did you get in a lot of trouble? Is that why you look so upset?”
She shook her head. Cheese was not inscrutable. If he’d been there that night, he would’ve said something already. She was asking him the wrong questions.
She tried, “Do you know much about investigations? I mean, from your dad?”
“I guess so.” Cheese shrugged. “Maybe I know more from watching Columbo reruns.”
She smiled because he smiled. The show was something her father had watched back when it was on. Emily had never seen it, but of course she knew that it was about a clever detective. “Let’s say that Columbo had a case where someone did something bad.”
“Emily, that’s every Columbo case.” He smiled playfully. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Right.” Emily gave herself a moment to think. “Let’s say there’s a case where a woman was at a cocktail party where her—her diamond necklace was stolen.”
“Okay.”
“Only, she can’t remember anything about the party because she’d had too much to drink.” Emily waited for him to nod. “She has these memories, though. Flashes where she recalls talking to different people or being in certain places. But she can’t tell if they’re real memories or not.”
“Sounds like she was drugged,” Cheese said. “Booze doesn’t really do that unless you’re blackout drunk. At least that’s what I’ve seen with my mom.”
Emily guessed he would know. “How would the woman get the necklace back?”
He smiled again. “She’d call Columbo.”
Emily mirrored his smile again. “But how would Columbo solve the case?”