Thanks for all the feedback for the previous part; I have opted to keep it exactly the way it is. Thanks to all the reviewers who took time to answer my question – especially Mirethguilbain, who went above and beyond the call, but everyone's opinion was greatly appreciated.
In the meantime, we're still in a heavily altered Betty and Veronica: No Mom (and yes, I do have plans for Lianne Mars at some point), no diminution of college fund, and no way to sneak onto the grounds of Pan High. There will be no dialogue you recognize from that episode. You may notice something from another one, though . . .
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas'. Not mine.
X X X X X
Well, at least I could do something about one of those people. After Dad and I finished dinner, I stayed in the kitchen and started baking Wallace the snickerdoodles.
In the meantime, Dad and I watched Armageddon for the fifteenth time. The first time we saw that movie, we couldn't believe how absolutely horrible it was. We spent the entire time making fun of it. (The part where some colonel tells Liv Tyler that he'd like "To shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met" always has us laughing hysterically.)
It never fails to cheer me up.
Of course, right after the movie was over Cliff called. The judge had reduced Dick's restraining order distance from 100 yards to fifty feet, "so that Mr. Casablancas may continue pursuing his education."
Total elapsed time of being cheered up: Five minutes.
X X X X X
True to his word, Logan swung by and picked me up the next morning. I told him about the reduction in the distance Little Dick had to stay away from me.
"Are you sure I can't kill him?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "You're too pretty for prison."
"True, true," he said. "Not as pretty as Dick is, though."
"Oh, he'll be REAL popular with the boys, I'm thinking."
"Of course," Logan said, "Even if he does get convicted he'll likely head to some minimum security place. Kind of a dearth of large sweaty men named Bubba."
"I'll settle for one," I said. "I'm not picky."
He laughed. Then he asked me what I was planning to do that night. I told him I was going to keep trying to find out who'd snatched Polly. He said, "No, you're not."
"Oh, I'm not?"
"Nope. Machiavelli and Sydney Bristow get to take some time off. Tonight you get to be just plain old Veronica Mars. You're relaxing tonight."
"Oh, I am?"
Looking over at me briefly, he said, "Has anyone ever told you you're adorable when you're faking indignance?"
"Oh, I am?"
"Oh yes."
"You're assuming I was faking." I was totally faking, of course, and he knew this from the tone in my voice.
"How can you be truly indignant at someone who plans to take you out for a really nice, long, relaxing dinner, followed by a walk along the beach?"
"I can find a way. You have no idea how indignant I can get!"
"That penis-shaped bong in my locker would argue otherwise . . ." I couldn't keep it in any longer and laughed for the rest of the trip to school.
We'd beaten the traffic, a bit, so Logan and I spent a wonderful few minutes doing things we hadn't been able to do at all yesterday. We were still having fun exploring the myriad and delightful ways we could come up with of kissing each other.
Reluctantly, we parted. "You working at your Dad's office tonight?" I said that I was. "I'll pick you up there at 6."
"Come in when you get there," I said. "Dad will want to make sure you're fully apprised of his ability to hit a target ten times out of ten with minimum spread."
"I'll pack my bulletproof vest," he murmured as we got out of the X-Terra.
"That's not where he'll be aiming."
As we walked towards the school building, there was a commotion up near the flagpole.
Logan suddenly grabbed my arm and said, "Let's not walk that way this morning."
A sudden, pointless change in routine? A guaranteed way to raise a red flag. I was about to protest when the crowd parted for just a second --
-- and I could see Dick Casablancas stripped and duct taped to the flagpole. A lot of people were taking pictures. Meg was among them.
Getting why Logan wanted to enter the building from another direction, I let myself be dragged off. He didn't want me to be seen anywhere near the scene of the crime.
When we were at a safe enough distance, I turned to Logan and said, "Did you have anything to do with that?"
"Me?" He asked with an air of innocence. "Of course not. You told me not to do anything do Dick, and I kept my word to the letter."
I figured it out quickly enough. "You called Weevil."
"I'm admitting nothing, Mars," he said, trying and failing to suppress a grin.
"You know," I said, "I'm not sure whether to love you for doing this for me, pissed at you for doing this for me, or simply shocked that you could bring yourself to call Weevil Navarro for anything."
"No sacrifice is too great for you," he said. "And believe me, if I had done what you suspect me of doing, Weevil wouldn't have needed a whole lot of convincing."
I can imagine he wouldn't.
"And I'd go with option number one. I am, after all, supremely loveable."
True, that.
A good portion of the morning was spent doing what I could to track down the custodians -- they would likely have been the only ones in the building when Polly was taken. Most of them hadn't heard or seen anything. One of them said he'd heard someone in the gym, but just assumed it was a basketball player in for early practice. Wallace said he'd ask around, see if any of the guys on the team had been there. He hadn't been there himself.
He was, however, thrilled to find a box full of snickerdoodles in his locker. The box read, "Wallace! Wallace!" Okay, so sue me. Coming up with cheers on short notice? Not exactly my long suit. You want spontaneous poetry, ask a Halliwell sister.
He even offered me a cookie. I took one and said, "Damn, Wallace. These are good. Whoever baked these really knows their stuff."
"Oh yeah," he said. "Have I mentioned I love this school sometimes?"
I love it when he's happy. I really do.
As I was walking to lunch, I heard someone behind me call out my name.
I turned around -- it was Beaver Casablancas. "What do you want, Beaver?"
He stopped about five feet away from me. "It's Cassidy. I wanted to say I'm sorry. For what happened with Logan. Not my idea, really. It's just that Dick has these dumb ideas, and I feel like I have to go along with them, because, you know, he's my brother."
"You could have told him no."
"No, I couldn't have," he said. "Anyway. I did want to let you know that. Also, I'm really sorry for what he did to you yesterday at Pan High. I can't believe he'd be that stupid. It's like he's trying to ruin our lives, or something." He took a step closer and said nervously, "Also --"
"What is it?" Beaver was less threatening than Dick, and probably was telling the truth about being pressured into it; still, I wasn't very interested in spending a whole lot of time in his presence.
"This is something you might want to know. For your own good." I made a go-on gesture. "Well, the weekend Lilly was killed, me, Dick and Logan were surfing down in Mexico."
"I know," I said.
"Well, Logan kind of got all worked up talking, you know, about how Lilly was seeing someone new. So he got up early that morning, the day Lilly was murdered, and drove back to Neptune to see her."
"Really." I said flatly.
"Yeah. Um, I just thought you should know."
"Well, thank you," I said, and walked off.
I couldn't believe it. Beaver Casablancas had just tried to manipulate me. While pretending to be 'friendly," he was trying to hurt me more than Dick had in the parking lot yesterday.
He couldn't have known that Logan had already told me that he was in Neptune. Otherwise, he very likely would have succeeded.
I was going to have to keep a closer eye on him.
X X X X X
Lunch that day was a revelation. The great mass of 09'ers were once again sitting at the same table – Cole, Caz, Casey Gant, Shelly Pomroy and Vanessa Mencken were all together. (Casey didn't seem to have alienated anyone. That might prove useful.) Duncan and Meg were off by themselves, but it seemed to be more their choice than anything else.
So was Dick. The only people sitting with him were his brother and Madison Sinclair. It had to be a shock for Madison to not have people come to do her homage (the way they were now doing to Vanessa Mencken, whose tapes of her affair with Aaron Echolls had appeared on the latest episode of Tinseltown Diaries).
Not that Madison had ever commanded the loyalty Lilly had. Lilly could be a bitch, but she was easily the most magnetic person I'd ever met. Madison had the bitch part down cold, but the only charm she exuded was physical.
That Madison was still hanging out with the disgraced brothers Casablancas meant one of two things: Either she was true-blue loyal – excuse me while I laugh myself silly – or she was still royally pissed at me for shoving a taser in her stomach.
Wallace and I had a nice, light conversation, touching on basketball and my Polly investigation. None of the players had noticed anything; none of them even admitted being in the building. Which meant whoever the custodian had noticed had been the thief.
Wallace excused himself early, walking off with an armload of food. "I'm still a growing boy," he said.
"Keep eating all that and you'll be growing in the wrong direction," I said, patting my stomach to make sure he knew what I meant. He laughed and left in the direction of the parking lot.
I headed off a bit early too, so I could stop by Clemmons' office and fill him in on the investigation so far. He wondered if I thought I could still figure out what had happened with Polly now that I was persona non grata at Pan. Sounding more confident than I was, I said, "Sure!"
He wasn't fooled – I could tell that from the expression on his face – but he didn't tell me to quit wasting my time, either.
Another surprise: As I left the office I got a call that caller ID said was from "Richard Andrews." I picked up. It was Richie.
"Hi. What do you want?"
"Someone delivered a hundred pounds or so of goatburgers to the middle of our school cafeteria. I was going to tell you something but now –"
"Whoa, whoa," I said. "A hundred pounds?"
"We didn't rush it off to the nurse's office to weigh it or anything, but I'd say at least that much."
"Damn, but Billy must have been a monster."
"Not that I'm an expert, but I don't think so."
"I'm not either. But it's going to take a lot more than one normal-sized goat to get 100 pounds of goat meat. Sounds to me like someone was trying to . . . get your goat." I couldn't resist the pun. So shoot me.
"So you think Billy's still alive?"
"Can't swear to that. But I'd bet that's not him." After a second. "You were going to tell me something?"
"Someone here does say he kidnapped Polly. I'm not going to tell you who. But find Billy alive and maybe we can make a trade."
We said our goodbyes, and hung up.
The rest of the day went smoothly enough; I went to do some filing for Dad after work and mentioned oh-so-casually that Logan was planning to take me out to dinner that night.
"You know I want to talk with him," he said.
"People in Botswana know you want to talk to him. I told him to come in when he gets here so you can do just that. You might want to start oiling your weapons, you know. Just for show."
"Very funny, sweetheart," he said. "You know I never oil my weapons just for show."
And soon enough 6 o'clock had rolled around and here Logan was coming in the front door of Mars Investigations.
This should be fun . . .