Madison’s mother had died when Madison was in first grade, and she’d been raised by her father, Hamilton Kincaid. He was a top criminal defense attorney and a total workaholic. Once he got a case it became his life. It wasn’t unusual for Madison’s dad to work on a case deep into the night, and it definitely wasn’t unusual for a new client to call after midnight.
The second-floor landing was across from her father’s first-floor study. Peering through the railing, Madison saw that the door to the study was open.
“I’ll be at the jail in half an hour, Mr. Shelby,” her father said.
She ducked back from the railing just as Hamilton walked out of his den. Without looking up, he said, “I know you’re listening, Madison. I have to go to the jail. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Most of her friends’ parents would never leave a twelve-year-old alone in the middle of the night, but Hamilton was absentminded, and Madison had grown used to taking care of herself. Double-checking that her dad had locked the door behind him, Madison, though curious, went back up to bed.
Madison’s alarm went off at 7:15. She sat up right away. She was bleary eyed from her restless night, but if she hit snooze she wouldn’t have time to blow-dry. Looking put together on her first day at a new school was seriously important.
By the second or third day, the snooze button would probably be in heavy use again. But today she couldn’t afford to go back to sleep.
Grabbing her cell phone from her bedside stand, she speed-dialed Ann. Madison and Ann had met on the first day of soccer practice when they were both five and had been best friends and teammates ever since.
Madison often thought it was cool that two such different girls could be best friends. Madison was orderly, strong willed, and liked a plan, while Ann was happy-go-lucky and ready for anything. Madison loved school, though she knew it sounded dorky. She was a straight-A student and often read books that weren’t required reading. She wanted to be the world’s greatest crime-solving attorney, so she was always on the lookout for information that could someday come in handy. Sherlock Holmes, for example, could identify 140 different types of tobacco ash and had such a great knowledge of different kinds of soil that he could tell where a person had been by examining the dirt on the sole of a suspect’s shoe. Those were just a few of the things Madison would have to know if she wanted to defend the innocent against unjust accusations in court.
Ann was smart, but she didn’t read outside of class and didn’t care if she got As or Ds as long as she could play soccer. Madison thought of Ann as her “head in the clouds” best friend. Ann probably thought of Madison as her “nose in a book” best friend.
With the first day of school also being the day of tryouts for Pettygrove’s championship soccer team, Madison had to make sure she and Ann wore matching socks, a tradition they’d kept since the first day they met.
Weirdly, Ann’s phone went straight to voice mail, so Madison left a message and rolled out of bed. After her shower, with her thick brown hair still wet, she threw her pajamas back on and went downstairs. On the way to the kitchen, Madison passed her dad’s room. The bed still hadn’t been slept in. It must have been a long night at the jail.
As Madison poured herself a big bowl of cereal, she heard her father working in his study. She carried the bowl into his home office.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Morning, honey,” Hamilton said without looking up from the stack of papers he was reading. Though he had changed his clothes since the night before, his socks were mismatched and his hair looked like a hurricane had roared through it.
“It’s the first day of junior high, Dad.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Hamilton finally looked up at his twelve-year-old daughter. She was tall for her age and thin, with strong legs from years on the soccer field. Madison knew her dad still had trouble thinking of her as anything but the little girl with pigtails who would color and play with her toys amid his law books.
Because Hamilton was a single parent who was addicted to his work, Madison had basically grown up in his downtown law office. When she was in elementary school, Hamilton would pick her up from school and take her to the firm. As she grew older and started to understand what her father did for a living, Madison began asking him about his cases—and giving him her unsolicited advice on how to win them. Eventually she became a file clerk at his office to earn pocket money, and by now she was addicted to anything having to do with law, including old Perry Mason novels and any lawyer TV show. The other kids in her elementary school would say they wanted to be bakers, teachers, and firefighters when they grew up. Madison wanted to be a criminal defense attorney and try murder cases. Now that she was entering junior high, she was more determined than ever to follow in her father’s footsteps.
“New case?” Madison asked, munching on her cereal and pointing at a stack of police reports.
“Uhm,” Hamilton grunted.
“What’s it about?”
“Murder. A man named Mark Shelby is charged with killing his wife, but there’s no body.”
“Shelby? Mrs. Shelby was my second-grade teacher at Lewis and Clark. Remember?”
Hamilton’s face scrunched up. He shook his head apologetically. “I’m not sure I do.”
Madison was annoyed that her dad couldn’t remember her second-grade teacher. His brain was so full of legal facts that there wasn’t room for much else.
“Mr. Shelby’s wife is an elementary school teacher, but I don’t think he told me where she taught.”
Madison put her spoon down, shocked. “Oh man,” she said, horrified. “Mrs. Shelby was really sweet. Is he guilty? Is Mrs. Shelby dead?”
“Well, she might not be dead, sweetie, so please don’t worry yet. My client says he’s not guilty. He has no idea why he was arrested. And, like I said, there’s no body.”
“If there’s no body, how can they arrest him?”
“Circumstantial evidence. If you don’t have direct evidence of a crime, like an eyewitness, you can still use circumstances to prove the defendant’s guilt. Mark’s neighbors have called the police several times because of screaming arguments. Yesterday, Mark and his wife had another argument. A neighbor claims she saw Mark put his wife’s body in the back of his station wagon and drive off at high speed. When the police arrived, the house was empty; there were traces of blood on the floor in the kitchen and a knife with blood on the blade on the kitchen counter. Ruth Shelby is still missing.”
Maybe the police had made a big mistake and Mrs. Shelby was okay. For now, all Madison could do was hope.
“Hopefully soccer tryouts won’t take too long so I can get to the office to help you,” Madison said, sobered.
“Tryouts, for a star player like you?” Hamilton said. “When the coaches see ‘Madison Kincaid’ on the list, they’ll put you on the varsity without a tryout.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Madison said, rolling her eyes. “First of all, junior high doesn’t have ‘varsity.’ You either make the team or you play club. And Pettygrove Junior High has won or placed second in the Junior High City Championship for the past five years. I just hope I make the team.”
“You’ll do great. Go get dressed and I’ll drive you to school.”
Madison ran upstairs and studied her face in the bathroom mirror. Thankfully, her pale skin was zit free. Not wanting to look like she was overly excited about her first day of school, she decided against any lip gloss, but she did blow-dry her hair. Today she needed her hair to be perfect to impress her new teachers and the other students.
When she was finished in the bathroom, Madison took out the outfit she had decided weeks ago to wear on her first day at Pettygrove Junior High. She was slightly bummed that Ann had been in Europe all summer so that she wasn’t around to consult about what to wear. She put on a simple black tank top and pulled on her newish J. Crew jeans, which she’d broken in. Even though she was tall enough for them, talking her father into buying her grown-up jeans hadn’t been easy, but she’d finally worn him down.