The Pet Show Mystery

by Campbell, Julie

  “Well, listen,” she said out loud, “I just doubled back here to drop the dog off. Now I have to meet Honey. She’s downtown, working on something. It’s a surprise so I can’t tell you much about it, except that it’s connected with the pet show.” Which is true, she thought, since it was the pet show sabotage that led us to Paul Gale and David Llewelyn. “We’ll catch the second bus home,” she added. “Don’t bother to wait for us.”

  She turned and walked as decorously as she could away from the school. It was only when she was out of sight that she began to run. The cold air hurt her lungs, but she was too eager to find Honey and Norma to stop running.

  There was no sign of the two girls, or of David Llewelyn, anywhere on the block in front of the World Anti-Hunger Foundation.

  On a hunch, Trixie headed for the cafe. There she found the three people she was looking for.

  Norma had just finished transferring her information to David Llewelyn. “The woman laughed after Paul Gale made the remark about ice,” Norma was concluding. “Then she came out of the back room. She seemed surprised to see me. When I told her I wanted to talk to Paul Gale, she told me he wasn’t in and that I’d better come back some other time. So I left.”

  “That proves it, doesn’t it?” Trixie asked excitedly.

  “It’s proof enough for me,” David Llewelyn said.

  “Isn’t it proof enough for a judge?” Trixie asked.

  David Llewelyn shook his head. “Not all by itself.”

  Norma looked disappointed. “I didn’t really help, then, did I?”

  “Why don’t you wire her?” Trixie suggested. “It didn’t work when I tried it, because I was hoping to get him to confess to something he hadn’t done. But Norma could use his own words against him. That would be a lot more effective.”

  “It would also be a lot more dangerous,” the investigator said.

  “If I do it, is there a chance I’d get real evidence against Paul Gale?” Norma asked.

  “There’s a chance,” David Llewelyn told her.

  “Then I’ll do it,” she said.

  Trixie looked admiringly at Norma. She has a lot of courage. I guess she’s shown that all along, going out in the cold every day, but this is different.

  “Would you like us to go with you, Norma?” Honey asked.

  “Oh, would you?” the girl responded eagerly.

  “Of course, we would,” Trixie said.

  David Llewelyn took the microphone from his pocket. There was no place to conceal it on Norma’s open-necked blouse and vest, so he clipped it to the hood of her parka, where the fur concealed it. He explained again that he would be taping the conversation. “Keep him talking until you’re absolutely sure you’ve got the evidence,” he said. “If we move in too soon, we’ll probably lose him for good.”

  Norma nodded solemnly.

  “Remember, don’t put yourselves in any danger,” he said. “I’d rather lose Paul Gale than lose you. Understand?”

  Norma gulped and nodded.

  David Llewelyn and the three girls left the booth and walked outside. The investigator faded from sight, while Trixie, Honey, and Norma headed for the foundation office.

  The assistant was once again alone in the main room.

  “I’d like to talk to Paul Gale,” Norma said.

  “He isn’t here,” the woman said curtly.

  “Not even in the back room?” Norma asked. “This is important. It’s about birdseed.” She made the last statement in a voice loud enough to carry through the closed door to the back room.

  Paul Gale’s assistant looked shaken. “I’ll, uh, see if he’s available,” she said.

  She disappeared through the door. The girls heard a rumble of low conversation, but they couldn’t pick out any of the words. In less than a minute, the assistant was back. “Mr. Gale will see you,” she said, holding the door open for them.

  The back room was comfortable but not lavish. There was a large desk with a swivel chair, a couch, and an armchair, as well as a file cabinet and a messy bookcase. Paul Gale rose from the swivel chair as the girls entered the room. “Why don’t you take off your coats and make yourselves comfortable?” he said, gesturing toward the couch and easy chair.

  Norma shot a nervous look at Trixie and Honey. The last thing they wanted was for Norma to take off her coat, with its concealed microphone.

  “Oh, come now,” Paul Gale said. “You have to take off your coats. Otherwise you’ll catch cold when you go back outside.”

  There’s no choice, Trixie thought. We either take off our coats and sit down, or refuse to take them off and leave. As long as the coats are in the room, the microphone will probably still pick up the conversation. She unzipped her jacket and threw it casually over the arm of the chair.

  Norma and Honey quickly followed her example. Then the assistant appeared again. She scooped up the coats and took them back to the front room, closing the door behind her as she went.

  Oh, no! Trixie thought. Now Mr. Llewelyn won’t be able to tape the conversation at all. Well, there are three of us to testify to what we hear, so maybe the tape won’t be that important. I just hope Mr. Llewelyn doesn’t panic and come in after us.

  “Now,” Paul Gale said, “what was it you wanted?”

  “I-I wanted to talk to you,” Norma said. “I wanted to find out more about the ice you bring back from the Far East.”

  Paul Gale smiled slyly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you mean rice? Some of the Far Eastern countries do export rice, although they should be keeping it to feed their own people.”

  “Ice,” Trixie corrected him. There was no time for subtlety. They had to get the evidence before David Llewelyn came to get them. “Ice, as in gems bought with money that’s supposed to buy food for the poor.”

  Paul Gale’s smile faded gradually as he realized that there was indeed no misunderstanding. “Who put you onto me?” he demanded.

  “I figured it out for myself,” Norma said smugly.

  Paul Gale paused to plan his next move. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I do use foundation money to buy gems.

  “It didn’t start out that way, you understand. At first, all of the money really did go to buy food. Then, on one trip, someone offered me a huge, perfect ruby. The price was ridiculously low. I thought I could bring it back to this country, sell it, and have that much more money to use for food. Once I had the money, though, it seemed fair for me to keep a little part of it, as long as I gave the rest to the foundation. It was nice to have some money of my own, after all those years of giving everything away.”

  Paul Gale wasn’t looking at the girls as he talked. He was staring at the wall, but seeming to look back into the past. “On the next trip, the same man offered me two rubies to bring back here. He wanted twice as much money, of course. I thought about using my own money. In the end, though,, used money from the foundation. This time, I didn’t put any of it back.

  “That’s how it started. From there it just grew. It was like a game that I couldn’t stop playing. I don’t even sell the gems anymore. I don’t need the money. I just keep them, look at them. They’re beautiful. Have you ever seen a really big beautiful ruby or diamond?’’ He suddenly turned a direct gaze at the girls.

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Would you like to? I have some out back in my camper. I’ll even give you some, if you’ll promise to go away and leave me alone.” Trixie felt a burst of anger at Paul Gale’s offer of a bribe. Then she quickly turned the offer to her advantage. If we actually get to see the gems, we’ll have an ironclad case against him, she thought.

  “It’s a deal,” Norma said.

  She must be thinking the same thing. A barely perceptible nod from Honey told Trixie that all three girls were in tune.

  Paul Gale stood up. “Come on, then. The camper is right out back, so you don’t need your coats.”

  He held open the back door. Through it, Trixie could see a green pickup truck wi
th a white camper top. Paul Gale opened the door of the camper, and the girls hurried to jump inside, out of the cold wind.

  It was dark in the camper. Trixie turned and saw Paul Gale’s thin frame outlined in the light of the open door. “You want to see gems?” he said tauntingly. “Well, they’re in there somewhere. And I’ll give you all the time in the world to find them. All the time you have left in the world, anyway.” He took a step backward and slammed the door.

  The inside of the camper went almost black. Trixie lunged for the door. “It’s locked!” she exclaimed.

  “The windows don’t open, either!” Honey cried.

  Suddenly the girls began to be aware of the cold. The icy air quickly penetrated their clothes.

  “He’s left us out here to freeze to death,” Norma said in a low voice.

  Trixie tried to sound hopeful. “Someone will come along and find us,” she said. Then the door of the pickup slammed shut, and someone started the engine. What now? Trixie thought frantically.

  The truck lurched through the alley and out onto the street. Trixie tried to keep track of their path, noting all the turns. But her quiet concentration only made her aware of how cold she was getting. “Stomp your feet and clap your hands together,” she told the other girls.

  “It hurts,” Norma said after a couple of stomps.

  “You’d be a lot worse off if it didn’t,” Trixie told her.

  That warning was enough to keep the girls interested in exercise for a few moments. But their attention was distracted when the truck rolled to a stop. The engine was turned off, and the door of the truck opened and closed. Another engine was still running somewhere nearby, however. In the distance a car door slammed. Then the car drove away, and all was still.

  Fear settled around the girls like a blanket, but there was no warmth in it. “Let’s keep moving,” Trixie said. She flapped her arms up and down and made scissors motions with her legs. Honey and Norma did the same.

  Eventually, however, Trixie couldn’t move anymore. Her muscles ached from the exercise almost as much as her fingers and toes ached from the cold.

  “I can’t take it anymore,” Honey said, echoing Trixie’s thoughts.

  “I’m getting sleepy,” Norma said with a yawn in her voice.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” Trixie said. “That’s how people freeze to death. We have to keep talking.”

  “What should we talk about?” Honey asked.

  “Summer,” Trixie said. “Think about warm sun, and riding our bikes, and cookouts by the pond.” She felt a lump in her throat. Making myself sad is no help at all, she thought.

  “Let’s think about adventure,” Honey said. “That should keep our blood racing. Remember when we went off in the red trailer to find my brother Jim?”

  Trixie remembered happily, and she and Honey took turns telling the story to Norma. When they ended, however, there was no response from their listener.

  “Norma?” Trixie said.

  “Mmm—sleepy,” came the drowsy reply.

  Trixie heard Honey yawn, and it triggered her own yawning reflex. “We can’t... we can’t fall asleep...” Trixie murmured. As she spoke, she did seem to be falling—falling through space to somewhere dark and warm.

  She began to dream. It was morning, and she was in her bed at home. She must have been very young in the dream, she realized, because someone was washing her face, the way she still sometimes washed Bobby’s. She must have gotten very dirty somehow, because someone seemed to be angry with her, and saying her name loudly, over and over: “Trixie, Trixie, Trixie.” All the while, the rough washcloth was scrubbing her face.

  Trixie struggled to open her eyes. She expected to see the familiar walls of her bedroom, but she didn’t. She expected to see her mother’s face, but she didn’t see that, either. Instead, she saw-

  “Reddy!” Trixie shouted. She pushed the dog away as he continued to try to lick her face. She sat up and looked around. The door of the camper was open, and dim late-after-noon light was streaming in. She could see Honey groggily sitting up at her brother Jim’s urging. Brian Belden was patting Norma’s cold hands, trying to bring her around.

  Someone was standing in the doorway. Trixie stifled a scream, remembering her last sight of Paul Gale. The voice that spoke, though, was the calm one of David Llewelyn. “I’m glad to see that you’re all right,” he said, “although it’s certainly no credit to me that you are.”

  14 * Success!

  TRIXIE WAS only dimly aware of being helped out of the camper and into a waiting car. Much later, it seemed, she was lifted out of the car again. This time, she did wind up back in her own bedroom.

  When she woke again, it was full daylight. She opened her eyes to see Bobby’s worried face close to hers.

  “She’s awake!” he shouted without moving away. “Trixie’s awake! You’re awake, aren’t you, Trixie?”

  Trixie squeezed her eyes shut against the noise. ‘Tm awake.”

  “I was just waiting for you to wake up because I wanted to tell you thanks for finding Reddy,” Bobby said.

  “Actually, it’s Trixie who should thank Reddy for finding her,” Brian Belden said from the doorway.

  Trixie looked up at her brother just as Mart joined him. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Well, first of all,” Brian said, coming into the room and sitting down, “Jim was suspicious about that little errand of yours. Something you said about a foundation struck him funny. He suggested we stop by the foundation office on the way home. When we got there, the lights were on, but the door was locked.”

  “Paul Gale’s assistant must have locked up so she could follow us and pick him up after he got out of the truck,” Trixie said.

  “Probably,” Brian agreed. “We didn’t know that, though, so we were about to give up and take off. That’s when Reddy came to the rescue. He got away from us and ran into that alley between the buildings. We chased him to the back of the alley, just in time to see Paul Gale’s green pickup truck and the maroon sedan the assistant was driving as they pulled away.

  “We didn’t think much about the vehicles at the time, in spite of the fuss Reddy was making. But when we got back to the sidewalk, Mr. Llewelyn was there. He’d gotten nervous when he saw that the front door was locked.

  “We exchanged information. Mr. Llewelyn told us about the microphone. He’d heard Paul Gale ask you to take off your coats, so he didn’t expect to pick up any conversation. He’d decided to give you some time before going in after you. Then we figured out that you girls were in the camper.”

  “It took you long enough to find us,” Trixie said, still a little shaken.

  “It would have been a whole lot longer without a good description of the vehicle,” Brian said. “That was a close call, Trix.”

  Trixie shuddered. “Are Honey and Norma okay?”

  “They’re fine,” Brian assured her.

  Suddenly drowsy again, Trixie smiled as she drifted back to sleep. “Just think,” she murmured, “it was Reddy to the rescue.”

  By Saturday morning, Trixie was fully recovered. As the Beldens gathered for an early breakfast, it was Mart who seemed to be under the weather.

  “I was up until midnight last night, inputting the last of the data. Now I have to bolt my breakfast and return to the computer room to run the program. After that, no more programs for me!”

  “I thought computerizing the categories was going to be a big labor-saver,” Trixie reminded him.

  “It was,” Mart said. “Unfortunately, though, the labor that was saved was yours; the labor that was expended was exclusively my own.”

  “By the way,” said Brian, “is there any news about Paul Gale?”

  Trixie frowned. “No. I’ve left messages for David Llewelyn every day, but he hasn’t returned them. I hope Paul Gale doesn’t get away to start some other con game in another town.”

  “An awful thought,” Mart said. “Speaking of getaways, Brian and I must make one. Are you re
ady, my faithful charioteer?”

  “Ready,” Brian mumbled through his last mouthful of pancakes. “I’ll sure be glad when you get a senior driver’s license!”

  “See you at the show,” Trixie said. “I can hardly wait to see the categories.”

  Less than two hours later, all of the show volunteers but Mart were in the gym. The judging table was set up in the center of the room. Other tables were lined up against the walls, ready for cages and carriers.

  “Now all we need are the pets,” Trixie said, surveying their work with satisfaction.

  “Which pets are those?” Mart asked, striding across the room, holding a sheaf of computer paper. “The heaviest pet—Clancy the sheepdog at ninety-one pounds? The lightest pet—Percy the parakeet at two ounces? The most intelligent pet—Samantha the Siamese cat?”

  “Yay! The program worked!” Trixie said.

  “Naturally,” Mart said proudly.

  “What other categories are there?” Di asked as she crowded around, along with the other Bob-Whites.

  Mart turned the printout paper around so that he could read it. “Oldest. Youngest. Most unusual—that’s a cockatiel. Longest ears—”

  “A rabbit?” Trixie guessed.

  “A basset hound,” Mart corrected. “I had to give the rabbit ‘shortest tail’ to make up for Barney’s infringement on Mopsy’s natural category.”

  “And you really have a category for each and every animal!” Di exclaimed admiringly.

  “It’s going to be fun to be surrounded by so many animals today,” Norma Nelson said. “I really appreciate your letting me help with the pet show.”

  “It was the least we could do, after you helped us solve the mystery,” Trixie said.

  “The Paul Gale mystery,” Brian added. “You know, you girls never did solve the mystery of the pet show sabotage.”

  Norma started to turn red, and Trixie felt her own cheeks growing hot. The other Bob-Whites still didn’t know about Norma, Trixie thought. We’ll have to tell them; it’s not right for the Bob-Whites to have secrets from one another. It’s not right for people like Norma and Gordon to be jealous of us, either. That’s something we’ll all have to work on together. But the pet show comes first. We can’t let anything—not even the solution to the mystery— distract us from that.