by Pete Hautman
“Do you mean here? On the island?”
Roni nodded.
Driftwood Doug’s sapphire eyes glittered. His shoulders tensed and his hand tightened around the limb. Brian thought, Uh-oh, he’s deciding how he’s going to kill us and where he’s going to hide our bodies. He braced himself to take off running.
Driftwood Doug threw the stick into the fire.
“That poor girl,” he said, shaking his head sorrowfully. His shoulders dropped a few inches and his body sagged. In a single instant he went from being a fearsome, hairy, club-wielding giant to a normal, worried man. “If not for me, this would never have happened. That poor, poor girl!”
Brian and Roni gaped at him. Was this a confession? Was Driftwood Doug confessing to them?
“Where is she?” Roni asked. “Where did you put her?”
“Put her? I didn’t put her anywhere. I haven’t seen her since last Friday.”
“But . . . you kidnapped her, right?” Roni reminded him.
“Kidnapped? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Then what happened to her?” Brian asked.
“The same thing that happened to me,” said Driftwood Doug. “I once owned Bloodwater House, you know.”
“So you are Douglas Unger?”
“I was Douglas Unger. Until that house destroyed me. It was the Bloodwater Curse.”
“The what?” said Roni and Brian together.
Driftwood Doug looked from one to the other, then said, “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
31
tea for three
“Sugar?” Driftwood Doug asked as he poured the hot tea. They were sitting around the fire, which Doug had used to heat water for the tea.
Roni said, “Yes, please.” She let the earthy aroma of the tea drift toward her while stirring in her sugar.
Brian sniffed his tea as if it were a science experiment. “You aren’t trying to poison us, are you?”
Driftwood Doug grinned. The smile changed his whole look. Suddenly a set of perfect white teeth showed through his beard, and his skin crinkled around his eyes.
“I’m fresh out of poison today,” he said.
“What is this?” Brian asked.
“Elixir of the gods,” said Driftwood Doug.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had elixir of the gods before,” said Brian.
“What is it really?” Roni asked.
Driftwood Doug took a big healthy gulp of the tea. “Have you ever heard of ginseng?”
Roni had heard of it. “You mean that stuff that gives you extra energy?”
“I know, I know.” Brian was waving his hand as if they were in school. “It’s a root, right?”
Roni remembered seeing the pile of dried roots on the table inside the houseboat. Those must have been ginseng roots.
Driftwood Doug nodded. “You are both right. Ginseng root is said to give one extra strength and vitality. It grows wild in the woods around here. I earn money in the fall by collecting and selling ginseng roots.”
Brian took a big swallow of his tea. He made a face, then took another sip.
Roni said, “Are you going to tell us about Alicia?” She tasted her tea. Not bad.
“The girl, yes,” said Driftwood Doug. “I saw her last Friday when I was hunting for chanterelles.”
“What are those?” Brian asked.
Roni had to teach him to not lead a suspect off the track when she started a line of questioning.
“Cantharellus cibarius,” said Driftwood Doug, as if that explained something. “The most delectable of the wild mushrooms.”
Roni said, “Okay, you were looking for these cantrels—”
“Chanterelles,” he corrected her.
“These mushrooms, and then?”
Driftwood Doug was not to be hurried. “I’d had some luck finding chanterelles in the woods near Bloodwater House. I picked nearly five pounds there last August. Not to mention a nice patch of Boletus edulis . . .”
This guy is as bad as Mr. Nestor, Roni thought.
“ . . . and of course I’m always keeping an eye out for ginseng. That night the sun had set and I was cutting through the woods in the dark, heading back to where I’d stashed my canoe, when I heard shouting coming from the direction of the house. I stopped and listened, but I couldn’t make anything out. Then I heard a screech.”
“A screech?” Roni said.
“Like a shout of pain. Or maybe anger. I don’t know. I thought maybe someone had been hurt, so I started for the house. It’s the Curse, you know. Terrible things happen to people who live there. Anyway, I was almost to the fence when someone came running from the direction of the house and jumped the fence and took off through the woods. He ran past me, not twenty feet away.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“Like I said, it was getting dark and I couldn’t see much. It was a young man, I believe. Quite tall.”
Brian looked at Roni and silently moved his mouth. Roni could read his lips: Maurice. She nodded.
“He ran toward the river,” said Driftwood Doug. “So I crept up to the back fence. That was when I saw the girl. On her hands and knees on the patio near the pool. A man was standing over her.”
“Could you see who it was?” Roni asked.
“I believe it was Arnold Thorn.”
“Did he hit her?”
“When I saw him he was just standing there talking to her. Then he tried to grab her, like he wanted to help her stand up, but she knocked his hand aside and crawled away. The man followed her and tried to help her up again, but she wouldn’t let him. He just stood there looking at her for a while, then a woman’s voice called from the house and he ran back inside. As soon as he was gone, the girl got up. Her face was all bloody. She ran around the side of the house and that was the last I saw her. A few seconds later Arnold Thorn came back outside and started looking for her and calling her name.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. I left.”
“You didn’t do anything?” Brian asked.
“What should I have done?”
“Called the police.”
“I was trespassing. I didn’t want to get in trouble.” He stared into his tea. “I tried to warn him, you know. When Arnold Thorn first bought that house I tried to warn him of the Curse. He wouldn’t listen. He told me to get off his property. He called the police. I should have burned that house down after Ceci died. I should have burned it to the ground.” He stared off into the distance. “Before we bought that place, we were happy. A few months later all my investments went bad, Ceci died, and I gave it all up. I became Driftwood Doug.”
He looked up and suddenly his expression changed. Roni turned and saw two uniformed policemen coming quickly up the path.
32
firth and spall
Brian saw the police at the same time Roni did. He recognized both of them—George Firth, a potbellied old-timer with the Bloodwater police, and Garth Spall, a brash young cop whom Brian had once overheard his mother describe as “Barney Fife in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body.”
This is perfect timing, Brian thought. Now Doug can tell the police what he saw. But when Brian turned back to the fire, Driftwood Doug was gone. Brian jumped up and looked around and saw Doug down at the shore pushing his canoe out onto the river.
The younger cop, Garth Spall, saw him, too. He grabbed Firth’s arm and pointed, then went crashing through the brush toward the canoe, holding his flopping gunbelt and shouting, “Stop! Stop! Police!”
Doug hopped into his canoe and began to paddle.
Spall reached the water’s edge and threw himself headlong at the canoe. He landed with a tremendous splash about five feet short of the canoe. Driftwood Doug pulled away, paddling furiously. Spall came up sputtering in the knee-deep water, fumbling with his sodden holster. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” He got his gun out just as Firth caught up with him and grabbed his arm.
“You can’t shoot him, Garth.”
; “I was just going to throw a scare into him,” Spall said, lowering his gun. Driftwood Doug disappeared from sight along the shore.
“Well, you sure threw a scare into me!” said Firth. “We didn’t come here to shoot the man, Garth! Just ask him a few questions.”
“He ran. He must be guilty,” Garth said stubbornly.
“That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to shoot him!”
Garth Spall reholstered his gun and pushed out his lower lip like a little kid. “You don’t always have to tell me what to do.”
“Oh for . . . look, why don’t you head back to the bridge and see if you can catch sight of where he’s headed. He has to put into shore someplace. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to his accomplices here. And no shooting!”
The two cops waded back to shore. Garth shook himself like a dog, sending water droplets in every direction, then pounded off down the narrow path, his broad, wet shoulders parting the brush as he passed. Firth looked back at Brian and Roni, who were still standing next to the campfire holding their teacups.
“We aren’t accomplices,” Brian said.
“Is that a fact?” said Firth. He waddled up and took a closer look at Brian. “Aren’t you Annie Bain’s boy?”
Brian nodded.
The cop shook his head. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be happy to know we found you here on Wolf Spider Island keeping company with Mr. Douglas Unger.” He turned his attention to Roni. “And who might you be, young lady?”
Roni did not like being young-ladied. She pulled out her notebook and clicked her pen. “I’m P. Q. Delicata, reporter for the Bloodwater Pump.” She looked at the cop’s name badge. “What is your interest in Douglas Unger, Officer Firth? And why did your partner try to shoot him?”
“Whoa!” said Firth, holding up his palms. “Now just hold your horses, Miss P. Q. Delicata. Nobody shot at nobody. We came here to ask Mr. Unger some questions is all.”
“In connection with the Alicia Camden kidnapping?” Roni asked.
Firth narrowed his eyes. “I know you—you’re the girl trying to get into Bloodwater House yesterday!”
Just then, Firth’s belt radio erupted.
“I see him! I see him! Heading south on river! Am in pursuit!”
Firth grabbed his radio and shouted into it. “Garth, you moron, do not—I repeat—do NOT unholster your weapon!” He gave Roni and Brian an exasperated look. “I’ll deal with you two later.” He returned his radio to his belt clip and ran off down the path, his abdomen jiggling like a sack of Jell-O.
33
donuts and coffee
“I wonder if they’ll catch him,” Roni said as they trudged into Bloodwater.
“I doubt it,” said Brian. “I bet Doug knows every little backwater and inlet from here to Alma.”
“Good point. But I wonder why he ran. He sure didn’t sound like a kidnapper when we were talking to him.”
“Yeah, he made it sound more like it was either Maurice or Mr. Thorn that beat up Alicia.”
“But then why did he run?” Roni asked.
“Good question. Any ideas?”
“Yes. Let’s eat,” Roni said.
Brian stared at her. He never knew what she was going to say next.
“I think better if I have a little sustenance,” she explained.
“I thought you were on a diet.”
“Which I will temporarily abandon for the sake of this investigation.”
“Fine by me.” They were walking side by side, kicking stones at the edge of the road. “Do you have any money?”
“I have five bucks. How about you?”
“I have a couple of dollars. What do you want to eat?”
Roni’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go to Bratten’s. Today is French donut day—my favorite.”
“That doesn’t sound like lunch.”
“It’s the new all-carbohydrate-and-fat diet,” Roni said.
At Bratten’s Café and Bakery, Roni ordered three French donuts and a cup of coffee. Brian ordered one French donut and one American donut, just in case the French donut was too froufrou for him. He also ordered a cup of coffee.
“You kids grow up too fast,” said Mrs. Bratten as she rang up their purchases.
Brian had never ordered a cup of coffee in a restaurant. For that matter, he had never had a cup of coffee at home. The few times he had tasted his dad’s coffee he hadn’t liked it. Too hot and bitter and sour. But it seemed the thing to do when you were eating donuts out in public while working on a big investigation. Besides, he didn’t want Roni to think he was a little kid.
They took their coffee and donuts to one of the small tables by the front window. Roni bit into her first French donut. “Now this,” she said, munching, “is elixir of the gods.”
“Doesn’t an elixir have to be a liquid?”
“Shut up and eat,” she said.
Brian did, taking a huge bite from his French donut. Roni was right. Elixir of the gods, even if it was a solid. He watched Roni pour cream into her coffee and then add a packet of sugar. It was worth a try. He poured in a slug of cream, which changed the color of his coffee from black to beige, then tore the tops from two packets of sugar and dumped them in. He stirred. He lifted it to his lips and tasted. Hmm, not bad. Kind of like burnt hot chocolate. He added another dollop of cream and two more sugars. Even better.
Halfway through her second donut, Roni said, “Okay, let’s assume that Driftwood Doug abducted Alicia. The question is, why?”
“Love, money, or revenge,” Brian said.
“He didn’t seem like a love, money, or revenge sort of guy.”
“I agree. And why would he tell us that story about seeing Alicia with Mr. Thorn?”
“Maybe he was lying about what he saw. Or maybe he kidnapped Alicia to protect her from them.”
“Now, that’s completely crazy,” Brian said.
“We already know he’s crazy. All that Bloodwater Curse nonsense.”
“Maybe it’s not nonsense. Just about everybody who ever lived in that house died. And crazy doesn’t necessarily mean guilty.” Brian took another gulp of coffee. The top of his head was vibrating. He could grow to like the stuff.
“The only thing we know for sure is that Alicia got beat up last Friday,” Roni said. “If Doug was telling us the truth, then Alicia got beat up in her own backyard by Mr. Thorn, or by the guy that Driftwood Doug saw running away.”
“Who was probably Maurice.”
“So if it was Maurice or Mr. Thorn who hit her, she was lying to the police when she told them a stranger had attacked her in the park.”
“Which makes no sense at all.”
“Sure it does. Alicia might have been covering. I’ve heard of kids doing that. She didn’t want anybody to know that her stepdad was a jerk, or that her boyfriend beat her up. Maybe Little Miss Perfect Tennis Star Alicia wanted everyone to think her life was all peaches and cream.”
Brian sat back. “Me-ow,” he said, clawing the air like a cat.
“Shut up!” Roni scowled. Then she laughed. “Okay, she bugs me a little.” Roni took out her notebook. “Let’s lay it out. Who are all the possible suspects?”
Brian said, “First, there’s Mr. Thorn.”
Roni wrote Thorn’s name at the top of the page. “But why would he kidnap his own daughter?”
“The Curse drove him insane.”
“You mention that curse one more time and you’ll drive me insane. Seriously, why would Mr. Thorn snatch his own stepdaughter?”
“Maybe she was going to report him for child abuse.”
“A possibility. Who else?”
“Maurice. Because he’s a jerk and he’s in love with her and he couldn’t stand it that she broke up with him. An if-I-can’t-have-you-then-nobody-can thing. He lied about being in class that afternoon, so he must be covering up something.”
“Who else have we got?”
“There’s Alicia’s real father in Mankato. My mom thinks he’s the prime suspect. Real dad
s are always stealing their kids.”
Roni wrote that down in her notebook.
“And, of course, Driftwood Doug,” Brian said.
Roni added Driftwood Doug and a few more names to her list.
Brian read the three new names she had written: Mr. Nestor, Tyrone Eakin, and Mysterious Stranger.
“Why Tyrone?” he asked.
“Maurice thought Tyrone had a thing for Alicia. That was why he keyed Tyrone’s car.”
“Oh. And Mysterious Stranger?”
“Just what it says.”
“What about your buddy Hoot?”
“Hoot wouldn’t kidnap anybody.”
“Write him down anyway. How many have we got?”
Roni frowned at the list of names. “Too many,” she said.
“Who’s your favorite?”
Roni pushed out her lips and stared at the list.
“My personal favorite? Maurice is pretty cute . . .”
Brian had just taken a big gulp of coffee and at the final two words, a laugh exploded from his belly, sending coffee up his throat and out his nose and across the table in a milky spray, which made him start coughing and laugh even harder. Roni wiped off the piece of paper and then she too started laughing. At first it was a small tremor, but then it gathered force and became an all-out guffaw.
They were surprised and a little offended when, a few seconds later, Mrs. Bratten walked up to their table and asked them to leave.
“Come back when you’ve grown up enough to behave yourselves,” she said.
34
money pit
“That was certainly humiliating,” Roni said.
“At least she let us keep our donuts.”
“Of course she did. We paid for them, didn’t we?”
“I guess.” Brian reached into the bag for his second donut, a chocolate-frosted, glazed-raised with sprinkles.
They walked for a few minutes without talking. Brian ate his donut slowly, his jaw working in time with his feet. Roni, fists buried in the pockets of her trenchcoat, was lost in thought. But she seemed to know where she was going.
