More!
Now!
Mo—
Say again? We the cats have them the humans? Despite the don’t-mess-with-me look in her eyes and those downturned corners of her mouth, there was a lot to like about Mrs. Hale.
“… always had cats until two years ago,” Mrs. Hale said. “Which was when I remarried. And shortly afterward Mr. Right became Mr. Wrong. He did the worst thing possible.”
“What was that?” Harmony said.
“He developed—allegedly developed—an allergy to cats. Tell me this, Harmony—is that grounds for divorce?”
“It depends,” Harmony said.
“Of course it depends, child!” Mrs. Hale smacked her hand on the desk. “But if you had to give a yes or no answer, what would it be? Grounds for divorce, yes or no?”
“No.”
Mrs. Hale nodded. “That was the decision I came to myself. But it was this close.” She held up her thumb and finger with no space between them. For a moment her eyes got a faraway look; then she gave her head a quick shake and said, “But that’s not why I asked you here, Harmony. Partly it was the catnip, but—”
More!
Now!
“—but mostly it was the map. I’m talking about the map that Mr. LeMaire stole from right under my eyes. That map is important, no matter what Sheriff Hunzinger thinks.”
“He doesn’t think it’s important?”
“He doesn’t think, period. Well, perhaps I go too far. Who would believe that we could elect any official incapable of thought? Let’s just say the sheriff is incapable of logical thought. And what’s the sine qua non of crime solving?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What’s the one thing a crime solver must be good at?”
“Logical thought?”
“Bingo, young lady!” said Mrs. Hale. “The crime solver pieces together a chain of clues in a logical manner and then … what’s the expression?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Drops the hammer! That’s it. The crime solver drops the hammer on the bad guy.”
“The sheriff already dropped the hammer on Matty Comeau,” Harmony said.
Mrs. Hale waved her hand like she was shooing off flies. “Is there a chance on god’s green earth of Matty Comeau killing anybody?”
“That’s the whole point!”
“Well, there is one chance—if that map was found in Matty’s possession. I called the sheriff and asked about that. He confirmed that Matty did not have the map and I told him to release the prisoner at once.”
“You told the sheriff that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Do you know him well?”
“Inside and out. I used to be a schoolteacher, third grade at Ethan Allen Primary. I had the sheriff in my very first year. Worst nose picker I’ve ever seen, before or since. Of course he didn’t release Matty, due to his brainlessness where logic is concerned.”
“So the map is part of a logic chain?” Harmony said.
“Exactly! Precisely! On the button! Do you want to be sheriff someday, Harmony?”
“No.”
“Don’t be hasty.”
“I wouldn’t want to cuff anybody,” Harmony said.
“I sure would,” said Mrs. Hale. “Better think that over.” Her eyes met mine. We sort of locked gazes. “How splendid,” she said.
“Cuffing people?”
“Not that, although come to think of it …” Mrs. Hale’s voice trailed off. “Where were we?”
“The logic chain.”
“Bingo again!” Mrs. Hale said. “One—Mr. LeMaire steals map. Two—therefore map is important. Three—map is important to Person X. Four—Person X kills Mr. LeMaire, takes map. Five—whoever took map is the killer.”
Harmony got a very thoughtful look on her face. It went so still and beautiful, and I’m not saying that just because I love her. “Um,” she said at last. Not much of a reaction, you might say, but to my ear an “um” full of meaning. As for whoever took the map, that had to be Arthur, if I was remembering right, and why wouldn’t I be? Therefore Arthur was the killer. There! Done! Case closed!
“So,” Mrs. Hale went on, “what’s the first question that comes to mind?”
That was easy: When is that baggie of nipnips coming out of the drawer?
But that wasn’t Harmony’s answer. Instead she said, “What’s so interesting about the map?”
“Yessiree,” said Mrs. Hale. “That was the starting point for my research.”
“Your research?”
Mrs. Hale leaned forward. “I’m a reference librarian, Harmony. Research is what I do.”
“Oh.”
“Rule one for research,” Mrs. Hale said. “Start at the beginning, begin at the start. With me so far?”
“Actually—”
“Meaning first I had to look into the history of that map. How had it ended up here in the library’s possession?”
“The library bought it?” Harmony said.
“My first thought, since most of our books and materials come out of the budget. There was no record of any such map purchase. But sometimes we get donations—often just a box of old books and magazines—and when that happens we sort the wheat from the chaff and—”
“They send wheat?”
“It’s just an expression, Harmony. We separate the useful from the useless, junk the useless and catalog the useful. In short, I know where that map came from.” Behind her glasses, Mrs. Hale’s eyes were gleaming. They looked for a moment like a young person’s eyes.
“Where?” said Harmony.
Mrs. Hale rubbed her hands together. That’s a human thing for when they’re leading up to something, possibly good, although not necessarily—for example, that time when Elrod got the idea that the chain saw could be fixed with duct tape.
“Do you know any of the Pelter family?” Mrs. Hale said.
“No.”
“Perhaps not. There used to be a lot of them around here. Some families peter out and others go on forever. Any idea why that is?”
Harmony shook her head. “But I hope mine is the second kind.”
“That will be partly up to you,” said Mrs. Hale. “Let’s not worry about it now. The key fact is that when old Thurston Pelter went into assisted living some ten years ago, his books got boxed up and sent to us. And in one of those boxes, according to our records, was a map we labeled ‘Hand-Drawn Local Trail Map, circa 1925–1935’ and placed in that drawer in the map room. Where it remained until Mr. LeMaire came along. What do you think of that?”
“Maybe old Thurston Pelter knew something about the map?”
“My thought exactly! So imagine my delight when I discovered that old Thurston Pelter is even older now.”
“He’s still alive?”
“One hundred and one, as of last July.” Mrs. Hale rose and picked up her purse, and snapped it shut. “How about you and I pay him a visit?”
“Now?”
“When would be better?” Mrs. Hale said.
Harmony jumped up, then paused and glanced at me. “What about Queenie?”
“They’ll love her at Evergreen House,” said Mrs. Hale.
I got zipped into my backpack and loaded up onto Harmony’s front. My eyes were on that drawer of Mrs. Hale’s desk the whole time until we were actually out the door. I didn’t care about Evergreen House, whatever that was, or whatever the people inside might think of me. What I cared about was:
More!
Now!
WE WERE OUT BACK AT THE woodpile, me and Bro, splitting logs. Our setup was for Bro to handle the ax while I kept a lookout for snakes. There’d only been the one time a snake had come wriggling out from under the woodpile—a garter snake, I believe Bro said—but it had made a big impression on me. I’d come very close to catching it! Success was right around the corner. In fact, that’s my strongest belief. All I needed now was a snake. I sat by the woodpile on high alert.
Bro and Harmony were expert
s at splitting logs. Elrod had taught them how. “Safety first,” he’d said. “Spread your feet shoulder width apart and stand the log up way out in front. That way you’ll still have feet when you’re done.” Which made Bro laugh. Not Harmony. Sometimes she gets an impatient face. That was one of those times.
Splitting logs is hard work but after a while you fall into a nice, easy rhythm, like Bro right now. So there we were, both of us in a nice, easy rhythm, Bro swinging the ax and me sitting comfortably, split logs flying here and there, when I heard a sound. I thought: snake! And got ready to pounce the moment the skinny dude came wriggling into view. But no snake appeared. Instead it was Mr. Smithers, walking up on the plowed path that led from the back door of the inn. If I’d been paying better attention to my nose, I’d have known already. Snakes don’t smell of garlic and stale armpit sweat.
Mr. Smithers smiled. “Hey there, Bro.”
Bro paused, the ax held high.
“Looks like you know what you’re doing with that ax.”
“Uh,” said Bro, bringing the blade down in one crisp motion and slicing clean through a log. Mr. Smithers picked up the two pieces and laid them neatly on the stack of split logs beside the woodpile. Then he started in on picking up all the pieces and stacking them, too. Like … like he was part of our woodpile operation, mine and Bro’s. I didn’t like that, and it changed my thinking about Mr. Smithers, which had been pretty positive. But even a pleasing smell like garlic and stale armpit sweat will only take you so far in my book.
“Mr., uh …”
“Uh, Smithers,” said Mr. Smithers, with one of those glints in his eyes that goes with telling jokes. Did Bro get it? I sure didn’t.
“You don’t need to help, Mr. Smithers,” Bro said.
“No problem. I could use the exercise.”
That was interesting. For one thing, it meant he was going to get along well with Mom. Maybe he could even sub for me now and then in the exercise department.
“Well … ,” Bro said, and went back to splitting logs. Mr. Smithers stacked. I did snake duty.
One thing about Bro: He doesn’t usually start conversations. So I was a bit surprised when after a while he said, “Hey! Find that wallet yet?”
“Afraid not,” said Mr. Smithers, starting a new section of the stack from the ground up. His back was to Bro, but I could see his face. It seemed to change suddenly almost into the face of a different person, one not nearly as nice as my buddy Mr. Smithers. “Kind of a mystery,” he said. “And speaking of mysteries, I was interested in what you were saying a little while back.”
“Like what?” said Bro.
Mr. Smithers turned to him, and in the course of that turn, his face changed back to normal! We get some unusual guests here at the Blackberry Hill Inn, and I was pretty sure he was one of them.
“The poor fellow—what was his name? Le something or other?”
“LeMaire.”
“Right. You were about to tell me that liquor was involved in some way?”
“I was?” Did Bro take his eye off what he was doing for a moment? I thought so. The ax blade almost missed the top of the upturned log completely, hacking off a jagged piece of bark and knocking the rest of the log over like a bowling pin. We have a bowling alley in town and I got to go there once, but it ended up being too exciting and I had to wait in the car.
Bro picked up the log and set it up again. Mr. Smithers’s gaze shifted to the ax blade.
“As I remember, we were talking about what LeMaire did for a living and you said it might have something to do with liquor.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Bro, splitting another log, this time clean down the center, the way Elrod likes it done.
“What made you say that?” Mr. Smithers said.
“Made me?”
“I mean what led you to that thought?”
“Oh,” said Bro. “Well, there’s the bottle, for one thing.”
“What bottle?”
“This old bottle that got found in his room.”
“Where was it, just out of curiosity?”
“On the balcony?” said Bro. “I’m not sure.” Thwack! Another log, clean through. There were a few beads of sweat on Bro’s upper lip now, despite the cold. Fresh sweat. I picked up the scent, of course, and decided that all in all I preferred it to Mr. Smithers’s stale armpit smell. But it was a close call.
“Who found the bottle?”
“Deputy Carstairs, maybe?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Smithers. “I assume he took possession of it.”
“Took it away, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“I, uh.”
“Any chance it’s still here?”
“Maybe. My mom would know. All I can tell you is it was a real old bottle.”
“Oh?”
“Harmony—that’s my sister—found out at the library. But you could tell just from looking. It was all covered with dirt.”
Mr. Smithers, laying another split log on the stack, somehow missed his aim and knocked over a whole bunch of logs. The sound must have gotten Bro distracted, because on his next swing he missed his log completely, the blade digging into the ground, a little closer to one of his feet than I’d have liked. The laundry room window opened immediately and Mom looked out.
“That’s plenty, Bro,” she called. “More than enough. Bring in an armload or two.” She glanced at Mr. Smithers as she closed the window.
Bro gathered an armful of split logs. I picked up one log—nice and small, no point in working yourself to exhaustion—and followed him, feeling pretty good. I like to pitch in! So did Mr. Smithers, because he grabbed a bunch of logs himself.
“That’s okay, Mr.—”
“My pleasure,” said Mr. Smithers. And he hurried forward to open the back door for us. Looking back toward the woodpile, he paused. “What’s under that tarp?”
“Snowmobile,” said Bro.
“Yeah? I’ve never driven one.”
“It’s easy,” Bro said.
“Maybe you could teach me.”
“Sure. But, kind of technically, I have to wait a couple months.”
“What for?”
“My next birthday. But my mom could teach you. She taught me and Harmony.”
Snow began to fall. A flake landed on my tongue and turned to water. That always surprised me. We carried our loads inside.
Not long after that, we were in the small parlor, Bro building a fire in the fireplace, Mr. Smithers in one of the nice leather chairs, leafing through a magazine, and me on the lookout for snakes. There’d never been a snake inside the house, but somehow I couldn’t make myself stop.
“What’s with Arthur?” Mom said, coming in with a teapot, cup and saucer, and cookies on a tray.
Bro glanced over his shoulder. “He’s just sitting there.”
“But he’s on edge about something,” Mom said. “That’s not like him.”
“Probably just wants a cookie,” said Bro, breaking a stick of kindling in two.
And I did want a cookie. No sense in denying it. But snakes were the reason I was on edge. What if one came down the chimney and landed on Bro’s head? Oh, what a horrible thought! I’d never had such a horrible thought in my whole life, and hoped I never would again. I went over to Mom and got close to the cookies.
She bent to pour tea for Mr. Smithers. For a moment their heads were close together, a sight I didn’t like. Don’t ask me why.
“Enjoying yourself so far, Mr. Smithers?” Mom said, setting the plate of cookies on the end table and straightening.
“You’ve got a beautiful place,” said Mr. Smithers, helping himself, but not me, to a cookie. “Bro was telling me about an old bottle that turned up here in the course of the police investigation that seems to be going on. Is it still around?”
Mom shook her head. “The deputy took it.”
“Too bad,” said Mr. Smithers. “I collect things like that.”
“We found this one online,” Mom said.
“Supposedly worth two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Very possible. What can you tell me about it?”
Mom explained all about the bottle, Maple Leaf something or other, how dirty it was, the company going out of business long ago, all stuff I might have heard before.
“Sounds legit,” said Mr. Smithers. “I’ll pay five hundred for it on the spot.”
“You will?” Mom said. “But we don’t have it, as I mentioned. And I’m not even sure we have a claim to it.”
“Maybe even seven fifty,” Mr. Smithers said.
Mom’s eyes opened wide. “I’ll make a quick call.” She left the room.
Mr. Smithers went back to leafing through the magazine. Actually just his hands were involved. The eyes, normally moving back and forth during magazine leafing, were motionless and deep in thought. Meanwhile Bro was all set at the fireplace. He lit a match, touched the flame to a twist of paper, and presto! A nice warm fire sprang up. We’re good at things like this at the Blackberry Hill Inn. So why didn’t we have more guests? Bertha says it’s the economy, whatever that is.
Mom came back. “The sheriff’s department doesn’t know when they’ll be able to release the bottle, if ever.”
“Too bad,” said Mr. Smithers, closing his magazine. “Sounds like a rare collecting opportunity.”
“I wish I could help—for both our sakes,” said Mom.
Mr. Smithers laughed. He glanced at the fire. “Nice job, Bro.”
“Thanks,” said Bro.
Mr. Smithers took a bite of a cookie, and then with his mouth full, said, “Happen to notice any unusual markings on the bottle?”
“Excuse me?” said Mom.
Mr. Smithers said, “No, no, excuse me.” He finished chewing. “For my terrible manners. I asked if you saw any odd markings on the bottle.”
“Like what?” said Mom.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Smithers said. “Maybe a number or letter?”
Mom shook her head. “You, Bro?”
“Nope,” said Bro. “Can we roast marshmallows?”
“When Harmony gets home.” Mom picked up the empty tray and started out of the room. She paused at the door. “Have you found your wallet yet, Mr. Smithers?”
“Afraid not.”
Ruff vs. Fluff Page 14
