Finally, Something Mysterious

by Doug Cornett

  He whipped his face up to me, raw shock in his eyes. “How could you know about that?”

  “We have our sources,” Shanks said, playing along.

  Darrel Sullivan went pale, and a thin bead of sweat trickled down from his forehead. “You kids called the police?” His voice had lost all of its confidence. In fact, he sounded downright panicked.

  “Yeah, we called the—wait, what?” Shanks said, her voice switching from tough to confused in midsentence.

  The sound of a car door shutting drew our attention to the street. We turned our heads to see Officer Portnoy walking across the lawn toward us, an expression of disbelief on his face. That expression didn’t last long, though, because he tripped over one of the deflated basketballs and caught himself just before falling on his face.

  Darrel Sullivan stood up and pointed to us, then shouted to Portnoy. “You’ve got to call your junior detectives off! They’re questioning me for no reason. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I know my rights!”

  Portnoy stood at the foot of the pickup truck and considered the scene. “Junior detectives, huh?” he said. He seemed confused and annoyed at our presence, but he didn’t bat an eyelash at the giant lobster that had just wandered from the front porch and was now pinching his pant leg.

  “I don’t know what passes for law enforcement in this town anymore,” Darrel Sullivan said, “but if you want to ask me questions, why’d you send the munchkin patrol?”

  Portnoy’s mustache seemed to turn a shade darker. “First of all, there’re no such things as junior detectives. And second, I didn’t come here to question you. I happened to be driving down Radford when I noticed some litter on the side of the road. Somebody left a bag of cheese puffs on the sidewalk. I pulled over to pick it up and noticed you three kids”—he pointed at us—“standing on the bed of a pickup truck.”

  “Litterers.” Peephole stuck his chin up. “Is there anybody worse?”

  “I can think of a few things worse,” Portnoy replied. “Now, Macaroni, I think it’s time you and your friends went home….Mr. Sullivan”—here he touched the brim of his police hat—“I apologize for the inconvenience, and I wish you a pleasant afternoon.”

  He turned and started walking back down the driveway, shaking the lobster free from his pant leg. I noticed that he stole a quick glance at the truck’s broken taillight.

  Shanks looked like she was about to argue, but I threw my hand over her mouth and ushered her off the truck bed. Portnoy looked like a volcano that was seriously considering blowing its top, and I wasn’t interested in sticking around until that happened.

  “Hey, kids,” Portnoy said, before we could get away.

  “Yes, chief?” Peephole answered.

  Portnoy seemed to wince. “The next time I have to remind you that there’s no Bellwood Police Junior Detective Force, it’ll be at the police station. With your parents. Understand?”

  We nodded. If the One and Onlys were going to continue this investigation, it would have to be a covert operation.

  It was a good thing we had so much practice at being sneaky.

  The tall trees lining the old forest road didn’t look so scary in the daylight. In fact, they looked pretty darn normal.

  Leading the One and Onlys into the Bell Woods, toward the swamp where the duckies were dumped, I remembered the way the trees had been silhouetted in the darkness the night before, how their thin branches had spidered out at me like some otherworldly Goliaths as I followed the wavering headlight of Janice Wagner’s scooter. I remembered how spooked I’d been.

  But now the Bell Woods seemed so ordinary. And that’s Bellwood in a nutshell, I thought to myself. Mundane at first glance, but totally bizarre once you look underneath.

  “Duckies!” Peephole hooted, standing up on his pedals and pointing at a yellow mass in the woods on our left. He lost his balance and nearly wiped out, but he grasped the handlebars just in time.

  We veered off the forest road and rode into the clearing where the duckies were resting on a thick bed of mud. Unlike the Bell Woods, the duckies seemed just as eerie in the daylight as they had in the darkness the night before. Maybe even more so, because now I could see their wild little eyes peering in every direction.

  “Tire tracks! Again!” Shanks said, pointing at the ground. “They lead from the road to the ducky pile. And look! There’s a bunch of footprints, too. Yay, mud!”

  We ditched our bikes and ran to get a closer look.

  “Guys,” Peephole said tensely, “I think whoever dumped these duckies has just been here.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked, alarmed.

  “Because these tracks are fresh.” Peephole pointed a long, bony finger at the ground by his feet. “Like, really fresh.”

  “Let me see,” Shanks said, bending down to inspect the tracks. Her face scrunched up for a second, and then her expression changed. She looked up at Peephole slowly.

  “You’re right. These footprints are fresh. Because they’re yours.”

  Peephole stood up and turned around, studying the tracks while thoughtfully scratching his chin. “Oh…yeah,” he said sheepishly.

  “Well, these definitely aren’t yours,” I said, crouching down over a smattering of footprints that were only a little bit bigger than my own. “These must be Janice’s prints from last night. See how they’re facing different directions but all stay in this little area? She was dancing around a lot. I think she was practicing the victory song for the Triple B.”

  “And here are some more!” Shanks yelped. There was nothing that she liked more in the world than footprints. “But these are bigger.” She measured the footprint from heel to toe with her hands, then held up her fingers for us to see. The distance from finger to finger looked about the length of a ruler. “And all these prints lead directly from the tire tracks to the duckies. I bet these are the tracks of the person who dumped the duckies….Darrel Sullivan, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “There’re even more over here!” Peephole said from about twenty feet deeper into the woods. “These have got to be Janice Wagner’s. They’re the same size, and they follow the same pattern.” He did a little twirl and hop. He was probably trying to imitate Janice’s dance, but he looked more like a giraffe walking over hot coals.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. I closed my eyes and tried to remember if Janice had moved to a different spot. As far as I could remember, she had stayed in one place.

  “You know what’s weird?” Peephole said. “There are no connecting footprints between this set and the set by you, Paul.”

  “Interesting,” Shanks said, hurrying over to look. “But there’s a single small-wheel track, like from a scooter. That means Janice has been here more than once.”

  I was about to object, but I suddenly remembered something from a few nights ago. “Guys!” I said excitedly. “I forgot all about this. On Tuesday night, after the duckies showed up in Babbage’s yard, a loud screeching noise woke me up in the middle of the night. I saw a car careening down Munchaus Avenue that must have been driven by the thief, and it must have been right after they dumped the duckies in the swamp!”

  “What kind of car was it? Was it Darrel Sullivan’s truck?” Shanks asked.

  “Maybe. I didn’t get a good look.” Just like at the police storage shed, I had a hunch that I was missing something about the car. I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I’d heard the noise and got out of bed. I ran to the window and looked out. All I could see were red taillights flying around the bend way down the road.

  That was it! The taillights! Two red taillights!

  “It couldn’t have been Darrel Sullivan!” I protested. “He smashed his taillight at the storage shed, right? But this car had both its taillights intact!”

  And then I remembered something else I saw that night.

&nbs
p; “What is it?” Peephole asked, reading the trouble on my face.

  “Well…I saw somebody else from my window, right after the car drove away. It was Janice Wagner. She looked like she was sneaking back into her house.”

  A silence settled on us.

  “Cahoots,” Peephole said finally. There was something in his voice that annoyed me. “I’m telling you, they’re all in cahoots. Darrel Sullivan, Pocus, Bella Tuff, Janice. Cahoots.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said firmly. I tried to imagine Janice as the one responsible for this strangeness. Did she have a vendetta against Babbage that we didn’t know about? It didn’t make any sense. She was so nice, so caring, so not a criminal. Could she really have orchestrated the ducky invasion of Babbage’s lawn, broken into the police storage shed to get the duckies back, and secretly dumped them in this swamp? No way. Once, while babysitting me years ago, she sat through an entire improvised tap-dance routine that I did to “The Wheels on the Bus.” And she called me Pauly Sweet, which was my tap-dancing alter ego. And she clapped afterward. She had to be innocent. “I just don’t think we have enough evidence to tell who was involved or not.”

  “Enough evidence?” Peephole said with disbelief. “Paul, you just said it couldn’t have been Darrel, even though we know he broke into the storage shed to get the ducks. So who is the only other person who keeps popping up to do weird stuff at all the crime scenes? Janice Wagner! And who is the only other person who can drive and who has a ducky? Bella Tuff!”

  “And, hey, didn’t you say a screeching noise woke you up?” Shanks chimed in. “Did you notice how bad Bella Tuff’s car was screeching when we biked by her yesterday? She must have been the one who dumped the duckies here!”

  “No way. It was a different kind of screech,” I insisted. It was a different screech…wasn’t it? I guess I couldn’t really be sure.

  “They’re all in cahoots,” Peephole repeated.

  “Would you stop saying ‘cahoots’?” I snapped, and even I was a little surprised by the venom in my voice.

  “What are you so touchy about?” Peephole asked.

  “I’m not touchy,” I shot back, but I clearly was.

  “How come you don’t want to entertain the idea that Janice and Bella are involved?” Peephole asked, and it sounded more like an accusation than a question.

  “Because…” I didn’t know what to say. “Because…why would they? I mean, Janice doesn’t have a motive.”

  “Not true,” Peephole said, raising a finger. “She said at the storage shed that her parents were taking the Triple B really seriously this year. Maybe it’s a family operation.”

  “Or maybe she’s protecting somebody else,” Shanks suggested.

  “It can’t be them,” I said, but I didn’t have any good reason why not. I was thinking, Because if they are involved, then two people I’ve always trusted are actually liars and thieves. And I’m not ready to deal with that.

  Peephole put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re too trusting, Paul. Face it, dude. Your friends are dirty.”

  I brushed his hand off and took a step back. “You know what your problem is? You don’t trust anyone. You’re paranoid, Peephole. This whole ducks thing is not a big townwide conspiracy!”

  “Easy, Paul,” Shanks said, her voice soft but serious.

  I was angry, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. “And we’re supposed to trust Peephole’s detective work?” I snarled and turned to face him. “A minute ago you were pointing out your own footprints! Even with all these clues, you’re totally clueless!”

  “That’s enough,” Shanks stepped in between us.

  But I couldn’t stop myself. “You’re scared of everything! A heck of a big brother you’re going to be!”

  As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to pull them back in and bury them. Peephole’s face flushed a deep red, and his shoulders slumped. For a split second, it looked like he might cry. But then he composed himself and raised his chin into the air.

  “Peephole—” I started, but his cell phone buzzed in his pocket at that exact moment. I flinched at the noise.

  He reached down and cast a quick glance at the screen.

  “I’ve got to go,” he announced, his voice even but thin. I could tell he was trying to hold it together.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Gotta go,” he said quickly. He retrieved his bike and headed back to the forest road. “My dad says it’s urgent.”

  “Peephole, wait!” I shouted, but he was already pedaling away.

  There was one thing on this earth that my dad simply could not tolerate: a half-mowed lawn. But that’s exactly what he woke up to on Friday morning. After my blowup with Peephole, I had been so distracted by all the crazy stuff going on that I completely forgot to finish the job. So before he left for the hardware store, he gave me a list of chores as long as the Great Wall of China. He was going to be home early to prepare for the Triple B, which was now only a day away, and he expected everything to be crossed off that list by the time he returned. The door slamming behind him sounded like the pounding of a judge’s gavel after the verdict has been read. It looked like I’d be doing hard time all day long. The ducky case was going to have to wait.

  The den needed dusting. The mudroom needed to be de-mudded. The bathroom needed mopping. After that, the handles needed to be polished. The handles to what? The handles to everything. Wash the car, dry the car, wax the car. Dust the den again. Vacuum the stairs. Scrub the bathtub. Oh, and wipe that look off your face.

  Break for snack. The menu? Bratwurst.

  Snack over. Get a ladder and clean out the gutters. Pull weeds in the garden. Vacuum the dog. Vacuum the dog? Apologize for vacuuming the dog.

  At four o’clock my dad came home and surveyed my work. “Good,” he said. “Next time you’ll finish the job the first time round.”

  And that was the signal that my sentence was over. I ran up to my room, opened the window, and sat on my windowsill. Munchaus Avenue softly hummed with activity. I could hear laughter and music tinkling from the houses and front yards all along the block. It was the eve of the Triple B, after all, the biggest day of the Bellwoodian year, and everyone was in a festive mood.

  From the windowsill I could see all the way down the road. White houses. Blue houses. Houses the color of reptile bellies with long metal lightning rods poking up from their roofs like bug antennae. In my head I said the names of the families who lived in them: The DeLuccos. The Bachrachs. The Jenkersons. Three houses down, the Singh family was playing a raucous game of Wiffle ball in their front yard. It seemed like all three generations were there, laughing and shouting. I watched as Mr. Singh pitched and the youngest daughter swung and the little white ball popped straight up and the whole family seemed to freeze, staring up in the air, waiting for the ball to come down.

  I pulled my phone out to give Peephole a call. I owed him an apology, but I wasn’t sure what to say, exactly. Yeah, Shanks and Peephole were always teasing each other, but what I had said was different. It was mean. And worst of all, it wasn’t true. Peephole was a fraidy-cat, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be a good big brother. He had lots of awesome qualities. He was a rock star at math. He could reach things on every top shelf. He was loyal.

  Why did I get angry out at the swamp? It just seemed like this ducky case was getting so complicated. Was Peephole right? Were Bella and Janice not the good people I thought they were? Everywhere I looked, it seemed like Bellwood was changing, but I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

  I called, but Peephole didn’t pick up.

  I went back downstairs and popped into the kitchen to see how the Triple B planning was going. My parents were deep into a brainstorm session.

  “There’s too much butter,” my mom insisted.

  My dad was in a frenzy. “There can never b
e too much butter!”

  “Lance never uses too much butter.”

  “Lance?” I stepped forward and peered into a big silver mixing bowl on the counter. Yellow slop.

  “Mr. Babbage,” my mom clarified. “I don’t know what he’s got up his sleeve this year, but I’m nervous.”

  My dad rubbed his jaw. “Lance is good. Darn good. But this is our year, Denise. Isn’t that right, Paul?”

  “Yep. Your year.”

  He reached out and pulled my mom and me close to him. “Our year.”

  “Oh, Jerry,” my mom whispered. She ruffled my hair.

  It was a weirdly gooey moment, until we smelled something burning and noticed that one of the dish towels had caught fire.

  The smoke alarm went weee weee weee, my dad was jumping around and letting loose a string of curses that I won’t repeat until I’m forty, and the house phone had suddenly begun to ring. The whole circus took about a minute to settle down. When it finally did, my mom picked up the phone.

  “Hello?…Dwight!…I was wondering how you were— Oh…oh, my…”

  Dwight was Peephole’s dad. He didn’t call our house too often. I didn’t know why he was calling now, but judging by my mom’s reaction, it wasn’t good. She was silent, biting her lip, her eyes sharp with concern. My dad and I stopped what we were doing and watched her. A lump formed in my throat, which I tried to swallow.

  Every ten seconds or so my mom would say “Oh, my” quietly, and then nod her head. This went on for several minutes, until finally her eyes rested on me.

  “I will, Dwight. Don’t worry….We’ll find him….Absolutely….And Dwight?…congratulations.” She hung up. “That was Alexander’s dad,” she said, looking at me with worried eyes.

  “What did he say?” my dad and I asked at the same time.

  She sighed. “Alexander’s mother had the baby last night.”

  “What?” I blurted. “But Peephole’s not supposed to be a big brother until the end of the summer.”