by Lesley Kagen
By the time we’d finished, the three of us had managed to deck out our bikes so they’d look like they belonged in the parade—in the way back. Aunt Jane May harrumphed after she inspected them and was suspicious about how little effort we’d put into a task we’d always taken enormous pride in.
“Soon as you’re done eating, let’s have a little chat, shall we?” she said when she brought our hot dogs and chips out to the screened porch.
Her idea of a little chat was giving us a lengthy third degree, and the girls and I had made other plans. We’d not had a moment alone since we’d come home, so right after dessert we planned to retreat to the hideout. After we talked about what’d happened that afternoon at Broadhurst and in the woods afterward, I planned to tell them that I wanted to add Make things right to our summer list, and I hoped they’d see things my way.
But best laid plans and all that.
I’d been one hell of a day, and after we licked our bowls of strawberry ice cream clean we conked out on the wicker sofa. Aunt Jane May must’ve been dead on her feet, too, because the next time we heard from her was when she came out to the porch the following morning to beat a serving spoon against a pot and yell, “Up and at ’em, girls! Tempus fugit! The parade starts in a half hour.”
* * *
The heat that rose in shimmering waves off Main Street made the shops look like mirages. The modern new electronic sign the Summit Savings and Loan had attached to the side of their building to give the bank an inferiority complex informed us that it was 9:10 in the morning and eighty-seven degrees, but failed to mention that it was so humid that it felt like we were riding our bikes underwater.
When the parade finished the route on Main Street and dragged itself over to Grand Park on its last legs, it was time for the bike judging and races. The Tree Musketeers’ decorating efforts garnered no special attention. And Viv and I didn’t even finish the three-legged race. She kept whining about how sweaty I was, so I fell on top of her just to shut her up. The only ribbon we’d have to hang in the hideout by the end of the day was the blue Frankie won in the egg and spoon race, which was nothing to brag about either. The other two entrants were Cathy Dineen, who was blind, and Norman “Norma” Wilkes, who wanted to beat Frankie so bad for giving him that nickname, but had yet to be fitted with his special shoe that corrected his shorter by two inches left leg. It was just pitiful to watch him hopping after her like that.
After the races concluded, Mayor Bud Kibler awarded the ribbons. He was a real sweetheart who practiced the Golden Rule—he was particularly admired in Mud Town—but he’d just turned eighty-three, and as much as the girls and I hated to admit it, Evelyn Mulrooney was right. He was often forgetful and sometimes confused.
Bud’s hair looked like he’d got it caught in a box fan and his shirt was inside out, but it was so good to hear him say, “Why, hello there, small fries.” He congratulated Frankie on a job well done and told Viv, “Nice try.” To me, he said, “What’s this?” He pointed at my shorts pocket and plucked out Harry’s note that must’ve worked its way out when Viv and I were rolling around on the ground after the three-legged race. If he read it, we’d be in big trouble. How would I explain: Tell Audrey Cavanaugh they’re going to kill Leo?
“Excuse me, Mayor, but Biz needs that back,” Viv stepped up and said. “It’s a clue in a detective game we’re playin’.”
“Clue? That’s a great game! Can I play?” Bud said and tucked the note in the back pocket of his shiny brown pants.
Viv held out her hand and said, “Sorry, sir—maybe next time.”
“Ahoy there, Mayor. I’ve been looking all over for you,” the owner of the Rivoli and picnic organizer, Mr. Willis, shouted as he came bustling our way. “Hello, girls. Happy Fourth. Where’ve you been? I’ve missed seeing you at the matinees.” He put his arm around Bud and began walking him away. “We need to get you to the stage. You have to make that special announcement before everyone starts unpacking their baskets.”
What Harry had asked us to do wasn’t complicated, so the girls and I didn’t need the note to refer to. But I was planning to give it to Audrey Cavanaugh. Viv had my back once, but I didn’t expect her to try and save the day again. She was jealous that Harry had given me the note instead of her, so I was surprised when she said “Be right back,” and trotted off. I figured she’d pester the mayor for the note until he lost whatever brains cells he had left and forked it over, but not more than a minute later she came running back to us.
Frankie jeered at her and said, “What happened? Bud wouldn’t fall for your blarney? Maybe his arteries haven’t gone as hard as we think they have.”
“Shut up, Frankenstein.” Viv shoved her aside and laid into me. “Harry should’ve given me the note ’cause I woulda taken much better care of it than you have. You shouldn’ta brought it with you today. You know what a big crush the mayor has on Auntie. What if when he goes over to visit with her, he shows her the note?” She let me imagine what a disaster that’d be before she grinned and opened up her hand to reveal the piece of paper Bud Kibler had taken from my shorts. “I snitched it out of his back pocket. Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Viv said as she jammed Harry’s note so deeply into her pocket that I, or anyone else, would need a crowbar to remove it.
I was going to protest and demand a rock, paper, scissors shoot-out, but then the mayor’s voice reverberated out of the speakers that’d been set up around the park. “Good morning, neighbors!” He waited for a minute until the crowd piped down. “Doc Buchanan has recommended that we postpone our picnic and return to the park when it’s cooler. And kids, I’ve opened up the pool for you. See you all back here at six sharp.”
* * *
Rinsing off the heat of the day in that cool pool sounded awfully good and the girls and I, as well as most every kid in town, took the mayor up on his offer. After we all went home to pick up our bathing suits, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing cannonballs off the diving boards and daring each other to hold our breath underwater the longest. Brenda Mulrooney was a horrible swimmer—couldn’t even dog paddle—so she won that dare. But only because Viv surreptitiously pushed her into the deep end. Frankie and I knew it was wrong, of course, but watching that junior so-and-so sputter and flail until Tommy Boyd quit drooling over the teenage girls long enough to leap from his lifeguard chair was the most fun the three of us had had in weeks. And it wasn’t like Brenda didn’t deserve a comeuppance after accusing Aunt Jane May of performing unnatural acts with Uncle Walt.
“That brat should thank me,” Viv said after she shoved Brenda in. “Tommy givin’ her artificial respiration will probably be the only time she’s gonna get a boy to put his lips on hers.”
When St. Thomas’s bells pealed six to let us know that it was time to enjoy the postponed picnics our families had waiting for us, sunburned and water-logged, we trooped back to Grand Park. We’d worked up quite the appetite and made a beeline to the dedicated Buchanan table that sat in a prime spot in the shade next to the creek. Aunt Jane May was waiting for us, but Doc and the sheriff would eat later. They needed to be available to our neighbors, who would thank them for being such good stewards of the town, the way they did every Fourth of July.
“How was swimming?” our aunt asked as she passed out the paper plates.
“Fun, especially when,” Viv suppressed a smile, “I mean, until poor Brenda Mulrooney almost drowned.”
After we answered Aunt Jane May’s questions about Brenda’s near-death experience Frankie, Viv, and I scarfed down the fried chicken, potato salad with deviled eggs, and biscuits she’d prepared to show off her Southern roots. For dessert, the best baker in town handed us slices of her award-winning apple pie with Dixie cups of vanilla ice cream—now melted—that the chamber of commerce had passed out.
When we wanted to take another bite but knew we had to save room for more, we thanked her and wiggled off the picnic table bench. “See you later!” I said.
“Oh, you can co
unt on that.” Aunt Jane May’s lips were set in a cunning smile. “I got a little something special in store for you three that, mark my words, you’ll never see coming.”
That sounded pretty ominous, like she’d heard about what had happened at Broadhurst and couldn’t wait to lay into us, so we sped off across the park to eat ourselves silly and try not to think of it as our last meal before Aunt Jane May cooked our gooses.
Every year on America’s birthday, the families in town celebrated what a melting pot we lived in by showing off their old-country food. The girls and I would always make our way around the spreads that’d been laid out on blankets or tables and then decide what we’d like to sample. Previous Fourths, we’d enjoyed the Vander Veens’ herring swimming in sour cream and onions and the Holzhauers’ sauerkraut and kielbasa, but we spit Mrs. McAllister’s haggis into the bushes and said a prayer for Scotland. Irish food was never high on our list either, especially Mrs. Cleary’s.
As we neared her family’s blanket, Viv waved at them but said out of the side of her mouth, “Keep movin’. My ma is good at one thing and it ain’t cookin’. And quit lookin’ at Granny, Biz,”—Esmeralda Cleary was eyeing us like we were a coven on our way to sample the heart of a virgin—“or she’s gonna come after me with that bottle of holy water and start shoutin’ about me being possessed.”
But we wouldn’t think of missing the abundant feast Frankie’s adopted family would set out every year. Uncle Sally, who was wearing a knit white shirt that showed off his muscles and accentuated his tan, exuded graciousness when we arrived at the Maniachis’ table. His twin sister, Sophia, was wearing a red, white, and blue dress, but not in her wheelchair. Her brother must’ve set her and her useless legs down next to him so she’d feel more normal.
I felt peeved at God whenever I’d see them sitting next to each other like that. Giving Sophia a damaged spine should’ve been enough of a cross to bear without making her look like her brother in a dress and a long black wig. She was identical to Sally in other ways, too. Just like him, she always made the girls and me feel like she’d been counting the minutes until she could spend time with us again. Not in so many words, of course. Sally was very outgoing, but Sophia let her beneficent smile—the one that reminded me of the Madonna statue at St. Thomas’s—do most of her talking. I, of course, no longer thought she was the raven-haired woman Florence had predicted would keep us safe from lurking evil—Audrey Cavanaugh had done that—but it could’ve been Sophia. She had sharp knives and a lot of guts, too.
“Mangia, bambinas, mangia,” Uncle Sally said jovially as he passed around pasta salad, plates of salami and crackers, and slices of Sophia’s remarkable pizza pie. After the girls and I helped ourselves to some of each, the corners of his eyes drew down, and he grew more serious. “You haven’t been around much lately, girls. You keeping your noses clean?”
I couldn’t tell if he was upset because we’d hardly spent any time with him, or if he asked us if we were keeping our noses clean because he knew that we were in trouble up to our necks. Could someone have seen us and spilled the beans? Told him what’d happened at Broadhurst and in the woods yesterday?
Next to the Buchanans, the Maniachis were the wealthiest family in town. Albie might’ve come knocking at their front door to promise Sally that he wouldn’t turn Frankie in for trespassing if he could see his way to gracing his palm with some Benjamins. That sounded like something he’d do to keep Chummy Adler and his new goon, Elvin Merchant, off his back. Lance Howard seemed to know an awful lot about how the girls and I spent our time, too. Maybe he told Uncle Sally that we visited with the patients and snuck into the hospital kitchen, because those carnies were always happy to separate folks from their money. Or it might not be either one of them, and someone unknown had been watching us.
I was trying to figure out how to reply to Uncle Sally’s question when Viv said to him, “We were just talkin’ today about how much we missed Aunt Sophia’s cooking and helping you out in the garden, and we’re plannin’ to come around a lot more often. Could you pass me more of the tomatoes, please? They’re the best ever.”
She knew he was a sucker for compliments about his green thumb and that’d put a big smile on his face and he’d get busy forking the juicy beefsteaks onto her plate instead of pursuing further if we were keeping our noses clean.
I could’ve kissed Viv for coming up with that because I was so overwhelmed by all the hot water we were in that if Uncle Sally had pushed a little harder, I was pretty sure I would’ve broken down and told him everything. Considering that he let Dell raise Frankie in his house, I might’ve even begged him to take in another kid—the winking patient Viv’d promised we’d “help out.” If he agreed, that’d take care of at least one of our problems. But no matter how beleaguered I was feeling, I would never have confessed to Sally what was weighing most heavily on my heart that night. He might try to stop us from fulfilling what Harry had asked us to do, what I now felt obligated to do. More than anything, I hoped the other two Tree Musketeers would agree to take the note to Audrey Cavanaugh’s house with me—but it wasn’t looking good.
Frankie shrugged when I showed her what Harry had written, because she’d heard one too many stories about brain-sucking Mondurians and Bigger’s poisoned food to take it seriously.
Viv was still on the fence. Seemed like she was willing to give Harry the benefit of the doubt, but she also dreaded another confrontation with the Summit Witch.
I, on the other hand, believed with my whole heart and soul that someone named Leo was about to get killed. With one small reservation. Harry had no contact with the outside world, so Leo had to either work at Broadhurst or he was a patient, but no one there went by that name.
There was a man named Leonard on the second floor of the hospital, who Jimbo told us was another one of those patients, like Roger Osgood, who batted for the other team. And Leona was one of the washerwomen. One of them might be who Harry Blake meant, but I didn’t think so. The note specifically said “Leo,” and it hadn’t been composed by a confused mind. It was well thought out and looked like it’d been written by Sister Raphael, our penmanship teacher.
Leo … Leo … Leo. The more I repeated it, the more it began to ring a bell. Where? When? Who had told us something about someone named Leo? I wondered, and lo and behold, ask and ye shall receive. A picture began to form in my head of the afternoon that we’d asked Albie and Jimbo for visitation rights at Earl Spooner’s place.
When I’d voiced my concern that one of the patients might report us to the hospital higher-ups, Albie belly-laughed and said, “You don’t got to worry about them none, sugar. Nobody believes a word they say.” Then he mentioned something about patients believing that they were the king of England or “Marie Annette.” I was positive he said that because I thought it was so typical of him not to know it was Marie Antoinette and he should stop reading so many comic books and borrow one of Jimbo’s history books. He’d also mentioned a third-floor patient who thought he was a reporter. Like Clark Kent. I wouldn’t stake my life on it, but I was also pretty sure Albie told us that patient insisted his name was Leo, even though he had a different name on his chart. Didn’t Albie also say something about that patient offering cash to one of the guards if he’d call his boss at the newspaper where he worked? Or did Albie tell us the patient on the third floor believed that he delivered newspapers for the Daily Planet and called himself Clark or Kent?
I’d been focused on getting permission to visit with the patients that afternoon, so much of what else we talked about was fuzzy, like scenery you see out a car window when you’re speeding to someplace important. What I needed to confirm my recollection of the conversation were answers straight from the horse’s mouth. Only I couldn’t approach Albie, not until we knew that he’d forgiven us for making him pull the point-of-no-return siren. Jimbo could give me a second opinion, too, but he was working the night shift at the hospital, along with Albie and the rest of the skeleton crew who w
ouldn’t get to watch the fireworks at the park that night.
Viv had only been interested in “the mysterious goin’s-on” and the “private things” that’d been mentioned that afternoon, so she wouldn’t be of much help. Frankie would recall a lot more because an elephant would feel absentminded around her. But asking them to tell me what they remembered could be more trouble than it was worth. Chances were, they’d start squabbling about what was and what wasn’t said, but it was a gamble I had to take.
I couldn’t ask them in front of the Maniachis, of course, so I leaned into Frankie and whispered behind my hand, “I need to talk to the two of you. Now.”
I jumped to my feet and thanked Sophia for the delicious food and the pleasure of her company, but I did not want to interrupt Uncle Sally, who was busy passing out slices of his sister’s specialty to our neighbors and serenading them with “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”
Frankie knew that I wouldn’t have shortened our time with the Maniachis unless what I had to say wasn’t extremely important and private, so she jumped up and told Sophia, “Grazie mille. The pasta was multo bene.”
Sophia stiffened and said to Frankie, “Where are you going? When will you be back? Sally and I have something important to talk to you about.”
Afraid that “something important” was that Sally had found out what the girls and I had been up to, a chill walked down my spine. Frankie must’ve been worried, too. There was wariness in her voice when she answered Sophia. “Sorry, but we promised Dell and Bigger Dolores that we’d come by to see them before it got dark.”
