by C. L. Bevill
“Let’s see,” Brownie said as he studied the map. This map had the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department building circled in red from someone’s previous nefarious activities. He put a push pin in the location of the Snoddy Mansion. Then his finger found the McGee house and put another pin in it. A third pin went into the location of the Boomer’s goat farm.
Janie shook her head. “Looks kind of like a line,” she said, “but not exactly.”
“Were you expecting an arrow or something?” Brownie asked sarcastically. “Maybe we should have fingerprinted the poles at Mr. McGee’s house.”
“I left my fingerprinting kit in Dallas,” Janie said.
“You have a fingerprinting kit?”
“I have a real police fingerprinting kit,” Janie said smugly. “And I know how to use it.”
“Cool,” Brownie said and remembered he was supposed to be a gumshoe. He added, “For a skirt, that’s proper. Eggs in the coffee.” He abruptly forgot all the lingo he’d read about. “What do we do next?”
Janie stared at the map. She ticked off items on her fingers. “Go to the scene of the crime. Then secure the crime scene. Find out all about who’s involved at each crime scene. Gather evidence, and make sure it’s all accounted for. Communicate with other law enforcement agencies.”
“Well, we went to the scene of the crime at the McGee’s. Should we look at the kitchen again?”
“Miz Adelia doesn’t know when the spatula went missing,” Janie said, “so I’m not sure if that would do us any good. Plus there was just a bunch of people in the house for the Spring tour.”
“Did she tell you about the man playing with her sauté pan?”
Janie nodded. “Sounds like a real fruit loop, a skell, a perp.”
“Maybe we should go examine that lemon icebox pie again,” Brownie suggested.
“It should be guarded,” Janie agreed.
* * *
It turned out that there were no perpetrators in the kitchen. Brownie and Janie disposed of their own evidence by washing the dishes they’d used and cleverly covering the pathetic remainder of the pie with aluminum foil.
Brownie gave Precious a dog biscuit while Janie petted behind the dog’s ears.
“Who’s a precious-wecious-mecious-doggie-doo?” Janie cooed.
Apparently Precious was just that. She rolled over onto her back and held the biscuit in her mouth while she waited for Janie to scratch her belly.
“Boomers?” Janie said.
“Check,” Brownie said promptly. “I know where a couple of bikes are located. They’re old but they work. Let’s fade before the skirts are onto us.”
“They said to let them know— ”
“Ifin we wait for them, we won’t get nowhere,” Brownie said seriously. He was onto Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia. They were to keep him and Janie busy through fair means or foul. Solving a mystery was great stuff but not when trips into town and whatnot were involved. “As far as they’re concerned we’re out back with a metal detector and a shovel. See, sweetheart?”
“Let’s find the pigeons before they fly the coop,” Janie said and grinned. “We can make a pinch by sundown and embarrass the local coppers.”
Brownie nodded approvingly. “That’s my girl.”
* * *
It took them an hour to find the Boomer’s farm. It wasn’t that it was complicated; it was that people gave odd directions.
Mary Jean Holmgreen was a woman in her seventies who stopped to see what Brownie and Janie were up to and also to ask about Bubba. With an avid eye for potential gossip, she had pulled her antique-looking sedan up to them and introduced herself. Then she had followed through with the key question of impertinent curiosity, “What you kids up to?”
“We’re on an investigation,” Brownie announced, tipping his fedora at the older woman. His mother would have approved. He almost fell off the oversized bike but he managed to keep his balance. The bike was meant for a much older person, but Janie got the smaller bicycle because she couldn’t even get on the ten-speed.
Miz Holmgreen looked at him and then at Janie. “Well, I reckon that’s interesting. What ya’ll investigating?”
“Thefts,” Janie said seriously. “Do you know of any?”
“You must be related to Mike Holmgreen,” Brownie interrupted, finally remembering that he’d heard the last name before.
Miz Holmgreen leaned her head out the window of her sedan and sighed. “Mike is my grandson. He just graduated from high school. Almost dint make it on account of the fact that he tried to burn the school down. But that’s neither here nor there.” She paused and rubbed her chin for a moment. “As for thefts, I heard that someone stole one of the trees from the Ford building downtown. They dug it up and done took it away.” She looked around as if making certain no one was listening who shouldn’t be listening. “Communists. Reds. Bad men. Only ter’ble people would take an innocent tree. Tree dint hurt no one, no how. Think it was a cedar. Mebe it was an ornamental plum.”
Brownie got his notepad out and found the pencil and wrote it down. “We’ll get back to that later.”
“Do you know where the Boomer farm is?” Janie asked.
“Shore. Take a left. Then a right. Then another left. That’s the corner where Old Man Turner’s Model-T used to sit rusting until Pappy Garvin came by one day and burned it up. I think Pappy Garvin used to drink from the Durley’s stills, and you ain’t never sure ifin you’re goin’ to get alcohol or alcohol with lead poisoning from them stills. Anyhow, ifin you pass that spot then you’ll have to go around the corner and cross the river and come back on the other side. Then you’ll have to turn down the place where Newt’s pigpen used to be. Biggest dang porkers I ever did see. One of them done gored Newt, and the next week everyone was eting bacon.” Miz Holmgreen paused to chuckle. After she finished chuckling, her eyes turned predatory. “And how’s Bubba?” she added with a simper.
Brownie felt mildly icky. The elderly woman had just said Bubba’s name with a definite leer. It was a similar expression that his father made when he chased Brownie out into the yard and said not to come in for a half-hour or an hour if his father was feeling perky. Then his mother would giggle and prance down the hallway. Typically Brownie would have spied on them to see what the big deal was, but he had a feeling that he didn’t really want to know that specific secret.
Finally, Brownie said, “Bubba seemed right busy today.”
“Busy,” Janie agreed.
“I got to go,” Miz Holmgreen said as she withdrew her head into the sedan. “I got to go to the store. I’m right low on Cheetos…and some other stuff.”
Brownie and Janie tried to follow the directions, but they ended up agreeing that the elderly woman probably didn’t rightly remember where the rusting Model-T had been, much less Newt’s pigpen.
They next ran into Lloyd Goshorn, who was walking down a country road on his way to something or other. Brownie remembered the man from Bubba talking about him. He was a handyman who worked for locals for trade and some cash as the case warranted. They asked him for directions.
“Shore. Shore,” Lloyd agreed. “Bubba ain’t around, is he?”
“No, Bubba ain’t around,” Brownie said.
“Boy tried to run me down,” Lloyd complained.
“He was in a hurry,” Brownie said. “I recollect it were something about saving Sheriff John’s life.”
Lloyd rolled his eyes. He was a tall, gangly man in his fifties who smoked perpetually. He paused to extract a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and lit the new one from the mostly smoked old one. Both children watched as he smoked two at once, clearly not wanting to waste the last dregs of the old one. He talked around the cigarettes in his mouth, moving them expertly as he spoke. “You two doodads motor down the way,” he said, pointing with a yellow-stained finger. “Then you go off shillyshally on that first lane. Say hey to Miz Basil. She’s a right purty lady, and she makes a mean set of barbequed ribs. Sometimes I ge
t to et indoors with her, but that’s beside the point. Then you dillydally down some road that starts with a D. Darwin. Dooley. Dumbhead. Something like that. Ifin you run into Mr. Yutu, then you done gone too far. He’s the fella who comes from Cal-eee-forn-ya or such. Odd man. Likes to grow acorns. But the Boomer’s farm is about a hundred yards down that road that starts with a D.”
Brownie sighed. “Thanks?”
Lloyd set off and waved as he went. He flicked the old butt into the road, and Brownie paused to extinguish the butt and put it into a pocket. Janie stared at him oddly and he said, “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”
They found the farm by accident an hour later. Janie stopped to look at a mailbox that was leaning into the tall grass on the side of the road and tripped over another mailbox. She pulled it out, wiped off some mud, and said, “Bingo.”
Brownie tilted his head to see better. “It doesn’t say bingo. It says Boomer. Oh, hey.”
They went down a narrow rutted road and found a gate. The gate didn’t say no trespassing, but it did have a sign on it that said, “Please close the g**d**n gate.” It even had the asterisks in place.
The gate nor the sign did not deter Brownie or his capable cohort, Janie. They rode down the road. (After they closed the gate, of course.) They discovered several herds of goats. They were about two feet high and brown and white in color. When Brownie screeched to a stop beside a trio, they all bleated and fell over.
Brownie stared. “Are they supposed to do that?’
Janie paused. Her mouth was open in shock. “I think you killed them.”
“Maybe we should drag them off into the woods,” Brownie suggested, eager to hide the evidence, although he wasn’t certain what he had done wrong.
“Naw, ain’t dead,” said another voice. They looked over and saw a girl standing nearby. She was about a year or two younger than Janie. Her blonde hair was in pigtails. Her blue eyes were large in her face and dark half-moons under her eyes made her look tired. She was wearing a blue t-shirt and blue cut-off shorts, she also had Twinkle Toes on her feet.
“I got a pair just like that,” Janie said.
The girl glanced down at her shoes. “The batteries are running out in the right one but that’s okay. Daddy said he’ll buy me some more at my birthday. That’s in a month.”
Brownie looked back at the goats. “Sure they ain’t dead?”
“Fainting goats,” the girl said. “They got some kind of weird DNA that makes them freeze up when they get startled. Watch.” She jumped toward another goat standing nearby and yelled, “FALL OVER!” The goat bleated piteously and fell over. It was truly a pathetic sight. Even Brownie felt sorry for the goats.
“They’ll get up in a few minutes right as rain,” the girl said. “You dint come out to see the goats? Maybe you wanted to see the Christ tree?”
“The Christ tree?” Janie repeated.
“It’s where that whacko tried to hang Sheriff John,” the girl said. “Also, it’s real old.”
“That’s where Bubba came to the rescue,” Brownie said, unable to take his eyes off the goats, which were still motionless.
“We came out to talk to someone about something missing,” Janie said. “We’re investigators.”
The girl looked Brownie over. “Oh, is that what you are?”
Brownie looked up and adjusted his fedora. “Sweetheart, we’re the best,” he drawled arrogantly.
Then the girl started to cry, and Brownie wanted to get back on the bike and pedal the heck out of there. He couldn’t stand crying girls. Their nose started to run with green boogers and then their nose turned red and they couldn’t really speak properly. Eventually crying girls wanted a boy to hold them so they could wipe their icky faces all over the boy’s shirt. Gahhh! Brownie resisted the urge to shudder.
“Then can you find Mortimer?” the girl cried out, with red nose, and a stream of mucus flowing down from her nose. “He’s m-m-missing!”
Chapter 6
Brownie and the Sticky Situation
Tuesday, April 3rd
The girl’s name was Lissa Boomer, and she was the youngest of the Boomer’s children. She was also the victim of the crime. An item had been wretchedly stolen from her. Accordingly to Lissa, it was an especially valuable item.
“P-p-precious!” Lissa wailed forlornly. “P-p-priceless! Ain’t ‘tother one like it in the whole wide w-w-world!”
“A diamond?” Brownie demanded.
“A book?” Janie asked.
“An antique?” Brownie said.
“A weapon belonging to your granny?” Janie pushed. “Old gun maybe?”
“A p-p-penguin!” Lissa blubbered. A full frontal boo-hoo followed in close procession.
There was a clear what-shall-we-do-moment where Brownie looked awkwardly at Janie. Janie stared back and sighed heavily. She put her bike down and went to hold the younger girl in her arms. “There, there,” Janie said, patting the other girl’s back, and it was clear that the words were hard for her to say, “we’re on the job. We’ll try to find your p-p-penguin.”
“D-d-do you think you c-c-can?” Lissa asked mournfully.
Brownie took his notepad out again. The pencil was AWOL. Finally he located the pencil in a pant pocket where it had broken in half. He shrugged and used the part with the sharpened end to jot down some facts. “Can you describe Mortimer to us?”
Lissa wiped snot and tears away and then shamelessly used Janie’s “Support your local police” t-shirt as a convenient Kleenex. (See? If Janie hadn’t thrown herself on that grenade, it would be me, right there, with boogers and teardrops all over my good suit.)
“He’s about this high,” Lissa said and put her hands about a foot and a half apart. “He’s black and white. He’s got an orange beak. And he’s ever so s-s-soft!” She began to cry again.
“Black and white with an orange beak,” Brownie muttered as he manipulated the shortened pencil. We could get a sketch artist. Tape it on street posts. I could get Auntie D. to offer a reward.
“When did Mortimer go missing?” Janie asked gently. She continued to pat Lissa on the back, even while she tried to pull the soggy shirt away from her skin.
“Y-y-yesterday!” Lissa keened. “I was playing with him in the yard. Then the goats starting making a fuss, and I went to see what was going on. But all I saw were a bunch of billys who had fallen on their sides. Then I went to tell Daddy. When I got back to the yard, M-m-mortimer was g-g-gone!” She couldn’t talk for a while because she was busy bawling her baby blue eyes out.
Dames, Brownie thought derisively. Then he wondered how he would feel if someone took something important to him. Ifin someone stole my stun gun, I would feel like crying, too. He stifled his impatience and tried to find some compassion. Even Sam Spade has a heart, see?
“Mortimer isn’t a real penguin,” Brownie said as knowledge finally came into his head.
“Well, duh!” Lissa snapped. “He’s a plush p-p-penguin.”
“Stop being stupid,” Janie said to Brownie, patting Lissa’s back as Lissa rubbed her soaking face into Janie’s t-shirt.
“So something scared the goats,” Brownie surmised, “and while Lissa was seeing about that, the perpetrator stole the p-p-penguin.”
“M-m-mortimer,” Lissa confirmed sadly.
Brownie frowned at his notepad. “A spatula. Two bras. A penguin plush. Maybe the tree Miz Holmgreen talked about, too. What do all of these have in common?”
Janie continued to pat Lissa as her face twisted in concentration. “Good question. If we knew the answer to that, we could solve the inexplicable mystery.”
“There’s other stuff missing?” Lissa asked.
“Yes, something from Miz Adelia Cedarbloom and something from Miz McGee and possibly a tree from the Ford building.” Brownie frowned harder.
“Did you notice anyone suspicious?” Janie asked Lissa.
“Spicious?” Lissa repeated. “I don’t know no one named Spicious. Is that foreign?”<
br />
“Well, Mortimer comes from the South Pole,” Brownie said.
“M-m-mortimer!” Lissa howled in response.
“Brownie!” Janie snarled.
“Sorry,” he said. “Maybe we should have a look at the scene of the crime.” Maybe the skirt will finally stop crying. Are those boogers yellow or is that yellowish-green?
* * *
The crime scene was a picnic table with an array of plush animals. An entire zoo was represented and all seemed to get along very well. Lions, tigers, and bears cavorted with squirrels, Monster High dolls, and a baby doll that Lissa said actually pooped and peed.
Brownie grimaced. Who wants a doll that poops and pees? Wait, how do they make it poop? Is it real poop? Cool, I mean, gross.
The picnic table sat in the front yard of a large house. It also sat in the shade of a very large oak tree that took up a significant portion of the yard. Clearly, Lissa had been playing with all the toys she could drag out in a Red Flyer wagon, which was left nearby. Once the crime had been committed, Lissa had likely been too upset to clean up.
And most importantly, there was a conspicuously empty spot in the middle of all the toys where Mortimer the p-p-penguin had reigned supreme.
“I c-c-couldn’t sleep very well last night because I dint have M-m-mortimer,” Lissa wailed.
Brownie had to admire the time and effort that went into Lissa’s wailing.
“Where were the goats that were all riled up?” Janie asked.
Lissa pointed to the nearby field. The grasses were tall there, and the goats were systematically working at getting the grass to a manageable level. “Daddy just moved that herd into the field.”
“You went and looked and then went to find your daddy,” Janie ascertained.
Brownie sighed. He wasn’t on top of his game. Janie was getting to ask all the important detective-like questions. “Whereupon the flim-flammer took the toy, jumped in a flivver, and faded fast,” he drawled.
Janie and Lissa stared at him.
“Mortimer got stolen,” Brownie explained flatly, “and the guy took off.”
