The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  Samuel was shaking his head. “It was just a lot all at once. I was sad. But I was happy, too, to hear how people thought of him, to see what he was really like. No one ever talked to me about him. He was just always gone.”

  The lights turned on and people began coming out of the auditorium. Parents were congratulating one another over how their children had done.

  Hazel heard a booming voice. “Lydia! George! Quite a little star you have there!”

  “Oh, well, now—” her dad began.

  “Indeed,” another voice said. “These things are normally a bore with a capital B. But your Hazel and that Switzer kid sure livened things up.”

  “She is a little spitfire,” her dad said.

  “That she is,” the first voice said. “That she is.”

  Hazel and Samuel glanced at each other, which was all they could manage before they burst out laughing.

  40

  The Final Apology

  Samuel arrived at her house on Saturday morning holding a thin package wrapped in brown paper. She wondered what kind of present he had gotten her. She thought perhaps it was just the right size for a nice magnifying glass. Before she could reach out her hands to receive it, he said, “There’s one last thing we need to do to close this case.”

  “There is no case. It was a bust.”

  His hair had fallen down between his glasses and his eyes, and he pushed it away with his fist. “Your case maybe. Not mine. I researched Alice Jones in the library and found out all I could about her. It wasn’t much. She won the spelling bee one year, and had a pig in the county fair another. I gathered it all in a book for Mr. Jones.”

  Hazel shoved her feet into her canvas sneakers. “Come on,” she said. “I know just the person we need to go see.”

  She wouldn’t tell him where they were going, because she liked to keep others in suspense, but Samuel figured it out when they started walking up Mrs. Buttersbee’s street.

  When they arrived at her house, Mrs. Buttersbee didn’t seem confused or surprised. “Hazel! Samuel!” she said merrily. “You’re right on time for lemonade. I just made it fresh. Folks think of lemonade as a summer drink, but I love it in the fall.”

  “Sounds great,” Hazel said.

  They followed Mrs. Buttersbee into her sitting room and sank into the floral couch. Mrs. Buttersbee tottered out, then tottered back in a moment later holding a tray with a pitcher and three glasses. She hummed as she poured. When she handed Samuel his lemonade she said, “You look just like him, you know. Spitting image, they say, though I for one have never cared for that phrase.”

  Samuel held his glass in two hands and looked down at his lap. “Thanks,” he murmured.

  Hazel took charge. “Mrs. Buttersbee, we’re here on another investigation.”

  “I figured as much,” Mrs. Buttersbee said.

  “You did?”

  “I was once quite the investigator myself, Hazel Kaplansky.” She put her lemonade glass back on the tray and wandered over to her bookshelf. “Why else do you think I would keep all of this?”

  Mrs. Buttersbee was making more and more sense the more Hazel got to know her.

  “So what is it today, kids? More about your mother, Hazel?”

  Hazel shook her head. “No. We’re here about Alice Jones.”

  “Alice Jones?” Mrs. Buttersbee said. “That name isn’t ringing any bells.” Her fingers hovered over the spines of several scrapbooks.

  “She died during the Depression. The flu outbreak.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Buttersbee said. She used two hands to pull out a black bound book. “That’s this volume. Tough few years.”

  While Samuel flipped through the book, Hazel and Mrs. Buttersbee chatted about people in town. “Shame about that Short family,” Mrs. Buttersbee said. “I always thought that Mr. Short was good people.”

  “He was just doing what he thought he needed to do in order to protect his family. Anyone could make that kind of mistake,” Hazel said, glancing at Samuel. “It’s understandable. Now, as for his daughter …” Mrs. Buttersbee cocked her head to the side, but before she could speak, Hazel said, “And don’t tell me she’s probably nice underneath, because I’ve looked underneath, and there’s no nice there.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of saying such a thing.” She turned to Samuel. “Take whatever you want out of there. It’s doing me no good.” Then she turned back to Hazel. “I was a girl once, too, you know, and I knew my share of Connie Shorts.”

  Samuel transferred several articles from Mrs. Buttersbee’s book into the one he’d made for Mr. Jones. “This is a wonderful resource,” he told her. “It belongs in the library.”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Buttersbee said. “Then why would anyone come to see me anymore?”

  Hazel took a long drink of her lemonade. It was cool and light and tasted just like summer, which was perfect, she decided, for November. “I’d come, Mrs. Buttersbee.”

  Mrs. Buttersbee smiled and then ruffled Hazel’s hair, which normally Hazel hated, but she decided that Mrs. Buttersbee was so old and so nice that it was okay. “Come back anytime,” she said.

  “Do you think she meant it?” Samuel asked as they walked down Mrs. Buttersbee’s driveway.

  “About the girls? Definitely. I bet there are girls like Maryann Wood and Connie Short going all the way back to ancient Greece. Aphrodite, for example. I bet she was all kinds of mean to Athena.”

  “No, I meant about going back anytime.”

  “Oh, sure. She loves company.” Hazel bent over and scooped up an acorn cap.

  “I’m going to find out all their stories. All the people buried with Alice.”

  “How are you going to do that?” She pressed the acorn cap onto her thumb, then wiggled it like it was a little person wearing a hat.

  “At the library, with Mrs. Angus’s help. And with Mrs. Buttersbee’s articles. Of course, I’ll probably need someone to help me with interviews.”

  It didn’t seem like the most exciting of cases. Then again, she’d made a bit of a mess of her first big, exciting case, so she thought perhaps she should try something a little more boring. “I’d be honored,” she said. She reread the scrap of paper torn from her Mysteries Notebook. “This is his address.”

  It was an older house, small and green, with three steps up to a rickety-looking front porch. The curtains were drawn in the windows and there was a week’s worth of newspapers on the welcome mat. Still, Hazel reached up her hand and knocked on the door. They waited, Hazel bouncing from foot to foot, but no one came.

  Hazel bit her lip. “Maybe this isn’t the right address.” She flipped up the lid of the mailbox that was attached to the house next to the door. A Sears, Roebuck catalog was jammed inside. When she pulled it out, she saw that it was addressed to Mr. Paul Jones. “He has to be here. He’s not at the cemetery.”

  “Maybe we missed him,” Samuel said. “Maybe while we were at Mrs. Buttersbee’s he left here and went to the graveyard.”

  “Maybe,” Hazel said. But she wasn’t really listening. She went down the stairs and around the back, where she finally saw a window without draperies. Standing on her tiptoes, she peered inside. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No people. No pets. No furniture. Nothing. She dropped down onto her heels. This had to be his house, and yet he’d vanished.

  She tried to remember the last time she’d seen him. At the funeral, of course. But had he been around after that? After noticing him so intently for so long, how had she been able to not notice him? Or to not notice that he was gone?

  “He’s not here,” she said when she returned to the front of the house.

  “Should we go back to the graveyard?”

  “I don’t think he’s there, either.”

  “Well, where do you think he is?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone?” Samuel asked, gripping the package close to his chest.

  “Gone, vanished, kaput. He split town. Now, why do you think he would do that?” She sat dow
n on the steps, and Samuel sat down beside her, his satchel clunking onto the front porch.

  “Maybe he’s like Mary Poppins and once everything is sorted, he leaves.”

  Hazel thought that seemed highly unlikely, even if everything was sorted. Which it wasn’t. Connie was leaving, but Maryann was still there to torment them, for one thing. And anyway, it seemed to Hazel that things always seemed to get unsorted and turned around, like the mess of thread in the bottom of her mother’s unused sewing basket.

  “Maybe he’s a spy after all,” Hazel said. “And he’s been called back to Mother Russia.”

  “Hazel,” Samuel said.

  “He could be a double agent.” Hazel liked that idea. “He could have been pretending to spy on us, but really he was spying on them and telling us all their secrets. He’s gone back to Washington to tell them everything he knows.”

  “Hazel,” Samuel said again. “Can’t he just be Paul Jones? Isn’t that enough?”

  Hazel considered that idea, and she supposed just being Paul Jones was enough for Paul Jankowski.

  But not, of course, for Hazel Kaplansky, star student, holder of knowledge, solver of mysteries, and future double agent.

  Author’s Note

  After World War II, the United States and other Western countries entered into what is known as the Cold War with Russia and the Eastern Bloc nations. This was not a war in the traditional sense, but rather a series of threats and military flare-ups around the world, including the Korean War, mentioned in this novel. The United States and its allies were trying to fight the spread of Communism, a form of government that is supposed to allow for equality among all people but often gets stalled with an all-powerful dictator.

  Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was elected to the United States Senate in 1946, took advantage of the fear of Communism. He claimed to know of hundreds of spies who had infiltrated the American government. He made a number of unsubstantiated accusations of Communism and disloyalty against those who tried to oppose him. Because of the atmosphere of fear—fueled in large part by McCarthy’s accusations—many American leaders would not stand up to him, lest they be accused themselves.

  One senator who did stand up to him was Margaret Chase Smith of Maine with her famous “Declaration of Conscience” speech in 1950. Though she never mentioned him by name, it was clear that it was McCarthy she was chastising when she said: “Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—The right to criticize; The right to hold unpopular beliefs; The right to protest; The right of independent thought.”

  Most of McCarthy’s accusations focused on those working in the government, but in November 1953 McCarthy began an investigation of the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. He claimed that secrets about atomic weapons were being leaked from the plant. Many of those accused refused to testify: they pled the Fifth. This was not an admission of guilt but rather a form of solidarity. Many believed they were not being targeted for their political beliefs, but because they were in the union. A labor union is a group of workers who band together in order to have more power and protections from their employers. Many union workers were former Communist Party members. During World War I, Communism was not seen as the evil it came to be known as. Instead it was seen as the party that best supported workers’ rights. Even though most of the accused had left the party, they were treated as if they were still card-carrying members.

  To learn about the fear of Communism in 1950s America, I spent a good deal of time reading and researching. You can find out more about that process on my website: www.meganfrazerblakemore.com. At one point I wrote in my notes: Joe McCarthy = ultimate bully, for indeed that’s what he was. He used innuendo, half truths, and fear to build his own power. In the end, though, Senator McCarthy was discredited. In 1954, the Senate formally censured him, and now his name is synonymous with a dark period in United States history.

  However, the fear of Communism lived on through the 1980s, when I was a child. I remember the certainty I felt that the United States would be bombed by Russia. Like Hazel, I longed for a safe space to hide and made plans for the inevitable emergency. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Unfortunately the legacy of fear and turning against our neighbors did not crumble along with the Wall.

  Although the Schenectady investigations really happened, there was not anyone involved named Alice Winthrop, nor did an investigation occur in Vermont. Given the time, though, anything seems possible, even an investigation in a sleepy Vermont town. In this culture of fear, neighbors turned on neighbors. In a 1954 poll, 78 percent of Americans thought that people should report their neighbors or acquaintances to the FBI if they suspected them of Communism. In one case in 1950, a customer reported the owners of a Chinese restaurant as Communists because they were Chinese.

  History does not only take place on a grand scale, at the level of nations and world leaders. It happens in big cities and small towns, in neighborhoods and houses across the world. It is, of course, happening at this very moment. And while it’s nice to think that in the future, looking back, we’ll be able to say we acted justly, real life—and history—is rarely so simple and straightforward.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to those who shared their memories of growing up in the 1950s: Trish Poole, Carol Pikcilingis, Paulinda Oakes, Doris Bernstein, Kathleen Donegan, Sue Murphy, Cathy Haidorfer, and Ed Blakemore.

  The time and space of the 2011 Kindling Words East retreat allowed me to finish the very rough first draft of this novel, and I owe deep gratitude to the organizers as well as to all the participants.

  Thank you to the team at Bloomsbury, especially to Mary Kate Castellani, an editor extraordinaire: writing a novel can be like weaving in the wind, and you make sure no threads get away.

  Thank you to my agent, Sara Crowe, for always working to find the best homes for my books.

  A very special thanks to the middle-school book group at Berwick Academy (ca. 2011–2013). You guys are the best, and I talk about you wherever I go. An extra-special thanks to Mr. Knight.

  Thank you to the Blakemores for letting me be a part of your family, and for helping out with the kids so I can get the work done.

  Thank you to my dad, Joseph Frazer, and to Susan Tananbaum for being both my champions and my supporters. Thanks also, Dad, for sharing your stories of growing up, though most of them were too wild for this tale.

  Thanks to my mom, whose publicity skills are second only to those of the Bloomsbury publicity and marketing teams. Your stories of growing up with your brothers, and your friends Peggy and Kathy, provided a foundation for this story, not to mention the lovely detail about the sausage grinders.

  And finally, thank you to Nathan, Jack, and Matilda for everything, always.

  A Note on the Author

  Megan Frazer Blakemore is the author of The Water Castle, which was listed as a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and as a New York Public Library Best Book for Reading and Sharing. She is also the author of the young adult novel Secrets of Truth & Beauty, which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was on the ALA Rainbow list. A former middle-school librarian, Megan lives in Maine with her family.

  www.meganfrazerblakemore.com

  @meganbfrazer

  Also by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  The Water Castle

  Copyright © 2014 by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  All rights reserved.

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damag
es.

  First published in the United States of America in May 2014

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  E-book edition published in May 2014

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books,

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Blakemore, Megan Frazer.

  The spy catchers of Maple Hill / by Megan Frazer Blakemore.

  pages cm

  Summary: Hazel Kaplansky and new student Samuel Butler investigate rumors that a Russian

  spy has infiltrated their small Vermont town, amidst the fervor of Cold War era McCarthyism,

  but more is revealed than they could ever have imagined.

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. City and town life—Vermont—Fiction.

  4. Spies—Fiction. 5. Cold War—Fiction. 6. Vermont—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B574Spy 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013039857

  ISBN 978-1-6196-3349-0 (e-book)

  Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books

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