Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary

  It's funny. I've always thought that the reason adults didn't pay attention to what I had to say was because I wasn't one of them. But here was the oldest person I'd ever met talking like she had the same problem, and it gave me a terrible thought: Maybe things wouldn't get better as I got older; maybe they'd only get worse.

  We closed up the car and followed Lucinda down the dirt path to the cabin. And I don't know why, but the rubble looked even more depressing during the day than it had at night. Maybe black on black doesn't look so dark, I don't know, but in the bright light of day, what was left of Mary's cabin looked creepy. Wicked.

  We stayed back for a minute, watching. Kevin was talking with a small man in a suit, and judging by Kevin's head shaking back and forth, the two of them were disagreeing about something. Then there was Officer Borsch, having a powwow with another policeman and two other men. Dallas was by himself, kind of kicking through the rubble, and you could tell he was thinking really hard about something. He sees us and waves, then comes over and keeps his voice down as he says to Lucinda, “Is there anything I can do? I feel so bad about this whole thing.”

  Lucinda nods. “I heard the fire chief talking about a bulldozer this morning. Whose idea was that?”

  Dallas fiddles with the tusk on his necklace and says, “I…I'm not sure. You'll have to ask Kevin,” but you can tell from the way he's looking down that the idea's Kevin's. All Kevin's.

  “Why does he want to do that?”

  Dallas scratches his forehead and sighs. “I think he thinks it'll make it easier on you.”

  “Well, it doesn't!”

  He glances at us and says, “Uh, my understanding is Kevin's not wild about these kids being here…”

  “He doesn't have to be wild about it, but he'd better get used to it.” Then she tells him all about us finding the gas can and grumbles to him about nitwits and leeches.

  He says something about her being too hard on people doing their jobs and then asks us to tell him about the gas can. So we do, and when we're all done, he says, “Are you sure it's not still down there? Maybe you just couldn't find it back in the dark?”

  I say, “We searched,” and Holly adds, “But maybe. We did get kinda spooked.”

  He says, “So let's have a look.”

  I say, “Um, maybe you can send that policeman over here first?”

  “Which one?”

  “The big one.”

  So Dallas interrupts Officer Borsch's powwow, and when he sees us standing underneath the tree, he marches over and says, “I thought I told you to stay…!”

  I shrug. “I know, but Lucinda found us panting for air and let us out for a walk.”

  Lucinda puts out a hand. “Lucinda Huntley. Descendant of Mary Rose Huntley, the pioneer who built that cabin.”

  Officer Borsch barely shakes her hand. “You're better today, I see.”

  “I've composed myself, young man. That doesn't erase the tragedy. I intend to get to the bottom of this, and if you're going to stand there and tell me why things can't be done, maybe you should just step aside.”

  The slits Officer Borsch sports for eyes were open wider than I'd ever seen them. He turns to me and says, “Just exactly what have you been telling this woman?”

  “Nothing! Really!”

  Lucinda says, “They've told me about the gas can, and what I don't understand is why someone isn't scouring that ravine now, looking for pyroglyphics or pyrotechnics or whatever you people call fire starters.”

  “Your nephew, ma'am, is the reason. He doesn't seem to want to be interrupted, and I didn't think it wise to proceed without him.”

  Lucinda gives Kevin a disgusted look and says, “Well, this property is still mine, and I want that ravine searched.”

  “Okay then.” Officer Borsch turns to me and says, “Sammy—was it metal or plastic?”

  “Metal.”

  “New? Old? Describe it the best you can.”

  “It seemed pretty new. It was rectangular, red and silver, and had GASOLINE printed across it. On a diagonal.”

  “Did it have a spout?”

  “No spout and no lid.”

  “Okay. Show me the area where you remember seeing it.”

  Dallas eyes Kevin and says, “You still might want to get Kevin to agree…it would make things easier in the long run.”

  Officer Borsch nods and leads the way over to Kevin. He interrupts with, “Excuse me, Mr. Huntley…”

  Kevin looks at Officer Borsch, then Lucinda and the rest of us. And before he can start about how come we're trespassing on his property, Officer Borsch says, “Your aunt has granted these girls permission to point out the area where they say they discovered a gas can last night. Do you mind if we conduct a search?”

  To everyone's surprise, Kevin says, “That's fine.”

  He goes back to talking with Slick Suit, and the rest of us shrug and head for the ravine. I spot the rock we'd left as a marker, then point down the hill. “Right down there. About halfway.”

  The ravine is covered with oak leaves, and as you step down, you sink past your ankle, sometimes clear up to your shin. Officer Borsch takes a few steps and says, “How did you ever see it, at night, in all of this mulch?”

  “Penny showed it to us.”

  He stops. “Penny? Who's Penny?”

  “Lucinda's pig.”

  The minute it came out of my mouth I knew it sounded ridiculous. Officer Borsch bows his head, and his voice is hoarse as he says, “Tell me you didn't just say pig.” Lucinda says, “She's a very smart pig, young man.” She turns to Dallas. “Isn't that so?”

  Dallas shrugs and nods, so Officer Borsch sighs and says, “I'm sure she is, ma'am.” Then he looks at me. “Okay, Sammy. I'm going to rewind. I'm going to try to forget that I ever asked, okay?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You found the can right down here. About halfway?”

  “That's right.”

  He crunches his way down the ravine muttering, “Our next witness? Yes, Your Honor. We call Penny the Pig to the stand…”

  So we watch Officer Borsch search the area, first with his hands, then by poking a stick into the mulch all around him. And while he's searching, Kevin comes over to watch.

  Lucinda asks him, “Who is that man you were talking to?”

  Kevin's quiet for a minute, just watching. But he knows Lucinda's got both eyes on him, so finally he says, “He's a real-estate agent. There's been an offer on the property.”

  “Our property?”

  “That's right.”

  “But it's not on the market!”

  He shakes his head and sighs. “They've been interested for a while. They approached me about six months ago—”

  Lucinda interrupts him. “Why didn't you ever say anything?”

  “You were ill, remember? And I knew there was no sense in discussing it. Not with Mary's cabin standing.”

  “You told them that?”

  “Well, sure. I explained how important the property was to you and that you wouldn't be interested in selling it. But Aunt Lucinda, now that the cabin's gone, there's nothing left tying us here. I know you're on this crusade to prove that the Murdocks burned the place down, but even if they did, it won't bring the cabin back.” Very quietly he adds, “If you ask me, this whole thing might be a blessing.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Aunt Lucinda, you've been living in the past for years. Decades! I admire Mary, but she's gone. Long gone. Don't you ever want to get out of this place and enjoy what's left of your life?”

  She looks up at him and says, “Are you speaking about me or about you?”

  He pushes back the brim of his hat and sighs. “If you look at the financial reality of it, we have to do something. The crops have been miserable for the past three years, and—”

  “But this vineyard produced the finest grapes in the county—perhaps the state!”

  “Aunt Lucinda, again, you're living in the past.”

  Luci
nda crosses her arms, thinking. Then she turns to Kevin and says, “It must be a pretty penny they're offering.”

  He whispers, “Half a million.”

  Lucinda scowls. “And where do we go? To the city? Or are you planning to just check me in to an old folks' home and be done with it?”

  “You know I would never do that! The reason I've held on so long is because of you.”

  “Hmmm,” she says. “What do real-estate agents get these days? Ten percent? Fifteen? Tidy little commission, don't you think?”

  Kevin looks down. “I told him we weren't interested.”

  “And yet he was here. On New Year's Day, no less.”

  “Like I said, I told him we weren't interested.”

  Lucinda gives him a little smile. “But he knows you'relying. Leeches can always find the soft spot.”

  “It's business, Lucinda.”

  She snickers. “And a very profitable one for him—if he can convince us to sell.”

  Just then Officer Borsch comes up the hill saying, “Well, I find nothing down there. If there was a can, it's gone now.”

  “What about the cap?” I ask. “Can't we use giant sieves or something and sift through the leaves for it?”

  Officer Borsch looks at me like I'm talking about pigs again. He comes up the rest of the way, stomps leaves off his boots, and says, “Even if we did find it, we couldn't get any prints off of it. By now they're completely dusted over.”

  “So, it's just our word that something was there.”

  Officer Borsch shakes his head. “No, the fire marshal has confirmed that an accelerant was used. The cabin was definitely set on fire.”

  “How in the world can they tell that?” Kevin asks, looking at the rubble.

  “From the burn pattern of the timbers.”

  “But there's nothing left of them!”

  Officer Borsch says, “There's enough.”

  Lucinda throws her hands in the air. “So what are you waiting for? Go arrest those devils!”

  Officer Borsch stares at her. “What devils?”

  “The Murdocks!”

  “Ma'am, with all due respect, I can't go around arresting people without just cause.”

  While Lucinda's telling him a thing or two about just cause, I'm thinking that maybe I didn't know the Murdocks, but their torching Mary's cabin just to get back at Lucinda seemed pretty extreme. And that the more I learned, the more it felt like this situation went deeper than revenge.

  Miles deeper.

  SIXTEEN

  Penny is definitely not a proud pig. I mean, it's one thing to nudge me from behind—it's quite another to do it to Officer Borsch.

  I don't think she was trying to get him to quit arguing with Lucinda about “ancient history” and “just cause” as much as she was just sniffing him out, but she might as well have goosed him for all the noise he made. He jumps back, crying, “Hey! Heeeeey! Get away from me!”

  Penny snorts after him, twitching her snout around in the air.

  “You hear me? Get away!”

  I grab her collar to hold her back, but she is two hundred pounds of highly motivated pork, and I'm not having much of an effect. I practically get on her and go for a ride, but still, she's not stopping.

  Then this giggle consumes me. Completely. I can't stop it any more than I can stop Penny. And it's not because I think the way Officer Borsch is acting is funny. Try being attacked by a runaway pig sometime—it's scary! No, it's because I realize that Penny's in love. L-O-V-E, love.

  Now a thought like that can put you in stitches, and a thought like that can make you completely useless. At least that's what it did to me—I just fell over laughing.

  And while Penny's chasing Officer Borsch around a giant oak tree, everyone else starts busting up, too.

  Officer Borsch yells at us, “It's not funny! Get this thing away from me!” and as he's playing ring-around-the-oaktree with Penny it dawns on him that the other police and the fire people are watching him and starting to laugh, too. That's when he decides that the only way to stop Penny is to do the job himself.

  All of a sudden he quits running, spins around, and plants himself like he's ready to wrestle a bear. Penny stops, all right, then stands in front of him, snorting and sniffing and twitching her tail.

  He takes a step back.

  She takes a step forward.

  He tries taking a step to the side.

  She takes one, too.

  He takes a step forward.

  She stays put.

  Lucinda whispers, “I wonder what's gotten into her!”

  Now I'm not going to start talking about Oinkers in Love; somehow I don't think Lucinda would approve. I just ask, “Will she come if you call her?”

  “Usually. Although she can be quite stubborn.”

  We all look at her like, Well?

  She says, “Oh! Oh, I suppose you're right,” then tries calling off her pig. “Penny! Come here, girl!”

  Penny rolls an eye around to Lucinda, then inches closer to Officer Borsch.

  “Penny, you come here this instant!”

  Penny snorts and twitches her tail.

  Lucinda marches up to her and wags a bony finger, saying, “Penny, mind!”

  If a pig can grumble, then that's exactly what Penny did. But she came away from Officer Borsch without so much as a yank of the collar. And when she'd followed Lucinda a safe distance away, Officer Borsch lets out a deep breath, wipes his forehead, and grumbles something about cursed country living and being way out of his jurisdiction. Then he calls, “Can you girls make it back on your own all right? I need to wrap things up and get back to town.”

  We wave him off, saying we're fine, and Lucinda calls, “So what's going to happen? Are you going to arrest those Murdocks?”

  Officer Borsch says, “I'm sure we'll be sending some one over to question them,” then has a quick chat with the other uniforms before skating out of there.

  Dallas lets out a sigh. “Well, I'm afraid that's that.”

  Lucinda says, “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “I know you want them to go arrest that whole clan, but it's not going to happen. They've got no evidence, they've got no proof…”

  All this time, Kevin's been standing to the side, listening. But when he hears that, he steps closer and says, “Dallas is right. Nobody understands the historical value of it, Aunt Lucinda. To them it was just an old shack.”

  Lucinda is quiet for a minute, looking from Dallas to Kevin. Finally, she sighs and says, “I think I'll go in and rest,” but I can tell by the look in her eye that she's not tired. Not in the least.

  The four of us follow Lucinda back to the house while Kevin and Dallas stand around talking. And after we're about halfway there I say, “Lucinda, I read Mary's diary last night…”

  She stops and looks at me carefully. “And?”

  “And it's the most amazing thing I've ever read.”

  She gives me a little smile. “Thank you.”

  “I'm serious.”

  Dot says, “Yeah, I found her this morning buried in her sleeping bag with the flashlight on and the diary open, and over breakfast that's all she talked about.”

  Lucinda takes my hand and says, “You really do understand, then.”

  I nod.

  She searches my face. “Did the last page make any sense to you? Any sense at all?”

  “The riddle about the gold?”

  “Yes. Did it?”

  “It keeps playing through my head, but no. The only thing I can think for the part…how's it go? Where the ridge meets the rock and the rock meets the ground…”

  Lucinda nods, “Yes, that's right.”

  “The only thing that makes sense to me is that there must be someplace along the ravine where rocks go from the edge of it clear down to the bottom. Is there someplace like that?”

  “I've looked. Kevin's looked. Dallas has looked. Because that's what we all thought. And there are places like that, but…nothing.??
?

  “The box is shallow, black and crowned…That must be the box the gold is in? Like it has a crown stamped on it or something?”

  Lucinda shrugs. “I don't know. Kevin's suggested maybe it was jeweled, but I don't know where Mary would've gotten jewels.”

  “Maybe it's decorated with pretty stones?”

  Lucinda frowns. “My hunch is it has nothing to do with jewels or stones, but what then?”

  “How's the rest go? Not far in, left and high, gold and silver, warm inside?”

  “That's right.”

  “All I see is rocks in the sun, getting hot. That's the picture that keeps popping into my head.”

  She sighs, “It's no use. That's what the rest of us have come up with.” Her face gets all stormy, and she starts marching again, only this time faster. “It feels like I've lost everything. Or will, soon enough. And if I can't do anything else about it, at least I can see to it that their actions don't go unavenged.”

  I had no idea what she had in mind, but the jut of her jaw and the tone of her voice put me in a bit of a panic. “Lucinda, wait! What are you talking about? The Mur-docks? C'mon, they're…they're like mosquitoes. They buzz and they bite and they leave itchy spots, but they're…you know…just pests!” She was shuffling along like a locomotive, gathering speed. “Lucinda, wait! What are you going to do? You can't—”

  “I'm tired of people telling me what I cannot do, what I did not see, and what I should not believe! Others seem to do what they pretty well please, and I haven't got enough time left to worry about the consequences.”

  “But what if it wasn't the Murdocks. What if—”

  “Ha!” she says, then turns before going up the steps to a side door. “This stinks of Murdock if anything ever did. It's sneaky and mean-spirited and there's the stench of money in the air.” We follow her up the steps, but she's not about to let us in. She says, “I've enjoyed your company, but if you'll excuse me, I've got matters to attend to,” and lets the screen door slam behind her.

  I look at the others and say, “What are we going to do?”

  We stand at the base of the steps trying to decide. Nobody wants to talk to Kevin—not with the way we'd been banned from the property. Officer Borsch was already gone, and when Dot brought up talking with the other policemen, Holly pointed to the vacant driveway and said, “Too late for that.”