Kelly lit the front corners of the balled-up paper with a single match. The dry kindling took the spark from the paper and began to crackle. “Sheriff Wray never found that money, did he?”
Matt Locke knelt in front of the fireplace and warmed his hands. “No, Sherlock, he didn’t, and before you ask, no, I don’t think it’s hidden somewhere in this fishing cabin.”
“I’m sure Frank Walker’s daughters wasted many a fine-tooth comb on this place before selling it off.”
“And you’d like me in my most paternal tones to assure you Villiers isn’t heading this way to search the old place? Is that what you’re listening for?”
At that moment the mountain lion snarled again, seeming even closer.
* * * *
In the setting sun Camp Cochipimingo looked the same to Kelly as when she had tagged along with her father and his troop all those years ago. Six green tents surrounded a blazing fire, its flames illuminating a tall man in khaki shorts. He was speaking to a dozen or so scouts sitting around the burning logs and listening to his every word.
Kelly stood at the light’s edge as her father introduced himself as an old scoutmaster now vacationing on the lake. The T-shirted leader extended his right hand to her father, who hesitated, then shook. The two chatted for a while before Matt Locke returned to where Kelly stood beside a flagpole and its still-flapping stars and stripes.
“Scoutmaster Warner’s a little disappointed Porter couldn’t make it, honey. Our sheriff must have quite a reputation as a storyteller. Anyway, Warner appreciates your offer, but he’s taking the kids on a ten-mile hike tomorrow and wants them in the sack early.”
Disappointed, she waved at the kids, then turned with her father to the now dimly lit path back to the cabin. “Did you tell him about Villiers?”
“Thought I’d better…just to be on the safe side. I really don’t think he’d bother a group of kids, but Sam back there’s a pretty big customer. He told me he could take care of his troop.”
“Hey,” called out the scoutmaster, “if you see Sheriff Wray, tell him to drop by this evening—just to check on us, you know.”
“Sure thing,” replied the Chief of Detectives.
The sheriff’s Jeep was at their cabin when they arrived. Even from a distance Kelly could see her old friend’s face betrayed a mixture of relief and tension.
“No Villiers,” concluded her father.
The sheriff looked tired as he said, “Old Byno only needed me to help him round up some strays that broke through his north fence. Heard that mountain lion screaming, if I don’t miss my guess.”
Kelly went into the cabin and brought him out a cup of steaming coffee. “Sheriff,” she said as her night vision suddenly focused, “if you’re still in the mood for rounding up, I’m pretty sure I can lead you to Villiers.”
Both the sheriff and her father stared at the news anchor as if she were delivering the big story at the top of the hour.
* * * *
The three of them crept down the pine-needled trail guided only by the light of the stars and the glow of smoldering embers. When they reached the edge of the clearing, the sheriff held up his hand and whispered, “I’ve got to do the rest of this myself.”
Kelly and her father knelt behind a blueberry bush, watching as Sheriff Wray slipped through the grass and between several maples. From the rear he slowly approached the figure sitting on a log by the campfire.
“Heard you wanted to see me again, Villiers,” said the sheriff without any nervousness.
Whirling to face the lawman’s pistol, the T-shirted figure was so surprised he dropped a huge steel knife into the dirt. “How did you know?”
“Looks like you weren’t a good scout, Reggie…you know, always prepared,” he said. Motioning for Kelly and her father to join him, he called to the tents, “You boys can come out now. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
“If there were a merit badge for detection, honey,” said her father as they approached the fire, “you’d have earned it tonight. Hey, boys, where’s your real scoutmaster?”
As the boys pointed to a tent, Kelly headed back to the cabin with the sheriff’s keys to drive back the Jeep. When she returned to the campsite, she found the real scoutmaster Warner rubbing his wrists that still looked pale from where a rope binding his hands had cut into his circulation.
“That guy had me scared,” Warner was saying. “Walked into camp this morning with that huge Bowie knife of his. Told the boys he’d kill me if they didn’t do what he wanted.”
As the sheriff cuffed Villiers to the Jeep’s roll bar, Kelly’s attention turned toward the scouts. She marveled at their wrestling and joking with each other around what remained of the fire. Minutes earlier they had been in the presence of a killer, and now their horseplay suggested that the horror they had experienced was as meaningless as yesterday’s newspaper. “Like most people around here,” Kelly said, “Villiers knew sooner or later Sheriff Wray would be coming by to check on the troop. All he had to do was wait.”
“In my clothes,” added the scoutmaster. “But how did you know Villiers wasn’t me? Your dad told me while you were fetching the sheriff’s vehicle that neither of you had even seen a picture of him.”
“Several things,” answered the news anchor. “When he greeted my father, whom he knew was an old scoutmaster, he offered what most people do, his right hand, instead of the scouts’ traditional left-handed clasp.”
“The hand nearest the heart,” added her father. “I noticed the mistake, but didn’t think much of it. Figured he thought he was dealing with a civilian no matter what I said about my turn at scouting.”
Kelly looked up at the flag still stirring in the night breeze. “There are only four spots where the flag flies continuously night and day, and Camp Cochipimingo isn’t one of them.”
“She sounds like the Handbook itself, said the scoutmaster.”
“Sometimes,” joked Matt Locke, “I think she should be the Chief of Detectives. She’s like her idol. My Sherlock here notices things everybody else overlooks.”
“Not always,” Kelly said with a laugh. “In fact, Scoutmaster Warner, you owe your kids the greater credit.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I started thinking about the discrepancies at the campsite, I remembered something earlier that should have alerted me. Hoping somebody who drove by the camp entrance would notice, your scouts were signaling your problem in a way they thought might alert someone without Villiers catching on.”
“Signaling?”
“Three scouts were kneeling beside three standing next to three kneeling. Remember your Morse code?”
“How clever of them,” said the scoutmaster with a satisfied grin. “Three short, three long, three short. S O S.”
As Kelly and her father climbed into the Jeep, Sheriff Wray said, “Well, we broke a campfire tradition tonight. This is one scary story with a happy ending.”
“So, Watson,” posed Kelly to her father, do you think you and I will ever get a vacation from crime?”
WORKOUT, by Jean Paiva
“Make It Burn, Make It Really Burn,” echoed in Jenny’s head as she limped to the bus stop. Aside from her aching tendons (oh, those stretches), her obliques throbbed, deltoids pulsed, quadriceps seared, and gluteus maximus cried out in agony. The rest of her body merely suffered in silence, threatening a painful revolt should she move a fraction too far in any direction other than straight up and forward.
“It will be worth it; it will be worth it; it will be worth it,” she chanted, taking small steps and feeling much like the “little engine that could.” Already, only one month of thrice weekly sessions with the video tape recorder had noticeably diminished the massive outbreak of cellulite that normally blossomed like a wild fungus from her knees to her elb
ows.
First thing, before even going to the office, she would buy that brand new video tape—the one “guaranteed” to be more effective. Each of the just-introduced-and-completely-revised versions was tailored for a specific problem area! The one that focused on firm thighs was the priority. And maybe the one for slim waists. And—well, that should do for now.
Nothing, yet, had changed in her overall, over-stuffed sausage shape; but there was a blind confidence that this, too, would soon see a reversal of the ravages of time and eclairs. “Thirty-three,” she cheerfully reminded herself, “is not yet over the hill.”
The electronic bus sign flashed DOWNTOWN and, knowing the transport line’s erratic schedule, rush hour or not, Jenny hobbled even quicker. A hitherto unknown group of muscles twinged their discord, but the good fairy of all workout buffs was looking over her shoulder as she slipped into the last vacant seat, allowed to blissfully ride for twenty minutes without…moving…a…muscle.
* * * *
The typewriter, a newly purchased, computerized model, required little in the way of expended energy. Tap tap tapping the keys allowed Jenny to move only her fingers, not calling into action those abused biceps. Working carefully, even her wrists could remain immobile—that is, until tonight’s session with the new video tape, now tucked safely under the desk. She had limited herself to just one—emphasis on thighs—and was proud of the restraint. George would also be proud.
Sighting a familiar group headed for the break area, Jenny absently realized that it was lunch time. The attention required not to move any more than absolutely necessary, while still staying productive, had taken every ounce of her concentration.
Time passed unheeded and soon forgotten. A cup of herbal tea, no caffeine to poison the body, would not only be refreshing but might loosen some of those neck knots. Despite the newly purchased, heated, orthopedic back cushion strapped to her chair, the pain threatened to cut off her breathing.
Carefully rising, not straining the upper or lower abdominals, Jenny slowly made her way to the sounds of laughter.
* * * *
Led by her nose to the rich smell of freshly delivered pizza, forbidden and devoutly desired, the actual words being spoken didn’t penetrate until she stood by the lunchroom door.
“It’s a riot watching the blimp stagger around,” a nasal voice belonging to Chris, one of the salesmen, rang through the open door. “She mentioned getting into shape but that implies you’ve got a shape to start with.”
Raucous laughter flowed from the room like waves of sewer waste, each tide assailing Jenny’s senses.
“When they handed out body types, she must have stood in the line for cows,” another familiar voice echoed, launching a fresh bout of mirth.
“Give the kid a break,” a man’s gentle voice—thank you, Abe—cut in, apparently striving to gain control over his own laughter. “If your measurements sounded like they were in the metric system, you’d try to do something about it.”
“Yeah, calling out her numbers sounds like a football play,” yet another voice chimed in.
Chris the creep cut right back in, not wanting to be left out of this golden opportunity to rank and rile. “And even if she manages to get that potato sack bod into some semblance of a shape,” he gasped between hoots, “what’s she going to do with that potato face?”
Turning around, Jenny rode the riotous laughter back to the haven of her desk.
A cup of tea really wouldn’t taste that good right now.Instead, a call to George was what her lunch break was really for—followed by a brisk walk to the grocer’s for the proscribed apple and 37-calorie rice cake.
* * * *
George, while many would not consider him handsome or even charming, was the best thing that had ever happened to Jenny. If she hadn’t made that last minute decision to attend an anthropological lecture at the public library, this important part of her life would never have been. The missionary couple, a Dr. and Mrs. Cockles—their names would forever warm her heart—were fascinating with their photographs and slides. The thirty years they had spent in tribal living were under the most primitive circumstances; they were truly dedicated to have brought culture and civilization to the heathens. Leaving behind the Bible, Milton Berle, and Louis Auchincloss, they left the savages with true role models upon which a productive society could be built.
George’s rapt attention during the lecture spoke volumes for his sensitivity and depth. A mere trace of what must have been a devastating bout of adolescent acne was transformed by his inner glow. His raincoat lay carefully folded on his lap; his only movement in the darkened room a slight shuddering of his right arm—apparently tremors betraying the deep, nearly religious, transmutation he was undergoing.
* * * *
Dialing George’s phone number, Jenny recalled the quiet and shy man fumbling, it would almost seem with his trousers, as she approached him after the lights were turned on. Shy and withdrawn, his eyes darting behind rather thick—but distinguished—horn-rimmed glasses, he’d barely been able to respond to her gentle query as to his enjoyment of the lecture.
Eventually she’d managed to elicit a crooked smile from him and the admission that he had reached new heights of ecstasy while listening to the aged couple recite their treks into primitive culture. George had shown the deepest admiration for how the missionaries had brought progress to those nude and needy people they showed so many, many nude slides of.
This intellectual summary of the Cockles profound sacrifice proved, on the spot, that here was a man of great sensitivity and potential. The crowing glory was when, after inviting him to her neat single room apartment he behaved like a perfect gentleman.
George did not make even the slightest advance on her in what others would consider advantageous circumstances.
His high-pitched voice, one she’d grown to find most pleasant when he whispered in her ear at the movie theater, answered on the third ring.
“George Alexander Philmartin, here. What may I do for you,” the voice said, as cultured a way to respond as she could ever hope to hear.
“It’s Jenny, George,” she cooed into the phone, making sure no one was near enough to overhear.
“Oh, Jenny…ah, how are you,” he thoughtfully queried, sounding somewhat—but that was impossible—preoccupied.
“Just fine, George. I was thinking about you and decided to be bold and surprise you with an invitation for dinner.”
“Dinner? Oh dear, this is rather short notice.”
Somewhere in his background Jenny heard giggles. Smiling to herself she thought of the various daytime dramas he would be watching and decided on All My Children as appropriate to the time of day.
“How’s Erica doing today,” Jenny politely inquired.
“Erica who?” George sounded nervous.
“Erica on television, of course,” Jenny sweetly replied.
“The TV’s not on,” George said, the giggles in his background growing louder and sounding even closer to the phone.
“Oh, you must be…,” Jenny began, thinking of the radio, as words from a very female voice transmitted over the open phone line.
“Georgie worgie, puddin’, and pie, come back to little Lisa, or you’re gonna make her cry.”
“Shut up,” a voice that sounded like George’s hissed—apparently turned away from the phone but nonetheless absolutely and clearly transmitted into the earpiece held, with trembling fingers, by Jenny.
“Jenny, my dear,” this voice—definitely belonging to George—addressed her, “I’m—ah—a little tied up right now,” a statement which was met with a renewed torrent of giggles in the background. “Perhaps I can call you later, at home, this evening, and we can chat.”
Her voice deserting her, her stomach feeling like it had been kicked by a mule from the inside ou
t—which couldn’t be attributed to the exercise regime—and her very breath robbed from her lungs by a failure in automatic respiratory responses, Jenny managed to agree to talk later and hung up the phone.
* * * *
Being left out of the office party at 5:30 (every last employee except Jenny was going) celebrating a major sale to a industry giant was unimportant. What mattered was getting home and switching on her prized video tape recorder, plugging in the new exercise tape, and working out. Someday, soon, when she was svelte and shapely they’d be sorry. All of them.
The commute home mirrored the morning trip in; moving too quickly for a bus just arrived, wreaking havoc with abused muscles and tendons, and garnering the last seat even if it meant elbowing a frail old lady out of the way.
* * * *
Home was where the heart was. It didn’t need fancy curtains or a new bedspread or even a living creature—fish, birds, or cats were a nuisance—to make it a welcome sight. The bare walls, devoid of even a calendar, might need painting but the linoleum floor was bright and shiny, newly waxed so that Jenny could exercise mirrored in the gleam from below. All furniture—the single bed, the small dresser, the tiny table, and two straight-back chairs—had been moved back to make room for the shiny, new, chrome television-stand proudly bearing a brand-new color 13” television and bottom-of-the-line model VCR.
Shrugging out of her simple, shapeless sheath dress, which she filled from shoulder to hem, Jenny quickly blended her vegetable drink. The pre-digested dinner consumed, she donned her terry-cloth shorts and matching tank top. After tearing the shrink-wrapped plastic from the new tape cassette, Jenny reverently inserted the cartridge in the already activated unit.
She was ready.
* * * *
As the background music rose over the opening credits, Jenny shook out her arms and legs. The smiling face of her fearless leader, surrounded by perfectly coiffed hair and a body the instructor promised “could be yours” if you just stayed with her for 35 minutes of torture a day, turned to the camera. Anticipating the welcome opening words, “Are you ready…?” Jenny was nonplussed when the smile on her idol’s face fell and those warm and twinkling brown eyes glassed over.
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #3 Page 16