Elizabeth's San Antonio Sleuthing

by Renae Brumbaugh

  “Stay calm, folks. We’re gonna get you out of this. Please stay in the boat,” they heard a man’s voice over a microphone up ahead of them. The Santa Anna passengers strained to see what the commotion was about.

  Up ahead was a River City Cruise boat filled with passengers. And it seemed to be filling with water. The captain was trying to keep the passengers calm and steer the boat to the side of the river.

  The Santa Anna captain said nothing. Did nothing. Just kept on with his tour script.

  “Uh, excuse me, sir?” Elizabeth raised her hand.

  “Yes, miss? Did you have a question?” the captain acknowledged her with a artificial smile.

  “Don’t you think we should stop and try to help those people?” she asked.

  The man laughed and said, “Oh, they’ll be fine. Things like that happen all the time to River City Cruises. You all made the right choice, choosing Santa Anna Tours! Of course, if you’re in the mood for a swim, perhaps you should try River City next time. They’ll be sure to deliver!” The captain laughed a little too loudly, and the crowd responded with a few chuckles. No one seemed to think his joke was very funny.

  Once again, Elizabeth heard a loud splash—and another. Joe and Pedro had jumped in the water and were wading to the stranded boat. The Santa Anna boat continued, with the captain desperately trying to regain his audience’s attention.

  “Well, well, this has certainly been an exciting ride today, hasn’t it, folks? Let me direct your attention to the bridge up ahead. That was the first bridge built here on the Riverwalk….”

  As the captain droned on, Elizabeth watched the two boys push the stranded boat to the edge. Then they helped the passengers onto the sidewalk.

  “I can’t figure them out,” she whispered to Kate. “They are our main suspects in…several mysteries. But they seem to be pretty good guys.”

  Kate said, “Yep, this is a job for the Camp Club Girls.”

  Elizabeth’s gaze left the boys for a moment and landed on Maria, sitting by herself. She, too, was watching the scene behind her. “You’re right,” she whispered. “But first, I think we need to interview someone.”

  When the boat ride was over, Kate handed the towel back to the kind lady. “Thank you,” she said.

  “No problem, honey. I’m just glad you’re okay,” the lady said.

  The two girls waited for Maria to disembark, and the girl smiled at them. “That was some boat ride!” she told them.

  “I’ll say,” answered Kate.

  The girl smiled, and the three stood in awkward silence. “Well, I guess I’d better go look for my cousins,” she said.

  “Your cousins?” Elizabeth and Kate exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes I’m not proud of that fact. Other times, like just now, I remember that they’re pretty good guys.”

  “Do you mind if we walk with you?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Sure!” the girl said. “I mean, no, I don’t mind.”

  All around them, bright streamers of papel picado—hand-cut paper decorations—seemed to dance to the mariachi music playing in the distance, and the girls naturally walked in time with the rhythm.

  “What makes you say that sometimes you’re not proud to be related to them?” asked Kate.

  “Oh, you know how boys can be,” she said.

  Elizabeth and Kate nodded.

  “And my cousins—Joe, especially—is all boy. He loves to get into mischief, play pranks. Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with them so much,” she said. “But they are pretty fun, and it beats staying at home, watching television.”

  “So you live around here?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yeah, we live a couple of blocks from here. Our parents work near here, and it makes it nice. We don’t need a car. We can walk or ride our scooters everywhere we need to go.”

  “What kinds of pranks do they pull?” pressed Elizabeth. She was determined to wrangle a confession out of someone.

  “Oh, you know,” the girl said. “This and that.” She was beginning to look uncomfortable. Just then, they rounded a curve in the Riverwalk and saw the boys ahead. They were standing at attention, hands by their sides, as a police officer spoke with the captain of the River City Cruise boat—the boat they’d helped rescue.

  As the girls drew closer, they could hear the agitated voice of the captain saying, “It’s sabotage, I’m telling you. Someone has been meddling with my boats. And these boys seem to be hanging around the Riverwalk with too much time on their hands.”

  The police officer looked at the boys. “What have you been doing all morning?”

  Joe spoke with respect. “We attended some kind of Bible club this morning, down at the church at La Villita. Then we went to the Alamo. After that, we came back here to ride on that other riverboat. We just jumped in to help him because he was stranded. No one else helped him, so we did.”

  The captain spoke up. “These boys are always hanging around whenever something bad happens. I can’t prove it, but I think they’re behind the problems I’m having with my boats.”

  The officer wrote on a notepad, and then questioned the boys further. “You say you were at a Bible club, then the Alamo before you rode on the other boat?”

  “Yes, sir,” Joe answered.

  “Can you prove that?” the officer asked him. “Did anyone else see you at those places?”

  Elizabeth stepped forward then. “Excuse me, sir, but these boys are telling the truth. I saw them at those places.”

  “And your name is… ?” questioned the police officer.

  “Elizabeth Anderson,” she replied.

  “And I’m Kate Oliver,” Kate spoke up. “I saw them, too. Elizabeth and I are helping with the Bible club. I can take you to my youth minister, if you’d like, and he’ll verify that.”

  The police officer eyed the girls, then shut his notepad. “That won’t be necessary.” He looked at the boat’s captain. “I know you’re frustrated. And it does appear that someone is trying to sabotage your business. But without proof, I can’t hold these boys. It looks to me like they were just doing a good deed.”

  The captain looked sheepish. He took off his hat and nervously twisted it in his hands. “I’m sorry, boys. I guess I jumped to conclusions. I’m just anxious to get to the bottom of all these mishaps. I do appreciate your help today.”

  Joe smiled. “That’s okay, sir. I hope everything works out for you, and you catch the real bad guys.”

  The police officer dismissed the boys and continued talking to the captain. Joe and Pedro sighed with relief and turned to Elizabeth and Kate.

  “Thanks,” the boys told them.

  “I don’t know what would have happened if you two hadn’t shown up,” said Pedro.

  “Yeah. I was afraid we were going to end up in handcuffs or something, all for trying to help the guy,” Joe added.

  Marie looked smugly at her cousins. “I told you all to quit playing all those tricks. People can tell when you’re up to no good, and then you get blamed for worse things. It’s your own fault.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t resist cutting into the conversation. “And exactly what tricks are you talking about, Maria?”

  Joe laughed nervously. “Oh, Maria is loco. Crazy. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Just ignore her.”

  “Would any of those tricks happen to involve a water balloon?” Elizabeth pressed. It didn’t matter to her whether or not these boys were criminals or just pranksters. She knew they were guilty of something, and she was going to get to the bottom of this.

  Joe smiled a cat-ate-the-canary smile and said nothing. Pedro laughed, and Maria just shook her head before launching into a tirade of rapidly spoken Spanish words. Elizabeth caught a word here and there, but she didn’t know very much Spanish.

  Something in the shadows caught her eye. Was that the captain of the Santa Anna? And the man he was talking to looked familiar….

  It’s the rude man from the boat yesterday! The one w
ho was complaining about the River City boats right after the boat died! And…what was that on his hands?

  She nudged Kate and pointed. Maria continued on with her tirade as the boys tried to ignore their cousin. Joe, noticing that Elizabeth’s and Kate’s attention was elsewhere, followed their gaze.

  The captain of the Santa Anna boat pulled a wad of money out of his pocket and handed it to the man, who stuffed it in his own pocket with fingers stained with neon pink paint. Too late, the men noticed they had an audience.

  “Hey! What are you kids doing?” the captain yelled.

  Each member of the group seemed to know, without being told, that they had just witnessed something sinister. They took off running. Biscuit, who’d been comfortably napping in Kate’s backpack after his morning swim, suddenly came to life. Barking and growling, the little dog wiggled his way out of the backpack, scattering a stack of Kate’s business cards in the process.

  “Biscuit!” Kate yelled, and scooped her dog into her arms before the men reached him.

  “This way!” called Joe, and motioned for them to enter a doorway to…Elizabeth had no idea where the doorway led. But she and Kate followed. Joe slammed the door behind them, and Elizabeth peered out the small window.

  The two men had stopped running. The captain bent and retrieved one of Kate’s cards. He read it, looked toward the doorway, and slipped the card into his pocket.

  As the pink-handed man walked toward the doorway, Joe called out, “Get down!” The boy clicked the dead bolt on the door just before they heard the door being pulled. The man on the other side of the door began rattling, and then his shadow blocked the light coming through the window as he peered inside.

  Elizabeth’s heart pounded. Who were those men? And what were they doing? Why was the captain paying the other man?

  Deep voices came from the other side of the door. “It’s locked. Do you want me to go after them?” Elizabeth recognized the voice of the taller man with painted hands.

  “Leave ‘em alone for now. I have an idea that will shut them up, once and for all.”

  The Quiet Child

  The five young people looked at each other and sighed in unison.

  “What was that about?” asked Maria.

  “Those guys aren’t up to any good, that’s for sure,” said Joe.

  Elizabeth stood on her tiptoes and peered out the tiny window. The men were gone. “Kate…we need to get back to the hotel,” she said.

  “I know! My clothes are still wet, and my sneakers are sloshing,” Kate complained.

  “And you need to check your blog,” Elizabeth added. “Check my blog? That’s right. I need to update my blog,” she replied.

  “Kate, those men have your card,” Elizabeth told her. Kate’s eyes grew wide and round. “My business cards!

  That’s right, they scattered when Biscuit tried to escape….”

  “Well, as long as we are careful, it could be a good thing. Maybe we can figure out a way to mislead them or something,” Elizabeth told her.

  Joe spoke up then. “A blog? What kind of blog? And you have a business card? How old are you, anyway?”

  Kate adjusted her glasses then addressed the group. “I know this may come as a surprise to you, but Elizabeth and I are detectives.”

  The group burst into laughter, including Elizabeth. Kate sounded so serious.

  “Laugh if you want to, but it’s the truth. And I have a blog you can access online. I discuss different mysteries and ways to solve them.”

  “Whoa,” said Pedro. “We don’t know anything about the Internet.”

  “Yes, we do!” said Maria. “Remember, we had to take that class in school?”

  “Oh yeah. A lot of the kids at school have computers at home, but none of us do. So we’re pretty clueless when it comes to that type of stuff,” said Joe.

  “A lot of people don’t have computers at home. But I’m sure your library has a computer you can use for free,” Elizabeth said.

  Joe smiled at her again, and she looked away.

  Stop looking at him. Look at Maria when you talk, Elizabeth told herself.

  “And if I went to the library, who would teach me how to use the computer?” he asked.

  “The librarian,” said Kate. “By the way, can somebody please tell me where we are?”

  “We’re in a secret passageway. I thought you detectives would know all about that,” Joe teased.

  “Well, you obviously knew it was here. I’m hoping you also know where it leads!” Kate retorted.

  “Follow me,” Maria chimed in. She began walking down the long hallway, and the others followed her. They turned to the right, and then pushed open some swinging doors that led into a kitchen. Immediately, people called out greetings in Spanish. Elizabeth recognized the logo on the red aprons.

  This is the kitchen of Rio Rio!

  One woman began speaking in rapid-fire Spanish to Joe. She was standing over a dish of the most delicious-looking tamales Elizabeth had ever seen.

  Those tamales! Those are the tamales I love so much!

  Joe turned to Elizabeth and Kate. “I’d like you to meet my mama, Elena Garcia. Mama, this is Kate,” he gestured, and the woman smiled.

  “And this,” he said with emphasis, “is Elizabeth.”

  The woman lifted her eyebrows at her son, then smiled at Elizabeth, who could feel herself turning every shade of red. Why did he say it like that?

  “It’s very nice to meet both of you,” the woman said. Then, she looked at Elizabeth. “Don’t you let Jose give you a hard time. He is…how you say? … All bark and no bite.”

  Now it was Joe’s turn to blush, and the group laughed.

  Biscuit chose that moment to bark, and several people in the kitchen turned to look at the little dog. Joe’s mother began speaking in rapid Spanish once again, finishing with, “Andale! Andale!”

  Elizabeth knew she was telling them to hurry and get out. Dogs weren’t allowed in restaurant kitchens.

  Kate scooped Biscuit into her arms and said, “We need to be going. Thanks for everything,” and looked for an exit sign.

  “It was very nice to meet you, Mrs. Garcia,” Elizabeth told the woman, and followed Kate through a door.

  Once inside the door, they realized they were in a supply closet.

  “Well, this is a little embarrassing,” said Kate, turning to go back through the door.

  As the girls re-entered the kitchen, the staff clapped and laughed. Joe stepped forward and said, “Allow me to accompany you,” in a gallant tone.

  Red-faced, the two girls followed their guide through another door, down a short hallway, and finally stepped into the sunlight of the Riverwalk.

  “Thanks, Joe. We’ll…see ya around,” Kate told him, and began moving toward the hotel.

  “Yeah, thanks,” called Elizabeth with a slight wave. Joe watched them until they were out of sight.

  An hour later, the girls lay across their beds in the hotel room talking on their cell phones and munching on French fries. Kate had set her phone for a conference call, and amazingly, had gotten in touch with each of the other Camp Club Girls.

  “Okay,” said Sydney. “Let me get this straight. Elizabeth got hit by a water balloon while riding in a River City Cruise boat, and another lady found a rubber snake at her feet while riding a Santa Anna boat. River City keeps having mechanical problems, but you don’t think the mechanical problems are related to the pranks.”

  “We did to begin with,” said Kate. “But we’re pretty sure we know who the pranksters are, and they seem pretty harmless. I told you about the two men who chased us. And the tall, skinny guy had pink hands—the color one of the River City boats was painted. I think those men are responsible for the vandalism. At least, Elizabeth hopes it’s those men.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Elizabeth.

  “You know exactly what it means,” said Kate in a teasing voice. “Elizabeth is swooning over one of the pranksters.”

>   “I am not!” said Elizabeth, and the other girls began asking questions, all at once.

  “Tell us more, Kate! Who is this guy? What is his name?” they asked.

  Elizabeth pulled the pillow over her head, but continued listening to the conversation.

  “His name is José Garcia,” Kate said with a dramatic accent.

  “Ooh! Is he from Mexico? I could be related to him!” said Alex. “If you marry him, Elizabeth, we could end up being cousins!”

  “Y’all, stop it! I’m not marrying anybody. Kate is just making stuff up,” Elizabeth defended herself, throwing a pillow at her roommate. “And he likes to be called Joe.”

  “Hmmmmm…Elizabeth Garcia,” teased Bailey. “It has a ring to it.”

  The other girls laughed, until finally McKenzie said, “You guys, leave Elizabeth alone.”

  “Thank you, Mac,” said Elizabeth.

  “I’m sure she’ll invite us all to the wedding, when the time comes,” McKenzie continued.

  “Mac!” Elizabeth yelled into the phone, and everyone laughed again.

  “All right, already,” Kate said. “Sorry I brought it up, Elizabeth. I just couldn’t resist. Now, can we please get back to the matter at hand? What should be our next step in solving this mystery?”

  “Tell us more about the two men,” Sydney said.

  “Well, the captain is shorter, bald, pudgy…and he wears a captain’s hat,” Elizabeth responded.

  “Like the hat the captain wore on Gilligan’s Island?” Alex asked.

  “Oh, I’ve seen that show! That’s an old one. And yes, the hat is exactly like that,” Elizabeth said. “And the other guy is tall and skinny, and seems to take orders from the captain.”

  “It sounds to me like you need to focus your investigation on Gilligan and the Skipper,” said Bailey. Once again, she had come up with the perfect nicknames for their suspects.

  Alex spoke up again. “Kate, you took your bag of gadgets along, didn’t you?”

  “Do you even have to ask?” Kate responded.

  “Did you bring along one of those little listening thing-a-ma-jiggers?” Alex continued.

  “You mean a bug?” Kate asked.