by Diaz, AJ
“Well,” said the lieutenant slowly, “I believe you. It’s actually quite a compelling thought. If we solve one case, we solve both. Besides we have more leads on the murder case than the robberies.”
“Exactly my point,” said Taylor.
Jeff reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a file, and laid it on the desk before Taylor and Susan. “This is all we know,” he said.
Just then, heavy sounding footsteps entered the room. A guttural, tobacco-stained voice filled the humble office. “Lieutenant, what do you think you’re doing? Those files are confidential.” It was Captain Tony Hamell.
“I—I’m sorry—I was just—these girls have an interesting theory. They think the café murder and the robberies might be connected.”
“How?”
“I—they don’t know.”
“Exactly, Lieutenant, they’re high school girls with nothing better to do than to make up exaggerated stories and bother people. Lieutenant, they’re a lot of people in this department who wonder why you’re a lieutenant. They say you’re too dumb for this position. Well, frankly, I’m starting to agree with them.”
With that, the captain stormed out of the room. They could hear his footsteps recede until a door slammed shut. Lieutenant Arterman’s head was hanging in dismay.
“It’s all right,” said Taylor, “I still believe you. I know how it feels when people don’t believe you. My parents, teachers, best friends, the police captain, and my mortal enemy don’t believe me.”
Jeff looked up at them. “Sorry you had to take those insults from the captain.”
Susan smiled. “Insults are what we take best.”
“Well, we got to go,” said Taylor.
“Yeah, best wishes,” said Susan, already at the door.
Jeff dipped his head, scribbled something quickly on a piece of paper, and handed it to Taylor. “Call me if anything comes up. Police work can be dangerous.” Then to Susan, “Tell your family in England ‘hi’ from the Formstaw Police Department. FPD.” He balled his fist when he said that last part.
Susan laughed, though he didn’t know why. “Sure thing.”
Chapter 9 “For being so smart,” Taylor said to Susan, “you do know this is technically a circus, not a fair. There’s a difference.”
“Not to me. And I think you’re wrong.”
“Fairs don’t usually have this many animals.”
Taylor and Susan were looking at the various caged animals on display. They were finally at the circus, and Susan was desperate to find the elephant. Looking around, Taylor noted that there was no one around them. Not one single person. She thought they might be in a restricted area of the circus, but Susan disagreed.
“Sue, see the big tent?”
“Of course, it’s right in front of us.”
“Exactly. And we’re around the back of it. We’re back stage! Look behind us.” Taylor pointed around. “Those are the performers’ trailers and cars. Besides look how dangerous it would be if people were allowed to stand around these cages with the lions in them. A little kid might stick a hand in and it might get bit off. I mean, where’s the railing that keeps people back? And for that matter, where are the people?”
Susan mulled it over. “First, I prefer to call lions panthera leos. That’s their scientific name. Second… I think you’re right.”
Taking a few steps back and pointing, Susan said, “Yeah, there’s a bunch of people over there. Let’s go over there.”
“Good idea.”
After ducking under several railings they had somehow previously avoided, they found themselves with the throngs of customers walking about, finding games to play, candy apples to eat, and waiting for the night’s circus performance. There were colors everywhere. Clowns with red noses and crazy make-up, individuals in different apparel, and many, many rides, from ships that swung up and down, making one want to throw up, to the gravity cages, to high-flying rockets. Kids screamed and adults talked on phones and game vendors could be heard “ooing” and “ahhing” depending on their customer’s performance.
Taylor searched the vendors until gasping.
“Let me guess,” said Susan, “Jason.”
Taylor started walking toward the dart-throwing booth. Susan stood there for a moment, considering her options. It was then that she heard an elephant roar. She ran to Taylor, who was already ten paces ahead of her, tapped her on the shoulder, and told her she was going to find the elephant.
“Good, good,” muttered Taylor, lost in a trance.
The dart-throwing booth was of a crude setup. A dartboard with balloons. A table separating the customers from the booth worker. And a great looking booth worker. That was all Taylor needed.
“Hey, Jason,” Taylor said as the last kid finished and she advanced to the front of the line. “Five darts, please.”
“Oh, hey, Taylor.”
Taylor collected her darts and stepped back to the chalk line. She threw the first one and it missed the dartboard entirely. “So,” she said, “how’s the motorcycle.”
“Oh, I don’t know yet. My mom won’t let me ride it.”
“Oh.” She threw the next one. Same story.
“You know,” said Jason, “you can take two steps up for the woman’s handicap.”
Taylor smiled. “Thank you.” And took two steps up. “Do you like my skirt?”
Jason looked down, his hair practically falling over his eyes. “Love it.”
She threw another dart. It hit the board but still missed the balloons. “I’m terrible at this.”
“No, no. You’re not bad. Sometimes I can’t even hit the balloons.”
Taylor offered a coquettish smile. Threw another one. “Really.” Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and she whipped it out. It was a text from Susan that said, “Help!!!!!!”
“I think something’s wrong. Got to go,” said Taylor quickly, rubbernecking, her hair whipping all about her. At that moment, she heard an elephant in the background and knew exactly where to find Susan. She ran about twenty paces when she remembered she’d forgotten to throw the last dart. Turning while still running, she jettisoned the dart. It zipped through the sky, over people’s heads (kids, don’t try this at carnivals), and hit the smallest balloon on the dartboard. Taylor muttered, “Easy as pie,” and continued running toward the elephant noise, which seemed to be coming from the backside of the large white circus tent.
She circled around the tent the opposite way than the last time, for that’s where the noises seemed to be coming from, and found Susan there.
“What’s wrong?” asked Taylor.
Susan pointed at a semi. Two men were prodding an elephant into it. “I think they’re stealing it!”
Chapter 10 “In broad daylight!” Taylor exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “You think they are stealing an elephant in broad daylight?”
Susan didn’t waste time. “Yes. The truck is all wrong. There are no license plates. And the men don’t seem to know what they’re doing.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
“Don’t you read the news?” asked Susan. “Last month a panthera tigris was stolen from a different circus. Remember?”
“A what?”
“A tiger. Sorry, I just like using the technical names.”
Taylor watched as the men prodded the elephant the rest of the way into the truck and pulled down the large door. Latched it.
“I think you’re right. What should we do?” asked Taylor.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll call the police.”
“Okay,” said Susan, “but they won’t get here in time.” Taylor didn’t have any time to stop Susan before she ran forward and yelled at the men loud enough for people at the vendors to hear. “Their stealing an elephant! Their stealing an elephant! Help!”
If anyone did hear Susan’s pleas, they probably thought she was insane. Knocked in the head one too many times. “Help! Help!” Taylor chimed in while dialing 911. She was just abou
t to press the talk button when one of the men came bounding out from behind the truck and tackled them before they could even scream. Another man was there within seconds. Then another man who they hadn’t even seen before. Three men in all.
As they grabbed the girls, Taylor’s phone flew out of her hand and bounced a few times on the asphalt before coming to a stop. She didn’t even have a chance to press the talk button.
Taylor and Susan were bound, gagged, and roughly thrown into backseat of the semi. When they didn’t think it could get any worse, they were blindfolded.
The eighteen-wheel diesel truck roared to a start and started driving, turning, and swaying as the elephant in the back freaked out. The passenger window was open, and Taylor could hear the ambience of the crowded circus fall away as the truck sundered off.
The three men were in the seats in front of them, and Taylor and Susan could hear everything they were saying. At first they were talking about how hard it was to round up that elephant. And then how proud their ringleader would be when they told him they had stolen an elephant. Then, of course, what they were going to do with the eavesdroppers in the backseat.
Susan wished she had never disobeyed the rules and gone behind the tent. Taylor wished she could get her hands free of the ropes that bound them. She struggled and pulled, but stopped when she heard one of the men’s cell phones ring.
“Hello,” one of them answered. A pause. “I don’t know it… Yeah, you’re going to have to tell me it… Hold on, let me get a pen and paper…” Taylor perceived noises of the passengers trying to find a pen and paper. “In the dash,” one of them muttered.
Finally, the man on the phone said, “Okay, I’m ready.” And this is where Taylor listened more intently than ever. The man wrote, then said, “Okay,” or, “aha,” or the like. Taylor thought whatever he was taking down might be important, so she kept count.
Susan, polarized to Taylor, was rubbing her face on one of the backdoor’s armrests. At last she got the tightly tied blindfold to flip up a little, just enough to see out the bottom of the blindfold, which she was good at after cheating at the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game at every kid birthday she’d attended.
Knowing she couldn’t sit up, for her captors wouldn’t want passerbys to see someone blindfolded in their backseat, Susan slowly raised her head to the window to see where they were being taken. She saw a flurry of hessian-blurred green colors passing, which meant they were in a wooded area. The blurred colors abruptly ceased, giving way to a larger scoped view, and Susan immediately knew their location. They were in the ritzy area of Formstaw. Taylor and Abby lived in this area (Susan lived in a track home like most people in the city). She saw they were passing a golf course. But just at that moment, one of the men told another to check on the girls, so Susan laid back down.
The man’s phone conversation was just wrapping up, and Taylor had kept count of whatever it was he was writing. Suddenly, the fast-moving semi hit a bump in the road and caused everyone to bounce. The whole thing creaked, shook, and jarred them like a ride at the circus. In response, the elephant roared and slammed into the walls again and the whole truck started swaying side to side.
Taylor didn’t know what to be more scared of—the elephant causing them to crash, or not crashing and the men disposing of them in the short future.
Either way, it wasn’t looking good.
Taylor continued tugging at the ropes. If she got loose, she could get Susan’s cell phone out of her pocket if Susan had remembered to keep it with her. Unlikely.
“Up here,” one of the men said. “Turn up here. We can kill ‘em in the woods.”
The truck slowed and turned onto a dirt road, and now they were bouncing up and down relentlessly. Taylor heard a ball rolling about on the dashboard. Something she’d noticed earlier but hadn’t paid any mind. It sounded like a golf ball. “Roll up your dang window,” said one of the three. The crank window could be heard slowly making its way up. When it finally did, the wind ceased and everything seemed much calmer despite the old cab’s creaking.
The truck stopped.
The driver sniffed several times and tapped on the steering wheel impatiently. Taylor could imagine all the dust the semi must have kicked up, which was now probably blowing past the windows. The driver finally pushed open his door.
Then, with an ominous squeaking noise, one of the backseat doors opened and Taylor and Susan were brutally pulled from the vehicle and thrown onto the hard dirt floor. Next, they were grabbed by the collars and dragged from the dirt road to softer dirt and finally to a leaf bed, which meant they were in the woods.
Though Taylor was about to be killed, she couldn’t help but thinking how dirty her skirt must have been getting. A few long minutes passed until the men let go of the girls. Their heads came to rest on the leaf bed, but they quickly squirmed up to their knees.
“Are you sure about this?” asked the driver.
“Yeah, they probably saw our faces back at the circus.”
Taylor and Susan spoke rapidly under their gags, pleading, but it just registered as unintelligible muffled noises. They quieted in frozen fear when the sound of a gun being cocked reached their ears.
Then…
Chapter 11 The girls heard a string of strange noises. Sticks cracking. Running. Shuffling. Some kind of skirmish. Wrestling. Metal, like a gun.
Taylor bit down in fear.
The gun shot! And shot, and shot, and shot!
It wasn’t long after until they heard the semi start up and speed away.
Someone pulled their blindfolds and gags off, and Taylor and Susan were relieved to see it was Jason. He had somehow scared the bad guys away.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” exclaimed Taylor. “I thought we were dead.”
Susan was kissing Jason’s feet. Literally. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks…” And on and on.
“Hey, it’s no problem.”
“How did you do it?” asked Taylor.
“Well, I tackled the guy with the gun. Then I shot the gun a few times at the men. I aimed for their legs just in case I missed and actually hit them. I was trying not to hit them, and, well, I have bad aim.” Then he laughed. “You on the other hand have great aim.”
Taylor laughed, understanding he must have seen her throw the dart. Changing the subject, he said, “Who were those guys?”
“We don’t know,” said Susan, finally gathering herself. “We saw them stealing an elephant, tried to stop them, and here we are.”
“Oh. Yeah, I heard you guys screaming, ran behind the tent, and saw the truck driving away. Naturally, I followed. Oh, and here’s your phone.” He gave Taylor her cell phone. “C’mon, let’s report this to the police.”
They followed him back to his car, and Taylor nudged Susan, whispering, “And you said he was dumb.”
As if on cue, Jason said, “I’m going to leave the gun here, though. My mom doesn’t let me have guns. Besides, I got to go back to the circus before I get fired. Your car is there, right, Taylor?”
“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Susan nudged her. “Told ya.”
After saying their good-byes to Jason, as he had to get back to the dartboard booth, they climbed into Taylor’s car. “That was crazy,” was all Taylor could think to say.
“That was too much for me. I’m out,” said Susan harshly.
“No, you’re not. This thing is bigger than we thought. Imagine if the bad guys are never caught and one day two unsuspecting people just like us end up in the same situation, but instead get killed! Would you want that on your conscience?”
“What I don’t know can’t hurt me? And besides, don’t you think that’s a little far-fetched.”
Taylor started her car. “Maybe. But there is reward money, remember.”
“That’s a salient point. So, where next?”
“Well, Jason’s not going to talk because, well, he is dumb. Conceded. And even i
f he does talk, no one’s going to believe him. Moreover, we need to tell someone about the elephant, but I don’t think we should tell anyone our story of being captured and nearly killed.”
“Not even our parents?”
Taylor sniffled. “I’m afraid we can’t. They’ll make us stop investigating.”
“Yeah, because they’re so mean, and they won’t want us to get murdered,” Susan said sarcastically. “Is that why we can’t tell them? Are you crazy, Taylor?”
“You’re right, Sue. They are good parents. Generally. But that’s just the point. They will make us stop, and we can’t stop now. Everyone will think we chickened out.”
“But they’ll understand if we tell them what just happened.”
“We’re not going to tell them, Sue. I’m committed. Are you?”
Susan sounded reluctant, but really, other than nearly being killed, was having fun, “Okay. I’m in. But we need to be more careful from now on.”
“Okay, I’m going to put Lieutenant Arterman’s number into my phone right now, just in case something like this happens again.”
“If something like this happens again, I’m out and never coming back in.”
After putting Jeff’s number into her phone, Taylor drove out of the parking lot.
“So, we’re going to the police now?” asked Susan.
“Yeah. That’s what I said.”
“Well, I can never tell with you. How are we going to explain our condition? We’re all muddy and dirty. And our hair is all messed up. And we have lines on our cheeks from being gagged.”
Taylor laughed. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“And don’t let our disheveled appearance disturb you, we’re actually quite proper when it comes down to it,” Susan told the receptionist at the police department. She had reverted to her English accent because the lieutenant and captain thought she was English.
“I’m afraid,” answered the receptionist, “that I can’t let you see the captain. He’s very busy and only lets people see him who have appointments.”