The Maypop Kidnapping

by C. M. Surrisi

  “. . . wish to heck Blythe would just call me . . . let me know where she is.”

  At about six o’clock, I hear floorboards groan and plates clink. On the other side of my door is a message in the form of a crab cake sandwich. I can’t remember if I’ve eaten all day. It tastes good. I check my phone. No texts from Ben.

  As I lay in bed at night, my brain keeps flipping between Owen Loney and John Denby, and I try to imagine one of them taking Ms. Stillford out of her house—and then what? She screams, right? Does the kidnapper drug her? Does he knock her on the head? Does she go willingly? Does he trick her? I know he surprises her because of the apple and the uncapped peanut butter jar.

  By nine o’clock, the convent lights have snapped on. They throw harsh light down the beach all the way to our house. The sisters started this last spring, and the renters grumbled about it all summer. Mom couldn’t get them to stop.

  All Sister Rosie said was, “I know dear, but we’re all alone here, and it makes us feel safer.” Sister Ethel added, “It’s just a little comfort, dear.”

  “I understand, sisters,” Mom snapped, “but most people are comforted with something a little less Times Square–like.”

  And when Mom complained about it at Gusty’s, Ms. Stillford said, “Phoo, Margaret, let them be.”

  I listen to the surf through the closed window, crashing in and pulling out. Dad says it’s like counting sheep for Maiden Rockers. But whether it’s going shssssh, like Ms. Stillford says, or going baaaa, like Dad says, I can’t sleep.

  11

  I wake up Sunday morning and immediately check my phone. No calls and no texts.

  I call Ms. Stillford’s number. My call goes immediately to voice mail. I think something horrific—the phone is at the bottom of the ocean. I call Ben and ask him, “Do you have anything to report?”

  “Nah. He’s reading the paper and drinking coffee.”

  “Watch him and text me,” I remind him, but I can tell he’s not focused on spying at the moment. He’s absorbed in Ace Hood and Nicki. It only makes one of my ears bleed a little. I know for him it isn’t the words. He can’t even tell you the words. It’s the pounding in his blood when he listens to it. It matches the pounding of his feet. That boy can run to the beat forever. But dance? Nope.

  “Call me, text me!” I say again.

  “Okay. Okay. But I gotta get out of here for a while. Go for a run.”

  I hear something like worry in his voice, like he’s thinking being in the house with his uncle isn’t such a good idea.

  “I think you’re safe. He’s only in criminal love with Ms. Stillford,” I offer.

  There’s a silence, then Ben laughs a little. “Yeah, well, he doesn’t even love me as much as that new nest of bobolinks, so I guess I’m safe.”

  The last thing I say to him before I hang up is, “Run fast.”

  * * *

  By noon, I’m itching to walk up to Loney’s Lobster Pound and look around, but Mom is sitting at her real estate desk like a prison guard. I could say I want to go for a walk on the beach. How could she deprive me of that? My beach, my seaweed, my gulls, nature, science, marine biology, ecology—it’s almost like school. That’s it. I’ll tell her I’m taking a science walk to make up for the missed first day of school.

  When Mom says “No way,” I’m back in my room, writing Zoe a letter. She doesn’t have any Internet on the Scottish sheep farm.

  Z –

  By the time you get this, hopefully Ms. Stillford will be safe. She didn’t show for the first day of school, and I think it’s because she’s been kidnapped by either Owen Loney or your uncle John. Mom refuses to believe me. She thinks Ms. Stillford is saving the whales. Wish you were here. Boo hoo. Write me! This is so scary. Don’t tell anyone I told you this because I am not supposed to be butting into Ms. Stillford’s life—even though someone should be—meaning THE SHERIFF!

  XOXOXOXOXO

  Q

  I take out my binoculars and watch for Owen Loney’s lobster boat. Nothing. I try to remember what else was taken from Ms. Stillford’s house. My mind is blank. I spin my rock. My cell phone is face down on my desk. I stare out the window.

  The Ouija board case vibrates. Ben’s reports start rolling in: He’s eating potato chips.

  Me: Not very incriminating.

  Ben: He wants to know if I want wild rice soup for dinner.

  Me: OMG! Ms. S hearts WRS!

  Ben: So does all of Maine

  Me: What did you tell him?

  Ben: No. I pigged out on 3 PBJs after my run.

  Me: What’s he doing now?

  Ben: Making WRS anyway.

  Me: See! He must be making it for her.

  Ben: He’s putting it in a plastic container in the fridge.

  Me: Did he eat any of it?

  Ben: Don’t think so.

  12

  My dreams are filled with pictures of Ms. Stillford gagged and tied to a chair. She shakes her head like she’s refusing something.

  I wake up late Monday morning with a nasty stomachache, reach for my rock, and snuggle under my comforter. The clock tells me Dad is long gone, but I hear mumbling down in Mom’s office.

  The sound of her voice irritates me. If she’d only listened to me, we might have already rescued Ms. Stillford from some remote fishing cabin. Life would be back to normal, if life can ever go back to normal after you’re kidnapped and tied up in a dank cabin with . . . cold wild rice soup? I imagine what it would feel like to be shivering and tied to a chair with someone you hate sticking a spoonful of soup in your face. It probably dribbles on your shirt.

  Ack! I throw off the covers and jump out of bed to shake the idea out of my head. I don’t get dressed or anything. I just storm right down to Mom’s office, where she’s just hanging up the phone. She looks tired but not mad.

  “It’s Monday morning, Mom.”

  “I know.”

  “And she’s not here.”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s not right.”

  “I know. I know. It may not be.”

  “So, you’ll do something?”

  * * *

  Mom’s idea of doing something is to call the morgue, and when Ms. Stillford isn’t there, to call hospitals. Listening to her give a physical description of Ms. Stillford over the phone shakes me. It makes the disappearance more real. At 10:00, I hear the US Post Office regional truck wind its way into town, grind its brakes, and turn up Mile Stretch Road. I know Mom is watching it from her office window.

  “I’m going to do the mail,” she calls up the stairs. “Do you want anything from Gusty’s for lunch? Maybe you should do some reading in your schoolbooks. This is the second day of school. Do some reading, at least.”

  “Mom! This is a crisis!”

  “All right. All right.”

  “Fried egg sandwich,” I call out.

  It doesn’t take long to deliver the mail in Maiden Rock. The summer people rarely get mail, and after Labor Day, there’s almost nobody around. But it usually takes longer than ten minutes, which is when Mom comes speeding back and pounds up the steps into the house.

  “Quinnie! I got a letter from Blythe!”

  I run downstairs. She’s in the kitchen, working her hands into surgical gloves.

  “Why are you putting those on?”

  “Normal procedure,” Mom says.

  “Normal procedure for what? I thought you said she was saving whales. Why do you need procedure for whale saving?”

  She ignores me and uses tweezers to take the letter out of the envelope. A single sheet falls to the table. It’s creased in two places like the start of an origami design.

  I reach for it.

  “Wait. Don’t touch it,” Mom orders. She buzzes around the table, taking pictures of the letter with her phone.

  “Have you read it?”

  “Not yet.”

  Her sudden shift into concerned sheriff mode frightens me. “Is it a ransom note?”


  “I don’t know yet.”

  She flips the envelope over and takes a picture of the postmark. I lean over and read it. HOULTON. MAINE. September 13, 2015.

  “Where’s Houlton?” I ask.

  “Up 95, near the border, just before you get to Ontario.” She takes a clear plastic bag from the drawer and slides the letter into it, then presses it flat with her hands and pushes it toward me. “Let’s read it. Take your time.”

  I sit down at the table next to Mom. With our heads almost touching, we read in silence. In my head, Ms. Stillford is speaking.

  13

  Dear Margaret,

  Forgive me for rushing off the way I did. I wish I could have given some advanced notice, but my cousin showed up and told me that our great auntie is failing. We are gathering at her bedside in Ontario. She is a 93-year-old nun and has been very special to so many of us cousins.

  I tossed some things in my cousin’s car and off we went. I forgot my cell phone but that’s no loss since the reception there is nil. I have no idea when I’ll be home.

  Would you also tell Owen Loney he can go ahead and repair my broken window frame on the top floor facing the convent?

  I’m dropping this in the mailbox in Houlton. I hope it arrives by Friday. My apologies to Quinnie for not calling to cancel Friday morning. Please ask her to put my mail on my desk. And please pray for a quick and peaceful resolution.

  Blythe

  Wait, sorry. Forgot to mail this. And I should tell you that another cousin who is coming up from Boston will be stopping by the house to get my phone and a few things, so don’t be concerned if it looks like someone was there. Now, I will send this with another cousin who is going to Houlton for groceries. He promises he will get it in the mail Saturday afternoon.

  I know it sounds like there are a lot of cousins. There are.

  All the best,

  Blythe

  I look at Mom. She’s waiting expectantly for my response.

  “It’s wrong,” I say.

  “Is it her handwriting?” Mom asks. “You see it more than anybody.”

  She isn’t kidding around. She totally wants to know what I think. I look again, closer.

  It has her familiar bold D on the “Dear,” with its slanty swoop. And there’s her curly ing. It makes me happy. I want to trace my finger over it. The words are evenly spaced like tiles on a scrabble board. I always wondered how she managed that. “Yes. I think it is. No, I know it is. But it’s like somebody was telling her, ‘Write it or else.’”

  “Focus, Quinnie. Just tell me exactly what you think is wrong about it.”

  I shake my head as if to clear my mind and look at the letter again. Sentence by sentence. As far as I’m concerned, it’s filled with clues that cry out, “I am not okay. Help me.”

  “Well, first of all, I never, ever heard of this ninety-three-year-old nun that has been very special to her. She told me about her grandmother, Tootsie, who was an aircraft mechanic during World War II. She told me about her two twin-boy cousins in Bangor who knocked out each other’s front teeth wrestling around the living room and who are both dentists now. She showed me the photo of her family reunion in Ontario and pointed to every face and told me every name and every funny story. And there was no old nun.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the part about telling Owen Loney to fix her window. She already told him that. I was standing right there in Gusty’s, next to both of them, when she told him to go ahead. And she knows I heard that, which could mean she’s trying to mention his name so we know he kidnapped her.”

  “Wait, don’t go there. Try not to read the letter to prove what you think. Just tell me what’s suspicious about it.”

  She isn’t mad when she says it. It’s like she’s decided to let me help, like a real detective.

  “The whole part about another cousin coming from Boston to explain the missing stuff, especially the part where the kitchen gets cleaned up, it’s too much trying to explain. And if the cousin got her cell phone, why didn’t she call us?”

  “It could be dead and without a charger,” Mom says. “But what else?”

  “At least she’s not dead. She wrote this letter.”

  Mom doesn’t say anything. She looks out the kitchen door to the ocean.

  “Mom?”

  She turns to me and touches my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know everything she’s sorry about but I get it that she’s sorry she didn’t take me seriously about Ms. Stillford. And my chest swells up with love for her and her simple, straight-from-the-heart apology.

  “Your instincts were right,” Mom says. “It’s so complicated, Quinnie.”

  Wait. Now it’s complicated. I sense a big but coming. There is always a big but coming when she says it’s complicated. It’s usually followed by you wouldn’t understand.

  “I should have been more open to your concerns, but Blythe does have a history, and you just can’t go around wildly accusing people of such things.” She’s talking more to herself than to me.

  “But”—now I’m the one saying but—“you agree something’s wrong?”

  “I do. Now go get those pages of notes you tried to show me the other day.”

  14

  One thing about my mom the sheriff. Once she gets on the scent of a crime, she is a bloodhound. Actually, my mom the real-estate lady follows the scent of a sale the same way, and Mom the mayor? Well, she’s been reelected seven times. Another thing about her? She’s stubborn. So, I guess it’s no surprise that we can’t agree on what to do next.

  We’re in her office. I’m sitting in the guest chair. She’s in the sheriff’s chair. She compliments my notes, says I’ve done a great job and that I was right to concentrate on motive, means, and opportunity. Together, we make a list of suspects.

  “It’s statistically likely to be someone she knows,” Mom says.

  At number one, I put Owen Loney and at number two, John Denby. At number three, Mom writes, Someone from out of town but who knows Blythe Stillford, and at number four, Someone from out of town who doesn’t know Blythe Stillford.

  Then we talk about our suspects’ opportunities to kidnap her, go back into her house, and mail a letter in Houlton no later than 3:00 p.m. on Saturday the thirteenth. A postmaster knows pick-up times.

  We don’t know when she was kidnapped exactly, but I attempt to persuade Mom that Owen Loney could have gone to her house at dinnertime on Thursday to fix the screen and could have used his boat to take her somewhere. He was in Gusty’s Friday morning and he could have gone to her house after I was there. He could have driven up to Houlton and back on Saturday except for the fact that Ben and I saw him going out to sea early Saturday afternoon. Okay, he’s not an absolutely perfect suspect.

  I also argue that John Denby could have gone to Ms. Stillford’s house at dinnertime on Thursday. It is strange that he cleaned his pickup on Friday. Maybe there was blood in it. He was in Gusty’s Friday afternoon, but we don’t know where he was Friday morning. Except, it would have been hard for him to be in Houlton, since it takes eight hours round trip. Ben would have missed him on Saturday if he’d been away that long. Okay, he’s not an absolutely perfect suspect either.

  So Mom argues that her two suspect ideas should move to the top of the list.

  “Owen Loney and John Denby both have the motive—love. Stop shaking your head, Mom!”

  Mom shakes her head harder. “That’s just not reasonable, plausible, or credible. I don’t buy it.”

  “So who has the motive, then?” I demand.

  “Someone who thinks Blythe has something that’s worth money. Jewelry, maybe.”

  “So why wouldn’t they just take it?”

  “It could have been a burglary that went wrong. Maybe she surprises them, puts up a fight, and they decide to take her along to keep her quiet.” Mom sounds like she’s convincing herself. “And they come back for the medicine and the clothes. Which suggests they know her and care about
her—or at least that they’re not killers.”

  “So where is she? Where did they take her?”

  Mom digs through a pile of papers on her desk and comes up with her iPad. “Suppose,” she says as she taps Google Maps and zeros in on northern Maine, “it’s a young, strong man who is either in the family or knows the family. He hears she has something valuable and comes to steal it. He finds her home and he panics. He doesn’t want to be discovered, so he grabs her and drives north. He knows he can’t take her across the border, so he takes her somewhere deep in the woods. He gets her to write the letter, and he mails it in Houlton. She figures it’s safer to play along.”

  She looks at me like she expects me to agree. I have to admit I can see it. I can picture it.

  I tip the iPad so I can reach the screen, and I swipe it toward the coast. Maybe this bigger screen will have a better display of the islands. “Let’s say it’s Owen Loney—”

  “Quinnie, if you’re going to do this right, you can’t have a one-track mind.”

  “My one-track mind, Mom, is that I want to find Ms. Stillford. Now, listen, Owen Loney takes her to a remote island on his fishing boat. Or John Denby hides her in the woods in a cabin. And she thinks if she’s nice to him, he’ll eventually come to his senses and let her go.”

  Mom stands up and paces while she listens and then says, “If Owen Loney kidnapped her, he’d never let her put his name in the letter.”

  “Okay, then what about John Denby? He wouldn’t care if she named Owen Loney in the letter. It would take suspicion off of him.”

  “Nope. If John Denby lets her put Owen Loney in the letter, he’s eliminating Loney as a suspect. It’s the opposite of what you said.”

  All of a sudden I remember something and run upstairs, yelling, “Wait, Mom, wait!”

  I rip through my room and find my backpack under a pile of clothes. I root around in it until find what I’m looking for, then rush back down to the kitchen.

  “This is Blythe’s lobster pin,” Mom says as I uncurl my fingers. “Where did you get it?”

  “It was on the floor at the café. I found it Friday morning. I saw it on her scarf on Thursday. It must have fallen off. It was on the floor by our table.”