The Maypop Kidnapping

by C. M. Surrisi

  Dad, John Denby, and Mr. Philpotts show up to collect us kids, while Ben notes that the yellow tape is made of “durable, resilient, tear-proof plastic.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I ask Mom if the sisters are going to be charged with kidnapping Ms. Stillford. Mom doesn’t tell me, but she does question the sisters in her office for a long time. I sneak down the stairs and press my ear to the closed door.

  “Start from the beginning, Sisters.”

  “We are so sorry,” Sister Rosie says. “We didn’t mean any harm. We were frightened.”

  Mom presses them. “I understand that. I want to know how all this happened.”

  “Well.” Sister Ethel’s voice has more than a little worry in it. “All right, then, to go to the very beginning, the summer before last, the monsignor told us that the convent wasn’t exactly making sense financially. I suppose that should have been obvious.”

  “And?” Mom says.

  “And . . . ,” Sister Rosie says, “he told us he might have to close it down and sell it, since the property has become so valuable. So, Sister Ethel and I decided we had better raise some money to save the convent. Ethel and I, we were talking to Blythe about the cats. Blythe wanted us to take them to the shelter—”

  Sister Ethel cuts her off. “It’s not about the cats, Rosie. We were telling Blythe we needed to raise money, and she suggested we sell tea on the Internet. She’s an expert gardener, you know, Margaret—and she created a tea for us to grow and sell.”

  “Speak up,” Mom says. I realize she’s recording their interview.

  Sister Ethel continues, more loudly. “We didn’t know how much more . . . potent the fertilizer would make it.”

  Sister Rosie adds, “And we’d been getting bigger and bigger orders from this one buyer. Very demanding about getting the tea on time. And when we got a little behind on his order, he threatened to come to the convent.”

  “And Blythe stopped by on Thursday at dinnertime,” Sister Ethel continues. “She said she’d made a cup from the most recent batch, and she thought it was too strong.”

  “She wanted us to stop selling it and have it tested.”

  “Tested for what?” Mom asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Sister Rosie. “To see if it’s not safe to drive after you drink it, or something like that.”

  “We tried to explain that we needed to finish just this one order for this very nasty customer,” says Sister Ethel, “but Blythe said if we didn’t stop selling it she would tell you, Margaret, and we said we were shipping that day, and Blythe was standing in the solarium entryway, and we kept saying ‘after this one order,’ and she kept saying no—”

  The room goes quiet, and I get ready to run for the kitchen. Then I hear a nose blowing like a Canadian Honker, and I realize that Sister Rosie is crying.

  Sister Ethel says, “And we’re not proud of this in any way, and we’ve apologized fifty ways from Jerusalem to Blythe, but we panicked and . . . urged her into the bedroom next to the solarium.”

  “Urged?” Mom asks.

  “Do we need a lawyer?” Sister Ethel asks.

  Mom’s voice becomes a little more official. “You can have a lawyer at any time, sisters, but you are not under arrest. I am only trying to determine what happened.”

  “We’d like to think that Blythe was our guest,” says Sister Rosie. “I fixed the room nicely and brought her lovely meals.”

  “When did she become your guest?” Mom asks.

  “Oh, let me see,” says Sister Ethel. “So much has happened. Yes. It was Thursday, about dinnertime, when Blythe uh . . . came to stay.”

  “Did you go to her house any time after that?”

  Yes, Mom! Thank you for asking that.

  “That was me,” says Sister Ethel. “I went over Friday morning and cleaned and picked up a few things for her. She needed her medications.”

  “What about the letter that Blythe wrote to me? Do you know anything about that?”

  It’s so quiet for so long that I get nervous the door will fly open.

  “Have you talked to Blythe yet?” Sister Ethel asks.

  “I’m talking to her this afternoon.”

  “We’d really like to not comment anymore about Blythe at this time, if that would be okay with you, Margaret.”

  * * *

  Mom and the sisters spend the rest of the morning in her office, mostly talking about the rockers and the Internet and the tea shipments. I lose interest when they reach the point where I know most of it. But that afternoon, when Ms. Stillford comes over to talk to Mom, I’m back at the door, all ears.

  “Do you mind if I record this, Blythe?” Mom says.

  “I do, Margaret. No recording, please.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll tell you everything in my own way, but no recording.”

  “Fine.” Mom’s tone is strained.

  “The sisters needed some help raising funds,” Ms. Stillford begins, “so I put together a little tea recipe for them. Mainly maypop, or passionflower. Actually it’s Passiflora incarnata. I thought it was clever. They packaged it as Sanctity Tea. ‘It’s not only for relaxing, it’s for giving.’”

  Mom doesn’t laugh, but I smile thinking about how tickled the sisters were when they told Ella and me about it.

  “I showed them how to grow it hydroponically to get a fast yield, but they got some bat guano on their own. The next thing I knew, I brewed some, and phew, it was a very strong.”

  “So they enhanced the relaxation quality?” Mom asks.

  “They didn’t do it on purpose. But the minute I tasted it, while I was fixing dinner Thursday evening, I walked over there and told them not to sell it until we could find out if it was safe.”

  “What happened then?” Mom sounds eager.

  Ms. Stillford is quiet. She’s choosing her words carefully. “They . . . wanted to complete a big order and . . . I wanted them to hold off . . . and they urged me to stay with them and think about it.”

  “They urged you to stay?” I can hear in Mom’s voice that she can tell Ms. Stillford’s using the same word as the sisters. “Have you talked to the sisters since—well—since you ended your little stay with them?”

  “I have. I spoke with them last night.”

  I imagine the sisters and Ms. Stillford sitting in her living room, drinking tea—not Sanctity Tea—and talking over everything that happened. The sisters are so, so, so sorry, and Ms. Stillford is upset but understanding. That would be like her.

  “What about the letter you sent me, Blythe?” That would have been my next question too, Mom.

  “Hmmm.” Ms. Stillford pauses as though she hasn’t thought about the letter until this very moment. “I wrote the letter so no one would worry.”

  “If you were concerned about the rest of us worrying, why didn’t you try to escape?”

  “You kind of had to be there, Margaret. I thought it would be over as soon as they delivered their last order. It just . . . dragged on a bit.”

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this, Blythe,” Mom says. “Covering up for them. Why? Kidnapping is a very serious matter.”

  “I’m not happy about this either, Margaret, but I refuse to press charges against these two women. What they did was foolish—stupid, even. But not malicious. I’ve suffered no real harm that I can’t forgive in my own time, in my own way. Plus, they have a higher power to answer to.”

  Mom and Ms. Stillford have never argued about anything this serious before, but the conversation goes the same way as the others. They end up agreeing to disagree.

  * * *

  The next morning, Ella, Ben, and I are in Gusty’s parking lot when we see the sisters riding out of town in the back of the monsignor’s big black car. Sister Ethel is looking straight ahead with a stone face, like she’s headed for the big day of reckoning, and Sister Rosie is staring out the window. When she spots us, she gives a feeble little wave. Later that day, the monsignor is in Mom’s of
fice for an hour, but I can’t get within ten feet of it because Dad is home.

  That afternoon, Mom, Mr. Philpotts, and John Denby take me, Ella, and Ben to the Rook River prosecutor’s office, where we identify pictures of Skullfinger, Stevie, Trinka, and Bin. We might have to be witnesses at their trial, according to Ms. Durbin, the prosecutor. They’re looking at charges for kidnapping, assault, terroristic threats, and on and on.

  Ben immediately wants to know whether they were selling the tea as a drug, too.

  Ms. Durbin smiles. “Well, the combination of the hydroponic process and that fertilizer may have enhanced the natural sedative properties of the leaf, but these guys were not really interested in that. It turns out this maypop has such an unusual smell that, when used as a packing material, it fools the drug-enforcement dogs.”

  “They only wanted it for packing material?” I ask.

  “Correct. But that only works until the dogs are trained on the scent, which they now have been, so their crime spree was all for nothing.”

  “What does it smell like?” Mr. Philpotts asks.

  “If you mash it up, it smells like a really stinky old rubber shoe,” Ms. Durbin says.

  “I smelled that in the solarium,” I say. “I thought it was Stevie’s stinky feet.” That gets a good laugh.

  As we leave the office, we see the sisters walking in with the monsignor.

  “I guess the sisters are witnesses too,” I say to Mom.

  “They sure are,” Mom answers and shakes her head. “They are pretty darn lucky, if you ask me. They could very easily be here under different circumstances.”

  I know exactly what she means, and I know enough to let it drop.

  39

  I dread the time when I will have to face Mom and Dad about my part in all of this, but I know it’s coming. It turns out the confrontation comes at dinner after we get home from the prosecutor’s office. They’ve recovered from the fright of my being in the convent, and Mom is starting to figure out that I violated pretty much every order she gave me.

  The meeting is so serious that Dad cooks dinner at home and Mom turns off her phone.

  Dad slides a plate in front of me filled with buttered brown bread smothered in molasses baked beans. On any other night I’d dig in, but not tonight. Tonight my throat is closed up tight. I can’t bring myself to spear even one bean with a fork tine.

  Mom’s beans are untouched too.

  So are Dad’s.

  “I’ll start,” Mom says. She pushes her plate an inch away from her. “This is not about me being the sheriff. I want to be clear about that first.” She looks at me like she expects me to nod. So I nod. She continues. “It’s about me—and your dad—being parents.” They both look at me. I nod. She continues. “It’s about the fact that every building in this town could burn down, and every valuable thing could be stolen, and every summer person could speed, and no one, I mean no one, could recycle—Gusty’s could even go broke—and we wouldn’t care, if it meant that you were safe.”

  I nod even though my head is down and tears are starting to fall from my eyes in big drops onto my shirt. I wait for Mom to say, “What were you thinking, Quinnie?” But she doesn’t.

  Instead she says, “I know what you were thinking, Quinnie. You were first and foremost concerned about Blythe’s safety. I understand that. But can you see that Dad and I are first and foremost concerned about your safety?”

  I look up just enough to see Dad gripping the handle of his knife so tightly that his palm has turned white. Something about this opens my sob dam. I keep expecting Mom and Dad to come over and hug me or put their arms around me, but they don’t.

  “I thought we’d lost you, Quinn.” Dad’s voice is throaty. “I was never so scared in my life.”

  It’s quiet for a long time, and no one moves. Something tells me I should explain myself, defend myself, but something else tells me that’s not what they want to hear. But I can’t help myself.

  “I’m not that kind of person, Mom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t just sit by when I think people need me, when I think I can help.”

  “Which makes you exactly like your mother.” Dad gets up and hugs me. “But you can’t be sheriff yet, Quinnie. You’re only thirteen.”

  Mom follows Dad up and wraps her arms around me. We’re having a family hug-cry.

  “I’m sorry,” I say into Dad’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom says into my hair.

  “I won’t do anything like this ever again,” I add. “Not that way.”

  Mom backs up and holds me at arm’s length. “What do you mean, ‘not that way’?”

  40

  So, we work out a few things. I concede that I made some dangerous decisions that I shouldn’t have. Mom concedes that she could have explained the investigation process to me better, so I didn’t think that not enough was being done. Dad concedes that he will brew caffeinated coffee after noon since Mr. Philpotts has been complaining about it solidly for two weeks. But mostly, we all hope our mightiest that nothing bad ever happens in Maiden Rock ever again.

  That’s when Mom sets up a town coffee talk for the next day at Gusty’s and invites everyone who helped in the search and rescue, and convent arrest, and Abbotts fire. It’s kind of a Maiden Rock thank-you.

  At eight thirty the next morning, Ella, Ben, and I walk down Mile Stretch Road toward the café. Cars cruise up and down like it’s summer. Ella tells us how her dad gave her the “third degree,” detective slang for interrogation, about this whole mess. “He was ninety percent yelling at me and ten percent gathering good stuff for a book.”

  By nine thirty, the Gusty’s parking lot is almost full. Ella, Ben, and I settle in to our regular table.

  “Hey,” Ben says. “Guess how far underwater chocolate can be before a dog loses the scent?”

  Ella and I look at each other and give him a coordinated eye roll. He laughs. “Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, when you really need to know, don’t ask me!”

  Dad brings a plate of cinnamon buns to our table. “Anyone for a glass of good old milk?” he says.

  “Oh, yeah. I could drink like a gallon,” Ben says.

  I can’t wait for the action to begin. Mom told me there’d be a few exciting announcements.

  Officer Dobson and some firemen come in. They shake hands all around and clap each other on the shoulders. A boy who looks like he’s in high school holds the door open for a woman I don’t recognize. She’s ancient-looking, dressed all in black and leaning on a walker. Ben announces to our table, “That’s Miss Prunella Abbott, last remaining direct descendant of the original Abbotts.”

  Ella says, “And who is that cute guy with her?”

  “No idea,” Ben says and shuts up.

  The monsignor trails Miss Abbott, entering along with another woman, a younger woman in a white blouse, a sweater vest, and a short black headscarf.

  “Who’s she?” Ben asks us. Ella and I both shrug like we don’t know.

  “Everyone!” Mom yells above the chattering crowd. “Officer Dobson and I have a few things to report. Carl? You wanna come up?” Mom’s least favorite police officer lumbers to the front of the room and stands next to her, holding his cap.

  “First of all,” Mom says, “I want to thank Officer Carl Dobson for helping apprehend the suspects.”

  The room erupts in applause, and Office Dobson actually blushes.

  “Second, I’d like to report that the four perpetrators are being held without bail until a trial date can be set. You may have heard they were trying to steal the convent’s supply of tea as an illegal-trafficking tool. For any of you who bought the tea, it’s perfectly safe, but it doesn’t have the most pleasing aroma.

  “And now,” Mom continues, “I’d like to turn the floor over to the monsignor, who has an announcement.”

  Heads turn to the monsignor as he stands up.

  “Let me say, first, that the fright o
f the recent events has focused the archdiocese’s attention on the needs of the convent,” he says. “So, I’d like to introduce Sister Cecilia.” The young nun rises. “Sister Cecilia has an MBA, and she’s going to come to Maiden Rock and manage the convent’s renovations—and its transition to the new Maiden Rock Spiritual Center.” He smiles and a few people applaud. “More importantly,” he continues, “this is going to create a lot of construction jobs here in town, and we are very happy to announce a priority to local workers.”

  The crowd erupts with enthusiasm.

  Mom steps forward again. “Okay, then. Thank you, Monsignor.

  “Next. I’d like to give the floor to Miss Prunella Abbott, who has come here today, all the way from Auburn, to talk to you all about the fire. As you know, the Abbott family lost its entire compound here a few days ago, and we are all so very sorry for them.”

  Miss Abbott’s young companion, who—I agree with Ella—is pretty cute, helps her stand and steady herself on her walker. Miss Abbott’s voice is frail and hollow as she tells us about growing up in Maiden Rock and owing something to the town.

  Mom comes to the rescue. “And Miss Abbott has a great surprise for us. The Abbott land will be dedicated to the City of Maiden Rock as an ocean-view park.” She barely finishes the sentence when everyone starts clapping.

  “And folks, before Blythe arrives, I’d like to ask for your cooperation and neighborliness in not asking her about her disappearance. She’s been through an ordeal, and she’s recovering at her own pace. More than anything, she needs our friendship, not our questions.”

  Everyone in the café nods. A silence hangs in the air until someone coughs, and the crowd falls back into buzzing about the new jobs and the park.

  Dad’s delivering an order of cinnamon buns to a table by the door when Ms. Stillford walks in . . . accompanied by Owen Loney. She has her arm through his arm, and the smile in her eyes says she’s doing fine. Owen Loney pulls her chair out for her and goes for coffee. He walks up to the counter next to John Denby and puts his hand on John Denby’s shoulder. And John Denby’s lips get a friendly lopsided twist!