by C. L. Bevill
Lissa nodded. Tears welled ominously in her large blue eyes.
Brownie stared at the field. “The punk snuck in through the field, waited for Lissa to make like a tree and leave, and then bunked the plush penguin. We should take a glom at the field.”
Lissa said, “You really are going to find Mortimer?”
“We’re going to try,” Janie vowed. “Protect and serve, that’s our motto.”
It is?
Lissa watched them as they investigated the field. The goats were curious, too. Janie couldn’t resist saying, “Shoo!” to one. It made a sad noise, stiffened up, and fell over. It resembled a brown and white board. Janie said, “That’s just wrongity-wrong.”
“Ifin one came straight from the woods to where the picnic table is, then this is the quickest way,” Brownie said, ignoring the goat. The goats acted as if they had been stunned, but there wasn’t a stun gun about. That’s no fun.
There was a trail of sorts that led into the woods.
“Is this trail from the goats?” Brownie asked Lissa, who dawdled behind them.
“No, they ain’t been in this field for a spell. Maybe it’s a game trail.” She sighed. “But then there’s all kinds of kids who come to see the goats and the Christ tree, so it could be from them, too.”
Brownie followed the trail into the woods while Janie stayed with Lissa. He found a patch where there were animal prints and then something had been dragged over the animal prints. He took a digital photo. M-m-mortimer came through here after the animals made the print. But he looked further and found one section where the animal track stepped on top of the drag mark. Hmm.
He came out to a road that he recognized as the D-named road that Lloyd Goshorn had mentioned. To his left was the entrance to the Boomer farm. To his right was one way back toward town. It was also the way that Brownie and Janie would take to go back to the Snoddy Estate.
An old green Chevy truck pulled up to Brownie with a disturbing clunking sound and a blast of grayish smoke. Brownie said to the man who leaned out of the window, “Hey, Bubba.” He looked behind Bubba for the police and saw that his cousin was unencumbered by a legal presence.
Then he registered that Bubba had a black eye. It was a fresh black eye. In fact, it was so fresh that it wasn’t yet black. It was swollen and red and quite the doozy if Brownie was any type of judge. (And Brownie was; he’d had nine black eyes and the photos to prove it.) Bubba reached down and brought up a package of frozen Brussels sprouts, with which he applied to his blossoming black eye, although the Brussels sprouts were quickly becoming unfrozen.
“Ma sent me to find the pair of you,” Bubba said. Precious crawled over Bubba’s lap to rest her front legs on the open window of the truck door, pushing Bubba aside as she did. She barked once.
“I go back and get Janie,” Brownie said. “We got bikes.”
“I’ll drive around the way and meet you at the Boomer’s house,” Bubba said, and even Brownie was aware that there was a definite air of “Thou-shall-not-ask-questions.”
A few minutes later, the two children sat on the bench seat of the Chevy with a happy Basset hound between them. They waved at Lissa as Bubba turned the truck around. The bicycles had been placed in the back.
“Ma said to remind you not to run off without telling her,” Bubba rumbled.
“Dint we leave a note?” Brownie asked Janie. He glanced back at the forlorn Lissa, who was standing where they’d left her, lost and alone without her beloved p-p-penguin.
Brownie’s gaze stuck on Lissa for a moment. Abruptly, the youngest Boomer didn’t look lost or alone. Instead she was staring at them with an expression on her face akin to having a memory tinkling the edge of her brain. Her mouth moved, and Brownie could even read the word she said. It was, “Hey,” as if something had occurred to her. Brownie would have asked Bubba to stop, but the expression on Bubba’s face was intimidating. With the package of Brussels sprouts held awkwardly over his eye, he was switching hands back and forth to change the gears on the truck, all the while holding the steering wheel with his knees. Brownie decided that he would get back to the little skirt later and ask what was bothering Lissa.
“Oh, yes,” Janie agreed. “A note. Besides which good investigators must get to the crime scene early. The earlier the better. It’s a rule, and crimes have been committed.”
Brownie nodded. Janie is a stand-up dollface. “A penguin is missing. It could be a life or death situation.”
Precious barked again. Brownie scratched the hound behind one of her phenomenal ears. One of her legs twitched in time with the scratching. The leg thumped the bench seat like she was hitting a drum.
“A penguin,” Bubba repeated thoughtfully. “Well, ain’t that a shame.”
“It’s Lissa Boomer’s plush penguin,” Janie said as if Bubba’s statement made her angry. “It’s important to her.”
“You kids got to be careful when you go off,” Bubba said. “Folks would be upset ifin something were to happen to ya’ll.”
“You could give me back my stun gun,” Brownie suggested. “Then I could protect the two of us.”
“I know jujitsu,” Janie said. Her chin rose upward in a dogged fashion. “I don’t need a stinking stun gun.”
* * *
Supper came and went. Everyone was relatively quiet. Willodean joined them and cast frequent irate glares at Bubba. There were numerous phone calls for Miz Demetrice who went out of the dining room with pained sighs. Then she came back in, muttering, “Dang women cain’t do nothing by themselves. Makes me want to tie myself to an anthill and smear my ears with blackberry jam.”
“The Pegramville Women’s Club doing all right, Ma?” Bubba asked as he helped himself to his third piece of leftover chicken.
“Get your straw out of my Kool-Aid, Bubba Nathanial Snoddy,” Miz Demetrice said immediately.
Bubba glanced at his glass. Brownie knew it was iced tea. Brownie had milk, as did Janie, who was pushing her glass away from her with a mulish look. Who’s got Kool-Aid?
Willodean sighed and then gave Bubba another one of those long-suffering glances. If it had been a look from Brownie’s mother to his father, then his father would be sleeping in the doghouse without a blanket in a thunderstorm.
“We found some more missing things today,” Brownie said. He had an urgent need to interject something into the gloomy atmosphere of the house. “A plush penguin and a tree.”
Willodean frowned. “Missing things?”
“A spatula, two bras, a penguin, and a tree,” Janie ascertained. “We haven’t investigated the missing tree yet. It may be unrelated. Everything needs to be documented and correlated. What does correlated mean?”
“Bras?” Willodean repeated. Bubba covered his mouth with his hand and coughed.
“Double D’s,” Brownie said. “Lift and support. That’s what Ma says. I think she thinks hers are drooping.” He demonstrated with his hands, and Willodean had a distinctly blank look come over her face.
Finally, Willodean turned to Miz Demetrice. “Janie isn’t causing any issues, is she?”
“I’m sitting right here,” Janie said. “You could ask me that.”
Brownie would have adjusted his fedora in order to garner attention for the detective-like hat, but Miz Demetrice had made him remove it for supper.
“They’re detectives,” Miz Demetrice said. Her lips had gone curiously flat as if she was trying to keep something inside. “You’ll notice the pinstriped suit Brownie is adorned with.”
Willodean cast her green eyes upon Brownie, and her eyes took in the rumpled suit. “I was too busy making sure there wasn’t a stun gun in his hands. Or a Sharpie.”
“I promised I wouldn’t do that while I was here,” Brownie muttered. “Ain’t no one complained about it when I did it to the evil perpetrator.” He hesitated and added, “And we’re gumshoes, sleuths, private dicks.”
“Okay,” Willodean said slowly. “That explains what Sheriff John was talking about.�
�
* * *
An hour later, Brownie and Janie sat on the veranda, watching Bubba speaking with Willodean about a hundred feet away. Bubba waved his hands about. Willodean waved her hands about. Then Willodean stabbed Bubba in the chest with an index finger. Bubba winced.
“She mad?” Brownie asked Janie.
“Not sure.”
“I don’t reckon she’ll use her gun on him,” Brownie said.
“Naw. Auntie Wills never shoots anyone in the family.” Janie considered. “Hardly ever, anyway.”
“Bubba ain’t her family.”
Janie pursed her lips in evident concentration. “Some lady told me yesterday that Bubba and Auntie Wills got married, and they had thirty-nine bridesmaids and groomsmen. Told me they had an elephant carry the bride into the church. The elephant was dragging crumpled-up cans attached with white ribbons behind it. Also the elephant had the words ‘Got hitched!’ painted on its rump.” Janie looked confused for a moment. “Auntie Wills wouldn’t have gotten married without telling Grandma. Grandma would have shot them both.”
“Naw, they ain’t married. Just a lot of gossip around these parts.” Brownie eyed the pair penetratingly. “But he still ain’t her family.”
“He’s her boyfriend.” Janie’s face revealed distaste. “He loves her. Ugg. Grown-ups.”
“Yeah, well that don’t mean they’re getting married.” A thought occurred to Brownie. “Ifin Bubba marries your aunt, that would make her my second cousin by marriage, and you would be my third cousin by marriage or would it be cousin, twice removed by marriage? I think I’m getting a headache.”
Precious came up to the two children and maneuvered her way in-between the pair. Brownie appreciated the hound’s ingenuity as that meant she would get twice the petting. She rested her dogly head on Brownie’s leg while her tail thumped Janie. Both of the kids briefly focused on petting the animal.
“I don’t think it would make us anything.”
“What if we grew up and got married?” Brownie asked, consternation discoloring his face.
“I think you’re going to grow up and turn into a criminal,” Janie announced, “and then I will arrest you because I will be a police officer. I’ll visit you in jail.”
“Not ifin I have my stun gun.”
“I wish I knew what they’re saying,” Janie muttered.
Brownie watched Bubba’s face move. “He’s saying, ‘Oh, Willodean, you’re the purtiest deputy ever. Will you wash my socks?’”
Janie snorted. She imitated Willodean, “‘Oh, Bubba, will you be my special friend and reload my Glock for me?’”
Brownie chuckled. Then he frowned as he perceived the progressing situation. “Oh my. They’re kissing. That’s disgusting.”
“I might throw up,” Janie said quickly. “Let’s go look at that map again.”
They quickly fled inside and found the office with the map on the wall. Brownie found a few more push pins and put one in front of the Ford building. He stuck another one on the side of the map in preparation of when they might need it.
Janie stared at the map speculatively. “That looks kind of like a C with the bottom of the C starting right here, at Snoddy Mansion.”
Precious had followed them in and plopped herself down on the floor in-between the two children. She whined for a moment and then put her head down on her paw.
Brownie tilted his head and studied the map. “And ifin we take into account the time frame, it’s about the same. The spatula first, although Miz Adelia cain’t remember exactly when it went missing, then the bras, then the penguin, and possibly the tree.” He put his finger where the line of an imaginary C might go next. “We should go stake this location out, sister.”
“What is that place?”
“I think it’s the Moose Lodge.”
“Mooses have their own lodge? I mean moose. Mooses. Which one is right?”
“No, it’s the Loyal Order of Moose,” Brownie said. “My daddy is a Moose.”
“What the heck is that?”
“Beats me, but have you got something better to do?”
Chapter 7
Brownie and the Perplexing Puzzlement
Wednesday, April 4th
Janie appeared at breakfast the next morning wearing a new t-shirt and jeans. It said, “Give me your donut, now.” Brownie looked at the shirt and said, “We don’t have donuts.”
“It’s a joke about the police eating too many donuts,” Janie explained. “I didn’t think it was funny, but Auntie Hattie gave it to me. Where’s your suit?”
Brownie also wore a t-shirt and jeans. Miz Demetrice had laid down the law about the suit. “You cannot wear it every day of the week,” she declared when he had first come downstairs. “It has to be washed before it stands up on its own.”
Reluctantly, Brownie had returned upstairs and changed. His t-shirt didn’t have a logo or pithy saying on it, and he was slightly dismayed. But he did get to wear the fedora. Apparently hats didn’t have to be washed, although the hat wasn’t allowed to be worn during breakfast proper. Wore it yesterday at breakfast.
Miz Adelia was making French toast and humming a song, although she had briefly griped about the loss of her favorite spatula. “Dishwasher safe, dang it all,” she’d muttered. “I miss the slots on that spatula. Hope someone is having a fine time this morning with that there spatula.”
Bubba departed early. His black eye had finally turned black, but it hadn’t stopped him as he got coffee and headed out.
Miz Demetrice had been on the phone nonstop for most of the morning. The phone had briefly stopped ringing when she had stuck the portable device into a drawer and covered it with dishtowels. She slammed the drawer shut and forked the sign of the devil at it for certainty’s sake. At that point, she received a large cup of tea from Miz Adelia. Miz Demetrice collapsed into the chair across from Brownie and Janie and said, “Today is Wednesday, right?”
“Wednesday, check,” Janie said. “That’s a code 10.”
“What, Wednesday is a code 10?” Brownie asked.
“A code 10 is a known offender,” Janie said. “A code 10-c is a dangerous, known offender.”
“That would be Brownie,” Miz Demetrice said with a smirk. Brownie hadn’t been previously aware that older women could smirk the way that Miz Demetrice smirked. It was the smirk of an individual who knows she’s smarter, cannier, and more devious in nature than Brownie could ever hope to attain. It made him very much aware that his great-aunt was a code 10-c herself. Wow. I love visiting Snoddy Mansion.
“A 10-96 is the Dallas County Sheriff’s code for a crazy person,” Janie mentioned.
“We need to investigate the missing tree,” Brownie announced, unable to keep up with the undercurrent.
“Ah, the missing tree,” Miz Demetrice said, curling her hands around her cup of tea as if someone might steal it at any moment.
Brownie pulled out his notepad and consulted it. “It was allegedly stolen from the Ford building. Miz Holmgreen reported it.” His brows knit. “Or mebe she repeated something she heard. I don’t recollect.”
“A tree,” Miz Demetrice said again. “How much trouble can the two of you get into looking into a missing tree in the middle of town?”
Brownie was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to answer that. Fortunately, Miz Adelia started serving breakfast, and he was spared from an attempt.
Halfway through breakfast the drawer with the phone in it began to thunder madly, and Miz Demetrice retrieved the offending object, disappearing down the hallway, muttering words that Brownie fought to quickly write down in his notepad.
“That’s a 10-79,” Janie remarked around a mouthful of French toast.
Brownie waited for an explanation.
Janie swallowed and said, “Notify the coroner. She’s going to worry herself to death. What’re all the phone calls about?”
“It’s an ecret-say,” Brownie whispered. “We’re not supposed to know.”
Miz
Adelia was washing the grill. With her back turned to the children and fully twenty feet away from them, she said, “It’s a grown-up thing.”
“I hate it when they say that,” Janie said.
“Me, too,” Brownie agreed. Precious laid her head across Brownie’s foot and made a noise that was half a whine and half a plea. He slipped the dog a piece of French toast, which vanished from his hand in much the same manner as Judge Crater had once vanished from New York City. Brownie knew because he had read a book about missing people very soon after Willodean Gray had mysteriously disappeared. And no one had ever found a trace of Judge Crater. It really made a boy wonder how hard someone would have to work to completely cover the tracks of a crime. A worthy future pursuit of knowledge.
“So off to the Ford building,” Janie said. “Then we go over and check out the other place. The Moose place.”
Miz Adelia’s shoulders abruptly straightened up. She turned and looked at the two children.
“Ixnay on the oose-may uff-stay,” Brownie muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“What are you children up to?” Miz Adelia demanded. She waved the plastic spatula in her hand, then glanced at it derogatorily. “Dang cheap piece of crap, I mean, carp.”
“Detective work,” Brownie said seriously. “We need to see the scene of the crime. A tree is missing.”
“A tree,” she repeated. Miz Adelia looked at the spatula again. “What in tarnation does a missing tree have to do with a missing spatula?”
“It’s a puzzle, ma’am,” Brownie said promptly.
“Gathering clues to the investigation is vital,” Janie added.
Miz Adelia stared at them. “Fine. Be back by dinnertime. We’re having Yankee pot roast. With gravy. Lots of gravy. And I still ain’t taught you how to make rolls, have I?” She shook her head. “Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get into a van without windows. Scream bloody murder ifin anyone touches you. Did I forget anything?” She thought about it and added, “No nuclear Armageddon. No dismembering corpses. No turning into zombies. Ifin that don’t cover it, I don’t know what will.”
Brownie helped clean up the table while Janie helped wash dishes.