“How long has he been down there?” Starr asked, turning on his blue light.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice shaking. “He said he was having car problems, so I went to pick him up. His air tanks were gone—and so was he. I found his spare tank by the pit, with his safety rope tied off . . . I can’t pull him up. How could he be so stupid? You have to save him,” she said, tears crowding her voice.
Starr flipped his siren on. “I’ll do everything I can.”
My heart sank. “I’ll do everything I can” isn’t the same as “I’ll save him.” Not the same by a long shot.
We sped across the bridge. The edge of Starr’s whirling blue light danced across the water and outlined an odd craft in the middle of the river.
Harm and me whipped around to stare out the back windshield. “What the heck?” he muttered, and it was gone.
Starr skidded into the inn’s drive and across the lawn, to our dig. We tumbled out, his flashlight beam flitting across the water flooding our pit, and the pit’s hodge-podge of broken timbers.
I tugged the rope Gabriel had tied to Tinks’s tractor, so he could find his way up. It was caught tight on something down below. “How much air in those tanks?” I called.
“For a man his size? An hour if he’s calm,” Starr said. “Less if he’s fighting for his life.”
“Bring those cars closer,” the Colonel shouted to the crowd as he scrambled out of the Underbird. “Shine your headlights over here. Don’t worry about the landscaping, get over here!”
“Get those timbers out of the way,” Starr said. Dale and me dragged the heavy chain to the pit’s edge, and Lavender hopped on the tractor. He lifted the claw time and again. One by one, the timbers rose.
Time after time, Gabriel didn’t.
Grandmother Miss Lacy looked like a short, sad statue ready to crumble.
“You ain’t breaking Grandmother Miss Lacy’s heart, slimeball,” I shouted at Gabriel, yanking his safety rope again. Nothing.
“Forget it, Mo,” Starr said, reaching for the rope.
I turned away and jerked the rope to the left, hard. It popped free!
“Pull him up!” I shouted, and the Colonel jumped in beside me. We pulled Gabriel up, but there wasn’t an ounce of fight on the line.
Deadweight, I thought.
Grandmother Miss Lacy burst into tears as Starr hoisted Gabriel to land, his arms limp, his wet suit gleaming.
“He’s not breathing,” Starr said, rolling Gabriel onto his back. “Call an ambulance. Now!” he shouted, and Miss Retzyl ran for the Impala and its radio. “Get that regulator out of his mouth,” Starr said.
I knelt in the thick shadows and slipped scuba gear from his mouth. Starr pumped his chest, Gabriel’s chin bouncing in time to the curt, steady pressure. “Breathe, you arrogant buzzard,” Starr muttered. “Breathe!”
Dale fell to his knees beside me. “Doesn’t seem right for him to meet his Maker hiding behind a mask.” He stripped the dive mask away.
Someone moved and a shaft of light fell across Gabriel’s face. My world stopped spinning. “That ain’t Gabriel Archer,” I said, my heart tumbling like dice.
“That’s Tinks Williams. What’s he doing here?”
* * *
The Colonel shouldered Starr aside, raised his fist, and slammed it against Tinks’s chest. “Get up, Tinks!” he shouted. “Lana needs you to drive. You’re late.” He hit him again.
Tinks sputtered and Starr shoved him to his side. Tinks coughed up an ugly river of water and chili, and flopped onto his back, gulping in air. “Am I dead?”
Somebody laughed high and hysterical.
“Stop it, Mo,” Dale said. “It’s not funny.”
“You ought to be dead, Tinks Williams,” I shouted. “You can’t dive. You can’t even swim! And no, you ain’t dead. Do I look like a flipping angel to you?”
Tinks closed his eyes and smiled. “Mo,” he said, very soft.
“Tinks, I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like you were robbing us,” Dale said.
“Dale,” Tinks murmured. He looked at us. “I had the treasure in my hand. Then something hit my head . . .” His voice faded as a distant siren wailed.
Dale took Tinks’s hand in his. Gently he pried Tinks’s pruney fingers open. Dale twisted a brass handle from Tinks’s hand and looked at me. “The handle from our treasure chest,” he said.
“I did it for you kids,” Tinks said, his eyelids fluttering.
Skeeter wedged in. “You were acting on behalf of the Desperados?” Tinks nodded and spit up a little more chili. “Congrats,” Skeeter said, looking at me. “The treasure’s yours. Claim it. Fast,” she added as Attila tore through the crowd.
I grabbed a shovel and scaled a mound of backfill in the crisscross of the crowd’s headlights—center stage. Dale scrambled up beside me. “Thanks to our consultant Tinks, Dale and me claim this treasure for the Desperados Detective Agency,” I shouted, and Dale stabbed the shovel into the earth like a flag.
“You’re all invited to the Treasure Grand Opening at the café a week from Saturday,” I said, and the crowd cheered.
“Where’s Harm?” I whispered. “He should be up here getting rich with us.”
We shielded our eyes to look through the lights’ glare. Attila had pulled Grandmother Miss Lacy aside. Odd.
“There,” Dale said, pointing. Harm and Kat stood toe to toe, her agent checking his watch, Mr. Red standing with his arms crossed. “It doesn’t look good,” Dale said. “Run.”
* * *
Dale and me skidded to a halt next to Harm. “Harm’s future’s in Nashville,” Kat said, glaring at Mr. Red. “Where he can be somebody.”
“He already is somebody,” Mr. Red said, very steady.
Feelings danced across Harm’s face like sheet lightning.
Dale smiled at Kat’s agent. “Harm didn’t get a good chance to audition for you,” Dale said. “Give us another try. We can sing Acapulco for you right here and right now.”
“He means acapella,” I said. “Kat’s probably too proud to beg for another audition, but I’m not. Let Harm and Dale audition now, please? Harm sings great—at least until his voice changes, which could be any minute,” I added. “Sadly, puberty doesn’t have a backup gear.”
“Nice try, Mo, but he heard enough,” Kat said, pushing me aside. “Come on, Harm.”
“Hold it,” her agent said. “Go ahead and sing, sons. But hurry. I have a plane to catch.”
This is it, I thought. Harm’s last-chance audition. Please sing it wrong.
Dale took the lead. Harm closed his eyes, took a deep breath—and came in late. His voice rose pitchy and rough, flat as rusty tin. They sang their song through, and their voices wibble-wobbled to the stars.
A coyote yowled somewhere distant.
Excellent, I thought. It couldn’t have been worse if I’d sung it myself.
I smiled at Kat’s agent. “See? Harm’s gold. As his business manager, I’d like to review the contract.”
He looked at Kat. “Really? You brought me here for this?”
“He was faking,” she said. “Only a genius can be consistently a quarter-tone flat. He’s good,” she shouted as he walked away. She snatched Harm close. “You’re taking my last chance from me? After everything I’ve done for you? You must really hate me.”
“Might be easier if he did,” Mr. Red said.
Harm sighed. “I don’t hate you, Kat, but if I went, you’d get tired of me again. The truth is, you can make me go, but you can’t make me sing. So really, what’s in it for you?”
Harm, I thought, watching her. He’s the treasure in this hunt.
“We could have been amazing. And rich,” she said. She looked at me. “Tough luck on your clue, kid.”
Grandmother Miss Lacy walked up and slipped her a
rm in Kat’s. “I’ll walk you to your car, dear,” she murmured, and they strolled away.
“Heck of an audition, son,” Bill Glasgow said, clapping Harm’s shoulder. He smiled at Dale. “Smart move, those terrible harmonies.”
“Thanks,” Dale said. “We’ll go back to singing good for our next gig. We could use a mandolin player.”
Bill nodded. “At home, sure. In public, it’s you two.”
At home. He said it just like that. Bill Glasgow and Miss Rose together make Dale at home in his own house, maybe for the first time. “Yes sir, heck of an audition,” Bill said.
“Heck of a life,” Harm said, letting his hand bump mine.
* * *
Minutes later, Grandmother Miss Lacy meandered up and placed a battered Christmas card box in my hands. “Kat asked me to give you this,” she said. “Because you love photography.”
I opened the box. An old photo of Tinks topped the pile of Polaroids. “That’s a terrible band uniform,” Dale said, looking with me.
“No dear, Tinks was a history geek. That’s a Revolutionary War uniform,” she said, and we stood together, watching Kat’s taillights fade away.
Dale smiled. “A treasure found and a friend kept. Can this night get any better?”
“It can,” I said, scanning the crowd. If we’re lucky, Gabriel’s still away from his camp, I thought. Kat’s definitely gone. Attila’s busy running her mouth.
I looked for Lavender. “It can get much better. But only if we don’t get caught.”
* * *
A half hour later, Lavender dropped us Desperados at the Old Fish Camp Road. We slipped through the forest, the air sharp with the scent of pines, Gabriel’s camp dead ahead. “Grandmother Miss Lacy said Gabriel’s gone,” I whispered. “If Tupelo Mother’s here, this is our chance to get her back.”
An owl hoooed and we ducked. Something clunked on the river.
We dropped low and slunk forward to peek from behind a privet hedge at the edge of the camp. The ramshackle house sat still and dark, its porch listing. In the side yard, the GPR and three camp chairs huddled near a cold fire pit.
I peered down the rickety dock. The clouds shifted and moonlight glinted against a small airplane at dock’s end, its cargo door gaping open.
“That’s what I saw when we crossed the bridge,” Harm whispered.
“It must have those little canoes on its wheels,” Dale whispered.
“Pontoons,” I said as a tall, thin man jumped from the plane, onto the end of the dock. He snatched a canvas covering several boxes, and looked around like a wild animal.
We ducked, and he went back to work.
“Gabriel’s buddy,” Harm whispered. “From the graveyard.”
I thought back to the graveyard, to the tall, thin man spying on the dead as he and Gabriel tried to solve our riddle. “That’s him.”
The man grunted softly as he picked up the first box and heaved it into the airplane.
We crept nearer as he loaded a smaller box and turned for the third—a thin, rectangular package. “That’s Tupelo Mother!” I whispered.
“Stop, thief!” I shouted. He turned to run to his plane as Dale spurted past me and dove for his ankles. The thief spun, sending Tupelo Mother spinning into the air.
Harm sprang like a cat. He batted the painting into the air and shot crazily down the dock, grabbing at the portrait.
Dale wrapped his arms around the man’s leg and closed his eyes, stubborn as a cocklebur. “Get off me,” the thief shouted, kicking.
I lowered my shoulder and charged, crunching his ribs. He grabbed my arm and spun me around, shooting his arm across my throat and cutting off my air. I ducked, turning my head, and bit him. Hard.
He screamed and body-slammed me onto Dale.
The man jumped into the airplane. Its engine coughed as Harm ran up, Tupelo Mother tucked beneath his arm, and helped us to our feet. He pointed to the numbers on the tail of the plane as the plane pulled away from the dock. “Remember those numbers,” he shouted. “Dale, get the letters. Mo, the last three numbers. I got the middle.”
The little craft sped down the river. “Whatever he just took, Tupelo Mother ain’t it,” I said as the plane lumbered into the sky.
* * *
Dear Upstream Mother,
Good news! Harm stays in Tupelo Landing, plus I told him I love him and I didn’t die from it! He didn’t say it back but he bumped hands with me, which is similar for middle school.
More good news: Tonight we staged our Valentine’s Extravaganza, which I think people will talk about for years to come. Then I helped save Tinks’s life, bit a thief, recovered a stolen painting, and called in our airplane numbers to Starr.
The Colonel’s holding Tupelo Mother until we need her.
That’s the good news. Now this: I had to turn down a clue to you to help Harm stay. Also we got just one more Always Man Letter out. I ain’t holding my breath and I don’t want you holding yours either.
Please don’t lose heart. I know for sure there’s another clue somewhere, and I won’t stop looking until I find it. I promise.
Mo
PS: We found the treasure. I am stupid rich!
* * *
I’d almost drifted off when I remembered Kat’s photos. I smiled. Grandmother Miss Lacy must have made her leave those behind, I thought, because Kat ain’t in a mood to be sweet to me. I snapped on my lamp and opened the box of black-and-whites.
I lifted a photo. Tinks in his hideous uniform.
Harm as a little boy, wearing shorts and eating a cracker. Cute.
A photo of Kat standing before an old restaurant, costume sharp, hat tipped back the way Harm tips his back. She smiled twenty years younger, twenty years less used up. I flipped it over. “Cowboy Cadillac Crabhouse Café. Langston, NC. Knocked ’em dead. Kat.”
Cows, cars, crabs . . . My heart jumped.
She didn’t give me a photo of her. She gave me her clue—a photo of my sign.
“Miss Lana, Colonel!” I shouted, dialing Harm’s number. “Wake up! I found a way back home!”
Chapter Thirty
A Heart Full of Maybes
The next morning at the café, Half-Drowned Tinks and Treasure were the Topics du Jour. But not for long.
At eight a.m., I stepped up on my Pepsi crate. “Attention!”
“Own the stage, sugar,” Miss Lana whispered. “Be one with the moment. Project.”
I projected. “The Desperados will open Blackbeard’s treasure a week from Saturday. But today, I want to talk about a different treasure. A treasure of the heart.”
Dale raised his hand. “Why do we have to wait so long to open Blackbeard’s treasure?”
“Good question!” Mrs. Little shouted.
Dale kills me. Because we don’t know how to raise a treasure? Because if nothing’s down there, we need a Plan B? Because I got something more important to do?
“Because we got school,” I said as Gabriel strolled in.
“Sorry to stand you up for last night’s little show, Miss Thornton,” he said, veering toward her. “I took in a movie instead. Perhaps I should have called.”
Her glare stopped him in his tracks.
“You should have,” she said. “But then I’d never have gone to get you, or noticed your missing dive gear. And in that case, Tinks would be dead.”
“And we wouldn’t have Blackbeard’s treasure,” I added.
Gabriel looked like a little kid who’d just dropped his ice cream. “You found the treasure?” His face went red. “Ridiculous. I’m the professional, and you’re . . .”
“Rich,” Dale said, taking Sal’s hand.
“Gabriel, do sit down,” Grandmother Miss Lacy snapped, and he collapsed next to Attila, his face going soft and pale as raw dumplings.
Miss Lana says al
ways savor the moment. I savored.
“Today,” I said, “we got a lead on a treasure I been hunting all my life. Harm?”
Harm stifled a yawn. “Sorry,” he said. “We’ve been working on this all night.”
He strode to our North Carolina map, by the jukebox. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to Tupelo Landing. “Thanks to Kat, we now know Mo’s birth sign came from Langston—here. And we know the floodwaters generally moved west to east the night Mo was born.” He drew a line a little west of Langston. “So this is the edge of our search zone.
“We think Mo’s Upstream Mother got the scratchy fix-it wool for her sweater from Contectnea Wool, here,” he said. “She may have even worked there. Sal?”
Sal hopped up and took Harm’s Sharpie. “The average commute in our area is about twelve miles. So if she worked at Contectnea Wool, she probably lived somewhere in here,” she said, drawing a circle. “Dale?”
Dale rose, holding a photo. “Here’s Always Man pumping gas on a Main Street. Because of a license plate, we think he maybe lived or worked in a town ending in TON.”
Harm drew lines under several little towns on our new search map, each ending in TON. He drew circles twelve miles out from each town, with several circles overlapping. “Always Man could have lived in one of these areas.”
Mrs. Little scowled. “Your map looks like an ugly flower.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “Always Man knew Upstream Mother, whose name starts with a J. We’ll show his photo, and describe her sweater and pendant.”
Mrs. Simpson sniffed. “You don’t have much to go on.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I got a heart full of maybes and a mind full of probably-nots. I’m following my heart.” Miss Lana nodded.
“That would make a good country song,” Dale muttered, but again he rose and faced the crowd. “Now we need serpentdipity, and you all,” he said.
The Law of Finders Keepers Page 21