“Really?” Ms. Childress said. She raised her nose an inch as she said it. “Why?”
Ken didn’t have an answer. What museum guide ever questioned a visitor’s motive? They were usually just happy someone had an interest in their dusty doodads. With days left before graduation, he sure couldn’t say it was for a history class.
“Eagle Scout project,” Ken said. Damn, he didn’t even know anyone who was a Boy Scout, much less what an Eagle Scout project was. He’d just seen a plaque about doing one on a park bench.
“Really?” the woman said. Some of the tension eased from her face. “My Richard was an Eagle Scout. What’s your project?”
Ken wondered how he rated this inquisition that just kept burying him deeper.
“It’s a study of the impact of the founding families of Sagebrook,” Ken said. “How the generations made the town what it is today.” He pasted on a nervous smile and hoped he hadn’t spread it on too thick.
She broke into what for her passed as a pleasant face. “You’ll find that the founders continue to be the backbone of this community. We’ve…they’ve really made Sagebrook special.”
Ken gave the ball another push while it was rolling.
“The library is pretty sparse on local history. I noticed a book in the display case…”
“Oh no,” Ms. Childress said. Her face betrayed an alarm out of proportion with the request. “That book is far too fragile. It is only for display.”
Ms. Childress stood. The bottom of her skirt brushed the floor. She pointed to the rear wall with a flourish. “We have quite a collection of research materials, some published by the families themselves.”
Ken approached the wall. Many of the books were decades old and in far worse condition than the old text in the display case. Some of the books were ledgers and records from old businesses. He recognized a dozen volumes with “Abernathy Hardware” on the edge and dates from the Civil War. A collection of every local high school yearbook since 1926 had a shelf to itself. A number of other texts looked like long out of print local histories.
Ms. Childress returned to her desk.
One book on the shelf lay across the top of the rest, as if shoved there in haste. It was a thick volume with a black leather binding. White letters on the spine read The Tree.
Ken caught his breath. He remembered his dream about the tree on the hill. There was no way this was a coincidence. He shot a glance over his shoulder. Ms. Childress was engrossed in The Standard.
He slipped the hefty book from the shelf and cradled it in one hand. From the rough cut of the edges and the different textures of the pages, it appeared that they had been bound together at some later date. He opened it to the first page. The book’s spine wheezed.
Inside was a family tree, or more accurately, a forest of family trees. The first page listed a dozen couples along with the dates of their births and deaths. The entries were all handwritten in that beautiful, flowing penmanship working with a quill required. Ken recognized familiar last names: Pickney, Childress, Worthington, Adams, Parker, Reed, Fletcher among others.
Following each couple were their children, each couple with more than six. Many of the young life spans were tragically short. Were there victims of the Woodsman on this page? Ken checked the dates. There very well could be. All the births were after 1750. That was odd. The family trees weren’t important until after 1750, though the town was founded generations before that.
Ken flipped through the centuries of records. The last entries were three quarters of the way through the book. The penmanship had deteriorated to block letters, and the ink was ballpoint and boring. He ran his finger down a list of names that ran along the right side of the page, each with only a birth date, all after 1960. A lot of the names were familiar. A few were in his senior class. Some of the names had a red star beside them, most did not. His finger stopped at three unmarked names that were too familiar: Marc Brady and his brothers Albert and Daniel. If Marc knew he had the equivalent of Sagebrook royal blood, he’d never mentioned it.
He continued down the list and gasped out loud on one entry. Josie Mulfetta, sans red mark. The entry was in blue pen, but the date of death was in black. Someone was keeping the family trees way too up-to-date.
Ken’s gasp garnered Ms. Childress attention. She snapped to her feet.
“What are you doing with that book?”
“It’s fascinating,” Ken said as he popped it shut. “A town family tree.”
She was on him in three steps and yanked the book from his hand.
“That one shouldn’t be out. It’s not for public use.” She shoved it into the top drawer of her desk. “What scout troop are you from?”
The curtain needed to drop on this performance. Ken checked his watch. “I’ve got to go.” He headed for the door. “I’ll be back later.”
Ms. Childress followed.
The sunlight made Ken wince as he hit the parking lot. He didn’t look back until he was inside his car. Ms. Childress hadn’t followed. She wasn’t even looking out the window. Ken peeled out of the parking lot.
He drove home on autopilot as his mind focused on the museum discoveries. He was certain that the Woodsman had some connection to the founding families, a lot bigger one than Ms. Childress thought the Sagebrook peasants would want to know. Ken needed to make that connection.
The Dirty Half Dozen had a mission.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ken needed to recruit for the night’s foray. There was no question who he’d ask first. Only one of the Half Dozen could pick a lock.
Ken pulled up behind the Park Street Diner. Bob’s Duster sat next to the Dumpster. It was a tossup whether the patchwork-painted car was there for transportation or for removal with the trash. Ken took up his usual station by the rear kitchen door. The parking lot had a thick, black sheen in a direct line between the door and the Dumpster. The area’s pungent aroma was ten percent food and ninety percent decay, a combo Ken hoped he wouldn’t have to endure for long.
It wasn’t fifteen minutes before the back door slammed open. A big, gray, plastic trash can skidded through the doorway onto the pavement. Bob followed, dirty apron over a white V-necked T-shirt, hair a shade wilder than usual, unlit cigarette at his lips. He saw Ken and smiled.
“Drop by for a snack?” he said. He reached into the trash can and scooped out a soggy, half-eaten hamburger. “Here you go. On the house.”
“You know, I’ll pass.”
Bob dropped the burger and it hit the trash can with a splat. He lit his cigarette and leaned against the closed door. The key ring on his belt jangled against the metal door.
“I need your help finding out about the Woodsman,” Ken said. “It requires a slight case of burglary.”
Bob blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Fuck yeah, I’m in. When?”
“Tonight?”
“Gotta be after midnight,” Bob said. “I’m off at eleven thirty.”
“Perfect. We’ll meet you here. You care where we’re going?”
Bob took another drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. “Nah. I’ll find out when we get there.”
“You’re the man, Bob.”
Bob gave the laden trash can a one-handed hoist across his back. It had to weigh half his scrawny body weight.
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” he said.
Jeff’s phone rang minutes later.
“Are you alone?” Ken said.
“Yeah.”
“We need to put your skills to work. There’s information on the Woodsman at the Sagebrook Historical Society, but they don’t want to share. We need to go in there tonight and borrow it. You need to make sure we don’t trip any alarms.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“You installed the alarms at your house,” Ken said.
“Yeah, but that’s different.”
“You’ll figure it out, Sparky. Meet us at eleven thirty behind the Parkview Diner?”
Pause.
“My folks are usually asleep by ten thirty,” Jeff said. “I can probably get out the back door after that.”
“Bring whatever you think you need.” Ken hung up.
Jeff had no idea what he’d need. He knew what he’d need to bypass his house security system, but the museum’s would be different, professional. There was no way…
He also couldn’t be out all hours of the night. He had to study. Bob might be fine with a D grade or two, but Jeff was working with conditional acceptance at SUNY Albany, the same place Katy had selected. If his grades bottomed out he’d be doing Suffolk County Community College, which he equated with a second senior year at Whitman. And he’d be there alone.
Yet he’d agreed to go on the night’s little mission. His first thought was that his reputation for electronic wizardry was his claim to fame within the Half Dozen. There wasn’t a car stereo in the clan he hadn’t installed, and he’d brought a few blown amplifiers and turntables back from the dead.
But in the wake of his ready acceptance of the assignment, second thoughts plagued him. He was about to risk arrest on some alarm system guesswork. Arrest. Jail time. Even community college looked a lot better than that.
“Well, bite me sideways, I didn’t know how to do half that stuff ‘til I tried it,” he said to himself. “All for none and none for all, right? Nothing I can’t figure out.”
But he wasn’t going to figure it out in the dark at midnight. He headed out the door for a little daylight reconnaissance at the Sagebrook Historical Museum.
Chapter Thirty
It was just past midnight. Heavy cloud cover doused the moon. In the darkness, the three boys huddled in the woods at the rear of the Historical Society. No cars had passed by since their arrival.
“I checked the place out this afternoon,” Jeff said. “The system is straight out of Radio Shack. Window and door sensors. No motion detectors.”
“You went inside and met Ms. Childress?” Ken asked.
“Yeah, she’s a doll,” Jeff said.
“Knock off the chatter and let’s roll,” Bob said.
The three dashed for the back door in a low crouch. They tucked into the shadow at the base of the building. Jeff slung a small pack off his shoulder. He twisted his Mets cap around backwards to get the brim out of his way. He pulled out a two inch long metal plate wrapped in wire. The wires ran down to a blocky, twelve-volt battery.
“What the fuck does that do?” Bob whispered.
“Electromagnet,” Jeff said. He spoke with the tone of a doctor describing heart surgery. “The magnetic contact on the door completes a circuit on the doorjamb. When you open the door and break the circuit, the alarm goes off. I put this magnet up and it should keep the circuit closed.”
“Should?” Ken asked.
“Run like hell if it doesn’t.”
Jeff tightened the connections to the battery. He pulled a plastic egg out of his pack.
“Tell me that’s not Silly Putty,” Ken said.
“Bite me,” Jeff said. “Like you gave me time to shop for supplies. It will work.”
Jeff scooped a wad of clay-like Silly Putty out of half the shell. He applied it to one side of the magnet and pressed it into the top corner of the doorjamb.
Bob gave his head a shake of disbelief. He pulled out his wallet and extracted a gouged and faded Diners Club credit card. He worked it between the door and the jamb around the lock. A loud click sounded.
“Worn-out piece of shit,” Bob said. “My front door takes twice as long.”
“Gloves,” Ken said.
Bob and Ken slipped on a pair of thin winter gloves. Jeff pulled a pair of gray wool mittens from his pack.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Bob said.
“Screw you,” Jeff said. “The rest of the winter clothes were in the attic somewhere.”
Bob pushed the door open. The three tensed for the blare of the alarm.
Nothing.
In the darkness, the museum was all bulky black masses and inky shadows. Jeff flicked on a small flashlight and played it around the interior. He entered first and took a lookout position at one of the front windows. Bob followed Ken and his flashlight to the display case with the old history book in it.
Ken knelt at the rear of the display. He slid the door open and pulled the book from within. He double checked the title under the flashlight’s glare.
“Damn it,” Ken whispered. “I can’t take this book. I was in here asking for it today. Ms. Childress will see it missing in the morning and describe a redheaded teenager to the cops as a likely suspect. That narrows it down to about six kids at Whitman High.”
“Well we don’t have time to read the damn thing,” Bob said.
Ken took the book to the bookshelf behind the main desk. He ran the binding along the shelf until he found one about the same size and color. He pulled the doppelganger out. The title read Fish Species of the North Shore.
Outside, the heavy magnet in the doorway drooped a fraction of an inch.
Ken placed Fish Species of the North Shore in the other book’s place in the display. Given the low volume of traffic in the place, it could be months before anyone noticed.
Outside, a Suffolk County police cruiser rolled down the street.
“Cops!” Jeff whispered.
Everyone froze. Ken snapped off his flashlight.
The cruiser slowed to a crawl outside the museum. Jeff ducked down so little more than his left eye appeared above the windowpane. The cruiser accelerated away.
“He’s gone,” Jeff said and breathed a sigh of relief.
The magnet on the doorjamb sagged a half inch more. A few tenuous threads of Silly Putty stretched to hold it on place.
Ken snapped on his flashlight and returned to the far bookcase. He scanned it twice. No Family Tree book. He remembered Ms. Childress putting it in her desk drawer. He yanked open the drawer and played his flashlight inside. Jackpot.
He pulled out the book and flipped it to the last page. He wasn’t going to be able to take this book. He looked for some paper to copy the list of names onto.
In the doorway, the last few strands of Silly Putty snapped. The magnet dropped and hit the ground with a thud.
The alarm’s shriek pierced the night.
Jeff leapt to his feet and sent some wall-mounted artifact flying.
“We’re fucked!” Bob yelled.
Ken threw open the book to the last written pages. He grabbed the corners and yanked the sheets free. He threw the book back into the desk drawer and dashed for the exit. Bob and Jeff were already through it.
The boys bolted through the woods behind the museum. Tree branches whipped against their faces in the dark. Ken and Jeff blindly followed Bob, mostly by the jangle of the ring of keys at his belt.
Blue strobe lights lit the parking lot behind them. The boys burst through the tree line where it ended behind the village green shops. The Duster was nosed into a corner by one of the Dumpsters. The three jumped in and Bob was off in a cloud of burnt oil.
“Shit,” Jeff said. “Do you think—“
“No,” Ken cut him off. “We are away and clear. The cops will search the museum before they start searching for us, and we are long gone.”
Bob looked over his shoulder at Jeff. “You didn’t leave anything in there, did you, Sparky?”
Jeff held up his backpack. “All in here.” He’d even grabbed the electromagnet on the way out the door.
“And you got the book,” Ken asked Bob.
“What book?”
Ken’s mouth dropped open. “The book I handed you from the display case.”
“You didn’t hand me a book.”
Ken swiveled to face Bob. Bob’s face flashed bright and dark as the car raced under the streetlights. “Hell yeah I did. Right before I—“
Bob slipped the book from under his shirt and slammed it against Ken’s chest. “I’ve got the book. Mellow out.”
Ken exhaled in relief. “You know,
you can be a real dick.”
Ms. Childress responded to the call from the police since she had locked up that night. Even at two a.m., the woman had to represent her position, impeccable in navy pants and a light blue silk blouse.
Every light in the museum was on, and the room was better lit than any visitor had ever seen it. One Suffolk County cop stood watch by the door.
“Sorry to call you out at this hour,” he said. “But if you could tell us what’s missing, we’ll put out a list to pawn shops and dealers in the morning.”
She walked the aisles and inventoried the items from memory. All the easily fenced valuables were there: coins, money, Victorian pocket watches, jewelry. The firearms on display had the breeches welded, but whatever idiot broke in wouldn’t have known that. At any rate, they were all there. She gave each display case a quick glance. All were closed with no empty spaces. She studied the shelves behind her desk. Her eyes widened in panic as she saw the space where the family tree book had been. Then she remembered putting it in her desk. She yanked the desk drawer open.
The book was still inside. But it was upside down. She bit her lower lip and rolled the drawer shut.
“It doesn’t look like anything is missing, Officer.”
“The alarm probably scared them off,” the cop offered.
“Your quick response didn’t hurt,” Ms. Childress added. “I’ll lock everything back up when I go.”
As soon as the cop closed the door behind him, Ms. Childress pulled the book from the drawer. She fanned through it. She stopped at the two ragged edges left by the missing pages.
“Damn it.”
She went to the shelf of high school yearbooks behind her. She slipped out the crisp new edition for 1980. She flipped through the senior pictures as she dialed the phone at the desk.
“Hello?” answered a sleepy voice at the other end.
“It’s Martha,” she announced. She stopped turning pages at the “S” section, and her finger circled the picture of Ken Scott. “We have a problem.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Marc had a stack of books under his arm as he headed out for school the next morning. He’d been reviewing both bio and calc last night, the two weightiest texts. If there were a path to ending school without taking finals, he’d pay to walk it.
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