Easy as One Two Three (A Flap Tucker Mystery) Read online

  “I go to school.” She frowned. “They don’t.”

  “Right.”

  “Plus I go on the Internet.”

  “You what?"

  “I go on the Internet. They never even heard of it.”

  “It’s what they call the generation gap. In my day it had to do with the length of somebody’s hair.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. You know about computers, then.”

  “Duh. How you think I get on the Internet?”

  “I’d guess you use computers.”

  She smiled again.

  “Everybody’s worried about you … if you’re Ginny McDonner.”

  “I’m … pretty worried about myself.”

  I looked at her hard. “I see. You’re what they call precocious — anybody ever accuse you of that?”

  “What is it?”

  “Too smart for you own good, or at least too smart for your own environment.”

  “I’m smart, if that’s what you mean.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean you seem to me to be smarter than most people your age. Actually you seem to me to be smarter than a lot of people I’ve met so far in Lost Pines of any age.”

  She shrugged. “I’m tops in my class.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Ten.”

  “Uh-huh. What does that make you, in college already?”

  Some joke. She laughed. “No. I’m in fifth. I skipped.”

  “You skipped a grade?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re still tops in your class?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.”

  She looked down. “Are you with those other two men?”

  I sat very still. “What other two men?”

  She looked up at me. “The big man and his boss, from out of town.”

  “The little guy wears a hat all the time, kind of like mine?”

  She nodded.

  “No. I’m not with them. I’m a friend of your parents … if you’re Ginny McDonner.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “Okay, I will.” I looked out the window. “If you’re Ginny McDonner.”

  “Shut up. I’m Ginny.” She was giggling.

  Holy Grail. The lost child. The real little girl of Lost Pines. I sat back. “So … Ginny … how’s it going?”

  Another shrug. “Fine.”

  “Want to go home now?”

  She actually jumped. “No! I can’t go home now! I can’t go anywhere!”

  “Easy.” I smiled. “Why?”

  “They’d just come and get me again!”

  “Who’d just come and get you again?”

  “Those two men.”

  I nodded. “Those two we were just talking about?”

  “Yes!”

  “They took you away?”

  She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Sort of.”

  I leaned forward. “What kind of sort of?”

  “Well …” But she wasn’t certain she wanted to share with a total stranger.

  I tried prompting. “You’ve had a sort of adventure.”

  “Yeah.”

  I tried looking out the window too. Seemed to take the pressure off. “Let me see how much I can guess, and you tell me when I’m going wrong. Whatcha say?”

  She still avoided eye contact. “I guess.”

  “Night before last you went sleepwalking.”

  Very quiet. “Yeah.”

  “You do that a lot?”

  “Nearly every night. Doctor says it’ll go away.”

  “Probably will. So you went sleepwalking, only this time your folks didn’t come get you.”

  Barely audible. “They didn’t.”

  I tried to get her to look at me. “Not their fault. They just didn’t hear you.”

  “Mama took her pills.”

  I got caught in a little involuntary sighing. “Yeah, but it’s still not her fault.”

  “I know. That man made her nervous.”

  “Man?”

  She finally looked at me. “The other man. The happy man.”

  “Sorry, sugar — who’s the happy man?”

  She nodded. “He got Mama and Daddy all upset. Mama was cryin’, Daddy was mad. And he was still smilin’ and nice as you please.”

  “The ‘happy man’ was.”

  “Right.”

  I leaned farther forward. “You know this because …”

  “… I heard ’em talking loud before I went to sleep. It scared me.”

  “I see. What’s the next thing you remember?”

  “Walking on the highway with the big man and his boss.”

  “Being on the highway?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. We went up to the picnic place.”

  “The Rayburn place? The abandoned farm?”

  “I guess.”

  “Where the tree hut is?”

  Big smile. “Yeah. I really like that tree hut.”

  I smiled back. “Me too. I been up in it.”

  “Have not.”

  “Have.”

  “You’re too big …” Then she obviously thought of something. “Oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “You must be about the same size as Mr. Wicher?”

  I wanted to be really careful with that question. “Maybe.”

  “He’s the one that built the tree hut. Built it for me and Jimmy Dendy and Hollis and Jennifer. It’s our getaway.”

  I sat back. “And Mr. Wicher built it?”

  “Yeah. We all helped. Last summer. He makes all kinds of things. He’s really nice … for somebody so curious.”

  “He’s curious, is he?”

  She nodded very enthusiastically. “Quite a bit.”

  “Curious as in strange?”

  “Right. Strange. But he’s my friend and I like the little wooden family he made me.” She reached into her coat pocket and produced a carved figure the size of an old-style wooden clothespin. “This is Christy.” I looked at it. “Christy … Rayburn?”

  She looked at it like the answer might be written on it. “I guess. She’s the little ghost girl.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She’s been a big help.”

  “Who’s been a big help?”

  “Christy. She’s the one that got me to the tree hut in the dark. She’s the one that showed me the good hiding places. She knows them all.”

  “I see. She’s been helping you? This little doll?”

  “Sure.” She turned a little. “I mean, Christy has.”

  “Of course you know that there are some people who would try to tell you that Christy Rayburn was just a ghost story now.”

  “I know that.”

  Silence. Creepy silence.

  “Uh-huh.” I leaned in toward her a little. “Well, how about this: You and I could just take a little walk down the mountain and get you back home?”

  Big jump. “No!”

  I tried to stand. “Wait.” Damn.

  She was scrambling backward. “They’ll hurt Mama an’ Daddy!”

  “Wait.” I was barely on my feet. “That won’t happen.”

  She was scooting like she had wheels. “I can’t go back now! I have to wait for the sign!”

  “What sign?” I tried to nab her.

  “Mr. Wicher told me not to go anywhere! He’s going to leave me a sign in the tree hut. I have to go there and when it’s safe for me to go home, he’ll leave me a sign.”

  I froze. “You’re not going to the tree house now?”

  She slowed but kept retreating. “Yes, I am.”

  “No, sugar … please don’t go there now …” But I didn’t know what to tell her. That her only sign would be Wicher on ice with a drill in his ticker? Nice sign.

  “Mr. Wicher helped me to get away from those two men and he told me to wait for the sign, just after he swooped down.”

  I tried to inch forward. “Mr. Wicher did what?”

  “He …” She licked her lips, “he
swooped down.”

  “Like on a rope or something?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And it scared the two men?”

  She cracked a smile. “Sure did. He made a terrible noise.”

  I took in a little breath. “What were you doing at the tree hut in the first place?”

  “I took them there. Those men. I had to get some things.”

  “Things?”

  “Clothes and stuff — it was cold. Plus, the tree hut, it’s our little fort.”

  I took another step. “I see. And Wicher was waiting there for you? How’d he know?”

  She looked down, then back at me. “He said he saw them take me.”

  Again that stopped me cold. “They … Wicher saw the two men take you? From where?”

  “I was sleepwalking. I told you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was in the middle of the road and the two men were about to get me and then I almost got run over by a truck and Mr. Wicher saw the whole thing from his front porch and then I woke up because of the truck and then the two men were waiting on the other side of the road and they got me.”

  “Jesus. That was Mustard Abernathy’s truck.”

  “Oh.” Big smile. “They had their baby yet?”

  “Uh, yeah, darlin’.”

  “That’s nice.” Bigger smile.

  Man. In the middle of all this she could smile about somebody else’s baby. You had to admit this was some kind of a kid. Still didn’t explain how Wicher got to the tree hut, or what happened to him. Didn’t explain the strange timing of the events. Much as it seemed obvious, I really hated to think of Moose and Fedora as the type of guys that would drill somebody in the heart.

  “So, Ginny … the two men? Were they mean to you?”

  “Oh, no. They were funny.”

  “Funny like you wanted to laugh or funny strange?”

  She thought again for a moment. “Both. But they did make me laugh.”

  I let it go for the moment. “So you got to the tree hut …”

  “… well, they were taking me to the abandoned farm? Our picnic place.”

  “Right.”

  “And then they asked me where was the church, and I was taking them there, only the tree hut was on the way, and I thought I might get some better clothes there. Like I said, I was getting cold.”

  “I’ll bet.” Big flash. “By the way — did you pass by the baby skull?” Thought I might see if she knew anything about that.

  “Yes.” She was very solemn. “The altar.”

  Beat. “Right.”

  “You have to go by that to get to the … well, I mean it’s the shortest way to the tree hut.”

  “Okay.” Smile. “What is it, anyway?”

  She was very mysterious. “It’s the last remains of Christy, the Little Girl of Lost Pines.”

  “I see. How do you know that?”

  She shrugged, and the spell of mystery was broken. “That’s what the other kids say. I think it’s a monkey skull.”

  “Really?” I cracked up. “Got a lot of monkeys up here, do you?”

  She didn’t find her theory as amusing as I did.

  “It could be a monkey skull.”

  “Yeah. I guess it could at that. Does seem a little small for a girl your age.” I started my sly encroachment once again. “Look, so Wicher, he comes swooping down …”

  “… Yeah.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Well, I went up the ladder into the hut. He started swatting at the two men with some kind of baseball bat or something. A big piece of wood, and then the two men pulled out their guns …”

  “… guns?”

  “Uh-huh. And then Mr. Wicher, he ran away. They ran after him. I thought they might be gone, and I almost climbed down, but Mr. Wicher ran right back and he yelled up at me. He said he’d try to get the men away from me. It was a game, he said. I was supposed to hide in the tree hut until I was certain the men had gone. And then he told me to wait for a sign — a sign at the hut.” Her voice was getting faster and faster. “So then he left and I waited and waited, and after a while I heard the little man, the boss …”

  I wanted to help calm her down. “… the guy in the hat …”

  “… right, the guy in the hat. I heard him yelling about how the big guy should go wait under the tree so I wouldn’t get away. So I had to trick them.”

  “You tricked them? How?”

  “When they started yelling at me, I didn’t make a peep. I’m really good at being quiet. And I’m the best at hide-and-go-seek of anybody in my class.”

  I squinted. “So … what? They thought you were gone?”

  Big smile. Great smile. “Uh-huh. The big guy tried to come up, but I knew he couldn’t. The ladder’s not strong enough for really big guys. Mr. Wicher made it that way on purpose. He said the only people that could come up were kids — and him … to fix the place sometimes.” She whispered, “He’s a small man.”

  “I see. Couldn’t the little guy, the boss, the guy in the hat — couldn’t he get up?”

  She looked at me sideways with an attitude I could have deposited in any city bank. “That man? He wouldn’t go up in a tree hut if his life depended on it.”

  “Why do you say that?” I couldn’t help laughing.

  “I don’t say that. He did, the little guy said it for himself.”

  “I see.”

  “I was so quiet.” She lowered her voice, enjoying telling me the story. “They kept yelling. Once the man in the hat, he got so mad that he fired his gun. He said he was shooting at me, but I was peeking out one of the cracks in the wall. He was shooting into the snow. After that they were sure I’d gone — they thought the guns would scare me. They thought I must have got out while they were chasing Mr. Wicher.”

  “You heard them say all that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what?”

  She looked down. “They said a lot of bad words. The boss man did, anyway.”

  “I’ll bet.” I started my cagey move toward her one more time.

  She noticed right away, and countered backward. “I’m not going home right now.”

  I kept moving. “Where are you going, then?”

  “I told you. Tree hut.”

  I shook my head and tried to sound like an adult who knew what he was talking about. “There’ll be people there. Policemen — Cedar Duffie, and some others.”

  That stopped her. “What for?”

  “I told you. Everybody and his brother is up here looking for you. We’re all worried sick.”

  She got me in some serious eye lock. “Well, stop worrying. I’m fine.”

  I nodded. “I can see that. But your parents …”

  Still with the steady gaze. “… are fine as long as I stay away!”

  “Maybe they are, sweetheart, but don’t you want to come home?”

  She was just at the door. She was very firm. “Not until I get the sign.”

  And then like something out of a slick Vegas magic act, she was gone. I mean it. I was less than ten steps from the door, and when I got to the threshold, she was nowhere to be seen. Vanished.

  “Damn it!” Loath as I am to use profanity and whatnot, I felt this particular situation called for it. And I felt a little like Fedora, what with losing the kid and all. I’d had her right in my hands, and I’d let her get away. Some big city professional I was. What was worse, I was going to have to tell everybody about it. Dally would never let a thing like that rest.

  I wandered around the yard and the surrounding area for another half hour or so, but there wasn’t a trace, no footprints in the snow, no broken twigs like they tell you about in the the Scouts — nothing.

  I heaved as big a sigh as I could manage, and started, once again, down the road to town, away from the church. The walk was getting monotonous, I was a bigger dope than usual, and the real live little girl from Lost Pines seemed to actually be the only one who wasn’t lost at all. I’d fo
und the Holy Grail, and I’d managed to make it vanish. I’d turned wine into water. And speaking of wine, where the hell was I going to get a decent glass of the stuff up in this neck of the woods?

  21. Muscadine Wine

  I may have mentioned once or twice that I can be something of a know-it-all when it comes to the grape. I know it’s insufferable, but it is my confirmed opinion that if it does not come from France, I personally would not give you two cents for it. Take American wines, for just one example. (A) You can’t make wine in a stainless-steel vat like they do a lot in these United States. You’ve got to use old wooden barrels. Like they do in France. (B) You can’t make wine just for the money. It’s got to be what they call an affaire de coeur. The maker has to be in love with the wine. It’s hard for me, personally, to drink a bottle when I know the chateau it came from is owned by a conglomerate that also owns a Frosted Flakes factory in Battle Creek, Michigan. (C) Sulfites. These are my three arguments against American wine.

  I favor, let us say, a nice Saint Emilion — I like the ’86. There you have hundreds of years of tradition; families who eat, sleep, and dream wine for generation after generation; and people who can sip one sip from a glass and tell you about the trees and the berries that grow in the region, not to mention the date, time, and temperature of the original bottling. How does that compare to a wine made by a company that also makes sugary breakfast cereal — whose advertising is “Drink our wine, it’s grrrrreat?”

  So I can tell you I was feeling not a little sorry for myself as I ended up on the main road and trundled my way toward downtown Lost Pines. Where was a guy like me going to get a decent glass of anything to quench my spiritual ennui? That’s what a good wine does, you know: cures the soul. And I quote: “Wine that gladdens the heart.” I know you hear a lot of American preachers quoting the famous “Drink thou no strong drink.” But here’s my answer to that: The only appropriate alcohol content for any good wine is between eleven and a half and thirteen percent. In other words, nearly ninety percent is not alcohol, so how is that strong drink, I ask you? I mean, I gave up scotch. What more do they want?

  So I was playing a little game with myself as Miss Nina’s came into view over the rise in the road. The rules of the game allowed as to how I could just tell Dally that I found the little nipper, she was fine, and I let her go play in the woods. We could be back at Easy before our regular dinner hour. Problem was I didn’t even buy it myself.