Notorious, p.11
Notorious, page 11
“Yeah, but bigger animals gave you problems too, right?”
Miss Elspeth nods tragically. “Grasshoppers. Oh, how we suffered. Those monsters can eat a garden bare.”
“Actually,” I say, “I was thinking of something even bigger than that. Like—a dog?”
The change in the two ladies is instant and dramatic. It’s not like they start yelling and cursing or anything like that. Actually, they get even quieter. But both faces drain of all color until they resemble vampires except for the spots of rouge decorating ash-white cheeks.
“There was a dog,” Miss Muriel practically whispers. “A deplorable animal. Mother raised us to believe that no living creature was beyond all hope, but Mother never knew Barney.”
“He had a taste for our roses.” Miss Elspeth takes up the tale. “What he didn’t eat, he rolled in—or worse. His defiance was almost human. It wasn’t enough for him to destroy our garden. He had to wave in our faces the fact that there was nothing we could do to stop him. No fence could keep him out. He could get into any greenhouse, even if he had to smash every pane of glass. And when there was nothing left save a few crumpled petals, he would stand amid the wreckage, taunting us through the windows.”
I look around the property. Lush green is everywhere. Roses, asters, and chrysanthemums provide explosions of color even this late into the fall. The greenhouse gleams like a jewel.
“It all looks really good now,” I comment. “How did you get that dog to stop coming?”
“Fate stopped him,” Miss Muriel supplies, sounding a little bit too pleased. “Our tormentor is dead. And heaven forgive me, I’m not sorry.”
“Heaven forgives you,” her sister assures her. “He was just that dreadful.”
“Actually, I think I’ve heard of the dog you’re talking about,” I comment as if the idea just occurred to me. “You know, some people think he was poisoned.”
“Well, obviously,” Miss Muriel says, “we wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Do you ladies happen to remember what you were doing on April seventeenth?” I venture.
Miss Elspeth shakes her head sadly. “My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“Don’t be silly, Elspeth,” her sister interrupts. “Of course you remember. That was the date of the big meeting at the community hall—the one about funding the repairs to the lighthouse. The whole town was there.”
My mind races. These islanders and their lighthouse! The Americans and the Canadians are equally obsessed with it. Mr. Farnsworth—is that why he had April 17 circled on his calendar? Of course, just because you’re at a town meeting doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty of time to poison a dog. In fact, the meeting could provide the killer with a golden opportunity. He—or she—could slip out of a crowded hearing room, do the deed, and slip back in without being noticed.
I hang out with the sisters for another ten minutes, gagging down some more of that tea so I don’t offend them. It isn’t lava hot anymore, so now the flavors come through. Warm perfume.
They talk my ear off about the science of blossom color and the perfect pH of soil. The sisters are so genuinely sweet and boring that it’s hard to picture them hurting Barney. Then I remember how different they were while talking about the damage he did to their garden and I’m not so sure.
As they show me out of the yard, we pass a shelf that holds containers of fertilizer and plant food, and some metal hand tools. In the center is a dark glass bottle half full of liquid. The label has a large skull and crossbones on it. That can only mean one thing.
Poison.
My next stop is the community hall.
It’s more or less a town hall. But they don’t call it that since Centerlight is technically two separate towns, one in Michigan and the other in Ontario. Both share this facility, which is housed in an old mansion on the Canadian side. ZeeBee once told me it used to be owned by Arnold Rothstein, the legendary gangster who fixed the 1919 World Series.
The first thing I notice is the location. It’s practically kitty-corner to the Tices’ house, on the other side of an empty lot. Which means someone at the meeting could have slipped out and been just a few dozen steps away from Barney.
The place was probably really elegant back in the day, but now it’s just an old pile that smells a lot like the river—kind of damp and musty. It’s not really a government building so much as a collection of island archives and public meeting rooms.
I tell the one and only clerk that I’m doing a school project on the lighthouse. If the people on this island ever get together and compare notes on all the projects I’m supposedly working on, I’m toast.
“I heard there was a big meeting about it here on April seventeenth,” I tell her. “Are there any, you know, records I could look over?”
Wordlessly, she turns her back on me and disappears into a side room. She’s gone for so long that I actually start to wonder if maybe she left for the day. But then she returns with a thick file that she slaps onto the counter in front of me. “Help yourself.”
The technology level in the community hall hasn’t changed much since Arnold Rothstein’s time. I haven’t seen a single computer yet. When I lug the file over to a table and open it, my worst fears come true. It’s all handwritten in a scribbly cursive that’s borderline unreadable. I actually groan a little, and the clerk looks over in sympathy.
I sit down and try to plow through it. As near as I can tell, they met for over three hours, and issued a statement that they all love the lighthouse. But six million dollars is a lot of money for a community the size of Centerlight. They’re willing to raise some of it if the government picks up the rest. But which government? The U.S.A.? Canada? Michigan? Ontario? In the end, the only thing everyone would agree on was to meet in another six months to try again.
By this time, my eyes are bugging out of my head from decoding all those chicken scratches. The next page is even worse—at least twenty different examples of handwriting, maybe more. Then I realize what I’m looking at. It’s the sign-in sheet—signatures and addresses of everyone at the meeting. I flip forward. Six pages of names. I spy the Quayle sisters and—yes, there’s Mr. Farnsworth. There’s a Harry Chaiken, who must be the grocer. I wonder how many more of these people are Barney-haters with a motive for murder. A quick glance over my shoulder. The clerk is off in the corner, making a fresh pot of coffee. I whip out my phone and photograph all six sign-in sheets. This is probably against the rules, but I need these names and addresses. Every single one of these people was right near the Tice house the night Barney was poisoned.
I thank the clerk and just about fall over my feet getting out of there. On the way home, the wheels of Wayne’s bike barely touch the ground.
“Hey, kid.” My father is in the kitchen, gazing at something charcoal black in a roasting pan. “Pizza sound good tonight? Had a little mishap with the chicken.”
“Sure, Dad. I’ve just got some stuff to do first.”
Upstairs in my room, I sit at my computer, my phone next to the keyboard. One by one, I take all the Barney complaints from the Centerlight Islander and check them against the attendees of the big meeting back in April. Those are the people who go on my list of suspects: the ones with both motive and opportunity.
FARNSWORTH, MICHAEL: Local finance bigwig. Grievance: Trashed Porsche and porch.
BATISTA, ARABELLA: Opera singer. Grievance: Howling threw her off-key.
STICKLE, MARTIN: Avid cyclist. Grievance: Barney hunted everything on two wheels.
CHAIKEN, HARRY: Grocer. Grievance: Grand theft cheddar.
PICCOLI, VINCENT AND LOLA: Retirees. Grievance: Their yard was ground zero for Barney’s digging habit.
TOLENSKI, PETER: Writer. Grievance: Barking made work impossible.
QUAYLE, ELSPETH AND MURIEL: Flower geniuses. Grievance: Rose-icide
LINDAHL, DOUGLAS: Ronnie’s dad. Grievance: 1 fence plus several ransacked barbecues.
PING, LEON: Cat owner. Grievance: His tabby, Fagan, was Barney’s arch-nemesis.
I print the page and sit back, examining it with great concentration. These nine possibilities cover everyone who 1) was at that April 17 meeting and 2) once filed a police complaint against Barney. I’m positive the name of the killer is on the list somewhere.
I fight down the urge to rush over to ZeeBee’s house and show her how much I’ve learned. She’d be impressed, grateful even. Then we could make up and get to work solving this together.
But I have to face facts: She doesn’t want anything to do with me.
18
Zarabeth
Keenan is up to something, but I can’t figure out what.
Okay, I’ve been spying on him. Sue me. Half my DNA comes from a border officer, so I’m genetically predisposed to snoop.
Besides, it’s not my fault Keenan makes it so easy. Like clockwork, every Wednesday and Saturday he’s at Island Fitness for his workouts with that Bryce musclehead. So I always know exactly where to find him.
Then yesterday, he spent forty-five minutes in the community hall when it’s a fact that nothing in that dump could hold your interest for forty-five seconds. I timed him from my usual spot in the cupola. And when he finally came out, that left eyebrow of his was three-quarters of the way to the moon. What was he doing in there?
I don’t mind mysteries, but I really hate not knowing what’s going on.
I could just ask him. But that would mean I’d have to talk to him, which is not going to happen. I’ve imposed sanctions on Keenan. He probably doesn’t care or even notice, which is annoying. I’ve thought about explaining it to him, but in order to do that, I’d have to break my own sanctions.
So on Saturday, I duck behind a pickup truck in the Tim Horton’s parking lot, waiting for him to come out of Island Fitness. (Only in Centrelight can you hide in Canada while staking out someone in the United States.)
Barney Two dances around my ankles, yipping up at me questioningly, as if asking what the game is. Annoyed, I reach out my toe and nudge him into the cover of the truck with me. “Keep quiet, dummy,” I murmur.
Eventually, Keenan emerges from the gym and gets on his (Wayne’s) bike. I hop on my own and follow at a distance, Barney Two hot on my heels. I stay off the main road, sticking to the alleyway behind the shops. I can’t let Keenan see me. That might give him the idea that I recognize the fact that he’s alive, which would definitely be a violation of the sanctions.
Sure enough, Keenan rides right past the turnoff for his dad’s house. Just as I suspected, he’s not going home. He’s been all over the island lately, which only adds to the mystery.
That ends today. My plan is to follow him and figure out where he’s going and why.
When the alley runs out, I switch to a parallel street, catching glimpses of him between homes. I have no worry about keeping up. Wayne’s bike hasn’t been oiled since he got his driver’s license two years ago.
I follow him through a couple of turns, always keeping a street away. We haven’t ridden very much farther when he stops reappearing after every house. That can only mean one thing. He’s reached his destination. I turn on the afterburners, whip around the block to the main road, and approach cautiously, dismounting and walking my bike, shielded by a tall hedge. Sure enough, there’s Wayne’s green CCM parked in the driveway of a neat Cape Cod–style home. Barney Two catches up, panting happily. I can’t explain why, but the fact that he gets such a charge out of everything I do really irritates me.
I frown at the house. The place is kind of familiar, but I can’t quite remember who lives there. It’s frustrating, because I pride myself on knowing pretty much everybody on the island, even on the American side. I’m pretty sure it isn’t one of the kids from the middle school.
And then a head pokes out of the bushes behind me—yellow eyes, tiger stripes, short fur, long whiskers. I jump at the sight of him. It’s Fagan, the Cat from the Black Lagoon! That’s why I recognize this place. It’s Leon Ping’s house!
Fagan lets out an unfriendly yowl that passes for his sick version of a meow. Suddenly, a blond shape interposes itself between the cat and me. I’m amazed. It’s Barney Two, and here’s proof that he’s actually dumber than I thought he was. Not even the real Barney would mess with Fagan, and Barney wasn’t afraid of anybody—man, woman, or beast. This little cocker nothing is about to get sliced into bacon strips!
What Fagan does next is the last thing I expect: He purrs. Barney Two approaches, wagging and sniffing. They touch noses. It’s enough to make you throw up. They’re practically bonding. Fagan doesn’t bond. He slashes you to pieces!
The feud between my Barney and this awful cat was the greatest rivalry on Centrelight since Al Capone versus the FBI. Barney would shred Fagan’s cat toys and Fagan would respond by going all the way to Canada and using Barney’s supper dish as a litter box. And when it got physical, Fagan would carve Barney up like an Easter ham, even though Barney outweighed him by about 2,000 percent.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Ping would call the cops—on Barney, who practically needed a blood transfusion after these battles. Talk about unfair!
So why is Keenan visiting this jackass? Why would they even know each other?
Keenan’s inside the house for about twenty minutes. When he finally comes out, he and Mr. Ping are still talking. I’d give anything to hear what they’re saying, but I’m too far away. They shake hands and Keenan heads for Wayne’s bike.
I back away into the shadow of the hedge, pulling my stupid dog away from his new best friend. “Traitor!” I hiss into his furry ear.
What else would you call someone who’s been caught fraternizing with the other side?
Keenan’s next stop is a home on the next street over from mine. Even if I didn’t remember the house itself, I’d instantly recognize the property. The giant holes in the lawn would tell me that this is where Barney used to bury his bones and other treasures—toys, old shoes, candlesticks, legs broken off pieces of furniture, someone’s crutch, an oar, an umbrella, a goalie pad. The list goes on and on. Mr. Piccoli, who lives here, once claimed that he found an entire crystal chandelier entombed in his yard. In order to get it as deep as he said, Barney would have had to bite through a cable wire and rupture a gas line, which could have taken out the whole neighborhood. But I don’t believe it. I went on the internet and sure enough, no one reported a missing chandelier.
I can see Keenan in the house, chatting up the Piccolis. Mrs. Piccoli is pouring him a glass of juice or iced tea or something.
First Mr. Ping and now this. A pattern is beginning to emerge—a Barney pattern.
While I’m staring in the window, trying to make sense of it, Barney Two scampers onto the lawn, jumps into one of the holes, and emerges with what looks like a shank bone. He trots over and drops it proudly at my feet.
I well up with emotion. This is from Barney. Not this Barney; my Barney—the real one. I stuff it in my pocket. It might be the last thing from him I’ll ever touch.
Keenan’s next destination doesn’t ring a bell until I peer into the open garage and see the bikes hanging on the wall. There are six of them, all racers, all super expensive. I know this because we once had to pay for one. The frame got bent when Barney knocked the cyclist off it with a flying tackle. The bike was ruined. My parents said we were lucky the rider—this guy Martin Stickle—wasn’t ruined too.
We thought Barney was sick that night because he was wheezing. The next thing we knew, he coughed up a swatch of fluorescent nylon. He was fine after that, but we couldn’t figure out where the fabric came from. Mr. Stickle showed up at our door first thing in the morning, holding the bicycle shorts with the hole bitten out of the seat. What was left of his bike was in the trunk of his car. If we needed more proof, he offered to show us the condition of his butt cheek. (Dad said we’d take his word for it.)
I told Mr. Stickle that the incident was half his fault for wearing such flashy clothes. Animals are attracted to bright colors; that’s why a bull can’t resist a matador’s red cape. He replied that no raging bull was half the threat to life and limb as Barney, and threatened to sue. Dad got him calmed down by offering to buy a new bike and pay his doctor bills.
That same Mr. Stickle is now in the garage with Keenan, showing him the different bikes. Keenan has a notebook out and he’s writing things down. Like he’s a reporter or something! What gives?
Barney Two is nuzzling my ankle and I nudge him out of range with my sneaker. Why are you interviewing this creep, Keenan? Don’t you realize how much trouble he made for my family? Just like the Piccolis, who took us to court even after Dad bought an entire truckload of topsoil for their stupid lawn. Or Mr. Ping, who called Animal Control on Barney, when it was his psycho cat that really needed controlling.
It’s bad enough that Keenan dropped me like a hot potato the minute he started hanging out with those mouth-breathers from the middle school. But this is even worse.
I turn it over in my mind every which way, but there’s only one possible explanation: He’s going out of his way to make friends with everyone on the island who hates my family. I think of the mysterious footsteps, and car engines, and voices I hear outside my house when I’m trying to fall asleep at night. I picture that boot print that’s too big to have come from my dad.
Maybe those things aren’t so mysterious after all. We have enemies, and their newest member is named Keenan Cardinal.
He’s plotting against me!
19
Ronnie
My folks keep an oil painting of my great-grandfather, Pierce Ronald Lindahl III—barf—in the place of honor over the mantel in the library. It’s a quirk of our house that if you slam the front door too hard, that picture falls off the hook, hits the floor, and busting the frame.
It’s annoying, but it’s also a good early warning system for when Dad is really steamed about something. As soon as I hear the slam-crash-crack I go on red alert. Not that it helps. We’ve got a big house, but he always finds me anyway.
