The Secret of the Missing Grave Page 12

  Bean didn’t want to talk to Monty, so he ducked behind the galamander. It soon became evident that this evasive maneuver was unnecessary, however, because Monty and Mierette seemed to be so wrapped up in each other that if King Kong had been lying dead in the road, they may well have walked over him without noticing.

  As the couple passed, Bean shook his head in disbelief. But his mind was made up: He was going to the chowder supper. There was something unsettling about that pairing, something he couldn’t quite put a name on, so he was going to keep an eye on his cousin. If that meant he had to eat chowder for supper, all the better.

  The vestry was crowded with islanders and summer people, as it always was for one of these traditional island dinners. Bean paid Linda Philbrook at the door, then stood in line with his plate. His mind was almost taken off his surveillance by the smell of the food. He took a few deep, heady breaths, so thick with the aroma of lobster, clams, chowder, baked potatoes, mussels, and corn on the cob that he felt he could almost put salt and pepper on it and dig in. His appetite was back.

  But just as quickly as it had come, it was gone again.

  Ab and her parents were sitting at a long table in the dining room of the church vestry. Panic set in when a quick scan of the remaining tables made it evident that the only free seat in the place was between Mr. Petersen and Matilda Ames, a large, overly friendly, and talkative lady who, for as long as Bean could remember, had greeted him by pinching his cheeks and saying for all the world to hear: “Look at this handsome little man. Looks more like his dad every day, ’cept they should call him Beanpole instead of Beanbag. He’s so skinny.”

  By the time this realization hit home, Bean had already gone mechanically through the line and was standing in the middle of the room with a full plate. Everyone else was seated, with heaping mounds of food in front of them. Somebody clinked their glass with a spoon. “Ladies and gentlemen, Reverend Candidge will say grace,” announced Emily Lazaro. “Pastor?”

  All heads bowed, including Bean’s, but as the prayer went on—apparently Reverend Candidge had a lot to be thankful for—Bean, standing by himself in the middle of the room, pried one eye open and directed it at Ab. He nearly choked when he saw her doing the same at him. With cautious glances at her parents, she motioned him to the empty seat. He shook his head furiously, but she furrowed her brows and repeated the motion, which was not so much an invitation as a direction.

  “And finally, Lord, we thank you for your bountiful provision, and the care you take of each of us, day in and day out. Be with those we love who are unable to be with us tonight, and for those who are sick, lonely, hungry, and friendless the world over, make us ever mindful and use us to be a help. In Christ’s name. Amen.”

  By the time everybody said “amen,” Bean was seated. Mr. Petersen, who opened his eyes to find the seat thus occupied, scowled reflexively but, with an effort, forced a smile. “Hello, Bean,” he said. “Glad you could join us. Would you like some bread?” He handed Bean the basket of homemade bread and rolls, and Bean helped himself.

  “Thanks,” said Bean. He didn’t know whether or not to add “sir” but finally decided it might be a good idea. “Sir.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ab smile.

  After a few seconds of awkward courtesies, the adults resumed their conversation. Bean cleaned his plate not so much from hunger as nervousness. All his favorite foods might just as well have been sawdust.

  Now and then his and Ab’s eyes would meet, but it seemed whenever they did, Mrs. Petersen would suddenly clear her throat to get Ab’s attention, then shake her head almost imperceptibly.

  “I’m going to get some dessert,” said Ab at last. “Bean, would you like to come with me? I bet there’s some strawberry rhubarb pie.”

  The adult conversation suddenly fell silent, and for a second it seemed as though Mrs. Petersen were going to protest, but Mr. Petersen shook his head and flicked a restraining hand at her. She settled back in her chair, and Mr. Proverb quickly began talking about how the weather was hotter in Phoenix than Atlanta but not nearly as humid.

  Ab and Bean arrived at the dessert table just as a wave of small children made off with their first helpings. “It all looks so good,” said Ab, taking a plate from the stack at the end of the table. She handed one to Bean, too. “What are you going to have?”

  Bean felt like saying, a heart attack if you don’t stop talking about food, but he didn’t. If this was some kind of game Ab had to play, he’d play it, too. “I don’t know,” he said, scanning the table blindly. Normally, the pies, cakes, and heaping mounds of cookies, fruit, fudge, and after dinner candies would have commanded his complete attention, but now they might as well have been porcelain sculptures. “I think the lemon meringue,” he decided finally. He didn’t even like lemon meringue, but for some reason it seemed more grown-up than what he really wanted, which was Milly Sorenson’s banana cream pie. Ab cut him a big piece of lemon meringue pie and put it on his plate.

  “There you go,” she said. She cut herself a piece of chocolate pudding pie and ladled on some whipped cream.

  “You didn’t go for ice cream tonight,” she observed.

  “Didn’t want to.”

  Ab nodded. There was a little stage at the back of the room. “Want to sit over there and eat?”

  Bean shot a wary glance at Mrs. Petersen, who, though trying to be discreet about it, was watching them carefully. “Don’t you think they’ll mind?”

  Ab followed his gaze. “Oh, well, they said we could still see each other at social occasions. It’s all right. Come on.”

  They sat on the edge of the stage. While Ab ate, Bean poked holes in the meringue with his fork.

  “I love graham cracker crust,” said Ab. Bean looked up from his uneaten pie. Ab’s mouth was covered with chocolate, and he laughed spontaneously.

  “What?” said Ab.

  Bean was trying to control his laughter but still couldn’t speak. “What?” said Ab again. She started laughing, too, though she didn’t know why. “What’s so funny?”

  “You,” said Bean finally. “You have chocolate all over your mouth.”

  Ab suddenly stopped laughing. “No, I don’t,” she said, mortified. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and, to her horror, a good spoonful of chocolate appeared amid its white folds. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t notice ’til just now,” Bean said with a chuckle. “Besides, nobody else saw. There’s just us two here.”

  It was one of those times when Bean didn’t know if Ab was going to laugh or cry or get mad. For a few seconds it looked as though it could go any which way. He was relieved, therefore, when her face finally broke into a wide grin. “Do I have anything on my teeth?” she said, flashing her pearly whites.

  They laughed hard for a minute or two. It seemed as though all the other people in the room just melted away.

  “How’ve you been?” said Ab.

  Bean nodded his head a little sideways.

  “Miserable?” she asked.

  That pretty much summed it up. And he didn’t care who knew. “Yeah. Miserable.”

  “Me, too.” Not so miserable that she didn’t enjoy her pie, though, Bean noticed. “Seems as if we’ve been going a hundred miles an hour all week. My folks must be exhausted. I sure am.”

  A nearby giggle caught Bean’s attention. He looked up, and Ab followed his eyes. “What is it?”

  “Monty and that maid.”

  “Huh?”

  “Maud Vallier’s maid, Mierette.”

  “Mierette?” asked Ab. Then she saw what Bean was talking about. “She’s with Monty?”

  Bean nodded. “That’s why I came here tonight, to keep an eye on them.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause somethin’s not right.”

  “Strange couple, I’d say,” Ab agreed. “But I guess she can go out with anyone she wants. She’s grown up.”

  Bean thought a minute. He wasn’t satisfied. �
��Nope. It doesn’t figure. Him just takin’ up with her like that, just now after all that’s happened.”

  “Mm,” said Ab. “Well, how do you know? Maybe she took up with him.”

  “That’s just what I know didn’t happen,” said Bean confidently. “Mierette hardly ever goes out of that house, much less to the waterfront or the pool hall, which are the only places Monty ever hangs out. Nope. I’ll bet you he went way out of his way to get cozy with her. The question is, why?”

  It didn’t seem as odd to Ab as it apparently did to Bean. “Well, she’s awfully pretty. I could see why anyone would like her. And she seems nice. Just ’cause she works for Maud Valliers doesn’t make her a bad person, you know. She must get awfully lonely.”

  “I didn’t know any girl could get so lonely she’d go out with Monty,” Bean said. “Besides, it’s not her I’m worried about. It’s him. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

  “What do you care, anyway?”

  “I think he wants her to help him get the treasure,” said Bean. The thought had only just crystallized in his mind before it was out of his mouth. “That’s what it’s all about. He’s goin’ to use her to get the treasure.”

  “You mean you think he doesn’t really like her?”

  “There’s only room for one love in Monty’s life,” Bean judged. “And that’s himself. No sir. That’s what he’s up to.”

  “That’s despicable.”

  “That’s Monty.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” said Ab.

  “I don’t know,” Bean replied. “I don’t see how we can do much of anything. Not together, anyway.” He paused a moment. “There’s got to be some way to get that treasure before he does.”

  Ab raised her eyes but not her head. “Bean?”

  “Mm.”

  “There isn’t any treasure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember I told you I was in the tunnel? There was nothing there. Just half-finished paintings all over the place. That’s all.”

  “But it was in the bags. The ones you said Maud rescued from the fire,” Bean protested.

  Ab shook her head slowly. “I looked in the bags. Empty canvasses, that’s all that was in there.”

  “Empty canvasses?”

  Ab nodded.

  “In all the bags?”

  Ab nodded again.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  In the silence that followed, Abby thought Bean was struggling to come to terms with reality. When he spoke, however, his words dispelled that notion.

  “That makes no sense at all.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Why would she rescue blank canvasses and not the ones she’d already painted on?” said Bean.

  “I don’t know,” Ab replied. “Maybe she was in shock.”

  “Did she seem to be in shock?”

  Ab didn’t have to think about that. “No. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing.”

  “Then why was she saving the blank ones?” Bean repeated.

  Abby didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.”

  Bean didn’t know either. But he knew that it didn’t add up. He was about to say so when a skinny, freckled, red-headed kid came up to them balancing a plate full of desserts. “Hey, ’bag,” he said. “Is that all the dessert you got?”

  “Hi, Spook,” Bean replied slowly. “Looks as if you got a little of everything.”

  “Yup. Some ol’ good. How ’bout you, Ab?”

  “I had some chocolate pie.”

  Spooky Martin wasn’t spooky at all. He got the nickname from some old song his mother and father liked. In fact, Spooky was about the most immediately pleasant person Ab had ever known. His pale blue eyes were always warm and friendly, and when he smiled, she automatically found herself smiling back. If she was in a bad mood, she soon forgot why. And his copper-red hair made him stand out half a mile away on a sunny day.

  “What you guys talkin’ ’bout?” Spooky asked as he pulled up the piano stool, spun it around a few times, and sat down. He noticed the quick glances that Bean and Ab exchanged in response to his question. “I bet it’s the treasure, ain’t it?” he speculated. When this comment got him even more silence, he knew he’d hit the nail on the head.

  “There isn’t any treasure,” Ab said a little weakly.

  “Sure there isn’t,” said Spooky with a wink. “Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but it’ll be all over town before too long anyway.”

  “She’s tellin’ you the truth, Spook,” said Bean. “That’s what she was just tellin’ me. She got down there in the tunnel, and there wasn’t nothing—”

  “Anything there,” Ab corrected him and completed the sentence.

  “What’d you see?” Spooky asked, his cheeks bulging with blueberry pie.

  Ab told him the whole story. It was impossible to keep anything from those guileless, interested eyes. She finished about the same time he finished his dessert.

  “Dang,” he said. He seemed to be thinking a mile a minute. “You guys are lucky to be alive.”

  There’s no denying that, thought Ab. Still, it was hard to be happy, considering that their investigation had been brought to a halt just when things were really getting interesting.

  “I know what,” said Spooky. “What if! spy for ya?”

  “What do you mean?” said Bean and Ab together.

  “Well, I don’t claim to be no genius detective, but I got eyes. I can hang around, you know. Carry messages back and forth. That kinda stuff. It’d be fun.”

  Of course it occurred instantly to both Bean and Ab that their parents wouldn’t be thrilled with this arrangement, but they forced that thought to the back of their minds and leaped at the suggestion.

  “That’d be perfect,” said Bean.

  “Could you do it?” asked Ab. “I mean, would you really want to? It could be dangerous. You know what almost happened to us.”

  “I know,” said Spooky, who apparently wasn’t listening carefully. “Here’s what we can do. I’ll sneak down in the basement—”

  “How will you get down there?” Bean interrupted.

  “Easy. Through the window where they toss the wood.”

  “Will you fit?” Ab asked.

  “Sure. Who do you think tosses all that wood every fall? And when I’m through tossin’, I just crawl through the window and start stackin’. That way I don’t have to track gunk through the house.”

  Bean was elated. Ab was not. “I don’t like it, Spook. As my dad says, everyone’s just been lucky so far. You could get hurt down there.”

  Spooky licked his plate thoughtfully. When he raised his face, the end of his nose was blue with a smattering of whipped cream. “What do you need down there? Just for me to look through the hole where the brick was, right? So? One of you guys stays outside the window, and if I have any problems, you can go get help. Okay?”

  Bean was willing to agree that instant, but he hesitated for Ab’s benefit.

  “Shouldn’t take more than a few seconds, should it?” Spooky prodded innocently. “Piece a cake.”

  After deliberating briefly, Ab was sold. Bean could see it in her eyes. “All right,” he said, just as the words were forming on her mouth.

  “How do you know it’s all right?” Ab snapped indignantly.

  “I know you too well, I guess,” Bean said with his most disarming smile.

  “When?” said Spooky, anxious to get on with things.

  Bean looked around at the packed vestry. If tradition held true, there would be a community sing-along after dinner, and that could last an hour or more. “There’ll never be a better time than now,” he said.

  “I know,” agreed Ab. “You guys go do it, and I can stay here. That way nobody’ll suspect anything.”

  “Good,” said Bean. “Come on, Spook.” He grabbed Spooky’s arm and nearly dragged him to the table, where Bean said a qu
ick good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Petersen and the Proverbs.

  Just as he was about to leave, Matilda Ames slapped one of her hamlike arms around his waist and gave him a squeeze. “Just you look at this handsome young man. I swear, he looks more like his dad every day, don’t he?” She leaned toward him as if to address the following sentence to him, but she said it loud enough for anyone within walking distance of town to hear: “’cept I still say they should call you Beanpole instead of Beanbag. You’re so skinny.” She laughed heartily at her own humor, then let him go.

  Seconds later, the boys were outside and Spooky was rummaging through the glove compartment of his dad’s truck. “Here it is,” he said, producing a big flashlight.

  Forsaking the road, they dodged through bushes and backyards to the lonely end of Frog Hollow. From there they made their way to the high stone wall surrounding the big backyard of the Moses Webster property. Pressing themselves into the cover of hedges that grew against the wall, they sneaked up to the ground-level window overlooking the white-walled basement room.

  “You stay here,” Spooky directed. “I’ll go ’round to the wood window and slide in when I’m sure nobody’s comin’.”

  Bean tucked himself safely out of sight and waited. Through the leaves, he could see the Frog Hollow side of the Winthrop House and a good part of the street out front as well. If anyone was coming, he’d know in plenty of time to warn Spooky.

  15

  SINISTER DEEDS

  “THAT WASN’T SO HARD,” said Spooky as he came up behind Bean and tapped him on the shoulder.

  Bean nearly cleared his skin. “Spooky! You scared me half to death. What are you doin’ here? Couldn’t you get in?”

  “Got in,” said Spooky calmly.

  “Got in? What do you mean, ‘got in’?” said Bean. “You mean you actually got in?”