Animal Shelter Mystery (4 page)

“I hope you won't be doing all this hard work for nothing,” Mr. Seed told the Aldens when he stopped the truck in front of the old toolshed. “I've heard the shelter's closing in a couple of weeks, so Dr. Scott may not need the extra space.”

Jessie looked at Mr. Seed. “The animals need more space now, and I just know we can help Dr. Scott track down the founder of the shelter before the deadline. We have to—we just have to.”

“Of course,” Mr. Seed said gently. “Now you folks give me a call when you need some other supplies from my store. I've got plenty of chicken wire, wood boards—lots of things I know you could use in that boxcar you all told me about. All you have to do is ask, okay?”

“Okay!” the Aldens all said at once.

Soon everyone was busy pulling out rotted boards and lining up the new shingles to replace the old ones.

After a few minutes, Violet spoke up. “I wonder if Dr. Scott was able to find out anything while we were gone.”

“I found two pups for your boxcar,” everyone heard next as Dr. Scott came out to see how the Aldens were doing. In each arm the animal doctor was carrying a German shepherd puppy they hadn't seen before. “These pups will be big dogs in no time, and the cages we have here will be much too small for them.”

Benny held one of the squirming dogs in his arms while Jessie held the other. “Did you have any luck finding out about the founder of the shelter, Dr. Scott?” Jessie asked.

Dr. Scott shook her head. “I'm afraid not, Jessie. After you left, I still had so many shots to give and so many other calls to make about getting homes for these strays, I didn't get a chance to make any other calls. Then there's Miss Newcombe to check on, too. Everything always happens at the same time. But you've all been a big help tending to all these strays. And Henry here has been sent from heaven.”

“We'll have this old shed fixed up by this afternoon since Mr. Seed gave me the rest of the day off,” Henry told Dr. Scott. “Then you won't have to double up so many animals.”

“That'll be a great relief,” Dr. Scott said. “These poor animals can start living like dogs and cats and not like sardines.” She peeked into the dusty old shed. “I'll call for the junk man to remove that old desk and those chairs in there to make more space.”

“Oh, no, we want them!” Jessie cried out.

Dr. Scott winked at everyone. “I was teasing! After watching the four of you save every bit of string, every scrap of paper, and every bottle and can this summer, I knew you would find some use for these old pieces of furniture. I'll arrange to have everything sent to your grandfathers, so don't you worry.”

“We'll use the desk and chairs for an office in our garage,” Jessie told the doctor. “We want our shelter to be just like the Greenfield Animal Shelter.”

“Judging by the excellent repair job you're doing on this old shed, I know you'll turn your boxcar into a safe place for my strays,” Dr. Scott said before heading back to the barn.

“I like tearing down old things, so I can fix them up again,” Jessie said when she held up a new shingle for Henry to nail in.

“So do I,” Benny said. He easily pulled off the last few boards from the rotted section of wall. “Hey, look at this!” he called out a few minutes later. “There's something stuck between these last two boards.”

“Looks like some old black notebooks,” Henry said when he took a close look at what Benny had discovered. “On the cover it says, ‘Property of Jacob Kisco.' ”

Jessie, who loved old books, took a closer look. “Jacob Kisco must have been a dairy farmer. Look, this page tells how much milk his cows gave and how much food they ate.”

Benny was disappointed. “Just a bunch of old notes about cows. Nothing good.”

“Why, Benny, we can use these to keep track of
our
animals when we set up our shelter,” Jessie said.

“You and Violet can do that,” Benny said. “I want to feed the animals and play with them.”

Henry, Jessie, and Violet couldn't help laughing. Benny always liked jobs where he could run and play and not have to stay still for too long.

“Let's finish up here,” Jessie said. “There'll be time to look through these old notebooks when we get home.”

Henry put the heavy books in the top drawer of the old desk. He shut the drawer and went back to work measuring and hammering.

CHAPTER 5

Boxcar Days

T
he Aldens spent all their time getting the boxcar ready for business. Jessie and Violet made good use of the leftover boards Henry brought back from Seed's Hardware Store. In no time, they had added four new shelves to the boxcar to store the food, dishes, blankets, and old towels they needed to feed their orphaned animals and keep them warm. On opening day, the needy orphans included four cats, three fat white rabbits, one crow, and three dogs.

Benny's job was to sort and clean the dishes they had used in the old boxcar days. “There are just enough dishes so that each animal gets one water dish and one food dish,” he told Violet and Jessie.

Out back, Henry finished framing the last few yards of chicken wire with old fence posts. “Come on, Lad. Here you go, fellas,” he said when he led all the dogs into the spacious dog run.

When everything was ready, Benny ran inside and brought out Mr. Alden to take a look at what they had all built.

“Well, Grandfather, what do you think of our shelter?” Jessie asked Mr. Alden.

Mr. Alden took a step up the tree stump that led into the boxcar. “Why, this looks more like a fine hotel than a shelter for strays,” Mr. Alden told Jessie when he looked around.

“This side is just for cats,” Jessie explained. She pointed to the roomy chicken-wire cages on one side of the boxcar.

Benny pointed to the shelves Violet and Jessie had put up. “That's where we keep the old dishes we had in the boxcar,” Benny announced. “I have to fill each one with water and food twice a day and put them out for each animal. That black cat only likes dry food, and Patches only likes tuna fish.”

“Look at what we built out here, Grandfather,” Violet said when everyone came outside again.

“What a fine dog run,” Mr. Alden said. “Lad and those pups have plenty of room to chase each other, don't they? They certainly don't look like the sad orphans Dr. Scott dropped off last night. They're right at home. Good job.”

“Thank you, Grandfather,” Henry said.

“I guess I'll go back inside and see what I can do for Watch,” Mr. Alden said. “Listen to that sad whining. He really doesn't like the
whole
family out here with all these new animals.”

After Mr. Alden left, Jessie checked her clipboard of things to do. “Now that the animals are all settled, we need to fix up an office in the garage. There are cases of pet food to order, prescriptions to get filled, and notes to take for Dr. Scott. She'll want to know everything when she comes by this afternoon.”

Benny Alden wasn't too interested in office work. Not when there were so many animals to play with. “Can I stay outside and play with the puppies, Henry?”

Henry was already up on a ladder in Mr. Alden's garage and putting in long shelves for bandages, animal-care books, and the curious black notebooks no one had had time to look at again. “Go ahead, Benny,” Henry called down from the ladder. “What good's having an animal shelter in your own backyard if you can't run around like a puppy?”

When Benny came back an hour later, the garage looked almost like Dr. Scott's office at the Greenfield Animal Shelter. Henry and Violet finished putting away the medical supplies, while Jessie wrote careful reports on each of the animals in their care.

“I think I might use these old farmer's notebooks to keep everything organized,” Jessie told Henry and Violet. “One of them could be for ordering food, another for our reports to Dr. Scott, and the third one for anything else we need to write down.”

Violet began reading over the wrinkled, torn pages of one of the notebooks. “I'm glad we're only taking care of pet animals, not real farm animals,” she said. “Mr. Kisco's cows needed forty-seven bales of hay over one long winter.”

“It's hard to believe there was so much farmland right here in Greenfield,” Jessie said. “There aren't many farms nearby nowadays.”

Henry looked over Violet's shoulder. “Mr. Seed said the farms started two roads over from Main Street back then, from Fox Den Road all the way to Burrville,” Henry said. “Now, of course, all the land near town is worth too much to keep as farmland. That must be why someone wants the animal shelter.”

“Hey, Jessie, something just fell out,” Benny said when he came into the garage. He bent down to pick up a long yellow envelope that had fallen out of the notebook Jessie was holding. “It says ‘D-E-E-D' on the envelope. Is that like what Grandfather says people should do—a good deed?”

“This is another kind of deed, Benny,” Jessie said. She carefully unfolded the thick sheet of paper. “This is a legal paper that says who owns certain land. There's an old map attached. See?”

“Let me see it, too, Jessie,” Henry said to his sister. “Maybe it's something important that belongs to the Greenfield Animal Shelter.”

Henry studied the old document. “Jacob Kisco deeds fifty acres of land to Silas Newcombe,” he read. Henry shook his head. “Didn't Grandfather say that when he was a little boy, Miss Newcombe's father, Silas, gave the schools free milk and ice cream that came from his farm?”

Jessie looked thoughtful. “That's right. But if the deed has her father's name on it, why was it hidden away in this old book in that broken-down toolshed? Why shouldn't Miss Newcombe have it in a safe place?”

Violet had a worried look on her face. “I just know something must be wrong with Miss Newcombe. I have a feeling.”

“Dr. Scott will be here soon to check on the animals,” Jessie said. “Maybe she can figure out what this deed is all about.”

The Aldens were still talking about Miss Newcombe when they heard Dr. Scott's station wagon pull into their grandfathers driveway.

But there was no time to tell Dr. Scott anything. She arrived, out of breath and in a hurry. She apologized to everyone. “I'm sorry to be in such a rush, but trying to clear out the shelter in such a short time has cut into my medical work.”

The Aldens could see this was no time to bring up the land deed. Dr. Scott was already out back with her medical bag. As she visited the animals one by one, the children reported on each of them.

Henry let Dr. Scott into the dog run where Lad and the two puppies were sound asleep in a heap on top of each other. “The two pups started regular food this morning,” Jessie told the doctor. “They didn't whine at all during the night.”

“Maybe they just needed more food,” Dr. Scott said. “And having this safe new home helps them sleep through the night, too.”

Benny took hold of Dr. Scott's hand. “Come see the crow,” he told her when they stopped in front of the tall, airy birdcage. The crow was sitting on a tree branch Benny had put in the cage. “This crow ate two handfuls of blueberries from Grandfather's blueberry bushes last night, but no ice cream.”

“I see he trusts you, Benny,” Dr. Scott said. She reached into the cage and wrapped both her hands around the bird to check his wing. “He's well fed, now, and this wing is mending beautifully. In another few days, leave the cage door open. He may be able to make a short flight to those blueberry bushes himself and come back to the safety of this cage until his wing is completely healed. Now how are those rabbits doing?”

“They're right here,” Benny said. He led Dr. Scott to the rabbit hutch. “I let them out to play, and they ate two heads of Grandfather's lettuce from the garden! I think I should bring them their dinner
inside
the cage from now on.”

“I think so, too, or we won't have any salad for the rest of the summer,” Henry laughed.

Dr. Scott finished her checkups. “Well, I see these animals don't need me! Is there anything else we should talk about?”

“Yes, there is something,” Jessie answered. “It's not about the animals, though, but it might have something to do with Miss Newcombe.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Newcombe.” Dr. Scott sighed. “I haven't forgotten her, you know. After many calls, I finally reached the new caretaker who is looking after her house. He says she's away visiting relatives. I've only had one short conversation with this man, but something bothers me. With everything that's going on at the shelter lately, I just haven't had time to figure out what it is.”

“Didn't Mr. Clover tell us she didn't have family left?” Henry asked everyone.

Jessie's eyes opened wide. “He did! Then how could Miss Newcombe be visiting relatives?”

Dr. Scott's face lit up. “Of course! That's what was bothering me. I knew Clara Newcombe didn't have any relatives, but I had so much on my mind I forgot all about that.” Dr. Scott patted Jessie's shoulder. “Good thinking.”