Baby-Sitters Beware (6 page)

"But what about the fire? I don't know Cokie very well," said Jessi, "but I can't believe that even she would set a fire deliberately."

"I agree," I said. "Or lurk around outside Mary Anne's house in the dark alone. Or throw a rock through a window. Cokie's nasty, but she's not a criminal."

Then Stacey asked, "What about Cary Retlin?"

That stopped us all for a moment. Who could forget Cary Retlin? He'd been involved in a mystery that Stacey had helped solve, when someone had tried to sabotage a school dance. We never had figured out quite how much trouble Cary was capable of making though. He seemed to enjoy it. "Cary Retlin is a possibility," said Mal. She hadn't been talking much, just sitting with her arms folded and a glum, faraway expression on her face. "Or maybe it’s just some stranger."

"Some random person?" I asked. I didn't know which was worse: thinking that some-

one who knew us could be behind the horrible, creepy things that had been happening, or that some stranger might be stalking us and our families.

Suddenly I didn't want to talk about it anymore. The police and the fire marshal were on the case. They could handle it. No need for us to worry.

But it didn't look as though we were going to be cut loose from crime anytime soon. Abby said, "Well, solve this mystery, then. Why haven't we heard anything about that burglary Kristy and I saw on Wednesday? Nothing in the newspapers, nothing on television, nada. Total nada."

Jessi suggested, "Maybe there was more important news?"

"Hey, I wasn't expecting a headline," said Abby, "but it should have at least made the police blotter section."

"You read the police reports in the newspaper?" Mary Anne said, her eyes widening.

"Sure. Doesn't everybody?" asked Abby.

Kristy said, "Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to check it out now. We could see if anything like what's been happening to us has been happening around Stoneybrook. Maybe It’s part of some vandalism wave or something."

I'm not a coward, but I was shaken by what had happened. The assumption that the events could be linked together somehow, that a single person could be responsible for so much evil, made the smell of smoke that lingered in the air seem positively malevolent.

The only real damage had been to our trash cans, but I knew it could have been worse.

Much worse.

What if we hadn't come home when we did? What if Janine hadn't smelled the smoke until . . .

"My mom and dad get the newspaper," I said brightly. I jumped up and ran out of the room and downstairs to the front door.

The newspaper had been delivered. I bent to pick it up — then slowly straightened.

What if someone were out there, right now, watching my house?

Quickly I slammed the door and ran back upstairs, dropping the newspaper on Krist/s lap as I returned to my seat.

"Let me see some of it," said Abby.

Kristy handed her a section of the newspaper without speaking.

"Anybody else want part of the paper?" asked Abby, looking around.

"Here it is," said Kristy. "Local Crime

Beat.' Look, Claudia! We're in it!"

Clearing her throat, Kristy read the crime report aloud.

The fire at our house was described as "Fire of Mysterious Origin." That meant, after we'd deciphered the weird language the police report was written in, that there'd been a fire and nobody knew who had set it. "Arson suspected," the report concluded.

Arson. The word sent a chill down my spine.

I looked around the room and realized that I wasn't the only one who had been affected by the word. Arson. It had a nasty, criminal sound to it. But then, why shouldn't it? It was the name of a crime.

"Are you going to keep reading?" Abby asked. "If it's too much, I'll — "

"It’s fine," said Kristy. She kept reading. Whoever had broken the window and sprayed the threat on her front door was described as a "vandal." No suspects, the report said.

"Well, great." Abby sounded disgusted. "Why haven't they reported the burglary?"

"Maybe you just missed seeing it," suggested Jessi.

"Nope," said Abby.

The phone rang and for a moment we all

stared at it as if we didn't know why it was making that noise. Then Stacey said, "Oh!" and picked it up.

We went on with business as usual after that. Kristy checked the weather report in the paper, and read a prediction of "possible snow" for the weekend at Shadow Lake.

She groaned.

"Don't they have snow machines at the ski areas?" I asked.

"It’s not the same," Kristy complained.

"You are so right," agreed Abby. "Nothing like real powder."

Stacey suddenly laughed. "As long as it’s soft! I'm barely off the bunny slope, don't forget."

I opened my mouth to tell Stacey not to worry, that I'd stick with her. But I didn't have a chance.

"Hey, no prob," said Abby. "I'll have you skiing the black diamond trails in no time."

"Black diamond? Oh, right. The really hard ones." Stacey laughed again. "That’ll be the day."

"Well, maybe not the expert trails," Abby conceded.

She sounded so sure of herself.

So cocky.

Aloud I said, "You know, people get killed

every year, trying to ski on trails they aren't ready for. Killed dead."

Abby looked startled. And she wasn't the only one.

I folded my arms. "I mean, I don't want to see Stacey getting hurt. She doesn't have to prove anything. She just wants to have a good time."

Mary Anne the peacemaker intervened. "Well, you'll have a good time no matter what kind of snow you have. And wait until you see Shadow Lake, Abby. It’s really, really beautiful."

"Yeah," said Kristy. She leaned back in her chair and pushed her visor up. "Shadow Lake. I can hardly wait."

She looked at her watch. "This meeting. . ."

But before she could adjourn, the phone rang one last time.

I picked it up. "Baby-sitters Club. May I help you?" I asked.

No one answered.

"Hello?" I said.

Again no one answered.

''Hello!" I almost shouted.

"You're next," a voice whispered.

And then the line went dead.

Chapter 7.

Kristy.

Mary Anne's voice said, "He just called again."

"He, who?" I asked. "Logan?" Of course, by then, I knew it wasn't Logan. Because the BSC was getting swamped with crank calls. Not heavy breathing calls. Just frightening, horrible silences. The silences of someone listening on the other end of the phone, and enjoying the panic in your voice as you say, "Hello. Hello? Hello! WHO'S THERE?" before slamming the phone down, good and hard.

We'd dealt with phantom phone calls before, Claudia in particular. They hadn't been as creepy as these.

"Listen," I said, ,"From now on, we should, all ring once and then call right back. That way we'll know it’s not the anonymous phone caller."

Mary Anne said, "My father got a phone call from someone asking for a Mr. Smith. Doesn't that sound fake to you? Do you think it was the guy who's been calling us?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Most of my phone calls have been when I'm the only one here, or the oldest one here," I said.

"As if he knows," Mary Anne said, almost tearfully. "As if he's watching."

"Let him watch. There's nothing he can do." But I knew that wasn't true. He — or she — whoever it was, had done plenty already.

Stacey and Claudia reported the same pattern: hang-up phone calls when they answered the phone. Usually the calls came when they were home alone, or hanging out together, or at least when no adults were around who were more likely to answer the phone. I'd taken to turning on the answering machine when I was home and screening all the incoming calls. So had Stacey. But although Claudia has an answering machine for her phone, the Kishis don't have one for the family phone, and the Spiers use an answering service that's only in effect during the workdays, when they aren't home and Mary Anne is at school.

The phone calls had been going on all weekend. But so far, Mal, Jessi, and Abby hadn't gotten any. But then, Jessi's dad and Mal's parents had been home all weekend, while Abby and Anna and their mom practically hadn't been home at all.

Then, abruptly, the calls stopped. Not a single random ring after the phone call to Mary Anne on Sunday afternoon.

I still gave the phone a dark, suspicious look

every time it rang, though; And I still turned the answering machine on when I was home alone.

Whoever it was might have just taken the night off.

I also kept a dose eye on the newspaper, to see if there had been any news about the burglary. So did Abby.

Neither of us had seen a word about a house being burglarized.

On Monday before school, I decided that no news was not good news. I called Sergeant Johnson to ask him if the burglars had been caught.

"No," he said slowly. "No", no suspects have been apprehended." He paused, then said, "We don't have a complainant."

"What do you mean? I'm complaining! Someone broke into someone's house!"

"Ms. Thomas . . ."

"Call me Kristy."

"Kristy. When we contacted the owner of the house, Mr. ..." Sergeant Johnson paused, and I could hear the rustling of paper. "Mr. H. Joseph Seger, he said that the window was broken the previous night when he was pruning a tree and miscalculated the fall of a large branch."

"Prune? Did he say 'prune'?" I asked.

The paper rustled again. "Yes. That was his word."

"Ha!" I said. "No one prunes trees this time of year!" (Not for nothing am I the stepdaughter of Watson Brewer, and the granddaughter of Nannie, both master gardeners, and between them the owners of the largest collection of gardening books in the universe.)

Sergeant Johnson said, "Hmmm."

Of course, Mr. H. Joseph Seger could have just been a bad gardener. It was possible.

But it didn't make sense.

"We did hear glass breaking. We did see someone run by, wearing a stocking mask and carrying a gym bag. Abby and I both did. Why would we make something like that up?"

Another pause. Then Sergeant Johnson said, "I don't doubt what you say. But there is nothing we can do if Mr. Seger says there

was no crime."

"Oh," I said. "So that's it, then?" "Unless something changes," said Sergeant Johnson. "If it does, we'll be in touch."

"Thank you," I said, and hung up. I tried to remember whether I'd seen any tree branches lying around in the broken glass that afternoon. But I couldn't. Besides, Mr. Seger

would just say that he'd already cleared the

branch away. But why clear away a branch and not the

broken glass? Why lie about the incident in

the first place?

"Kristy!" Watson called. "Your bus is here." I grabbed my pack and headed for school.

Abby said sarcastically, "Well— if he wasn't a burglar, who was the guy in the mask who ran past us? The housekeeper, taking out the garbage?"

I expected steam to start pouring out of Abby's ears at any moment.

Fortunately, Mary Anne sat down at that moment. "Garbage?" she said, giving me a reproving frown. "Are you making gross jokes about the food, too, Abby? Because if you and Kristy are both going to — "

Abby looked startled. I couldn't help but grin. "We're not making food jokes," I assured her. "We're talking about the burglar."

We were eating lunch in the cafeteria at SMS together, as we usually did: Stacey, Claudia, Mary Anne, Abby, and me. Sometimes Logan joins us, but I didn't see him around today. Jessi and Mal don't sit with us, because the sixth-graders have a different lunch period.

As Mary Anne gave her own lunch a less than approving look I filled her in on my conversation with Sergeant Johnson that morning.

"Why would Mr. Seger lie about someone breaking into his house?" asked Mary Anne.

"Because he's hiding something, of course," said Abby impatiently.

Everybody was quiet for a moment. I gave my green Jell-O a poke and watched it wiggle.

"Maybe he has something inside the house he doesn't want the police to see," Claudia suggested. "Like . . . .like stolen art."

"Or counterfeit money," said Stacey.

Since she and Claud had both been seriously involved in mysteries involving, respectively, counterfeit money and stolen art, these suggestions were not as farfetched as they might seem. As we all knew, it could happen in Stoneybrook. It already had.

"Maybe," I said slowly.

"He's hiding something," said Abby. "What it is isn't important right now. What’s more important is, are the burglars connected to all this — I mean, to the bizzaro, sicko things that have been happening to us?"