Brownie and the Dame (10 page)

“What if we grew up and got married?” Brownie asked, consternation discoloring his face.

“I think you’re going to grow up and turn into a criminal,” Janie announced, “and then I will arrest you because I will be a police officer. I’ll visit you in jail.”

“Not ifin I have my stun gun.”

“I wish I knew what they’re saying,” Janie muttered.

Brownie watched Bubba’s face move. “He’s saying, ‘Oh, Willodean, you’re the purtiest deputy ever. Will you wash my socks?’”

Janie snorted. She imitated Willodean, “‘Oh, Bubba, will you be my special friend and reload my Glock for me?’”

Brownie chuckled. Then he frowned as he perceived the progressing situation. “Oh my. They’re
kissing.
That’s disgusting.”

“I might throw up,” Janie said quickly. “Let’s go look at that map again.”

They quickly fled inside and found the office with the map on the wall. Brownie found a few more push pins and put one in front of the Ford building. He stuck another one on the side of the map in preparation of when they might need it.

Janie stared at the map speculatively. “That looks kind of like a C with the bottom of the C starting right here, at Snoddy Mansion.”

Precious had followed them in and plopped herself down on the floor in-between the two children. She whined for a moment and then put her head down on her paw.

Brownie tilted his head and studied the map. “And ifin we take into account the time frame, it’s about the same. The spatula first, although Miz Adelia cain’t remember exactly when it went missing, then the bras, then the penguin, and possibly the tree.” He put his finger where the line of an imaginary C might go next. “We should go stake this location out, sister.”

“What is that place?”

“I think it’s the Moose Lodge.”

“Mooses have their own lodge? I mean moose. Mooses. Which one is right?”

“No, it’s the Loyal Order of Moose,” Brownie said. “My daddy is a Moose.”

“What the heck is that?”

“Beats me, but have you got something better to do?”

Chapter 7

Brownie and the Perplexing Puzzlement

Wednesday, April 4th

Janie appeared at breakfast the next morning wearing a new t-shirt and jeans. It said, “Give me your donut, now.” Brownie looked at the shirt and said, “We don’t have donuts.”

“It’s a joke about the police eating too many donuts,” Janie explained. “I didn’t think it was funny, but Auntie Hattie gave it to me. Where’s your suit?”

Brownie also wore a t-shirt and jeans. Miz Demetrice had laid down the law about the suit. “You cannot wear it every day of the week,” she declared when he had first come downstairs. “It has to be washed before it stands up on its own.”

Reluctantly, Brownie had returned upstairs and changed. His t-shirt didn’t have a logo or pithy saying on it, and he was slightly dismayed. But he did get to wear the fedora. Apparently hats didn’t have to be washed, although the hat wasn’t allowed to be worn during breakfast proper.
Wore it yesterday at breakfast
.

Miz Adelia was making French toast and humming a song, although she had briefly griped about the loss of her favorite spatula. “
Dishwasher safe
, dang it all,” she’d muttered. “I miss the slots on that spatula. Hope someone is having a
fine
time this morning with that there spatula.”

Bubba departed early. His black eye had finally turned black, but it hadn’t stopped him as he got coffee and headed out.

Miz Demetrice had been on the phone nonstop for most of the morning. The phone had briefly stopped ringing when she had stuck the portable device into a drawer and covered it with dishtowels. She slammed the drawer shut and forked the sign of the devil at it for certainty’s sake. At that point, she received a large cup of tea from Miz Adelia. Miz Demetrice collapsed into the chair across from Brownie and Janie and said, “Today is Wednesday, right?”

“Wednesday, check,” Janie said. “That’s a code 10.”

“What, Wednesday is a code 10?” Brownie asked.

“A code 10 is a known offender,” Janie said. “A code 10-c is a dangerous, known offender.”

“That would be Brownie,” Miz Demetrice said with a smirk. Brownie hadn’t been previously aware that older women could smirk the way that Miz Demetrice smirked. It was the smirk of an individual who knows she’s smarter, cannier, and more devious in nature than Brownie could ever hope to attain. It made him very much aware that his great-aunt was a code 10-c herself.
Wow. I
love
visiting Snoddy Mansion
.

“A 10-96 is the Dallas County Sheriff’s code for a crazy person,” Janie mentioned.

“We need to investigate the missing tree,” Brownie announced, unable to keep up with the undercurrent.

“Ah, the missing tree,” Miz Demetrice said, curling her hands around her cup of tea as if someone might steal it at any moment.

Brownie pulled out his notepad and consulted it. “It was allegedly stolen from the Ford building. Miz Holmgreen reported it.” His brows knit. “Or mebe she repeated something she heard. I don’t recollect.”

“A tree,” Miz Demetrice said again. “How much trouble can the two of you get into looking into a missing tree in the middle of town?”

Brownie was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to answer that. Fortunately, Miz Adelia started serving breakfast, and he was spared from an attempt.

Halfway through breakfast the drawer with the phone in it began to thunder madly, and Miz Demetrice retrieved the offending object, disappearing down the hallway, muttering words that Brownie fought to quickly write down in his notepad.

“That’s a 10-79,” Janie remarked around a mouthful of French toast.

Brownie waited for an explanation.

Janie swallowed and said, “Notify the coroner. She’s going to worry herself to death. What’re all the phone calls about?”

“It’s an ecret-say,” Brownie whispered. “We’re not supposed to know.”

Miz Adelia was washing the grill. With her back turned to the children and fully twenty feet away from them, she said, “It’s a grown-up thing.”

“I hate it when they say that,” Janie said.

“Me, too,” Brownie agreed. Precious laid her head across Brownie’s foot and made a noise that was half a whine and half a plea. He slipped the dog a piece of French toast, which vanished from his hand in much the same manner as Judge Crater had once vanished from New York City. Brownie knew because he had read a book about missing people very soon after Willodean Gray had mysteriously disappeared. And no one had ever found a trace of Judge Crater. It really made a boy wonder how hard someone would have to work to completely cover the tracks of a crime.
A worthy future pursuit of knowledge.

“So off to the Ford building,” Janie said. “Then we go over and check out the other place. The Moose place.”

Miz Adelia’s shoulders abruptly straightened up. She turned and looked at the two children.

“Ixnay on the oose-may uff-stay,” Brownie muttered out of the side of his mouth.

“What are you children up to?” Miz Adelia demanded. She waved the plastic spatula in her hand, then glanced at it derogatorily. “Dang cheap piece of crap, I mean, carp.”

“Detective work,” Brownie said seriously. “We need to see the scene of the crime. A tree is missing.”

“A tree,” she repeated. Miz Adelia looked at the spatula again. “What in tarnation does a missing tree have to do with a missing spatula?”

“It’s a puzzle, ma’am,” Brownie said promptly.

“Gathering clues to the investigation is vital,” Janie added.

Miz Adelia stared at them. “Fine. Be back by dinnertime. We’re having Yankee pot roast. With gravy. Lots of gravy. And I still ain’t taught you how to make rolls, have I?” She shook her head. “Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get into a van without windows. Scream bloody murder ifin anyone touches you. Did I forget anything?” She thought about it and added, “No nuclear Armageddon. No dismembering corpses. No turning into zombies. Ifin that don’t cover it, I don’t know what will.”

Brownie helped clean up the table while Janie helped wash dishes.

After he was done, he managed to slip a doggie biscuit to Precious before Miz Adelia could say anything. He leaned down to pet the dog, who was still under the kitchen table. Precious looked at the biscuit and turned her head away. Brownie took it to mean that the dog was out of sorts.

“What’s the matter, Precious?” Brownie muttered. “You et a bad tasting squirrel or such?”

Janie leaned down and scrutinized the dog. “She looks tired.”

“Miz Adelia, is Precious okay?” Brownie asked.

Miz Adelia came over and hunkered down to look at the hound. She touched Precious’s head and scratched her behind the ears. She ran her hand down the hound’s body. Precious lay on her side and panted lightly. “Well, that dills my pickle,” she commented.

“I don’t like pickles,” Brownie said. “Is there something wrong with Precious?”

Miz Adelia sighed. “No, dear. She’s just taking a rest. Why don’t ya’ll run along, and try not to burn the town down. You don’t have a rocket launcher hidden someplace, Brownie?”

“No, but I got a book on how to make one from PVC tubing,” Brownie said with a grin.

Miz Adelia looked at Brownie to see if he was serious.

Brownie ran upstairs to use the bathroom before they pedaled off for the purposes of not-so-illicit investigation. He came back out of the bathroom precisely thirty-two seconds later and yelled down the grand staircase, “Who’s the funny guy who put Vaseline on the toilet seat?”

* * *

“I’m going to try that on my brother,” Janie said and laughed. “He goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t ever turn on the light.” She stopped snickering and said, “If I didn’t do it, then it had to be Miz Demetrice, Miz Adelia, or Bubba.”

They rode the borrowed bicycles on their way to downtown Pegramville. Traffic was light, and they’d only stopped once to avoid two older ladies chasing a mongrel dog down the side of the road.

“Bill Clinton!” one of the ladies yelled. “Come back here! I have DOGGY BONES! AND BACON BITES! WE’LL NEVER WATCH
OLD YELLER
AGAIN!”

“Must be the Mercer sisters,” Janie observed stoically. “Did you notice if the dog’s toenails were painted?”

The dog hauled his tushie down the road as if it had been dipped in rubbing alcohol. Diligently, he headed back the way the two children had come and didn’t look back at the sisters coming after him in a much slower manner.

“Maybe that’s why the dog is running away,” Brownie said. “Ifin someone took me in to get my nails painted, I’d run away, too. Should only do that to girl dogs.”

“I wouldn’t do it to Precious,” Janie stated.

“No, I like all my fingers connected to me,” Brownie agreed.

They pedaled up to the two older women, who were both panting heavily.

“Morning,” Brownie said to the Mercer sisters. The older women glared at him as if their dog absconding was his fault.

Once the children had ridden past, Brownie asked, “What’d I say?”

Janie shrugged. “Maybe we should have caught the dog when he ran past us?”

A little while later, they came to the crime scene at the Ford building. The building was in downtown Pegramville. It was a whopping two stories and constructed with red brick like many of the buildings in the area. Presently part of it was rented by a fortune cookie company. The other part was empty and had a “For Lease” sign on the window.
 

There was a small grass lawn in front. Several trees had been planted across the lawn in a neat row. All of them were less than two feet in height and appeared freshly established. The third one from the left was missing. A dirt hole remained.

“Tree’s missing,” Brownie opined. He withdrew his notepad from his pocket and fished for his pencil stub. Then he drew a little diagram of the lawn complete with the empty hole.

“That’s pretty good,” Janie said from behind his shoulder.

Brownie took a moment to show her the animated alien at the bottom of the notepad. Once he flipped through the pages, letting his thumb release the pages in steady pace, the alien did a somersault and then stuck his tongue out at the onlooker.

Janie said, “Oooo,” approvingly.

“What the heck are you kids doing out here?” an irate voice said.

They looked up and saw a woman in her early twenties staring at them from the front door of the fortune cookie factory. She was a blonde with long dreadlocks and impatience written all over her.

“You didn’t steal that tree yesterday, did you?” she demanded.

“There’s been a rash of thefts, ma’am,” Janie said imperiously. Brownie was impressed at her imposing tone of voice despite himself. The eight-year-old had it down. “Your tree was one of the thefts mentioned.”

The young woman stared. She stepped outside and let the door shut. “The owner spent a couple grand on those cherry trees. He wasn’t happy someone took one. He babied those trees for days, wrapping cloth around the trunks when it was cold, watering them by hand. He was very unhappy. You don’t want to hear a man curse in Yiddish because I had a hard time Googling the words. I mean, what the he— sorry, heck, why take
one
? Why didn’t they take
all
of them?”