Clue in the Corn Maze (7 page)

“That’s too bad,” Benny said.

“Yes, but I saw him run across the road and into the cornfield across the way,” Kurt said. “Then he disappeared.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Henry asked.

“Not good enough. He was wearing a dark shirt and pants. And it looked like he had a hood of some kind over his head.”

“That was all we saw, too,” Violet said.

“I know the road that runs on the other side of that field,” Kurt went on. “It goes behind Peggy Rodman’s place. So I took off as fast as I could, hoping I’d catch him coming out the other side. But by the time I got over there, he was gone.”

“That’s why you were so tired this morning,” Violet said. “You really were up most of the night.”

“Yes.”

“So why didn’t you just tell us that’s what you’d been doing this morning?” Jessie asked.

Kurt smiled. “I didn’t want Ken to know I’d been staking out his place like some sort of undercover detective,” he said. “He would’ve been angry. He’d have said I should mind my own business.”

“He probably would have,” Henry agreed. “Ken likes to take care of himself.”

Later, when the children were walking back to Ken’s, Jessie said, “Well, that explains the blue truck that Peggy saw.”

“We aren’t any closer to solving this case than we ever were,” Benny grumbled.

“This is a tough one,” Henry agreed. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“At least the festival will go on,” Violet said.

“Unless our intruder shows up again,” Jessie said.

When the Aldens returned to Ken’s, Mr. Sweeney was back. He was just finishing up the last of the repair work in the maze.

“Tomorrow we paint the fence posts,” Violet said.

“And decorate for the festival,” Benny added.

“Can you kids help me go down all the paths right now and make sure the rest of the maze is in good shape?” asked Mr. Sweeney.

“Sure,” the Aldens replied.

They divided up—Mr. Sweeney, Henry, and Violet, and Jessie and Benny—and headed down different paths.

“Everything looks good over here,” Jessie called after a little while.

“Here, too,” Henry called back.

“Wait a minute,” Violet said. “What’s that?”

A round black object had caught her eye. Violet and Henry rushed down the path to see what it was.

“A tire?” Violet said with surprise. The tire was short and fat.

“It’s too small to have come from a car,” Henry said.

“What else could it have come from?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know,” Henry said as Mr. Sweeney, Jessie, and Benny came up behind them. “Maybe a wagon?”

Mr. Sweeney picked up the tire. There was another note underneath. Henry picked it up. Like the other notes that had been found in the maze, it was written in letters cut from magazine or newspaper headlines.

“CANCEL THE FESTIVAL OR THERE WILL BE TROUBLE,” Jessie read over Henry’s shoulder.

“Oh, no,” Violet said.

“What kind of trouble?” Benny asked.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Sweeney said grimly. “But this looks like a tire from the trailer we use for hayrides. I’d better go see if the trailer is okay.”

The children followed Mr. Sweeney through the maze and over to the barn.

Mr. Sweeney grabbed a tire iron from a workbench in the corner, then went around and checked each tire on the trailer.

“They’re all tight,” Mr. Sweeney said after he’d checked the last one.

“So what does the note mean?” Benny asked.

“Maybe it means the person hasn’t actually done anything yet, but they’re planning on doing something to the tires sometime before the festival,” Henry said.

Violet gasped. “That sounds dangerous!”

“We’d better show this note and tire to Ken and Grandfather,” Jessie said. She and Henry picked up the tire and trooped up to the house.

They found Ken and Grandfather making dinner in the kitchen. Grandfather was peeling potatoes. Ken was snapping beans at the kitchen table. A beef roast rotated slowly in the rotisserie on the counter.

Ken looked up curiously as Mr. Sweeney and the children walked in. When he saw the worried faces, he asked, “Is something the matter?”

“We may have some more trouble,” Mr. Sweeney said, pointing to the tire.

Ken looked at the tire. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Henry showed him the note.

“Th-this sounds like a threat!” Ken said angrily. He looked at the children. “Where did you get this?”

“We found it in the maze,” Violet said. “It was down one of the dead-end paths.”

“Do you suppose the person who was hacking down the corn put it there last night?” Jessie asked.

“It wasn’t there this morning,” Mr. Sweeney said. “I walked through the whole maze looking for damage. If this note and wheel were there then, I would’ve seen them.”

“So somebody must have put them in there today while you were shopping for chicken wire and we were out walking or visiting Kurt. That’s the only time the maze was unguarded,” Jessie said.

“I’m guessing it’s the same person who tried to destroy the maze last night. Now we’re being warned there’s going to be trouble if the festival goes on as planned,” Henry said.

“Did you see anyone around, Ken?” Violet asked.

“No,” Ken replied. “James and I were playing chess all afternoon.”

“David stopped by for a few minutes,” Grandfather said. “I wonder if he saw anything?”

The children exchanged looks. If David had stopped by, they wondered, could
he
have left the wheel and the note?

“I’m worried,” Ken said, shaking his head. “What if this person makes good on his threat? What if he loosens one of the wheels on the trailer and the trailer tips over? People could get hurt.”

He slumped back against his chair in defeat. “I think I’m going to have to cancel the festival,” he said sadly.

“No!” the Aldens said together.

“I’m sorry, kids,” Ken said. “But I don’t see any other choice. I can’t take a chance on someone getting hurt.”

“Should I call the radio station so they can make an announcement about the festival being canceled?” Mr. Sweeney asked. “We don’t want people driving out here for nothing.”

“It’s a little late to do that today,” Ken said. “The office is probably only open until five o’clock. But if you’d take care of that for me tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.”

Mr. Sweeney nodded.

“So that gives us less than twenty-four hours to solve this case,” Henry said glumly.

“If we figure out who’s doing this, you won’t have to cancel the festival, will you, Ken?” Violet asked.

“No,” Ken said. “But do you really think you can catch someone so quickly?”

“We’ll sure try,” Henry said.

“We know one thing for sure,” Jessie said after supper. The sun was going down, but the children sat on bales of hay behind the barn reviewing all the clues they had.

“What?” Benny asked, swinging his feet.

Jessie pulled her legs up onto the bale she was sitting on. “We know that it couldn’t have been Kurt who put the tire in the maze,” she said. “We were with him this afternoon.”

“Not the whole time,” Henry pointed out. “We walked down to Peggy’s first.”

“But we woke Kurt up when we got to his house,” Jessie said. “I don’t think he would’ve had time to drive up here, hide a tire in the maze, then drive back home and fall asleep.”

“You’re probably right, Jessie,” Violet said.

“Mr. Sweeney could have done it,” Henry said. “He was here by himself for a little while before we got back.”

“David was here, too,” Benny put in.

“But David is Ken’s son,” Violet said. She still couldn’t believe he was involved in all this.

“How about Peggy Rodman?” Jessie suggested. “Kurt said that the person who ran away from Ken’s house last night went into the field across the street. And that field comes out down by Peggy’s house.”

“Maybe we should do what Kurt did last night,” Benny said.

“What do you mean, Benny?” Violet asked.

Benny jumped down from his bale of hay. “Maybe we should stake out the maze and the barn tonight. Make sure nothing bad happens.”

“That’s a great idea, Benny!” Jessie said. “We could sit up in the lookout tower. I think we could see both the maze and the barn from up there.”

“We can roll out our sleeping bags and pretend we’re having a campout,” Violet said. “And we can take turns keeping watch.”

“If we’re lucky, we’ll catch the person in the act and save Ken’s maze,” Henry said.

“Not to mention the whole King Corn Days Festival!” Benny said.

“I don’t know,” Ken said a little while later when the children explained their plan. He and Grandfather were sitting in the living room paging through old photo albums and talking about things they used to do together when they were young.

“I appreciate you kids wanting to help,” Ken went on. “But this sounds a little dangerous.”

“We’ll be careful, Ken,” Violet said. “We promise.”

“This might be the only way to catch the vandal,” Jessie said.

“You don’t want to let someone get away with this, do you?” Benny asked.

“Well, no,” Ken admitted. “But I don’t want to put you children in harm’s way, either.”

“Perhaps you and I could sit outside and keep watch, too,” Grandfather suggested. “Those back porch chairs of yours are pretty comfortable. And I know my grandchildren won’t do anything foolish.”

Ken looked at Grandfather. “You’d be willing to spend the night sleeping in a chair outdoors?”

“To catch the person who’s been wrecking your maze?” Grandfather said. “You bet I would!”

“Then it’s settled,” Henry said. “We’ll go get our sleeping bags.”

Benny shifted in his sleeping bag. “What time is it?” he whispered.

Henry had agreed to take the first watch. Jessie, Violet, and Benny were trying to sleep, but it was hard for Jessie to get comfortable on the wood floor. And Violet and Benny were simply too excited to sleep.

Henry glanced at his watch. “It’s a quarter to twelve,” he whispered back.

“That’s pretty late,” Benny said with a yawn.

“Yes, it is,” Henry agreed. He held a big spotlight in his lap. Everyone else had small flashlights.

If Henry saw anyone around the maze, he was supposed to wake everyone up and shine the spotlight on the intruder. Ken said the light was bright enough to light up the whole yard. But so far, Henry hadn’t had any reason to use it.

Jessie rolled over onto her stomach, but that wasn’t any more comfortable. Finally she sat up.

“I think I’m going to move my sleeping bag down onto the grass,” Jessie said. “Violet and Benny, do you want to come with me?”

“I’d rather sleep up here,” Benny said.

“Me, too,” Violet said.

So Jessie got up, carried her sleeping bag and pillow down the stairs, and settled herself on the grass.

“Is that better, Jessie?” Henry called to her.

“Much better,” Jessie said as she snuggled down into her sleeping bag.

“It’s kind of nice being out here under the stars,” Violet said, gazing up at the night sky.

“Are there more stars here than there are at home?” Benny wondered.

“No,” Jessie replied. “It just looks like it because we’re out in the country. There are no city lights to block out some of the dimmer stars.”

The children picked out the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper and the Pleiades.

Then, one by one, they drifted off to sleep.

After a while, Henry tiptoed down the stairs with his flashlight and nudged Jessie. “Can you take over the watch? I’m getting tired.”

Jessie rolled over. “Sure,” she said softly. She yawned and stretched. “Have you seen anything unusual?”

“No.” Henry shook his head. “I think Grandfather and Ken are sleeping now, too. I haven’t heard their chairs rocking at all.”

Jessie sat up where she had a good view of the maze and Henry handed her a flashlight. “Wake me up if you see anything,” he said. Then he crept back up to the lookout tower.

“I will,” Jessie promised.

It didn’t take Henry long to fall asleep. Jessie gazed out over the yard. The moon gave off enough light so that she was sure she would see someone running across the yard.

But so far, there had been no one.

Jessie rubbed her eyes. It was hard to stay awake all by herself. Just as she was about to wake Violet, a movement at the edge of the trees caught her eye.

Jessie peered closer. A dark figure emerged from the trees. The figure crept slowly toward the maze.

Jessie pounded on the lookout tower. “Wake up!” she cried. “There’s someone in the yard.” She shined the flashlight toward the figure. But before Jessie could get the light focused, the person dashed into the maze.

“Quick! After him!” Henry cried.

The children flipped on their flashlights and clattered down the stairs of the lookout tower. They raced toward the maze.