Dew Drop Dead (2 page)

The boys were leaning against the railing on David's front porch. Sebastian said, “It doesn't look good.”

They fell silent, as they always did at this point in this particular conversation. They had been friends for as far back as they could remember and they did not want to consider the possibility that Sebastian might have to move away.

“It's too cold to hang around,” Sebastian said. “Let's go for a ride. I'll get my bike and meet you.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere. Who knows? Maybe we'll find a circus to join.”

CORRIE WINGATE
waved to them from the front lawn of her house down the street. “Where are you going?” she called out.

Sebastian and David brought their bikes to a halt by the curb.

“To find a circus,” David said. He knew she was going to end up joining them, but he couldn't quite bring himself to invite her. Corrie had moved into the neighborhood the summer before, and it had taken David some time to warm up to her. By now he was used to the idea that she was Sebastian's girlfriend. He didn't like it, but he was used to it.

And Corrie was used to the fact that David rarely gave a straight answer. “Can I come, too?” she said.

“Sure,” said Sebastian.

Corrie ran to get her bicycle, which was propped against a tree. “I've got to get away from my house for a while,” she told them. “My father is driving me nuts.”

“Welcome to the club,” Sebastian said.

“Your
father?” David was incredulous. Corrie's father was a minister. He didn't think ministers were allowed to drive you nuts.

“Please,” said Corrie. “All he can talk about is how his ‘flock' is letting him down. He's been trying to start this food-and-shelter program at the church, and now that he's gotten an official go-ahead, he can't get enough volunteers. He says people are too selfish these days, that they don't think of others.
Me,
he's telling. Me, who spent two hours this morning delivering meals to shut-ins. I mean, if he wants to talk about my brother Drew, maybe. My sister, Alice, for sure. But me? It's gotten to the point where every time he starts in about his flock, I just go, ‘Baa-aa-aa.'”

Sebastian laughed.

“You know what he said?” Corrie went on. “He said he wished he was back in Troy. Can you believe it? He'd rather be in Troy, New York, than Pembroke, Connecticut. He said the problems there were more real, whatever that means.”

“Pembroke has real problems,” Sebastian said.

“I know that. And so does he. I think he just likes to hear himself complain.”

“Grown-ups,” said David. “I'm glad I'm not one.”

“You will be soon enough,” Sebastian reminded him.

“I don't know,” said David. “Maybe I'll stay twelve the rest of my life.”

“I thought the same thing when I was your age,” Sebastian said. “And then one day, you know what? I turned thirteen.”

“Aw, you're such an old man,” said David.

“Yeah? I'll bet I can still beat you to the traffic light.”

“Bet you can't.”

“You're on.”

Sebastian and David sped away without a backward glance. Corrie noticed that she hadn't been included in their little bet, but she didn't let it bother her. She watched them pedal furiously down Chestnut Street, Sebastian leading by a hair, then pushed off at her own leisurely pace. After a moment, she picked up her speed.

It was a close race. By the time the boys arrived at the traffic light, they were neck and neck. Fortunately, Corrie was already there to call the winner.

HEADING OUT ROUTE
7, they slowed their pace and got to talking about Sebastian's canceled radio show. For three years, he had been the host of “Small Talk,” a weekly talk show for kids. The opportunity had come his way because his father was the station manager of WEB-FM; it had never occurred to him that he could be fired.

“I knew the ratings were slipping,” he told David and Corrie as they passed the A&P, “but it still came as a shock. I mean, do you know what it's like to have your own dad give you the boot?”

David, who wrote for Sebastian's show, had been with him that day. “It was awful,” he told Corrie. “We came in to tape the show, and Uncle Will said, ‘Boys, I have some bad news.'”

“It wasn't his fault. It was Herself,” said Sebastian, referring to the anonymous and eccentric station owner. “She sent out this memo. She says nobody listens to talk radio anymore. So what does she do? She puts on this music like you hear in elevators. Gee, that'll get a lot of new listeners. Not that I think she cares much anyway. The rumor is she's planning to
sell the station to some big corporation. What gets me is that I never had the chance to quit. I wish my father would.”

“Quit?” David asked.

“Yeah, just so he won't have to get fired.”

“Don't say that, Sebastian,” said Corrie.

“But it feels lousy to get fired. I know. I'm thirteen and a has-been.”

David laughed. “There you go sounding like an old man again.”

“I know, I know. I've got my whole life ahead of me and all that. But what about my dad? He's thirty-seven. What's he going to do?”

No one answered. They had reached the top of Dead Man's Hill and were silenced, as always, by the prospect of what lay before them. The steep decline with its hairpin turns was a favorite for daredevil coasting among the kids in town.

“Want to turn around?” Corrie asked.

That was all David needed to hear. “What's the matter?” he said. “Afraid?”

“No,” Corrie said. “But it'll be dark soon. We don't want to get too far from home.”

“It's not so late. What do you say, Sebastian?”

“I say let's go for it.”

“All right!”

Sebastian felt the raw November wind sting his cheeks. His eyes were beginning to water. “Let's take
a right at the bottom,” he suggested. “We'll go as far as the inn and then head back.”

Corrie asked, “What inn?”

“It's called the Dew Drop Inn,” said Sebastian. “It's about a half-mile up Sunflower. If you get there before us—” He stopped himself and smiled at Corrie. “I guess I should say,
since
you'll get there before us, wait up. I think there's a sign out front.”

Corrie smiled back. “I can't help it if I happen to be in great shape,” she said. “Anyway, why wouldn't there be a sign?”

“The place closed about a year ago. It's all boarded up now.”

“The owners disappeared,” said David. Then he added, with an eyebrow raised for emphasis, “Mysteriously.”

“The Mystery of the Boarded-Up Windows,”
said Corrie.

“I'll have to tell my father that one,” David said. “It beats
The Mystery of the Strangled Ankles,
anyway.”

“First,” said Sebastian, zipping his jacket to help cut the wind, “we have the mystery of Dead Man's Hill. Will we survive? Or will an eighteen-wheeler turn us into ghosts doomed to ride our bikes across the midnight sky through all eternity?”

“Oo-oo-oo,” David moaned.

Sebastian said, “On your marks, get set—”

“Go!” Corrie screamed. And she screamed all the way down.

CORRIE PICKED UP
so much speed going down Dead Man's Hill, she barely had to pedal once she hit Sunflower Road. She was still out of breath when she caught sight of the impressive white building looming up on her right. There was a hand-painted sign by the road's edge, but the chain had rusted so badly over the previous winter that one end had broken loose, leaving the wooden board to dangle awkwardly and noisily in the wind. Corrie tried to ignore its plaintive crying as she waited for her friends at the end of the circular driveway.

At close range, the place looked the way the sign sounded: forlorn. What had once been a magnificent roadhouse with stately pillars and black shutters at every window was now a mess of peeling paint and plywood patches. It was hard for Corrie to believe it had been inhabited as short a time as a year ago.

Sebastian and David arrived only a minute or two after Corrie, but it felt to her as if a much longer time had passed. She'd forgotten all about Dead Man's Hill; what she wanted to know was the story of Dew Drop Inn.

“I don't know a lot about it,” Sebastian said as
they walked their bikes up the gravel driveway. Weeds were everywhere. “I'm sure Gram could tell us its history.” Sebastian's grandmother was on the board of the local historical society.

“Mrs. Hallem knows
everything
about Pembroke,” David said.

“Not everything,” said Sebastian. “She doesn't know what happened to the people who owned it.”

“But how did it get like this so fast?” Corrie asked. “It's sad, don't you think?”

They had let their bicycles drop onto the overgrown lawn and were walking around the side of the property.

David shrugged. “It's only a building,” he said.

“It's more than a building,” said Corrie, “it's a piece of history. I'll bet it's from Colonial times. You have no social conscience, David.”

Before David could respond, Sebastian said, “Hey, look, one of the windows is open.”

“Which one?”

“There, in the back.” Sebastian pointed. The plywood planks on one of the first-floor windows had been yanked loose, the window itself jimmied open.

“Do you suppose somebody broke in?” Corrie asked.

“No, the squirrels did it,” David said. He was going to add something about “dumb girls” when it occurred to him that Corrie would cream him if he did.

“You know what I mean,” Corrie said. “Maybe the place has been robbed.”

“Or maybe somebody's living here,” said Sebastian.

Corrie raised her eyebrows. “Do you think so?”

“There's one way to find out.”

“Sebastian,” David said, “are you suggesting we go in there? I mean, I know you like a good mystery and all, but we could be asking for trouble.”

“If Eric were here, we'd do it,” Sebastian said, referring to a friend who had moved away the previous summer. Eric had led Sebastian and David on many adventures, most of which had gotten them into trouble sooner or later.

“I think we should go home,” Corrie said.

“Me, too,” said David, surprised to find he was agreeing with Corrie.

Sebastian looked at Corrie, then David. “I don't believe you two,” he said. “You want to go home. Half an hour ago, you couldn't wait to get away. We said we were looking for a circus, didn't we? Well, this is even better.”

“I hate to point this out, Sebastian,” said David, “but what we'd be doing is against the law. Breaking and entering is a crime, you know.”

“We wouldn't be breaking, only entering.”

“But it isn't right,” Corrie argued. “I mean, even if it weren't illegal, it's not our property.”

Sebastian sighed. “You said I like a good mystery. Well, this is a
great
mystery. Who opened the window? Why did they do it? Maybe there
was
a robbery. Just think, if we find evidence of a real crime, we'll be helping the police.”

“We could help the police by letting them know about the window,” said Corrie. “We don't have to go
in.
Besides, it'll be dark in there. We won't be able to see anything.”

“No sweat,” Sebastian retorted. “I have a flashlight in my bike bag. What do you say?” Corrie and David looked at each other.

“Well,” said David, “it'll be better than listening to my father try to come up with ideas for a book. Hey, maybe this will give us one.”

“Right,” Sebastian said as he ran to get his flashlight.
“The Case of the Invaded Inn.”

“The Inn-Vasion!”
David shouted.

“Dew Drop Inn,” Corrie said to herself. Then she called out, “Hey, I've got one:
Dew Drop Dead!”

They all laughed.

THE BEAM
from Sebastian's flashlight stole over the sheet-covered furniture like a cat on the prowl. “Ghosts,” Corrie whispered, referring to the sheets. David said nothing, but sucked in his breath to keep from giggling, which he tended to do when he was nervous. Right now, he was very nervous.

The window they had climbed through had brought them into a large, informal dining room. From there they had passed into what appeared to be a sitting room. An oil painting of ducks in flight—not a very good one—graced the wall over the mantel. The stone fireplace was huge, taller than David, about even with Sebastian if he stood half-up on tiptoes. The mantel was covered with a layer of dust, knickknacks, and framed photographs.

“I wonder who those people are,” Corrie said, referring to the latter. Her voice was hushed but no longer a whisper. She was gathering courage.

“It looks like they were taken a long time ago,” Sebastian said.

“The nineteen fifties,” said David. “I recognize the clothes.”

With his flashlight, Sebastian spotlighted a faded black-and-white photograph of a smiling couple posed with their two children in front of a sailboat. The younger child, a boy, wore glasses in heavy plastic frames and a strange-looking fur hat with a tail.

“What a goofus,” said David.

“I think he's sweet,” Corrie said. She squinted to make out the name on the side of the boat.
“Happy Times,”
she read. “Gee, don't you wonder what happens to people?”

“Maybe they're under here!” David shouted. He yanked a sheet off a chair with a loud whoop that made Corrie scream and Sebastian drop his flashlight.

“David!” Corrie cried.

“Nice move,” said Sebastian, picking up the light. He shook it to make sure it worked. It did, but only intermittently.