Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing (16 page)

Loggers have a cruel sense of humor.

During the six months or so we had her, Mrs. Peabody II served us faithfully, hauling us hither and yon on fishing and camping trips and just wandering about on the mountain roads. But then one day, tragically, she conked out.

We were up near the end of the Pack River road and practically flying down a steep hill. I was skidding my feet as much as I could stand, and Retch was yelling, “Throw out the anchor! Throw out the anchor!” But then, suddenly, all the working innards of Mrs. Peabody seized up and the car came to a grinding, shuddering halt. As if that weren't bad enough, a fire broke out in the engine compartment. We doused the flames with sand, but it was too late to save her. She was done for. Retch theorized that she had blown a gasket, although neither of us was quite sure what a gasket was or if Mrs. Peabody possessed one. It sounded good, though. Sadly, we started the long walk home.

Presently, a logging truck came by and picked us up. We rode along in silence.

“You boys look a bit down in the mouth,” the logger said. “Can't be all that bad. What's the problem?”

“We just lost Mrs. Peabody,” Retch said. “She's dead as a doornail.”

“Mrs. Peabody! Good heavens! I didn't even know she was sick. Must have happened just like that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was pretty sudden. Something went haywire with her innards.”

“Oh, that is just so terrible,” the logger said. “She was such a beauty, too.”

“We thought so,” Retch said.

“I doubt she was a day over thirty,” the logger said, shaking his head.

I was surprised the logger would think our car so old, but I didn't see any point in correcting him.

The logger shook his head sadly. “Come to think of it, I did hear from the sheriff she had some serious kind of, uh, gastric problem. Probably had something to do with it.”

“I reckon so,” Retch said. “She blew a gasket.”

“Good grief!”

The very next week Retch and I stayed after class to break the bad news to Mrs. Peabody about the demise of her namesake. I thought she took it rather well, judging from the way she leaped into the air and clicked her high heels together.

Of all the crime fighters in our county, none was more dedicated than Crazy Eddie Muldoon. Everyone said so. His reputation was based on the fact that Eddie had single-handedly eaten about five thousand boxes of Yum-Yum cereal in order to qualify for The Famous Detective Crime-Solving Kit. Other kids, myself included, had tried for the crime-solving kit, too, but not one of us made it through a single box of Yum-Yums. They were bad. I guess the cereal company's idea was, if you could eat that much Yum-Yums, you had proved you were tough enough to be a crime solver.

Six weeks had passed since Eddie had mailed the cereal company his five thousand box tops, along with a quarter for postage and handling, and we were beginning to suspect the Yum-Yum people of a crime of their own, stealing
Eddie's quarter. Then one day Eddie came running into my yard.

“It finally came!” he yelled. “Now I can start solving crimes!

“Wow!” I cried, glancing about. “Where is it”

“I got it right here in my pocket.”

“In your pocket?” I had expected the crime-solving kit to be at least larger than a deck of cards. The illustration on the Yum-Yum box had implied the kit might be somewhat larger, possibly of a magnitude requiring delivery by a freight truck.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Look at this!” He pulled a flat black box from the bib pocket of his overalls and from it extracted a gleaming badge with the words “Junior Detective” clearly discernible, if you held it up close to your eyes and tilted it so the light hit it just right. I could feel an envy shade of green creeping over me.

“And this here is my detective identification card,” Eddie said, holding up a piece of paper quite a bit larger than a postage stamp. His name was printed on the card. I recognized his printing, with “Eddie Mul” neatly penciled across the top of the card and “doon” running down the right edge. Clearly, the ID cards were intended for detectives with short names. Eddie reached into the box again.

“Tah-
tahhh!
” He held up a gleaming pair of handcuffs. “Aren't they great!”

They
were
great! Real handcuffs! They looked as though they might work, too, if you apprehended fairly small suspects. But that was no problem. There were lots of small suspects around in serious need of apprehension.

“But here's the best part of all,” cried Eddie. “Tahtahhh!” He held up a magnifying glass, its lens easily the size of a dime.

By now I was little more than a green quivering mass of
envy and shame. Why hadn't I had the ambition and fortitude to eat five thousand boxes of Yum-Yums so that I, too, could have acquired a Famous Detective Crime-Solving Kit!

Crazy Eddie instantly sensed my disappointment and, taking only a few moments to savor it, said, “Don't feel bad, Pat. You can be my assistant crime solver.”

“Really, Eddie? You really mean it?”

“Sure.”

“And I get to use your handcuffs and magnifying glass?”

“No.”

Eddie said I could watch him solve crimes, though, and that was certainly better than nothing. Not much better than nothing, but, as Eddie astutely pointed out, beggars can't be choosers.

Eddie and I immediately went out looking for crimes to solve. He said the first thing we had to do was round up some suspects.

“Don't we have to find a crime first?” I asked.

“It works either way,” Eddie explained. “First you find the suspect and then you figure out what he did.”

“How do you know he did anything?”

“Well, he wouldn't be a suspect then, would he?”

“I guess not,” I admitted. Eddie clearly was already a master of deduction. “What do we do with the suspects after we've rounded them up?” I asked.

“Oh, we get them all together in a big room, and then I go around and irrigate them one by one.”

“You irrigate them? How do you irrigate them?”

“Don't you ever listen to Sid Sleuth on the radio? He's always irrigating suspects. It's easy. You just ask them a bunch of questions. Pretty soon one of them slips up. He says something like, ‘I didn't shoot the victim.' And then Sid Sleuth says, ‘Ha! How did you know the victim was
shot? I never mentioned that he was shot. You're going to get the chair.'”

“What chair?”

“It doesn't matter what chair, dummy. There's always a chair of some kind around. By the way, it might be a good idea for you to call me Sid Sleuth.”

“I'm not going to call you Sid Sleuth, Eddie.”

“I'll let you use my magnifying glass.”

“So, Sid Sleuth, do you have any suspects in mind?”

“Just one. Rancid Crabtree.”

“Rancid? How come Rancid is a suspect?”

“Mostly because he's handy,” Eddie said. “Let's go over to his shack and I'll irrigate him.”

Rancid was sitting on his chopping block smoking his old corncob pipe as we approached.

“I see he smokes a corncob pipe,” Eddie whispered. “Very interesting. Jot that down.”

“I don't have anything to jot it down with.”

“Remember it, then.”

“Okay.” It would be pretty easy to remember, because Rancid always smoked a corncob pipe.

Rancid studied us with a good deal more suspicion than we did him. “So, what in tarnation brings you two over hyar? Ah 'spect it's got somethin' to do with ruinin' maw day.”

“I'm investigating crimes, Mr. Crabtree, and I have a few questions to ask you,” Eddie said. “Here's my Famous Detective Identification Card.”

Rancid squinted at the card. “‘Eddie Mul,'” he read aloud and then tilted his head sideways, “‘doon.' Ah guess thet's you all right, Eddie. So what questions you want to ask me?”

“First, where were you on the night of the crime?”

“What crime is thet, Eddie? Am Ah a suspect?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Wahl, let's see, exactly what night was the crime committed?”

Eddie looked at me. “What night was the crime, Pat?”

“I can't remember, Sid Sleuth. Last week sometime.”

“Wahl, you're barkin' up the wrong tree, Eddie,” said the old woodsman, “'cause Ah was home here in maw shack ever night last week.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Jist one.”

“Who was that?”

“Me. All Ah had to do was look down, and thar Ah was, right whar Ah was supposed to be, ever night.”

“I guess that clears you, then, Mr. Crabtree. Thanks for your time.”

“Don't mention it, Eddie. Ah shore hopes you find the person who committed the crime.”

“Aha!” cried Eddie. “So, you know a crime was committed! What was it?”

“Thet's what Ah'm tryin' to find out!”

“Hmmm,” Eddie said. “Just as I suspected. Well, goodbye, Mr. Crabtree. I have more detective work to do. And remember not to commit any crimes. Otherwise you might get the chair.”

“Ah could use a chair. All Ah got to sit on now is a couple blocks of firewood. What kind of chair is it?”

Eddie thought for a moment. “Just a chair.”

Over the next few days Eddie irrigated every suspect within three miles of his house but was unable to turn up a single crime. All the neighbors knew what Eddie had suffered through to collect his five thousand Yum-Yum box tops, and they told him they were real sorry they hadn't committed any crimes for him to solve, or even had crimes committed against them. His failure to turn up a single
crime was beginning to tell on Eddie. He'd become cross and jumpy, and excitement no longer sparkled in his eyes. For the first time since I'd known him, he seemed drained of enthusiasm. Here he had downed enough Yum-Yums to fill a silo, and for what? His crime-solving kit had proved totally worthless without any crimes to solve. Now he just moped about his house and was no fun at all. Even his mother said she was worried about him. As for myself, I was about ready to start looking for a new best friend.

“Something's wrong with Eddie,” I told Rancid Crabtree one day. “He hasn't been able to find any crimes to solve, and now he won't come out to play or anything. He just mopes about.”

“Ah'm sorry to hear thet. It be jist a dang shame we don't have more crime in these parts. Now let me thank on this a bit. Mebby Ah did hyar of a crime? By gosh, Ah did! You know thet daft old Mrs. Swisher lives up the road, nutty as a fruitcake, and always callin' the sheriff on me 'cause she thanks Ah'm in cahoots with Satin and the like? Shoot, if Ah was making deals with the devil, Ah'd at least have a chair to sit on. Anyways, Swisher, she's got a rusty old milk bucket on her front porch thet she filled up with dirt and planted to flowers, thet's jist how crazy she is. Can you imagine such a thang? Ha! What Ah heard happened was, somebody snuck up in the middle of the night and stole thet bucket of flowers, though why somebody would want it beats the heck outta me. Mebby Eddie could try to solve thet crime.”

“Rancid, that's it! We've finally got a real crime!”

“Yep. It shore does look like it.”

I rushed over to Eddie's house. He was out in his backyard and looked about as miserable as I'd ever seen him.

“Eddie! Eddie! A crime has been committed!”

He leaped to his feet, instantly transformed. “Where?”

“Old Mrs. Swisher's. Somebody stole that bucket of flowers off her porch!”

“Great! This is really great, Pat! Wait till I tell Mom. Then I'll go solve the crime!”

We rushed into the house and told Mrs. Muldoon that Eddie had a crime to solve.

“Oh, I'm so glad!” she said, throwing her arms up in the air. “What is it?”

“Somebody stole that bucket of flowers off Mrs. Swisher's porch.”

Mrs. Muldoon's smile faded. “Eddie, I hate to tell you this, but I stopped by Mrs. Swisher's not more than an hour ago, and that bucket of flowers was right there on her porch. I even commented on how pretty it was. There must be some mistake.”

Eddie's whole body sagged.

“Gee, I'm sorry, Eddie,” I said. “I was sure a crime had been committed.”

“It's okay,” he said sadly. “I guess I ate all those Y-Y-Yum-Yums for nothing. We ain't never going to have a crime for me to solve.”

But Eddie was wrong, because the weirdest thing happened. The very next morning daft old Mrs. Swisher drove into the Muldoon yard. She was furious. Somebody had sneaked into her yard the night before and stolen her bucket of flowers right off her porch! She was on her way into town to report the theft to the sheriff, but, she said, she doubted it would do much good, because the sheriff hardly even bothered to investigate her complaints about Rancid Crabtree being in cahoots with the devil.

“Oh, that is so wonder—I mean,
awful!
” Mrs. Muldoon blurted out. “Eddie! Eddie! Come quick! A crime has been committed!”

Eddie grabbed his crime-solving kit and we ran all the way over to Mrs. Swisher's place to investigate.

“The first thing we got to do is look for clues,” Eddie explained. He got out his magnifying glass, lay down on his belly, and very carefully examined the spot where the bucket of flowers had been. “I don't see any fingerprints,” he said. “This could be a tougher case than I thought. There don't seem to be any clues around.”

“How about that corncob pipe?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “How about that? I didn't even know Mrs. Swisher smoked, let alone a corncob … Wait just a darn minute!”

Half an hour later, we walked up to Rancid's cabin. There on his front porch was the bucket of flowers, just as Eddie had deduced. The old woodsman stood over it, sprinkling it with water.

“I caught you, Mr. Crabtree,” Eddie announced. “You stole that flower bucket from Mrs. Swisher.”