Something Suspicious in Sask (3 page)

Cliff also watched Megan's progress toward the farmhouse. “I never trusted that boy,” he said quietly. “And now I catch him hanging around the farm at all hours of the day and night. I swear he's trying to get even.”

“With who? For what?” Katie paused. When Cliff didn't reply she asked, “Do you think he sneaked into the hay field and left that hunk of wire because you fired him? What good would that do him?”

“None at all,” Aunt Margaret said. “I'm sure it was just an accident, nothing to do with Scott.”

“Yeah, and I guess the fire that burned down the feed shed two days ago wasn't his fault either?” asked Cliff.

“It was an accident,” Aunt Margaret insisted.

“Megan burned off the flax straw, the fire wasn't quite out, and the wind did the rest.”

“I told you I saw…,” Cliff started, but Aunt Margaret cut him off.

“Let's all hop in the truck and head for the house.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm thirsty enough to drink a gallon of water and I need to think about getting dinner ready.”

Cliff drove so fast, bumping over the uneven field, that Katie had to hold on tight to the side of the truck box. Bouncing along, she managed to lean over the side and face forward, into the wind, where Megan still walked in the track.

The truck raced closer and closer, as if Cliff would run Megan down. Couldn't she hear? Why didn't she step out of the way? Why didn't Cliff slow down? It was like a game of chicken. And Cliff was the one to give in. He slowed and pulled around Megan to stop beside her. He leaned out the driver's side window with a friendly smile. “Hey, lady,” he said, “want a ride?”

Megan turned and stood uncertainly, looking at all the faces that looked back at her. Cliff, Gram and GJ from inside the cab. Katie, Rusty and her own mother from the box behind. Without bothering to reply, Megan stepped onto the back bumper and swung over the tailgate into the truck box where she settled in the opposite corner to her mother. Aunt Margaret leaned forward to pat her daughter's bent knee.

Megan retreated further into the corner. She stared across the fields toward the distant line of the horizon. The truck started up again, more slowly this time.

Fifteen minutes later they were all gathered around a long rectangular table in the old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen, a tall frosty glass of ice-cold lemonade in front of each person. Except Megan. The teenager leaned against the sink, clutching a glass of water and studying the purple toenails that peeked out from beneath her black jeans.

In the center of the table was a bowl of taco chips along with salsa and sour cream that Gram had brought in from the trailer. Rusty and Cliff seemed involved in a serious competition to see who could eat the most in the shortest period of time.

Katie half-listened to Gram, GJ and Aunt Margaret chat while she crunched into a salty taco chip with a scoop of tomatoey salsa and cool sour cream. A hot spicy aftertaste burned her tongue, and she reached for her lemonade.

“I'm putting Katie upstairs with Megan. I'm sure these two girls have a lot in common now that Katie is getting so grown up.”

Katie choked on her lemonade.

“Good idea,” Gram agreed.

Katie's glass slammed so hard on the table a slop of watery-yellow liquid sloshed over the top. She watched it trickle down the side. “Um…I'd rather sleep in the trailer.” Her voice came out angry, with a high-pitched edge of panic. How could they do this to her?

Time stopped. Everyone froze. Every eye stared at her. Katie fumbled for words.

Megan saved the day. “Oh, Moth-er!” she drawled.

“You have got to be kidding!”

Still clutching the water glass, she folded her arms across her non-existent stomach. “What's wrong with the trailer?”

“Exactly,” Katie said.

“Nothing's wrong with it,” Gram said. “Except that it will be stifling hot out there, and we don't want to waste electricity by plugging into Aunt Margaret's power for our air-conditioning unit. Why should we when there's a huge, perfectly good house right here, with four bedrooms upstairs?”

You think those bedrooms won't be stifling hot? Katie wanted to say, but Gram hadn't finished yet. She fixed Katie with a firm, uncompromising glare.

“Besides, your aunt has gone to the trouble of preparing a bed for you with lovely, crisp, fresh sheets. Won't that be nice after using a sleeping bag for so long? And I can get all our bedding washed while we're here.”

Katie knew what was expected of her. She was supposed to quit complaining and start acting grateful. But she wasn't grateful. As if simply being here wasn't bad enough, now she had to share a room with Megan? Couldn't anyone else see how Megan scowled at her, as if all of this was Katie's fault? Katie shuddered and opened her mouth to object.

This time GJ headed her off. “Katie is speechless with joy,” he said. “Thanks, Margaret, I'm sure these two cousins will become great friends in no time.”

No time is right, Katie thought. No time, no way, not never.

“She's speechless with something,” Rusty commented before stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed and grinned at Katie. “I think it's great! You and Megan will get to bond!”

Before Katie could reply he added, “And I can hardly wait to sleep in a real bed tonight. In a room to myself! You have to admit, Katie, those bunks in the trailer aren't the most comfortable beds in the world. Weren't you complaining about yours just a few nights ago?”

Katie glared at her younger cousin. If he were close enough, she'd kick him in the shins, under the table where no one would see. Rusty grinned again, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Then he pulled the biggest taco chip out of the pile, scooped up a whopping load of salsa and sour cream and opened his mouth wide to shove the whole mess in at once.

While Gram and Aunt Margaret, with reluctant help from Megan, set about making dinner, Cliff and GJ decided to head back out to the windrower.

“We need to jack it up so I can get underneath and cut that wire away from the cutter bar,” Cliff said, pushing up from the table.

“I'll get that extra jack from my truck,” GJ offered as they headed for the door.

“Hey, yeah, okay. See you in a sec, I need to grab some wire cutters from the equipment shed.”

The screen door slammed behind them, but Katie watched them through a window of the screened porch. Cliff disappeared to the left. GJ moved to the right, toward his truck. Katie picked up a taco chip and bit into it.

“Ready?” She heard GJ call.

Cliff walked past, shoving a red-handled tool into his back pocket. A truck engine roared to life. Wheels crunched over dirt and gravel. Katie jumped to her feet. “I'm going out to get my stuff from the trailer,” she announced, glancing at Rusty.

“Want to come?”

“Uh-uh.” Rusty's hand hovered over the taco chips.

“I'm busy.”

Katie wrinkled her brow. She shifted her gaze to the door and quickly back to Rusty. She needed to talk to him. Outside. Now.

Rusty got the message. He grabbed a handful of chips, pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Why not?” he said. “The sooner I get settled in my own room the better.”

Katie pushed the screen door open with both hands and hurried outside. Hot dry air slapped her in the face, the acrid stink of burned straw filled her nostrils, and a swarm of mosquitoes dive-bombed in for the kill. She turned left and started across the driveway at a run.

“Hey, where are you going?” Rusty ran after her.

4

Katie studied the shed in front of her. Roughly the size of a one-car garage, it was built of wide vertical planks painted white.

Rusty stopped beside her. “What's up?”

“We need to check out the equipment shed.”

“Who says this is the equipment shed?”

“Me.”

“As if you know.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “I saw Cliff turn this way.” She nodded toward the other, almost identical shed, more than thirty feet away. “And he didn't have time to go to that one and back.”

She pulled the door open. It creaked on rusty hinges as Katie stepped from dazzling sunlight into the shed's dim light.

Rusty stopped in the doorway. “What are we looking for?”

“Can't you guess?”

“Not a clue.”

“Actually, that's exactly what we're here for.”

“What? A clue? To what?”

“To who left that wire out in the field. I can't believe it was an accident, because who would be so stupid?”

“Oh, I don't know…Megan comes to mind. That girl is totally out of it.”

“Cliff thinks it was Scott.”

Rusty shrugged. “Yeah, but I can't figure out why.

I mean, if Scott did it, it wasn't a mistake. But why go to all the bother?” He shook his head. “I'm sure it was Megan, and she just forgot to pick it up.”

“But why would Megan have wire out in the hay field? Why would anyone?”

As Katie's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw rows of tools hung neatly against the walls, each on its own bracket. Bigger items like shovels, hoes and pitchforks hung on lower brackets while smaller tools such as trowels and pruners were arranged above. Printed neatly in black felt pen above each tool was its correct name. There was one empty bracket: “Wire Cutters.”

On the floor at the far end of the shed stood a large coil of barbed wire, fastened neatly so it wouldn't come undone. A smaller coil of chicken wire lay crookedly on a wide shelf above, its loose end stuck out in sharp jagged spikes beyond the shelf edge.

“Look at that,” she whispered.

“Wow! Wire! In an equipment shed!” Rusty said.

“On a farm! Will wonders never cease?”

“Don't be a dope, Rusty. Can't you see it's the only thing that's not properly put away? As if the last person to cut wire off the coil wasn't the usual, freakishly tidy person who normally uses this shed?”

“Or someone who was in a hurry?”

“Exactly. Someone who didn't want to get caught.”

“Caught at what? Being messy? I may be wrong, but I don't think messiness is a crime, even in such a neat province as Saskatchewan.”

“Well, but look how the wire is cut, it's all crooked and jagged.” She ran her fingers over the thin wire mesh. “And this is the same kind of wire that jammed the cutter bar, I'm sure of it.”

“So?”

“So…” Katie glanced at Rusty. He stared back as if she had lost her mind. Her shoulders slumped. Rusty was right. Someone cut a piece of chicken wire crookedly from a coil and didn't put the coil back as neatly as it should be. Big deal.

Nevertheless, if whoever cut the wire was in a big hurry, maybe Cliff was right. Maybe it was Scott and he didn't want to be seen. Or, maybe it was Megan and she didn't care. Katie could prove nothing.

“Let's go.” Rusty stepped outside. “We're wasting our time here.”

Katie sighed and followed her cousin. They darted along the driveway through a living whining blizzard of mosquitoes, more now that the heat of day had lessened. At the trailer they dashed inside and slammed the door. “Why does anyone want to live in this place?” Rusty asked.

“Who knows? Maybe it grows on you.” Katie's bunk was the bottom one at the back of the trailer. The top one had been Sheila's, but Rusty took over after Sheila's defection. Katie pulled open the drawer beneath her bunk, scooped up all the clothes she might need and stuffed them into her backpack. She slid her notebook from under the mattress and flipped it open. Grabbing the pen tucked inside she wrote.

Suspicious goings-on:

fire—how did it start?

Aunt Margaret's accident—was it sabotage?

Cliff sees Scott around the farm

Aunt Margaret fired Scott for stealing—what?

Jagged chicken wire—is it a clue?

When she had more time she would fill in the details. Now she slung her pack over her shoulder and started for the door. “I'm getting my mystery novel from the truck.”

Rusty jammed a pair of jeans into his backpack. “Wait for me. I need my sketchbook.”

A few minutes later, following her aunt's instructions, Katie reached the top stair and swung around to her left. She took a deep breath and started down a hallway lit only by a small rectangular window at one end.

Second door, right side, she reminded herself. She paused in front of a heavy wooden door. It was open an inch. Should she knock? Her arms were filled with her backpack, notebook and novel, so she decided to call Megan's name instead. But then she heard Megan mumble something that might have been “Come on in.”

Katie took a quick breath and pushed the door open with her foot.

“Haven't you heard about knocking?” Megan snapped. On the floor near her bed she paused in the midst of a sit-up, legs bent, spine curled forward. She pulled something away from the far side of her face, something small, held in one hand. At the same moment there was a faint beep.

Katie stopped in the doorway. “What was that?

Was that you? Have you got a cell phone? Do you always do sit-ups when you're on the phone?”

“If you don't exercise you get fat.” Megan looked Katie up and down. “You should know that.” She did two more sit-ups. Her backpack lay deflated on the floor. Clothing was scattered over her bed. Black jeans, black shirts, a black leather jacket and a pile of underwear. All black.

“Have you been away?”

Megan scrambled to her feet. “None of your business. What are you, the question police?”

Katie swallowed. Wasn't this going to be fun? She and her cousin, bonding? Okay, maybe she didn't start things off exactly right. She made a mental note not to ask any more questions. “Don't tell me, let me guess what your favorite color is.” She tried to laugh.