The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle (23 page)

Monte was a happy puppy. I tried telling him, “Walk,” in a firm voice, but he knew I was no authority figure. He ran this way and that, yanking at his collar when he came to the end of the leash. I was glad I had the leash; he would have disappeared in a minute without it.

We walked alongside the Baileys’ house—they were out of town—then went through their backyard and into the trees behind the house. A little path there led to the cottage of the Sheridans, their neighbors on the other side. That cottage was shuttered securely; the Sheridans wouldn’t be back in Warner Pier until after Memorial Day.

Monte and I passed the Sheridans’ cottage, then turned down their drive. It curved and exited on a sandy lane, which according to the map was named Mary Street. I had thought that road was just an extension of their drive.

Monte was doing fine, yipping at the occasional bird and sniffing at mysterious aromas he found in the bushes and trees that lined the lane. I acted much the same way, I guess. After the hours I’d spent closed up in an upstairs bedroom with blankets on the windows, it was good to be outside, breathing fresh air and feeling the exhilaration of brisk temperatures. I did my share of frisking around.

I was managing my phobia all right. The woods were threatening, true, but I didn’t feel panicky. I felt liberated. Monte and I didn’t hurry, we just strolled down that sand lane. Our easy pace allowed me to mull over Maggie’s story as I went.

Gradually our surroundings changed. The woods on the left-hand side of the road cleared out. I could see a little sky on that side. We walked on, and the trees cleared more. We passed one final elm, and Monte and I found ourselves in an apple orchard—lots of short trees, but with plenty of space between them. I could see the sky.

I stopped and looked around. The elm I’d just passed, the apples—I was sure they were McIntosh. The scene was definitely familiar.

I spoke out loud. “Monte, this is Silas Snow’s orchard. That elm is the one where the fruit ladder was propped. These are the apple trees Joe and I walked around to look at.” I turned toward the west. “The Grundy cottage is beyond those bushes.”

Monte cocked an ear at me, then scuttled ahead, trying to turn down the lane toward Lake Shore Drive, the lane Ken had come down in the red Volkswagen. I followed his tugging, and in a minute I saw the weather-beaten white siding of the cottage. We circled the little house as Monte snuffled around in the high weeds. When we got to the front porch, I sat down on the step, allowing Monte to scamper around at the end of his leash.

It was quiet, except for the wind in the trees. I could hear the lake surf, though it was much fainter than it had been the day I ran through the woods. Occasionally a bird called. Monte even sat still for a few minutes. It was the perfect place to continue mulling over Maggie’s story. After all, Joe has said I could figure out what she
hadn’t
seen that was so significant.

So I mulled. I began with the uncharacteristic reaction Ken had displayed when Joe urged Maggie to go to the police and tell them she had been near the fruit stand the night Silas Snow had been killed. Even though I had heard Ken’s fury broadcasting through my very own telephone, it was hard to believe. What had caused him to go . . . well, berserk? And what had he said? “If anybody tries to hurt Maggie, I’ll kill ’em.”

Of course, Ken didn’t mean it, I assured myself. When Joe had listed off common motives for homicides, he hadn’t listed that: protecting a loved one. Or would it be classified as part of a motive Joe had listed: protecting one’s property?

But whatever his motivation, Ken had declared that he would kill to protect Maggie. How did that make her feel? Treasured? Or threatened?

Would Joe kill to protect me? Did I want him to? On the other hand, would I kill to protect Joe? I’d once tried to hit someone I thought was threatening him. Did that count?

Did all devoted married couples feel that way? Would Uncle Phil have killed to protect Aunt Nettie? Would Vernon kill to protect Maia?

I reminded myself that Vernon had spent several thousand dollars to make Maia’s dearest wish come true, getting her novel into print. I might feel he’d been misguided, but he’d wanted to please her. Would he do more? Would he actually harm someone to protect her? I had no idea. In fact, my speculations were a silly way for me to spend my time.

Time. I held the leash in my hand and leaned back against the porch railing, almost dozing. Time.

The word reverberated out of my subconscious, and suddenly I was wide awake, with my adrenaline surging.

“Time! That’s what Maggie’s story does.” I was so excited I spoke aloud. “She says she went by to try to see Maia after the drama club finished the cleanup at the park. And when she got to Maia and Vernon’s, nobody was there!”

Maggie had left TenHuis Chocolade just after three o’clock. She said it took the kids more than an hour to clean up the park. So it would have been after four, but probably before five, when she started for the Ensmingers’. Nobody had answered her knock. But according to Maia and Vernon, they’d both been home at that time, taking showers and resting. They alibied each other.

“Monte,” I said. “They lied. They’re the two people with the strongest motives to kill Silas Snow, and they both lied about where they were when he was killed.”

In my excitement, I had stood up. Monte was still snuffling along the cottage’s foundation, checking out the weeds and saplings in case critters had left interesting smells along there. He was nearly to the corner of the cottage, close to the bathroom.

“Come on, Monte. We need to get back to Aunt Nettie’s.”

I guess I was still thinking about Maggie’s destruction of Maia’s and Vernon’s alibis, because I forgot that Monte was fascinated with the bathroom. On our previous visit he’d tried to crawl under it.

The room sat on cement blocks and was barely attached to the main cottage. The dirt under it looked dark and crumbly. I could understand why Monte wanted to try get under there and practice his digging skills. But I didn’t want Monte to carry that dirt back to Aunt Nettie’s.

“No, Monte,” I said. “Don’t go under there!” I moved toward him, ready to pick him up.

But I had allowed the leash to develop some slack, and Monte took advantage of it. Like a flash he was under the bathroom, and a shower of soil came flying out as he began to dig.

“Monte! Stop that!” I tugged at his leash, but Monte wasn’t budging. In fact, the dirt stopped flying out, and Monte’s tail disappeared. I pulled at the leash again. I didn’t want to yank too hard at his collar, but he wasn’t taking a hint. I jerked. Still no result. In fact, there was no give to the leash at all. For a horrible moment I thought Monte had slipped his collar.

“Monte!” I dropped to my stomach in the weeds and looked under the bathroom.

To my annoyance I saw that the leash was looped around a cement block that was a central support for the bathroom. To my relief I saw that the other end was still attached to the puppy’s collar.

“Monte! You naughty boy! Come out of there.”

I was ignored, of course. In fact, unless Monte was a lot smarter than an ordinary dog, he wouldn’t be able to figure out how to unwind his leash from the cement block.

I was going to have to crawl under there after him.

“Yuk!” I said. “Monte, I have a notion to leave you there.”

That wasn’t really an option. So I began to inch my way under, crawling through that nasty-looking dirt I hadn’t wanted Monte to track into Aunt Nettie’s house.

The bathroom sat between eighteen inches and two feet above the ground, so the crawl wasn’t too tight. I had to keep my head down—not hard to remember when I pictured how many spiders were probably spinning webs on the bottom of the bathroom floor. I edged in. My sore elbows reminded me that I’d been doing this same sort of thing forty-eight hours earlier as I crawled through the bushes to get away from the rifleman. Luckily, I was wearing a jacket and some big Band-Aids to protect the scabs.

The bathroom wasn’t large. My feet were still sticking out when I reached the cement block Monte had encircled with his leash. I tried to untangle the leash carefully. I didn’t want to pull the cement block out of position. Doing that might mean a cast-iron, claw-foot bathtub or something just as heavy would come crashing through the floor and land on my head. So I reached around the block and took hold the leather strap close to Monte, then I tossed my end as far as I could and pulled gently.

In a minute I had all of the leash on one side of the cement block, and I was reeling Monte in, hand over hand, as if he were a fish. I wasn’t too careful about not yanking on his collar. I wanted to get hold of him and get out of there.

Monte objected to being hauled out, naturally. He began to yip and pull away, but I said, “Come,” firmly—as if that was going to make a difference. But like it or not, he did come. In a moment I was gripping his collar, and he was licking my face.

“Quit, Monte! If I get the giggles we’ll never get out of here.”

Miraculously, Monte did quit. He quit yapping, and he quit licking. His ears pricked up, and he twisted around, looking at something closer to the foundation of the house.

“What’s the matter with you? Is something there?” If there was something under that bathroom with Monte and me, I didn’t want to know what it was. The most likely thing was a skunk. Even a woodchuck or a chipmunk could be bad. I began to scoot backward.

Then I heard the noise that Monte must have heard first.

It was a rapping noise. Regular. Rhythmic. It was not a wild animal noise. It was a human noise.

And six or eight feet away, in the foundation of the Grundy cottage, I saw a thin sliver of light.

T
he next thing I saw, of course, was stars, because I jumped so high that I banged the back of my head on the underside of the bathroom floor.

Meanwhile I was wrestling Monte, who was sure there was something under that bathroom that he should be chewing on. He was alternately yapping and whining, and he definitely did not like being hauled up close to me and gripped. His clumsy puppy feet were still scrabbling madly, and he ignored my repeated shushes.

I could barely hear the tapping.

It was fairly loud. Tap, tap, tap. Then, slower. Tap. Tap. Tap. Then fast again. Tap, tap, tap. At the same time, the sliver of light grew brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again.

I couldn’t pretend it was a skunk. There was a cellar of some sort under the Grundy cottage, and somebody was in there.

I tried to muzzle Monte with my hand. “Who’s there?” My voice croaked.

“Help!” The answering voice was much louder than I expected. I realized there was an opening in the cellar wall. Probably where there had once been a window. It had been blocked, but there was apparently nothing but a board between me and the person in the cellar. And there was a crack around the outside of the board.

“Who is it?” I repeated the words.

“Help! I’ve been kidnapped! Get me out!”

At that point Monte went absolutely wild. I don’t know if he smelled a familiar smell or recognized a familiar voice. But I’ll swear he knew who was in that cellar.

I called out again. “I’ll get help! But who are you?”

“It’s Aubrey! Aubrey Andrews Armstrong!”

I guess I’d already figured that out. Who else was missing around Warner Pier?

I began to scoot backward, coming out from under the bathroom and taking the protesting Monte with me. Aubrey began to bang on the board again.

“I’ll try to get you out!” I yelled. The banging stopped.

I kept scooting until I was out from under the bathroom. My hair was full of spider webs and my clothes were covered with dirt, but I could stand up. I gave a shudder and hoped I wouldn’t have to go under anything like that bathroom ever again. Then I began to try to figure out how to get into the cellar.

I made a quick circuit of the house, but couldn’t find an entrance. I didn’t find another cellar window, or even a former window. If such an opening existed, it was under the little front sleeping porch. That was even closer to the ground than the bathroom, and I definitely wasn’t interested in crawling under there.

No, the cellar must be entered only from inside the cottage. I’d have to break into the house.

There was a back door, but no back step or porch; the solid wooden door opened directly onto the grass. And when I examined it, the grass was crushed. Someone had been walking on that grass. Apparently that was the way Aubrey’s kidnapper had gone in and out of the cottage.

I tried the door. It was locked, of course. I looked around for a rock or a stick I could use to smash it open.

Monte was driving me crazy, tugging at his leash and barking. I looped his leash around one of the saplings growing in the yard, one far enough from the bathroom that he couldn’t crawl under again. I tied the leash securely. Then I felt in my pocket and found a handful of doggy treats I’d brought along. One of them kept him quiet for a moment.

I picked up a dead limb at the back of the yard. I used it to whack at the door a couple of times, but all it did was chip the paint. That wasn’t going to work. I’d have to get in through a window. I carried the dead limb around the house, looking for a window that would be easy to climb through, once I either got it open or smashed through the glass.

And as I walked my brain belatedly began to work.

It occurred to me that the guy in the cellar wasn’t just any guy. He was Aubrey Andrews Armstrong. Despite his charming personality, Aubrey was a bad guy. He was a crook who had, or so I was convinced, tried to con my Aunt Nettie. He had tried to blackmail Maggie, one of my best friends. He had conned Maia—who might be a foolish woman, but who didn’t deserve to be tricked—by telling her he was going to make a movie of her book. He had enticed high school kids like Tracy with visions of movie stardom.