The Hidden Valley Mystery (4 page)

Mrs. Steriou whirled around. “Then Aunt Nitsa and Cousin Aliki drove up and had no place to park. You know our street gets busy on Saturday. And poor Anastasia, with her cane. And Mary’s little girls—what a handful. To think my guests all had to drive around the block.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mind, Mom,” Mike tried to comfort her.

“To see those big, lazy men, sitting on the curb, drinking beer,” Mrs. Steriou shook her head. “I was so embarrassed. What will my guests think of my neighbourhood?”

“It’s over, Mom. Don’t worry.” Mike leaned across and patted her arm.

Mrs. Steriou took a big breath. She turned away and shook her head. With a sigh, she raised herself on tiptoe and lifted the coffee pot from the cupboard. “No, Michael, there’s something not right about those people,” she insisted, filling the pot with water from the tap. “I have a bad feeling about them. No good woman has time on moving day to do nothing. How could she sit on her steps all evening, looking at magazines?”

Mike shrugged. What did he know about women, or how they were supposed to behave? He stood up carefully, dangling the rucksack in front. When his mother started to make lunch, that meant she was calming down. Now he just wanted to shower and change before she noticed his knees.

* * * * *

Theo
Lazo lived in a narrow house closer to downtown. Mike didn’t mind going for dinner. He enjoyed crowding around the table in the small yellow dining room, especially since Sunday was the only day his father didn’t work long hours.

Theo
Lazo, his mother’s uncle, always had plenty of jokes to make him chuckle. His wife,
Thea
Elenie, told funny stories about growing up overseas in the village. But best of all, she cooked his favourite traditional foods. Her cheese filled
pita
wedges were more flaky and buttery than any other he’d tasted. Tonight he gobbled half a dozen. The sweet milk custard she baked for dessert melted on his tongue.

“You’re going to eat all the
baklava
too?” His father swung across the table and snatched at Mike’s dish.

Mike studied his father, folding hairy arms across his broad chest. In his crisp, short-sleeved white shirt and crimson tie, Mr. Steriou looked handsome. His dark hair was combed neatly to one side, and his thick brows arched above green eyes and a mischievous smile.

Without looking away, Mike set the honeyed roll back on the gold rimmed dessert platter. He licked his sticky fingers, watching for a change of heart to flicker in his father’s gaze. From the corner of his right eye, he saw
Thea
Elenie wave her fork.

“Stop teasing him, Georgio. Look how the boy is growing!” She always grinned at his appetite, her blue eyes sparkling under fluffy white hair. “Here, Mike,” she pushed the platter closer, “Forget that little dish. Eat, eat, the whole platter, if you can.”

With such tasty food on her table, Mike wondered, how could
Thea
Elenie stay so skinny in her shiny purple dress? The grannies and other old aunts in his family swelled in the middle like beach balls draped in black. Even his mother, a generation younger, sat plump and pink as a cherry beside him in the evening warmth.

From the head of the table,
Theo
Lazo nodded down at Mike. His brown eyes shone under his wavy white hair and moustache. “So, Mike, you got yourself a job this summer? Or,” he winked to his left, at Mr. Steriou, “just soaking up the sun in your own backyard?”

Across from her husband, Mrs. Steriou squirmed in her chair. “He’s too young to work away from home.” She plinked her coffee cup onto its saucer. “Don’t put ideas in his head, Uncle.”

“Of course not, Effie. Never would I interfere between mother and son.”
Theo
Lazo winked again at Mike’s father. “But a boy with Mike’s big appetite, not to mention his love of camping, why, he must have lots of energy to burn up. Not at all like me. Me, I’m not so young any more. No more hiking through the mountains, like back home. Now, just climbing the stairs, I get all puffed out. I could use a sturdy errand boy at the printing shop—even for a couple hours a day.”

“No, Uncle, I can’t “

“Please, Mom!” Mike bent forward. This was his chance at last to earn the
Explorer
sleeping bag.

Theo
Lazo laid his hand on Mrs. Steriou’s. “Effie, my devoted niece, think of it not as a job for your son, but as a kindness for an old man, a special favour to your hard working, tired uncle.”

“But,
Theo
“ Mrs. Steriou sputtered.

Across the table her husband nodded at her. “
Philotimi
, Effie,” he murmured in Greek. “Honour the family.”

“Oh, all right,” Mrs. Steriou sighed. “Mike, you can help your uncle in the mornings. But I need you too, don’t forget, to cut the lawn, and, and “

Without thinking, Mike turned and threw his arms around her neck. “Thanks, Mom!” he cried.

Mrs. Steriou flushed with delight. It was a rare treat these days when her growing son hugged her.

“And thank you too,
Theo
Lazo!” Mike stood and reached down the table to shake his great uncle’s hand. “I’ll work hard. You’ll be proud of me.”

“You bet I will!”
Theo
Lazo laughed, and winked at Mr. Steriou. “Mike, we start early. Be at my shop by 8:00 tomorrow morning.”

CHAPTER 8 – A Theory

“Hey, Mike!” Gunnar strode up the Steriou’s narrow driveway.

Sitting on the porch steps, Mike looked up from the camping gear catalogue spread across his knees. In the Saturday morning shade, the breeze felt pleasantly cool on his face. He smiled, glad to see Gunnar. With working at
Theo
Lazo’s print shop and helping his mother clean out the garage and then the basement, almost a whole week had sped by.

“So,” Gunnar sat down, stretching his long tanned legs beside Mike’s, “how’s the new job?”

Mike laid the catalogue on the porch behind him. “It’s fine,” he said. “
Theo
Lazo’s a great guy. When it’s sunny, he sends me on lots of deliveries. I never feel cooped up. In between, I help him around the press, or parcel the finished printing. Every day is a little different.”

Gunnar nodded. “It sounds good.”

“How’s the golf ball business?” Mike asked.

Gunnar plucked a cratered orange ball from his pocket. With one hand, he tossed it up and down. “It’s booming. Sunny weather, people on vacation. The golf course is packed with lost balls and customers.”

“That’s great.” Mike tore a leaf from the mint bush by the steps. He rolled it slowly between finger and thumb.

Gunnar continued, “It’s odd, though. I find so many balls in the woods past the third green.”

“What’s strange about that? Lousy golfers always hit into the trees.” Mike flipped the mint leaf away and sniffed his now fragrant thumb.

“But there are plenty of trees behind the second green too. I don’t find nearly as many balls there.”

Mike thought for a moment. “I know,” he straightened and jabbed Gunnar’s arm. “The dogs. The ones we saw in the kennel beside the mansion. They bark and scare the golfers away before they can find their lost balls.”

“Then why don’t I hear them bark when I’m out collecting?” Gunnar reached a long arm to the mint bush and tore off a leaf for himself.

Mike leaned forward, propping his chin on his hands. “Good question.” He thought for a few moments. “Unless,” he sat up and pointed to his watch, “it has something to do with the time. When do you usually hunt for balls?”

“I go in the lulls,” Gunnar replied, “like 11:30 in the morning. But lately it’s been so hot, I’ve waited till after 8:00 at night.”

“And you don’t hear the dogs then?”

Gunnar shook his head. “Except that Friday I found the $1000 bill.”

Mike stared at his running shoes. “And have any golfers complained about the dogs during the day?”

“Not that I know of,” Gunnar replied.

“Well,” Mike rubbed the side of his toe against the step, “Nobody plays golf at night. What’s left?”

“Only the early morning.” Gunnar’s voice quickened. “This time of year, the course opens at 6:15. And there’s always a line up, people wanting to play nine holes before work, or before it gets too hot.”

Slowly Mike sat up. “So, if they’re in a hurry and it’s busy, and they hear the dogs barking closer, they won’t search around for lost balls.”

“Good for you, Einstein!” Gunnar slapped his friend’s knee.

Mike studied the grin spanning Gunnar’s face. He grabbed his camping gear catalogue from the porch and pretended to whack it over Gunnar’s head. “You joker!” he croaked in mock anger. “You knew all along!”

Laughing, Gunnar raised his arms to fend off the fake blows. “Are you wide awake now, Sherlock Holmes?”

Mike laid the catalogue on the step. He leaned back on his elbows. “I guess your next question is what am I doing at 6:15 tomorrow?”

“No.” Gunnar winked. “What are you doing at 5:30?”

“5:30!” Mike groaned. “What a slave driver! O.K., I’ll meet you behind your house.”

* * * * *

At 5:30 A.M., despite birds chirping awake, the sky hung darkly overcast. Protected against poison ivy by long sleeves and jeans, Mike followed his friend down the hill behind Gunnar’s house. The binoculars knocked against his chest. A flashlight hung from his belt loop bumped against his thigh.

On the ravine floor, the stream’s trickle had swollen to a rush from thunderstorms during the night. In shadow, the boys crossed the footbridge. On the other side, their running shoes squooshed through the thick, wet grass around the back of the fourth green. Ahead, the woods loomed, a huge black shape hunched like a dinosaur waiting to swallow them up. Mike couldn’t even see the hole in the fence.

“Hey, Gunnar,” he whispered, “I hope you know where we’re going.”

Gunnar replied by blinking his flashlight twice. He walked faster.

As the fence took shape in the gloom, Mike saw the rip in the wire next to the post. The trees on the other side stood close together. How black it looked inside. His heart beat harder. He unhooked the flashlight from his belt. After Gunnar, he eased through the torn fence, into the dinosaur’s leafy mouth.

No birds chirped here. Instead, the boys’ steps squished and snapped as they pushed through wet weed and fallen twigs.

The darkness deepened. Gunnar flicked on his flashlight. Mike did the same. Against the trees’ deep shadows, how fragile bobbed the two small circles of light. As wet branches and bushes brushed against him, Mike was glad for his long sleeves and jeans. In this blackness, even Gunnar couldn’t have found his way through the poison ivy.

At last the trees thinned. Mike felt Gunnar’s arm block his chest. He stopped. He heard Gunnar breathing. Where the woods opened into a wide field, through the lightening mist, far off an orange rectangle glowed.

Mike raised his binoculars toward the outline of the mansion. As he focused, two red lights appeared out of nowhere in front of the house. “Tail lights,” he thought. He blinked. The red lights swung around, a moment later replaced by larger yellow beams. They were too high off the ground for a car. “Look, Gunnar,” he whispered, “a truck, I think, or a van, went up that U-shaped driveway. It’s parking in front of the house.”

Gunnar took the binoculars from Mike’s hands. “I wish it wasn’t so overcast,” he grumbled. “I can’t figure out what they’re unloading. But I think there are three men there, and it looks like two are lugging boxes into the house.”

Mike nudged Gunnar and pointed to his watch. “6:20,” he said. “The golfers are teeing off.”

Gunnar handed back the binoculars. Mike looped them around his neck. “O.K.,” Mike said, “get ready.” He cupped his hands and, as loud as he could, hollered, “FORE!”

As his voice echoed across the valley, a chorus of barking started. Mike snatched up the binoculars and took a quick look. Sure enough, a figure darted out of the house toward the kennels.

Gunnar grabbed his elbow. “What can you see?”

“The van’s coming down the driveway.” Mike stared as the yellow beams grew larger, then swung onto the gravel road, and continued north a few moments. “Now it’s turning again. It’s heading west, toward the garage and kennel.” Small, smaller, the tail lights sped away, then disappeared. In their place, a figure holding back a leaping dog headed toward the woods where the boys hid. “Gunnar, now!” Mike let the binoculars drop to his chest. “Time to run!”

CHAPTER 9 – Early

Once Mike and Gunnar had crossed the footbridge, they sat on a large rock in the river bank to catch their breath.

“So, Einstein, your theory was right,” Mike slapped Gunnar’s knee.

“Of course,” Gunnar chuckled, and elbowed him back.

“Now you can make lots of money collecting lost balls from the woods. Just look after 8:00 at night.”

“Sure,” Gunnar nodded. “But what I really want is to find out what those men were carrying.”

Mike straightened. He raised his right arm, and flexed the muscle. “Yeah,” he grunted, “It sure looked heavy, like maybe some sort of machinery.”

“Maybe a printing press?” Gunnar suggested. “That would explain the fake $100 bills I found under the tree.”

Mike dropped his arm. He thought of the presses in
Theo
Lazo’s shop. They were metal monsters, too sprawling and heavy for even two or three men to lift. “No way,” he laughed. “You’d need a forklift to move something that big!”

“Unless,” Gunnar thought for a moment, “they could use something smaller.”

“Right!” Mike exclaimed. “Maybe they took it in sections to avoid suspicion. No factory would deliver a big printing press to somebody’s house, even if it was a mansion. That would give it away.”

“Who’s talking about a proper delivery?” Gunnar picked up a small stone from the bank. He took aim at a leaf floating along on the current. “We’re dealing here with crooks. The press was probably stolen.”

Mike picked up a pebble to throw too. “Well, if they took the machinery apart, they could file off any serial numbers too.”

“Do all that in a five-minute robbery?” Gunnar laughed and punched Mike’s shoulder. “Get real. Anyway, whatever they’re doing, it looks pretty fishy. Otherwise, why would they be sneaking around at 6:00 A.M.?” Gunnar threw his stone. It splashed into the leaf and sank.