The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels (247 page)

“I guess you folks are on the square. Anyway, you wouldn’t get much if you robbed the till tonight. I only took in $37.50. Not enough to pay me for keeping open.”

“You say a cab hasn’t been through here tonight?”Salt asked impatiently.

“There’s been cars through, but no taxi cabs.”

“Where do these roads lead?”

“One takes you to Belle Plain and on to Three Forks. The other doesn’t go much of anywhere—just on to the swamp.”

“Any houses on the swamp road?” Salt inquired.

“An old trapper has a place up there, and the Hawkins’farm is on a piece. Closest house from here is the Widow Jones’.”

“How far?”

“Oh, not more than three—four miles.”

“Mrs. Jones drives a car?” Salt asked casually.

“Her?” The filling station man laughed. “Not on your life! She has an old rattle-trap her husband left her when he died, but she doesn’t take it out of the shed often enough to keep air in the tires.”

Penny and Salt inquired the way to the widow’s home.

“You can’t miss it,” replied the station man. “Straight on down the swamp road about three miles. First house you come to on the right hand side of Crissey Road. But you won’t likely find the widow up at this hour. She goes to bed with the chickens!”

On the highway once more, Salt and Penny debated their next move. Jerry’s failure to show up at Caleb Corners only partially relieved their anxiety. Now they could only speculate upon whether the reporter had remained in Riverview or had driven past the filling station without being seen.

“Since we’ve come this far, why not go on to the Widow Jones’ place?” Salt proposed. “She may have seen Jerry. In any case, we can question her about that car she owns.”

Bumping along on the rutty road, they presently rounded a bend and on a sideroad saw a small, square house which even in its desolation had a look of sturdy liveability.

“That must be the place,” Salt decided, slowing the car. “No lights so I guess she’s abed.”

“I see one at the rear!” Penny exclaimed. “Someone is up!”

With a jerk, Salt halted the car beside a mailbox which stood on a high post. A brick walk, choked with weeds, led to the front door and around to a back porch.

Through an uncurtained window, the pair glimpsed a tall, wiry woman filling an oil lamp in the kitchen.

As Salt rapped on the door, they saw her start and reach quickly for a shotgun which stood in a corner of the room.

“Who’s there?” she called sharply.

“We’re from Riverview,” answered Penny.

Reassured by a feminine voice, the woman opened the door. She towered above them, a quaint figure in white shirtwaist and a long flowing black skirt which swept the bare floor of the kitchen.

“Good evening,” said Penny. “I hope we didn’t startle you.”

Slowly the widow’s eyes traveled over the pair. She laid the shotgun aside and then said evenly:

“’Pears like you did. Hain’t in the habit o’ having visitors this time o’ night. Whar be ye from and what do you want?”

Salt told of their search for Jerry, carefully describing the reporter.

“Hain’t seen anyone like that,” the Widow Jones said at once. “No one been by on this road since sundown’cepting old Ezekiel Hawkins.”

“By the way, do you drive a car?” Salt questioned.

“Not if I kin keep from it,” the widow retorted. “Cars is the ruination o’ civilization! Last time I tried to drive to town, backed square into a big sycamore and nigh onto knocked all my teeth out!”

“So you sold your car?” Salt interposed.

“It’s a settin’ out in the shed. That no-good young’un o’ Ezekiel’s, Coon Hawkins, tried to buy it off’en me a year ago, but I turned him down flat.”

“Didn’t he offer enough?” Penny asked curiously.

“’Twasn’t that. Fust place, I don’t think much o’Coon Hawkins! Second place, that car belonged to my departed husband, and I don’t aim nobody else ever will drive it.”

“Then you didn’t have the car out today or loan it to anyone?”

“No, I didn’t! Say, what you gittin’ at anyway with all these questions?”

“Your car was involved in an accident this afternoon in Riverview,” Salt explained.

“What you sayin’?” the woman demanded. “You must be out o’ yer mind! My car ain’t been out of the shed fer a month.”

“We may have been mistaken,” Penny admitted. “The license number of the car was K-4687.”

“Why, that’s the plate number of mine!” the Widow Jones exclaimed. “Leastwise, I recollect it is!”

“You’re certain the car still is in the shed?” Salt asked.

“You got me all confused now, and I hain’t cartain of anything. Come in while I get a lantern, and we’ll look!”

Penny and Salt stepped into a clean kitchen, slightly fragrant with the odor of spicy catsup made that afternoon. On a table stood row upon row of sealed bottles ready to be carried to the cellar.

The Widow Jones lighted a lantern and threw a woolen shawl over her bony shoulders.

“Follow me,” she bade.

At a swift pace, she led the way down a path to a rickety shed which stood far back from the road.

The woman unfastened the big door which swung back on creaking hinges. Raising her lantern, she flashed the light on the floor of the shed.

“Hit’s gone!” she exclaimed. “Someone’s stole the car!”

Only a large blotch of oil on the cracked concrete floor revealed where the automobile had stood.

“Have you no idea who took the car?” Penny inquired.

Grimly the Widow Jones closed the shed door and slammed the hasp into place.

“Maybe I have an’ maybe I han’t! Leastwise, I larned forty years ago to keep my lips shut less I could back up my words with proof.”

In silence the widow started back toward the house. Midway to the house, she suddenly paused, listening attentively.

From a nearby tree an owl hooted, but Penny and Salt sensed that was not the sound which had caught the woman’s ear.

She blew out the lantern and wordlessly motioned for the pair to move back into the deep shadow of the tree.

Holding her shirt to keep it from blowing in the night breeze, the woman gazed intently toward a swamp road some distance from the boundary of her land. For the first time, Salt and Penny became aware of a muffled sound of a running truck motor.

“Sounds like a car or truck back there in the swamp,” Salt commented. “Is there a road near here leading in?”

“There’s a road yonder,” the widow answered briefly.

“It goes into the swamp?”

“Only for a mile or so.”

“What would a truck be doing in there at this time of night?” Penny probed.

“I wouldn’t know,” answered the widow dryly. “There’s some things goes on in this swamp that smart folkses don’t ask questions about.”

Without relighting the lantern, she walked briskly on. Reaching the rear porch, she paused and turned once more to Salt and Penny.

“I be much obliged to ye comin’ out here to tell me about my car being stole. Will ye come in and set a spell?”

“Thanks, we’ll have to be getting back to Riverview,”Salt declined the invitation. “It’s late.”

“You’ll catch your death if you stay out in this damp swamp air,” the woman said, her gaze resting disapprovingly on Penny’s flimsy dress and low-cut slippers. “I’d advise you to git right back to town. ’Evenin’ to you both.”

She went inside and closed the door.

“Queer character,” Salt commented as he and Penny made their way to the roadside, “Forthright to say the least.”

“I rather liked her, Salt. She seemed genuine. And she has courage to live here alone at the edge of the swamp.”

“Sure,” the photographer agreed. “Plenty of iron in her soul. Wonder what she saw there at the edge of the swamp?”

“It seemed to me she was afraid we might try to investigate. Did you notice how she advised us to go directly to Riverview?”

“She did make the remark a little pointed. The Widow Jones is no dumbbell! You could tell she has a good idea who stole her auto, and she wasn’t putting out anything about that truck.”

Salt had started the car and was ready to turn around. Penny placed a detaining hand on the steering wheel.

“Let’s go the other direction, Salt!”

“On into the swamp?”

“It’s only a short distance to that other road. If the truck is still there, we might see something interesting.”

Salt’s lips parted in a wide grin.

“Sure thing,” he agreed. “What have we got to lose?”

CHAPTER 10

INSIDE THE WOODSHED

The throaty croak of frogs filled the night as Salt, car headlights darkened, brought up at a bend of the road near the swamp’s edge.

Entrance to the pinelands could be gained in any one of three ways. A road, often mired with mud, had been built by a lumber mill, and led for nearly a mile into the higher section of the area. There it ended abruptly.

Half a mile away, near Trapper Joe’s shack, lay the water course Penny and Louise had followed. From it branched a maze of confusing channels, one of which marked the way to the heart of the swamp. But only a few persons ever had ventured beyond Lookout Island, close to the exit.

The third entrance, also not far from Trapper Joe’s, consisted of a narrow boardwalk path nailed to fallen trees and stumps just above the water level. The walk had fallen into decay and could be used for only five hundred feet.

“Seems like a funny time for a truck to be coming out of the swamp road,” Salt remarked, peering into the gloom of the pine trees. “Hear anything?”

Penny listened intently and shook her head. But a moment later, she explained: “Now I do! The truck’s coming this way.”

“Let’s get closer to the road exit,” Salt proposed. “We’d better leave the car here, if we don’t want to be seen.”

Penny’s high heels kept twisting on the rutty road, and finally in exasperation, she took them off, stripped away her stockings, and walked in her bare feet.

The truck now was very close and the pair could hear its laboring engine. Salt drew Penny back against the bottle-shaped trunk of a big tree at the road exitway. There they waited.

Presently the truck chugged into view, its headlights doused. On the main road, not ten yards from where Salt and Penny crouched, it came to a jerky halt.

The driver was a husky fellow who wore a heavy jacket and cap which shadowed his face. With him in the cab were two younger men of athletic build. Both wore homespun clothes and stout boots.

As the truck halted, the two younger men sprang to the ground.

Instantly Penny and Salt were certain they had seen one of the strangers before.

“He’s the man who drove the accident car this afternoon!”Penny whispered. “The auto stolen from Widow Jones!”

Salt nodded, placing his hand over the girl’s lips. He drew her back behind the tree.

The precaution was a wise one, for a moment later, a flashlight beam played over the spot where they had been standing.

“Thought I heard something!” one of the truckers muttered.

“Jest them frogs a-croakin’,” his companion answered. “You’re gettin’ jumpy.”

“Let’s get a move on!” growled the driver of the truck. “I gotta get this load to Hartwell City before dawn. You keepin’ any of the stuff?”

“A couple o’ gallons will do us. Too durn heavy to carry.”

From the rear end of the truck, the two young men who had alighted, pulled out a large wooden container with handles.

“When do you want me to stop by again?” the truck driver called above the rumble of the motor.

“Can’t tell yet,” one of the men answered, swinging the heavy container across his shoulder. “Pappy’ll send word.”

The truck pulled away, and the two young men started down the road in the opposite direction. Not until they were a considerable distance away, did Penny speak.

“What do you make of it all, Salt?”

“It’s got me puzzled,” he admitted. “If I’d have seen the truck come out of the swamp at any other time I wouldn’t have thought much about it. But considering the way Mrs. Jones acted, some funny business seems to be going on here.”

“I’m certain one of those young men was the driver of the accident car this afternoon!”

“It did look like him.”

“They must be the Hawkins boys, Coon and Hod,”Penny went on, thinking aloud. “What were they doing in the swamp so late at night? And what are they trucking?”

“Echo answers ‘what’,” Salt replied. “Well, shall we start for Riverview?”

“Without learning for certain who those two fellows are?”

“I would like to know. The only thing is, your father’s going to be plenty annoyed when he finds how late I’ve kept you out.”

“Leave Dad to me.”

“Okay, but if we run into trouble tonight, we can figure we went out of our way to ask for it.”