Dew Drop Dead (9 page)

“By all means. Abraham and I had a talk earlier this evening. He's not a bad person, you know, just a little confused at times. And frightened, like the rest of us.”

“I know he's not bad,” said Corrie.

Sebastian thought it was odd that they were talking about Abraham as if he weren't there. But he could tell from the serene look on Abraham's face that he wasn't offended. In fact, he looked more at peace than Sebastian had ever seen him.

They settled themselves on Raymond Elveri's cot, Raymond on one side of Corrie, Sebastian on the other. David sat next to Sebastian, and Abraham stood behind them, looking over Corrie's shoulder. “Would anyone else like to look at the pictures with us?” Corrie asked the others in the room.

The volunteer who was spending the night murmured, “No thanks,” from where he sat across the room, then went back to his book.

Estelle Barker was watching the television that
had been donated by one of the congregants. Glancing peevishly over her shoulder, she said, “I'm trying to watch my program. Don't talk too loud, hear?” Her two children lay on the carpet at her feet, their hands playing idly with the untied laces of her shoes. Every once in a while she swatted at them as if they were pesky flies, but she never told them to stop.

Marcus was stretched out on his cot nearby, his head resting on one hand, reading a magazine in the light that spilled off the television set. He didn't bother to look up at the sound of Corrie's voice.

“Okay,” Corrie said, pulling the stack of photographs from their envelope. “Now, this first one was taken back in Troy before we left. See, my family just moved here this past summer. We lived in Troy, New York, before that and ...”

Sebastian tuned out, not because he'd heard it all before, but because his attention was caught by a sight so disturbing his mind was busy struggling just to take it in. He nudged David and nodded in the direction of a chair sitting in the center of the room.

David exhaled, “Oh, wow.”

A red-and-black shirt was draped over the back of the chair. Even from a distance, Sebastian could see that there was no button on the cuff of the left sleeve. In its place was a visible tear. There was no doubt about it: It was
that
shirt. Sebastian glanced around the room. Was the person they had seen at
the inn—the one they
thought
was dead—here with them now?

Or, what was even more likely, was one of the people sharing this oddly warm and domestic scene in the basement of a church on a cold November night a murderer?

Sebastian looked from Estelle Barker's strong back to Marcus's furrowed brow to Raymond Elveri's rough hands to Abraham's knobby outstretched fingers and he wondered—

Who?

“PROFESSOR PLUM
in the billiard room with the lead pipe,” said Rebecca Quinn. They were so engrossed in their game that neither she nor Josh nor Rachel looked up when Sebastian and David barged noisily into the Lepinsky kitchen.

“You guys,” David said.

“Shut the door, it's freezing,” said Josh. He waved a vague sort of hello and muttered, “Professor Plum, it can't be Professor Plum. And you call yourself a detective?”

“You guys,” David repeated.

“Sshh,” said Rachel.

Rebecca looked at Josh. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “I guess one murder case a day is all I can handle.”

“Murder?” said Sebastian. “So you think it's murder, too.”

Rebecca stretched. “Well, we don't have anything conclusive. We don't even know who the victim was. But murder looks like a definite possibility.”

“How was the guy killed?” David asked.

“We think a blow to the head.”

“Lead pipe?” asked Josh.

Rebecca smiled weakly. “No, and not in the billiard room either. We don't have the murder weapon yet.”

“We
do,” David said. “It was a rock.”

“A rock?” said Rebecca Quinn.

“You know what I mean, right, Sebastian? We found a rock with blood on it near the inn.”

Josh looked from his son to his son's friend. “You saw it, too?” he asked.

Sebastian nodded slowly. “I'm not convinced it was blood,” he told Josh and Rebecca. “It could be, but—”

“Gee, Sebastian, thanks a lot,” said David. “What else could it be? We find this dead guy, and the police say he's been conked on the head, and there's a rock between him and the inn that's covered with this dark brown stuff and—”

“And then there's the shirt,” said Sebastian. “That's what we came to tell you about.”

Josh and Rebecca exchanged glances. “Don't tell me you've found the murderer,” Rebecca said.

“Yes!” David cried triumphantly.

Sebastian laid a hand on his friend's arm. “Slow down,” he said. “We didn't find the murderer. But we think we know where you can find him. Or her.”

Rebecca regarded Sebastian with interest. “Go on,” she said.

“Well,” Sebastian began, “remember that shirt we told you about? The red-and-black one?”

“The one we found a piece of at the inn,” Rebecca said. “What about it?”

“We found the rest of it,” said David excitedly. “We know it belongs to one of the people staying at the church. We just don't know who.”

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure it's the same shirt?”

“Definitely,” said Sebastian. “The sleeve is torn.”

“There's a button missing,” David added.

“And where exactly did you see it?”

“Hanging over the back of a chair. That's why we don't know who it belongs to,” Sebastian answered. “But it has to belong to one of them, right?”

Rebecca thought for a moment. “Maybe not,” she said.

“Huh?” said David.

“If we assume the murder victim was wearing the shirt and that the murderer removed it from his body after he or she killed him, we might also assume that the murderer threw it away.”

“I don't get it,” David said.

“The person at the church—whoever has the shirt now—might have found it somewhere. In a Dumpster, lying by the side of the road, wherever the murderer ditched it. I'm not saying you're wrong. But the shirt itself isn't conclusive evidence.”

“Mrs. Peacock in the library with the candlestick,” said Rachel.

“What?” asked Josh.

Rebecca turned to look at Rachel. “Sorry?”

“Mrs. Peacock in the library with the candlestick,” Rachel said impatiently. “Are we playing or gabbing? Come on, you two, we've got a murder to solve here!”

“But you'll check out the shirt, won't you?” Sebastian asked Rebecca as the game was resumed.

“And the rock?” said David.

“You bet,” Rebecca said. “We'll get on both of them in the morning. First thing, we'll go out and take a look at that rock. As for the shirt ...”

“Yeah?” David asked.

“Well, you might just be right. It could lead us to the murderer.”

“THE MURDERER,'” David repeated later in his room. The boys were sitting on either end of his bed. “Right now, right down the street in the basement of First Church, there could be a cold-blooded killer eating a peanut butter sandwich. We could have shaken hands with him or given him some soup or something. It's kind of cool, isn't it?”

“That's one way of looking at it.”

“And just think,
we
found the body.”

“Twice.”

“Yeah, twice. I mean, the police wouldn't even
have known there'd been a murder if it weren't for us. We found the body and the murder weapon, maybe, and
maybe
the murderer.”

Sebastian pulled his knees up to his chin and fell silent.

“Oh, oh,” David said. “Don't tell me you're going into one of your moods. Quick, what are you thinking about?”

“Corrie.”

“Corrie? Oh, yeah. Gee, Sebastian, don't you think we should warn her? Why didn't you tell her about the shirt? I don't think she even noticed.”

“She likes these people, David. I didn't want her thinking one of them is a murderer.”

“And what if one of them
is
a murderer?”

“I don't know. I guess I should tell her, but—”

“But?”

“We could be wrong.”

“Yeah, and we could be right.”

Sebastian nodded. “I know, I know.” He thought for a moment. “Corrie's home now, right? She's safe. And Alex and Rebecca will be over there in the morning while we're at school. And anyway, there are always other people around. So nothing will happen to her. Listen, speaking of school, I've got homework to finish and it's after nine. I put my stuff in your basket. Is your bike out back?”

“Yeah. My stuffs there, too. I'll go down with you.”

Rachel and Josh were putting away the board game as the boys passed through the kitchen moments later. “Are you going to marry Rebecca?” they heard Rachel ask her father. “She's not planning to wear her uniform at the wedding, is she? Will I have to call her Lieutenant Mommy?”

They didn't wait to hear Josh's answer, if there was one.

The backyard was all silver and white in the light of a full moon. The boys made out their bicycles leaning against the side of the garage. When Sebastian lifted out his books, he found one that was not his.

“Look what we forgot,” he said. Taking care not to rip the pages, he opened the book David had unearthed near the creek. The light was not sufficient to make out the words, but it was immediately apparent what it was.

“A Bible,” David said. Then, squinting, he asked, “What's all this?”

Sebastian raised the book until the light of the moon made the white pages glow. The margins were filled with a tiny script as indecipherable and as full of mystery as hieroglyphics discovered on the walls of an ancient tomb.

“I OUGHTA
put you fellas on the payroll,” said Alex Theopoulos. It was 7:48 Tuesday morning; the police station thermometer registered thirty-one degrees outside, eighty-five in. Alex reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe away the sweat about to drip into his eyes. “Sauna,” he mumbled as he perused the small book the boys had just handed him. “It's like a sauna in here.”

“What do you think all the writing means?” Sebastian asked. “It's not English.”

“It's not any language I ever saw,” said Alex. “Not that I'm a linguist, mind you. There's something very peculiar about it, though, sort of . . . unreal, spacey.”

“Maybe an alien dropped it out of his UFO,” David said, only half joking.

Alex flipped through the book. “There's writing everywhere,” he observed, “though more on some pages than others. Look at this part here. You can hardly make out the text there's so much scribbling.”

Again, Sebastian asked, “What you think it means?”

“Beats me,” said Alex.

“Could I see it again?” David asked.

Alex gave the Bible to David and turned to Sebastian. “By the way,” he said, “we've tracked down the owners of the inn. They're coming to town on Friday.”

He blotted his forehead with the handkerchief. “Can you believe this? It's not even eight o'clock and my one and only handkerchief is sopping wet. This day's going to be a beaut.”

Seeing that David was still absorbed in looking at the Bible, Sebastian asked, “Do you know yet who the guy was who was murdered?”

Alex nodded. “He had some positive ID on him. I can't tell you because we're still trying to find next of kin. I'll tell you one thing, though. It's a pity. He was a young man, only twenty-six. We don't have the coroner's report yet, but at a glance I'd say he'd been through some hard living in his few years. Sebastian, my friend, there are times I would gladly trade my job for any you can name. There's too much heart-break in it.”

David looked up. “Are you going to check out the other stuff we told Rebecca about? The shirt and the rock?”

Alex nodded. “Don't worry, my young detectives, we will follow through this morning. And just in case our culprit is in fact one of the people staying at the
church, I've asked Rebecca to spend the day there. Out of uniform. We don't want any trouble.”

Sebastian glanced up at the clock behind Alex's desk. “Is that the right time?” he asked.

“That clock is one of the few things that work around here.”

“We're going to be late. Come on, David, let's get out of here. We'll see you later, Alex.”

“I'll see you, boys. Thanks for your help.” Alex took the Bible back from David. “So did you manage to decode this thing?” he asked.

“I wasn't trying,” David said. “I was looking at these pages with all the scribbling to see if I could figure out which part of the Bible it was.”

“And?”

“It's a section called the
akedah
in Hebrew. We studied it in religious school.”

“What's that in English?”

“It means ‘the binding.' But sometimes it's called something else.”

“What's that?” Alex asked.

“‘The sacrifice,'” said David.

“I'VE BEEN THINKING,”
Sebastian said when he spotted his friend in the school corridor later that day. It was a few minutes to two, just before their last class was to begin.

“Do your teachers know you're engaged in a subversive activity during school hours?” David asked. He was fiddling with the combination to his locker. “It keeps sticking,” he said. “If that Mikey Kaufman put Krazy Glue on it again ...”

“I've been thinking about the Bible,” said Sebastian.

“There's a glue-wielding maniac on the loose and you want to talk theology?”

“It's important, David. Pay attention, we don't have much time until the bell rings.”