Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary (21 page)

I drop my crushed-leaf analysis and join her. And there, at her feet, is a cap the size of an old silver dollar.

A shiny cap.

A gas cap.

Marissa whispers, “Do you think…?”

I grab a stick and flip it over. It's red, just like the can had been. And there's not a speck of rust on it. I nod and say, “Absolutely.”

She kneels down next to me and whispers, “So what are we going to do?”

“Well, I'm sure not going to leave it here.”

Even when she's kneeling, Marissa can do the McKenze dance. “Do you think we're being watched?”

I look around, too. “I don't know. But this time I'm not taking any chances.” I pull the sleeve of my sweatshirt down over my hand, pick up the cap, and slip it into my sweatshirt pocket.

Marissa whispers, “Are you going to call Officer Borsch?”

“You bet,” I said, then took another look over my shoulders and stood up.

Marissa got up, too, only she says, “Oooo! Oh, what is
that?
Oh, gross! I was kneeling in something.”

Now Marissa's jeans are stonewashed to begin with, but since they're her favorites and she wears them every chance she gets, they're extra faded from all the washings. But the stain on her knee isn't
dark,
and I'm about to tell her not to freak out, that it'll wash out, when it hits me.

The spot on her knee is
pink
.

Oaks don't drip pink resins, and no animal on the planet
has pink pee. Not even in Sisquane. And since there's only one liquid I can think of that's pink like that, I squat down, bend over, and sniff Marissa's knee.

She jumps back. “What are you doing?
Smelling
it? Oh, gross, Sammy! What if it's…what if it's…”

I laugh, “Pig pee?”

“Is
that
what you think it is?” Her face crinkles up.

“Oh, Sammy, yuck!”

“Marissa! Don't short-circuit on me now. Of course I don't think it's pig pee.” I check out the leaves and dirt where she'd been kneeling, but I don't find a thing.

“Then what? God, it's gross. It's like sticking to my knee.” She gasps and whispers, “What if it's
blood?
”

“It's way too light to be blood.”

“But what if…what if…”

I waddle over toward her and say, “Just hold still, would you?” and take a good whiff of her knee.

“Well?”

I stand up and say, “It's not pee, or blood, or beet juice for that matter—it's transmission fluid.”

“Transmission fluid? Like from a car?” She cocks her head. “How would
you
know that?”

“My face took a little bath in it yesterday.”

“What?”

“And it washed right off.” I smile at her and say, “Your jeans'll come clean. Don't worry about it.”

“Wait a minute.” She grabs my sleeve as I peek out the tunnel entrance, up and down the road. “You think I'm going to let you off that easy?
When
did your face take a bath in transmission fluid?”

I give her the quick-clip of my little experience under the truck, and of course she turns it into some romantic rendezvous. Then I say, “He's Heather's brother, remember?”

She cringes and says, “Oh, yeah,” then switches stations, just like that. “So are you saying you think Ben or
Karl
burned down the house?”

“No! Why would they want to burn down Mary's cabin? I think transmission fluid is like oil. Cars drip it. And whoever parked in those bushes has a car that drips transmission fluid.”

“So that could be anybody.”

“Well, I don't know. I guess we should see if one of the Murdock cars drips tranny fluid.”

Marissa plants herself and puts her hands on her hips. “No. Sammy, I am
not
going back there. N-O, no!”

I keep on walking. “Neither am I. I'm going to tell Officer Borsch about it and ask
him
to go. What I'm really hoping is that he'll be able to lift some fingerprints off this gas cap.”

So we're power-walking across the vineyard, and we're almost to the house when Marissa says, “I'm sorry about Casey.”

I don't know what to say to that. So instead, I ask something that had been nagging at me ever since I'd peeled myself off the pavement the day before. “Marissa, do you kind of like Taylor?”

“
Taylor?
You've got to be kidding! To tell you the truth, he scares me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Oh, gross, Sammy. No, I don't like him.”

I let out a sigh and say, “Thanks.”

“Why? What's the matter?”

“Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I think there's something wrong with
me
.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just don't get it about people sometimes. I don't understand Heather and Tenille and why they have any friends at
all
. I don't understand what Casey's doing hanging out with Taylor—even if they have known each other since they were six. And I don't see how in the world Brandon can be best friends with Karl. They seem like opposites to me.” I shrug and say, “Maybe I don't know Brandon at all, either.”

Marissa's quiet for a minute, then she says, “Well, that's probably true. I mean, he's my cousin, and I don't really know him all that well, so how could you?”

She's right, of course, but something about it really bothers me. Like the better I get to know people, the
less
I know them. Like I can't trust my instincts anymore.

And even though I tried to close the door on that thought, it just would not shut. And the whole time I'm talking to Lucinda about what we'd found and why we needed a Baggie to store the cap in, there it is, pushing back. Even while I'm on the phone to the police, tracking down Officer Borsch, learning that he can't come out to Sisquane for at least another hour, it kept pushing back, harder and harder.

And when I hung up, I held the receiver on the cradle with both hands, closed my eyes for a minute, then gave
up. I took a deep breath and asked, “Marissa, what's Brandon's phone number?”

She came around so she could look at me straight on. “Are you serious?”

I nod and look down. “There's something I have to ask him.”

She stares at me a minute, but thinks better of cross-examining me. “928-5683,” she says, then sits down. Right beside me.

I'm still holding the receiver on the cradle, and I'm telling myself
not
to call him, but I know I'm going to. I have to. I look at Marissa and say, “Can you keep Lucinda company or something?”

She glances over her shoulder at Lucinda, staring out the window. “She's fine. It's you I'm not so sure about.”

“I'm fine.”

She doesn't budge.

“Marissa!”

“Sammy! He's my cousin and you're my best friend. What don't you want me to hear?”

“It's no big deal, I just want a little privacy, okay?”

“If it's no big deal, then why are you shaking?”

I look at my hands, clamped to the receiver, and say, “I am not!” but there they are, shaking away. Finally, I say, “Oh, good grief,” pick up the phone, and dial. And on the fourth ring, a man picks up, so I say, “Hello, is Brandon home? This is Sammy calling.”

The voice on the other end says, “Sammy? Really? Hey! What's going on?”

Now, normally when I talk to Brandon, sentences come
out as single words. Usually monosyllabic ones like Yeah and No and Um. But what comes streaming out of my mouth now is, “Not much. Well, actually, that's not true. Marissa and I are at the Huntley house. It's this pioneer place out in Sisquane? Anyway, we're trying to help Lucinda Huntley find her pig. She's like ninety and can't get around too well, and she's really attached to her pig and—”

Brandon interrupts me with a laugh. “You're calling to tell me you're spending New Year's Day finding a pig? Did you want me to come help or something?”

“No, I…actually, that's not why I'm calling at all. See, we're all up here spending the weekend at Dot's new house, and last night we went to the Briggses' party because—”

“You
did?
”

“Well, yeah. Sort of. We weren't actually
at
the party— we just went there to get my skateboard back.”

“Your skateboard? How did it wind up at the Briggses' party?”

“It's kind of a long story, but that's not what I wanted to talk about, either.”

“Okaaaaaaay…”

“What I want to know is…” I let out a big breath and blurt, “Did you not go to Karl's party because you had somewhere else to go, or because you didn't
want
to go?”

Silence.

“Brandon?”

“Yeah. I'm here.”

“I know it's none of my business, but it's kind of important to me.”

“Because…?”

“Because it is, okay? I mean, you and Karl are best friends, right? And if he's throwing this big New Year's Eve party, why didn't you go?”

“Were you looking for me there?”

“No! I mean…no!” My cheeks were on fire. “Look, okay. Never mind. I'm kinda confused about some stuff and I really just wanted to know.”

“Why I wasn't at the party?”

“Yeah.”

Silence. Then, “Sammy, it's kind of complicated. And I'd feel like a rat talking about it.”

Suddenly my heart was running away with my breath. “Brandon, look. I saw what was going on in their backyard, and I want to know—does that have anything to do with why you weren't there?”

There was another long silence and then, very quietly, he says, “Let's just say that Karl and I don't have much in common anymore. And since he dropped off the swim team, I really haven't talked to him much.”

“But I thought you guys were best friends.”

“That's right. We
were
best friends. We're not anymore. He's getting into some heavy stuff, and I just can't go there.”

I sat there for a minute, catching my breath. And I can't really explain it, but I was so relieved I started to cry. Water just streamed out of my eyes. And while Marissa's scurrying off to find me a Kleenex or a napkin or something, I'm choking out, “Thanks.”

He says, “Are you all right? You're not
crying,
are you? Did something happen over there last night?”

I brush away the tears, then force out a laugh. “Well, I
didn't
get my skateboard, and we
didn't
actually see Ben raging at his brothers, and I
didn't
get arrested, but yeah, I guess you might say a lot happened.”

“Whoa now! Re-verse! You gotta fill me in.”

So I did. And when I finished the part about Ben yelling at his brothers, he says, “No way that's going to work with Karl
or
Taylor. Ben's got no credibility with either of them after the way he used to tear that house up. I'd go over to Karl's after school, and Ben and this crazy friend of his, Fang, would just be going off.”

“Fang?”

“Well, that's what everyone called him. He was Ben's best friend. Anyway, then Dr. Briggs discovered they were growing pot behind the cabaña—and that they were selling it.”

“Holy smokes!”

“Exactly. After that everything changed. Dr. Briggs made Ben volunteer at the rehab center in the hospital, and I guess now he wants to be a doctor.” He hesitated, then said, “I probably shouldn't be telling you all this, so don't pipeline it, okay?”

“Of course not.”

“So what happened after the police showed up?”

“I don't really know because I wasn't there, but Casey says Karl's going to have a police record.”

“Taylor's friend Casey?”

“Yeah.”

He's quiet a minute, then says, “Maybe I should call Karl. God, what a mess.”

So I let him go, but before he hangs up I say, “Brandon?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“I don't know what I did, but sure.” Then he says, “Hey, don't you have a pig to find? You better get hunting—daylight's about gone.”

I get off the phone and let out a big sigh. And when Marissa says, “I think you said more to him in the last five minutes than you have in your entire life,” I laugh and say, “You're right.”

And as we're heading out to resume our search for Penny, it hits me that I'm happy. Really happy. And it's not because I've just talked to Brandon. It's much bigger than that. I'm happy because I feel grounded again. Like I can trust myself.

I wave through the window at Lucinda and call, “Don't worry! We'll find her!” and off we go to find Penny the Pig.

Dot and Holly had already scoured the back end of the property. No Penny. We filled each other in on what we'd seen and found, then set off to check the last section of property together. And as we're walking along, I'm worried that Marissa's going to start blabbing about how I'd called Brandon, but she doesn't. She just walks beside me, smiling at me from time to time, and I know—my secret's safe with her.

And I'm relieved because it's just too complicated to try to explain. Especially when you're supposed to be looking for a big black pig in the great outdoors—which is almost pitch-black itself.

Holly says, “You know, this is not looking good. We've checked everywhere but the ravine, and I'm not about to go down there in the dark.”

Dot says, “Me either. And if we're going to keep searching, I've got to go call my mom and tell her we'll be late for dinner.”

Well, really, there was no place else to look. We were standing about ten yards from the cabin fireplace, and even though we could see that Penny wasn't anywhere around the ruins, something was still pulling me in that direction.

Marissa says, “Sammy, I
really
don't want to go over there. It's too creepy!”

“That's okay. You stay here. I just want to take a quick look down the ravine. Maybe she was snorting around and fell in. She went down there before when she found the gas can, you know.”

I run over and take a look around, but even with the moon glowing brighter by the minute, I don't see a thing. And as I'm heading back, I can't help but feel that Marissa's right. The fireplace, all scarred and charred, feels creepy. Like something risen from the dead.

I circle the ruins and call out, “No Penny there,” but then I hear a snort. I freeze and look around me, calling, “Penny? Penny, was that you?”

Snort, snort!

There's no doubt about it, there's a pig in the vicinity. Trouble is, the snorting sounds a long way away, and I sure don't see her.