Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary (9 page)

Holly rolls out beside me, then Dot and Marissa do the same. And we're all lined up like we're ready for a rumble when Officer Borsch calls, “And what would you know about the Huntley cabin?”

“Not much, I just want to know if that's what you're talking about.”

“It is, but
why
do you want to know?”

In my heart I knew that they'd been talking about Mary's cabin, but when Officer Borsch actually said it
was,
well, all of a sudden my stomach went queasy and I felt like I was going to lose my
oliebollen
.

Holly sees me turning green and calls, “Lucinda Huntley gave us a tour of the place today.”

Officer Borsch calls, “How well do you know her?”

Holly shrugs. “Well enough to know she's gotta be really upset that the cabin's burned down.”

I whisper to Holly, “We've got to go see her.”

Holly nods, but Dot says, “What about my brothers? We're supposed to be looking for them.”

“They're fine, Dot. The sirens were for the fire, not Pioneer Village. You can go there if you want, or we can go afterward, but right now I've got to see Lucinda.”

Holly nods. “Me, too.”

Marissa says, “What do you want to do, Dot?”

Dot thinks a minute, then calls to Officer Borsch, “Have there been any other…uh…incidents in this area?”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh…you know…anybody get hurt or anything?”

Officer Borsch says, “Noooo…,” like he's not real sure he wants to let her in on this valuable piece of classified information. “Why do you ask?”

Dot says, “No reason,” and then whispers to us, “Okay, let's go.”

Officer Borsch calls, “Girls?”

We look at him and say, “Yes?”

“Stay out of it, okay? There are plenty of professional people there taking care of things. Your friend is going to be fine. She just needs a sedative.”

I felt like saying, A
sedative
…you don't understand! But I knew that arguing with Officer Borsch would turn the “okay” into “go away!” So I nodded and said, “Thanks for the information, Officer Borsch. It's too bad about the cabin, but I guess there's nothing much we can do about it.” Then I turn my bike around and head up the
hill toward Pioneer Village, and the others are looking at me like, Are you feeling all right? but they follow along.

I guess I made life a little too easy on Officer Borsch, because he's not buying it. The Blazer takes off, but Officer Borsch follows along beside us in his squad car and calls out the passenger window, “So where you headed?”

“Up to Pioneer Village.”

“Pioneer Village, huh? To a party?”

“Yeah.”

He nods and you can see his little wheels turning. “I was headed that way myself. Some of those parties can get pretty out of hand.”

I laugh and say, “Just don't tell anybody that we sent you!”

He laughs, too, then says, “Oh, and Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“One last thing.”

“What's that?”

“Keep back, okay? That's all I'm asking. Let the professionals do their job.”

By now we've both stopped, and we're leaning over, looking at each other through the passenger window. I blink at him, and he stares at me. Then he says with a little smile, “You think I don't know you better than that?”

I straddle the bike, not knowing what to say. I mean, for the first time in my life I'm finding it really hard to lie to Officer Borsch. “You…you're not telling me I can't go?”

He laughs. “Experience tells me that that would be useless. Just keep back, and try not to
say
anything. The last thing they need are comments from the peanut gallery.”

I nod, and before I can say thanks, off he goes to expand the detour from his jurisdiction, and we do a U-turn to expand ours.

We decided we'd have less chance of being stopped if we went past the Huntleys' driveway and entered through the break in the fence. So we rode along Lucinda's property, and pretty soon we could see lights flashing through the fog, and the smell of smoke became very strong. And the closer we got, the worse my stomach felt.

The break in the fence was easy to find. The whole section was slumped over. Holly looks at me and I look at her, and right away Dot asks, “What's the matter?”

So we tell them about the damaged fence and Lucinda being upset by it, and how we'd left it strapped closed. Marissa says, “So maybe some of the fire people came through here. Does it open up wide enough to drive through?”

That was a thought. We checked out the distance from one post to the next and decided that it was a bit too small to get a car through, and way too small for a fire truck.

Marissa says, “Maybe they drove up and walked.”

“Maybe, but there's no one here now. They're all up the driveway, and
someone
came through this way!” Then it hit me that there might be tire tracks in the dirt. “Hey, you guys! Hold still! Don't move.”

They freeze while I stoop down, trying to find tire tracks in the dark. Holly says, “What are you
doing?
”

“I thought maybe there'd be some tire tracks, but I can't see anything! I wish we had a flashlight.”

Dot says, “Your bike's got a light. Too bad we can't just ride it in place.”

I say, “Hey, that's it!” So I get Dot and Marissa to hold the back wheel off the ground while I grab a pedal and crank. As soon as it's going fast enough for the light to come on, we pivot the bike on its front wheel and scour the ground for tracks.

And what do we find? Just a bunch of footprints that the four of us had made.

Marissa croaks, “Sammy! Haven't we done this long enough? There's nothing to see!”

We stop and plop, and Holly says, “Well, if there was anything there, we messed it up walking on it.”

Dot says, “I don't know why we're even doing this. I thought you guys wanted to go see Lucinda.”

Everyone agrees that she's right. So we park our bikes inside, then close up the sections of fence, wrapping the leather over the post. Then we make our way toward the cabin, and as we pass by the toolshed, the smell of smoke becomes overwhelming. Nauseating.

Then, at the same time, we all stop and stare. The area is flooded with light glaring from the side of a fire truck, and poking through the ashes like a tombstone is the fireplace, charred and dripping water. And except for the fireplace, the cabin is gone. Completely gone.

There are a few firemen in rubber boots and hard hats talking to each other as they inspect an area off to the side with their flashlights. We stand there a moment, stunned, then Marissa says, “That was it?”

Holly and I nod, but we don't say a word. And I'm
feeling completely choked up about the whole thing, even though I'm telling myself that I'm being stupid. I mean, how long had I known Lucinda? Less than a day. And Moustache Mary was interesting, but she wasn't
my
ancestor. And the cabin? Well, really—it
was
just a shack.

So I'm standing there, trying to force the tears back into their ducts, when I get goosed.

That's right, goosed.

And I'm not talking just a little nudge in the behind, either. I'm talking full-on goosed. I squawk, and as I'm spinning around I see that what I've been goosed by is a pig. A big, black, bow-wrapped pig.

Penny's bow is half untied and looking pretty droopy, and no one would argue that she could use a bath in something besides mud. She snorts at me and then nudges me with her snout again, only this time she's polite enough to only offend my thigh.

With all the snorting and squawking we were doing, the firemen couldn't help but notice us. Two of them shine flashlights across the ruins at us, and even at that distance they're blinding. One of them calls, “We don't need any looky-loos here, girls. You'd better move along.”

Then Dallas shows up. And if Holly thought he smelled before, he must've been completely ripe now. He was covered in soot, his shirt was torn and streaked with black, and his hair was dusted with ashes.

The firemen drop their lights and call to Dallas, “How's your grandmother holding up?”

Dallas seems dazed for a minute, looking at the rubble.

“She's not my—” Then he stops himself and says, “The doctors are with her.”

One fireman asks, “She's not your grandmother?”

Dallas just keeps staring at the rubble.

The fireman takes a few steps closer and cocks his head a bit. “Then why'd you risk life and limb trying to put this fire out?”

Dallas closes his eyes and lets out a deep sigh. “Lucinda's been better to me than my own family. And this cabin meant the world to her.” He looks the fireman straight in the eye and says, “So now what?”

“We've got the coals turned and the site's cool; it shouldn't be too much longer.”

Dallas just nods. And when the fireman goes back to his group, I can't help it. I call, “That's
it?
” I take a few steps forward. “That's all you're going to do?”

Penny follows right beside me like a dog at heel, and then Marissa, Dot, and Holly come forward, too. I call over to the firefighters, “Aren't you going to investigate? I mean, the house didn't spontaneously combust. It got help. It got a lot of help!”

One of the firemen gives a little shrug and says, “Now, you don't know that.”

“You think it started all by itself ?”

“No, I…” He shakes his head, then lets out a sigh. “We see this sort of thing pretty regularly on holidays. This is the third one tonight alone. Kids sneakin' off to have a smoke, fireworks lit in an unsuitable environment, Satanic groups with some ritual gone wrong. It's not uncommon. My guess is, given the remoteness of the site,
and the nature of the original structure, that's what happened here tonight.”

“What do you mean, the nature of the original structure? That it was made out of wood?”

He picks up a spade that's leaning against the pumper truck and starts turning ashes over. “It was a shack. An old, abandoned shack.”

“Maybe it didn't
look
like much, but this was the home of Mary Rose Huntley. A
pioneer
. It wasn't just a shack! It was a historical monument.”

He stops flipping dirt and says, “A
monument?
”

“Well, it was important. To Lucinda, anyway.”

“I understand. And I'm sure they'll send someone out in the morning to investigate further if that's what she wants.”

Now while we've been arguing with the fire brigade, Dallas has been circling the ruins, holding the back of his neck, and kicking the ground from time to time. Like he's mad at the ashes.

When he gets back around to us, Holly asks him, “Can't you make them do something
now?
”

He keeps right on holding his neck, and his nostrils are flaring in and out as he breathes. “Oh, I want to, but what good would it do?”

Holly says, “What do you mean? You don't think some
kids
did this, do you?”

He looks at her like she's just interrupted a very complicated thought. “Investigating won't bring the cabin back. And frankly I don't think that this feud with the Murdocks will ever be over. Proving it was them would be like spitting into the wind.”

Holly says, “The Murdocks? You think it was the Murdocks?”

“Lucinda does, and after hearing their comment about her burning for visiting them, I think she's probably right.” He looks back at the rubble and says, “I'm going to go see how she's doing,” then hurries off toward the house.

As we're watching him go, Penny nudges me in the thigh, first gently, then hard. And when I look down to scold her, she looks right at me and does it again, only this time she adds a great big snort.

There's no doubt about it—she's telling me to get a move on. So I say to the others, “You want to go see how Lucinda's doing?”

Holly says, “Yes!” and the others shrug and say, “Sure.”

And as we head down the path to the main house, I look over my shoulder at the firemen turning the ashes of Mary's cabin. And it hits me that if the Murdocks really did burn the place down, no amount of turning coals is going to put that fire out. A little puff of wind would bring it right back to life.

Just as it had for over a hundred years.

They'd just given Lucinda a sedative when Kevin let us into the den. He said, “Try to keep it short. It's been a rough night,” but the gruffness of his voice was oddly soft. Like he was too tired to turn us away and too upset to really want us not to be there.

Lucinda looked tiny, like a little girl, wrapped in a blanket on the couch. Dallas was sort of perched on the edge beside her, saying, “Lucinda, I've been thinking… Maybe I can rebuild it for you. The fireplace is still intact and—”

“Don't you do that to her!” Kevin steps out of the shadows of the hallway and says, “This is hard enough without talk like that.”

Dallas stands up and whispers to Lucinda, “I'll come see you tomorrow.” Then he motions our way and says, “Your new friends are here,” and leaves the room.

Lucinda smiles at us, then puts out a hand, saying, “Come in, girls.”

We scoot in, and since her hand is still out, I take it. Her fingers feel cold and hard. Like I'm holding a bouquet of bones.

When I sit down where Dallas had been, she looks at me sadly and says, “Where's she going to go?”

I know she's talking about Mary, and I can't think of anything comforting to say.

Holly whispers, “Maybe she's free now.”

Lucinda looks at her. “Free…what a nice thought. Though I never considered the house to be her prison…” She squeezes my hand a little and says, “Would you bring me her diary? It's up in my room on the night table. Upstairs, last door on the left.”

I look around to make sure it's okay with Kevin, but he's gone, so I say, “Sure,” and head for the stairs.

The carpet on the steps is dirty and matted, and the flowered wallpaper has faded to a dusty yellow. And as I creak my way up the staircase, I feel like I'm surrounded by decay. Like I'm walking through the heart of a house that's dying.

I shake off the creeps and hurry down the hallway to the last room on the left, but when I open the door, the room feels the same as the hall and stairs had. The wallpaper's peeling and the ceiling has dark spots from water damage, and there are two places where the carpet's been seamed with duct tape.