The Boy Detective Fails (27 page)
“Now what was that for?” Billy asked.
“I made a wish that Daisy Hollis would be back home safe and sound quite soon.”
“A wish will not bring her back,” Billy said, scoffing. “We have discovered the truth.”
“But what if we are wrong?” Caroline asked. “What then, Billy?” Billy did not reply. He just stood there and watched as the shiny penny sank, drifting down into the cold black water, disappearing. “We are not wrong,” Billy whispered. “Simply consider the evidence.”
“Billy is right,” Fenton said, staring up at his friend. “Anyway, it’s past midnight and our parents will all be worried.”
“But what if we’re wrong?” Caroline asked. “What then, Billy?”
Again Billy did not answer. He only stood there and wondered, not saying a word.
On the bus, Billy looks up and sees he has gone many miles past his stop. The boy detective thinks,
I was so very wrong
. He thinks,
I was so very wrong and afraid to ever admit it
. He stands suddenly and signals the bus driver, who pulls over at the next stop. Billy climbs off the bus and stares at the shadowy cliffs rising along the edge of town, the cliffs which have somehow moved much closer than Billy has ever dared to remember. He begins running along the street, the sun falling from the sky, the dark shadows of the hills now as heavy as a handprint upon his back.
At work, his head laying on the desk, the boy detective does not rest easy. He dreams of the cave once again. It is quicker, this dream: As he moves through the dark, he hears the familiar screaming, and finally begins to follow it. At the end of the cave, there is his sister Caroline and Daisy Hollis, sitting on the ground, sorting out a puzzle, arranging its small red pieces. Daisy looks ghastly, slightly decomposed, definitely dead. Billy sees Caroline playing with the dead girl, and grabs his sister’s arm.
“Hurry, we have to go. You can’t play with her.”
Caroline resists, pulling her hand back. She folds her arms across her chest. She won’t budge.
“What? What is it? Say something! Tell me what I should do, please tell me.”
Caroline shakes her head, then points to Daisy. Daisy nods and opens her mouth. Hundreds of quarters, nickels, and dimes pour out. Billy begins screaming.
He lifts his head from the desk, and then dashes toward the elevators.
Past midnight now, back at Shady Glens, the boy detective knocks on Mr. Pluto’s door very gently. In a moment, the giant stumbles to answer, still wearing his enormous blue hospital gown.
“Please, I need your help,” he tells the much larger man.
Mr. Pluto blinks once, then again, and then nods, smiling.
Arriving at his childhood home in the quiet suburbs of Gotham by taxicab, the boy detective and Mr. Pluto stand staring at the house which sits sad and silent in the dark, wondering what it is they are exactly doing. In a hurry, the boy detective climbs beneath the worn white porch and immediately begins searching, digging his hands through the dirt, finding a corner, then another, then the third and fourth, scraping with his fingertips, then his thumbs, until he has uncovered the tiny gray strongbox which houses the remains of the dead dove, Margaret Thatcher.
“Abracadabra,” Billy whispers, and holds it up to the light cast down by a happy-faced moon. He crawls quickly back out from under the porch and gently hands the small metal box to the giant man beside him.
“I need you to open this, please,” he says.
Mr. Pluto nods, stares at the tiny silver lock, which reads
unbreakable
in small lettering, and with one hand crushes the device into flaky silver dust. He hands the metal box back to Billy and grins.
“Thank you, sir,” Billy says, opening the strongbox as quickly as he can.
Strangely, Margaret Thatcher’s small withered body is missing. Instead, there is only a note—the missing page, torn from Caroline’s detective notebook. Holding his breath, Billy begins to read:
maybe i have made a mistake;
maybe someone with more smarts can figure it out
if they try and follow the clues which lead to the saddest thing
i’ve ever seen
left lying like that in a wishing well
their eyes looking up into the
light, all i can do is stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and
wonder why, why did this happen? to them? to me?
evil is all around i know, but still: who could have done this?
what clue, what motive, what reason can explain this
riddle? none, none, none.
maybe only someone as daring as Billy might
search and discover the answer, but
i do not have the brains to do it and, worse, now my
courage is gone and
i feel so sad, as if i have failed him and everything
as if i am at the end of this wonderful adventure and now,
and now i don’t know what else to do—do i just hope in
vain that there will be some way out of this awfulness?
i’m afraid i already know the answer: that
everything, in the end, will always be a mystery to me
The boy detective stares down at the torn diary page, quickly discovering the secret message his darling sister has left behind. The cursive letters unstitch themselves from their perfectly-straight lines. Their tiny loops begin to uncurl, the sweep of each curve revealing the secret kept hidden now for more than ten years. He sees all but a few letters simply fall from the page. It is now very clear:
MILLER’S CAVE.
Reading the missing entry, starting with the first letter of each sentence and then every other on down, he smiles at Caroline’s charming inscrutability. He folds the small paper in half, slips it in the pocket of his blue cardigan, and, grabbing Mr. Pluto’s hand, dashes back toward the waiting taxicab.
In his room once again, the boy detective lifts off the newspaper clipping that reads,
THE HORROR OF THE HAUNTED MINE: WHAT LURKS INSIDE MILLER’S CAVE?
He puts on a new blue sweater, opens the dresser, and takes out the detective kit.
He lays the kit on the bed and stares at it for a moment. Then he leans over and, very slowly, very carefully, he opens it. All of the items are coated in a ghostly sheen of dust. The magnifying glass has been terribly cracked. The pencil has been altogether broken. The lock picks are missing. The pair of binoculars have been separated at the joint. The mustache and beard are wilted and fall apart in Billy’s hand. The only item that remains is the flashlight, narrow and silver, which somehow, miraculously, still works. Billy switches it on and nods, then stands.
The boy detective glances at himself in the mirror, and frowns suddenly, his heart beginning to rebel, to retreat. The boy detective thinks
, I was wrong before many times.
He thinks,
What if I am wrong once again?
He stumbles around the darkness of his room, searching for an antidepressant and frowns as he remembers that no, there are none. He can hear himself whimpering now. He can feel his knees wobbling.
The boy detective thinks,
The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes.
He reasons,
But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.
He takes a deep breath, grasps the trusty flashlight, and hurries back into the night.
The boy detective is riding in the backseat of the taxi, staring as the dark woods flicker by. Shadows like the limbs of the dead fall across his face. The cabbie, red-bearded and bright-eyed, speaks to Billy, mumbling over his own shoulder.
“Awful suspicious, if you ask me, driving to the woods in the middle of the night. Awful suspicious, I’d say.”
The boy detective does not reply.
It is raining as the boy detective exits the taxi. Without another word, the cab pulls away, its taillights disappearing into the dark. Billy, looking terrified, his glasses foggy, his flashlight held tensely at his side, creeps past the wooden barricade and signs which read,
Miller’s Cave
and
No Trespassing
and into the entrance of the cave.
Strnge noises, water dripping, animal sounds, moans reverberate in the dark. He lets out a small whimper and makes his way beneath the soft wood barring the entrance. A scream rises, coming closer. Billy begins to back away as the scream gets louder. He turns to run but falls in the wet mud and just then sees an owl fly past, screeching as it goes. He laughs softly, admonishing himself, shaking his head.
OK, Billy
, he thinks.
You’re OK
. He stands, brushes the water and mud off, and continues on. Further along, he walks, holding himself up against the cave roof, which is slick. Water rushes around his feet. Billy stops, rubbing his fingers, and looks up, glimpsing hundreds of small bats. He shouts as the bats take flight, fluttering around him. Further still, he discovers a number of blind baby rats, nearly drowning in the rushing water, scurrying about, squeaking and hissing. He looks around, finds a small hunk of rotten wood, and places each baby rat, one by one, on the plank, sending it along. Further still, he comes to the end of the cave. He touches it with his hand, feeling the cave wall, disbelieving. It is the end. There is nowhere else to go. Only blackness. Only nothing.
“Nothing. There’s nothing here. No answer.”
Billy sadly turns and begins to walk away, when he notices the water around his feet. He shines his light at the cave floor and sees all the water rushing deeper still. He follows the water with his flashlight, finding a very small opening in one of the cave walls beneath dozens and dozens of stacked rocks. Frantic, Billy begins removing the stones. A strange silvery-blue light emanates from the opening and Billy kicks the rocks aside, faster, more desperate. Finally, there is room for him to crawl through and he does, getting covered in water and mud.
Billy stumbles around in the dimness, following the bluish light, casting his own flashlight along the cave walls. Then he stops, frozen, looking up. Upon a flat expanse of smooth rock is a small handprint. He looks very closely at it. Beside the handprint is a single word, written with dirt:
Abracadabra
.
Billy shines the light around more and sees hundred and hundreds of handprints everywhere. Looking for an answer, Billy calls out.
“Caroline?”
He runs his hand along the message.
“Caroline?”
Billy presses on, taking off his jacket, then his sweater. He wipes his face and notices dozens of articles of clothing along the path: high heels, purses, stockings, ribbons, dresses, undergarments, sweaters. Billy stops, investigating, opening a purse. It is filled with money. He continues on, following the trail of clothing. Up ahead, he sees a shiny white sweater, with the monogram,
DH
. He stops, picks it up, and nods. It is soft and light and turns to dust in his hands. Beside it, lying on the ground there, is the silver-jeweled, monogrammed pin. The ruby pulses red like a heartbeat, Billy’s flashlight making it glimmer and move. He detaches the pin and turns it over. An inscription on the back of it reads,
To Daisy, from Daddy
.
“Daisy Hollis … It was not Killer Kowalzavich after all.” He holds up the silver pin. “Surely, he would have pawned this.”
Billy sets the pin down and moves on. The bluish light becomes brighter and brighter until finally, following the water and trail of floating clothing, Billy finds the end. It is a large pool of water, with a rush of small waterfalls among shiny silver and brown rocks. Pointing the flashlight into the water, Billy discovers a naked body, a girl’s body, her long hair rippling like seaweed. Her eyes are each covered by a silver dime. Covering her body, and piled beside it, are hundreds of other dimes, nickels, quarters, and pennies. Billy lets out a cry, covering his mouth.
“Oh no … no.”
Billy flashes the light away and notices a second body in the pool, another girl, also naked. Again, there are more silver coins, flashing brightly. Billy leans closer to the water, trembling, terrified, holding his hand over his face, and sees the full horror of his discovery: The secret pool is filled with dozens of bodies, all young girls, all naked, like mermaids, their hair gently drifting in the current, their eyes open and glassy, sunken among thousands of quarters, pennies, dimes, and nickels.
Billy shines the light up and sees a small opening, about a hundred feet up. He stares, squinting through the dark.
Through the opening and into the night—which has cleared and reveals small pricks of white stars in the sky—Billy hears someone laughing. Someone else giggles, and in a moment, two small dimes drop from the opening, down into the water.
Billy holds his breath, whispering his realization.
“A wishing well …”
The bodies, eyes full of silvery dimes, look up at Billy.
Billy, in horror, begins to crawl away, then stops. He turns back and stares at the water.
“Who? Who did this? Why? Why would
anyone
do this?”
For a brief moment, Billy stares into the water and sees Caroline lying there, the sight of her in her casket drifting beneath the water, looking back up at him. The flashlight cuts out for a moment and when it clicks back on, she is gone. Billy stares down into the pool and understands what happened to his sister, finally.
He smiles, staring into the water, whispering.
“You found your way down here, didn’t you? You
were
smart enough.”
Billy leans in closer to the water.
“You found your way down here, and then … saw all of this. You saw all of this and you couldn’t find the answer. You couldn’t find the answer because there
was
no answer for all this, was there?”
Billy places his hand out, touching the water, just for a brief moment. He apologizes both to his sister and the poor girls he could not save.