The Girl from Felony Bay (30 page)

I had been thinking that everything was going to be okay now, because we had been rescued, and Uncle Charlie, Ruth, and Bubba Simmons were in handcuffs. But all of a sudden I realized that wasn't true. There were three really important things I had forgotten. Who had put up the two million dollars to buy Felony Bay? And who had spoken from the shadows when Uncle Charlie, Ruth, and Bubba buried the treasure chest? And who had gotten the combination to Miss Jenkins's safe?

Whoever that person was, he was still out there, and if he knew what had happened here today, he was probably desperate. If he had stayed in the background during the robbery, just like he had last night, Miss Jenkins wouldn't know who he was either. Uncle Charlie, Ruth, and Bubba might tell the police about the mystery person, but could they prove it? It might just be the mystery person's word against theirs, and the mystery person might stay out of jail. That is, unless there might be one other person who could testify—at least he could, if he could ever manage to wake up.

It had to be one of two people, and one of them was standing right here beside me.

I felt panic welling up inside.

“We gotta go!” I said.

Custis screwed up his face and looked at me like he thought I was crazy, but I wasn't going to explain. I couldn't risk it yet.

I grabbed the arm of the policeman who had just taken our statements. “We need to get to the Medical University Hospital right away,” I said. “It's a matter of life and death.”

The policeman looked at me. “Is it related to all this other stuff?”

“Yessir. There's one other person who's been involved in this plot to steal Mrs. Jenkins's gold. I think he might be trying to kill my father.”

He paused, then made his decision. “Let's go.”

I looked over at Bee, but Grandma Em had her all wrapped up in a hug. There was no time to explain and get her free, so I nodded the policeman, who put Custis and me in the backseat of his car, told us to fasten our seatbelts, and then hit the siren and raced us all the way back to Charleston. On the way in, he talked on his radio, but the sound of the siren, the roaring of the engine, and the wind whipping past drowned out his voice completely.

He wheeled us around the entrance circle at the hospital, then jumped out of his car and came in with us. We went up the elevator, and I ran down to the corridor leading to Daddy's room and leaned on the buzzer for the nurse to let us in.

I had yelled into Custis's ear on our way to the hospital and told him what I was afraid of, and why. I could see from the expression on his face that he didn't like hearing what I was saying, but he also didn't argue with me.

It seemed to take forever for the nurse to come and buzz us in, and then she tried to hold up her hands and stop me when I bolted through the door and sprinted toward Daddy's room. As I got close, I could see that the door was open, and as I got closer, I saw two blue uniforms standing just inside the doorway.

They were looking into the room and didn't see me, and I burst past them and came to a halt. I had tears in my eyes, so I could barely see what was happening, but I saw Mr. Barrett standing beside the bed with his hands cuffed behind his back, and I saw a pillow on the floor, and I knew right away that I was too late.

I still had my knife in my sheath, and I went for it with one hand and started to launch myself toward Mr. Barrett. I was going to kill him if I could, because I knew he'd just smothered Daddy.

Just as my feet started to leave the ground, a huge blue arm circled my chest and arms and stopped me cold.

“Let me go!” I snarled.

“It's okay,” a gentle voice said into my ear.

“It's not okay. He killed my father!”

“No, he didn't.”

I froze.

“He didn't kill him,” the policeman said. “He wanted to, but we caught him in time. Now I need for you to relax, because I'm going to take that knife out of your hands. Okay? And then I'm going to put you down. But first you have relax and promise to let me have the knife.”

I nodded and let my arms go and relaxed my hand so the policeman could take my knife. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and when I did, I saw that Mr. Barrett was looking at me with an expression like a junkyard dog might get when it wanted to get off its chain and tear out my throat.

“You okay now?” the policeman asked.

I nodded.

He put me down very gently, and as he did, I heard Custis come into the room behind me. “Crawford, my God. Abbey said it was you. But I didn't believe it.”

Mr. Barrett didn't say anything; he just turned his head and looked out the window.

“I almost forgot about him,” I said to everyone in the room, “but then I remembered that there had been another person that night when they buried the crate. We couldn't see him, because he stayed in the shadows, and we couldn't hear his voice well enough to recognize it. But I knew it had to be somebody with enough money to buy Felony Bay, because Uncle Charlie and Bubba Simmons sure didn't have that much, and also somebody who had managed to get the combination to Miss Jenkins's safe. Only two people were supposed to know that combination, Miss Jenkins and Daddy, right? That's why everybody thought Daddy stole the money.”

I was talking really fast. I knew I was running on at the mouth, but I couldn't help myself. “And then I thought even if I could solve everything else about Felony Bay, people would still think Daddy had been in on it unless I could figure out who stole the combination.

“My first idea was that maybe Esther Simmons got the combination somehow and gave it to Bubba, but that still didn't explain how they got the money to buy Felony Bay.” I turned and looked at Custis. “Sorry to say that I suspected you, but I realized it had to be either you or Mr. Barrett, and when Mr. Barrett wanted to go to the hospital alone, and he sent you out to Felony Bay, I was pretty sure it had to be him. Mr. Barrett wanted to make sure the coast was clear so he could kill the only other person who could have tied him to the robbery.”

Behind me a couple of the policemen started to clap. When I glanced back, they were smiling and nodding. The policeman who had driven us to the hospital laughed and said, “I think we've got us a twelve-year-old Sherlock Holmes.”

Another one of the policemen grew serious and added, “If it hadn't been for you, this might have ended very differently. When we came in, Mr. Barrett here was just starting to put a pillow over your father's face.”

I turned and looked at Mr. Barrett, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. “You think you're such a big-shot lawyer,” I said. “Let's see if you can talk your way out of this one.”

“Come on,” one of the policemen said, reaching out to take Mr. Barrett by the arm. “No reason for you to stay here. We got a nice cell for y'all down at police headquarters.”

“Officer,” I said. He stopped and looked in my direction.

I glanced at Daddy. His eyes were closed the way they always were, but deep in my bones I could feel something changing. I knew he was slowly coming awake. Maybe the doctors didn't know yet, but I did. It might not be today or tomorrow or even next week, but it was happening, just as surely as corn was growing in our fields. “My father can't speak to me yet, but I think I know what he would tell me to do if he could.”

The policeman's eyebrows went up in question.

“This,” I said, and with that I turned and kicked Mr. Barrett in the crotch as hard as I possibly could.

He let out a wonderful sound of surprise that changed into a groan of serious pain. Behind me, the policemen broke into laughter, and when Mr. Barrett tried to straighten up and come after me, the policeman who had him by the arm laughed. “How's it feel, Mister Big Shot?” he said as he dragged Mr. Barrett out of the room and down the hallway. “Taken down by a twelve-year-old girl.”

I
asked Custis if
I could stay for a while and spend some time with Daddy, and he said he would ride back out to Felony Bay with the policeman and get his car and then drive me back to Reward when I was ready to go. I sat beside Daddy's bed, holding his hand, dozing off from my own exhaustion, and then, when I was awake again, trying to stuff down my impatience for him to wake up. Once of Daddy's doctors stopped by, and when I told him that I was sure Daddy was getting ready to wake up, he got a sad look on his face and told me that waking up from a coma isn't like waking up from a long nap. He said that
if
Daddy woke up—and there was no way to be sure that he would—the whole process might take days or even weeks.

I might have been discouraged if somebody had told me that earlier, but Bee and I had gotten away from Green Alice and we had beaten Uncle Charlie and Mr. Barrett at their dirty game. Right at that moment, I knew that there wasn't anything I couldn't do if I really put my mind to it. If I had to spend the rest of my summer visiting the hospital and talking to Daddy without him talking back to me, that would be okay. Because I knew for certain that things were getting better.

I didn't think about much else, like where I was going to live from then on, until later that afternoon when Custis came back to the hospital to take me out to Reward. Daddy was sleeping, just like always, but I told him I would be back tomorrow. On our way out, Custis told me that Grandma Em had arranged for someone to come with a horse trailer and pick up Timmy and Clem from Miss Walker's.

I felt terrible for a moment, because I realized that I had totally forgotten about the horses. “They were okay, weren't they?” I asked.

Custis laughed. “It apparently caused quite a stir when the head of school found a carriage horse blocking the way into her office.”

That actually made me laugh. The Miss Walker's head of school was a nice lady, but she was sure a stickler for the rules. I loved picturing her trying to order Clem to get out of her way and him not paying her the slightest attention.

In the next instant all my humor disappeared, because it suddenly struck me that Custis was taking me back to an empty house. Uncle Charlie and Ruth were in jail, and I certainly didn't think they would be coming home soon. I thought about Rufus, who had been stuck in the house for hours. And then I also thought about the two of us living in Uncle Charlie's house all by ourselves, every night of the year, and it scared me.

I must have fallen so silent that Custis sensed it, because he turned to look at me. “Grandma Em called earlier to let me know that the police had given her your uncle's house keys, and she and Bee went up to the house to get Rufus.”

I nodded. That made me feel better, but only a little bit. I was still feeling small and lonely, thinking about living in the house all alone.

“Grandma Em has already put a dog bed under the kitchen table for Rufus,” Custis said.

I nodded.

“And she said they've already gone and moved your clothes up to the big house. You and Bee will be sharing your old room, if that's okay with you.”

I looked at him, and suddenly I understood. It was more than I could ever have hoped for. I felt a huge smile burn through all my exhaustion and loneliness.

When we reached Reward, Custis drove me straight to the big house, where I found Bee throwing tennis balls for Rufus out in the yard. Bee was jumping up and down in excitement, because she had heard the news about Daddy and was so happy about me moving in with them. Rufus was jumping up and down, which is what he did most of the time, since Labrador retrievers are just born happy. The only time they are even happier than usual is when there is a bowl of food nearby.

We went in the back door and found Grandma Em in the kitchen, where the aromas told me that she was slow cooking baby back ribs that I knew she would finish on the grill later. A big pot of collards was simmering on the stove, and I saw that she had also made tomato pie and corn bread. There was so much food on the counter that it looked like she was having a party rather than cooking for just herself and Bee . . . and maybe me.

She turned around, saw me, and came over to give me a big hug. “We are so excited that you will be staying with us.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She straightened her arms and held me out at arm's length so she could look me in the eyes. “You know that you are going to stay right here in this house just as long as it takes. You are part of this family, and you will always be part of this family.”

The next morning Bee and I woke up early, and after we went down to the barn and fed and watered the horses, we walked over to Felony Bay to watch the police remove the crate Uncle Charlie and Bubba Simmons had buried. They had brought a much bigger backhoe than the one Bubba Simmons had used, and they dug a much bigger hole, so they could get the crate out in one piece without doing any damage.

As the crate came out of the ground and the dirt dropped away, we could see a little bit of red fuzz on the bottom that must have come from the straps Uncle Charlie and Bubba used to lower it in place. That made me feel good, because Daddy always said a person could never, ever have too much proof when they were trying to win a case.