The Clue in the Trees: An Enchantment Lake Mystery Page 11

  She steeled herself for whatever was to come: detention, suspension, expulsion—any of which would precipitate a severe scolding from her grandfather. Worse, it might mean a move back to Brooklyn. How did she feel about that? Brooklyn seemed almost boring in comparison to Walpurgis right now. After considering all the possibilities, she put her hand to the door and knocked.

  The voice on the other side of the door bid her to enter. As she stepped inside, in spite of her intentions, her eye went immediately to the file drawer. Closed tightly.

  Her glance didn’t escape Redburn, and he said, “I see you decided to come to my office the normal way this time.”

  She forced herself to look at her director and couldn’t help but notice the tooth resting on its side atop the desk.

  “First,” he said, “the file. Second, this.” He held up the tooth.

  Since he hadn’t asked her a direct question, she didn’t respond.

  “What can you tell me about either of those things?” he asked.

  What were all the signs of lying, again? All those indications that Jay had talked about? “I don’t know?” she tried.

  “Why did you take this?” he waved the file at her.

  “Curiosity?” she suggested.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s obvious. Let’s cut to the chase. It seems you have taken it upon yourself to do some investigating, in spite of my admonishment and in spite of the sheriff telling you to avoid getting involved—”

  “How do you know about that?” Francie broke in. She wasn’t going to do that, she reminded herself. She was going to say as little as possible. But, still, how did he know what the sheriff had or hadn’t said to her?

  “Never mind. I’m assuming you suspect that I might be the murderer—since it was my idea to take a field trip out there the very day of Dr. Digby’s death. But if I had wanted to kill Digby, why would I take a pontoon boat full of teenagers along?”

  “Cover?” Francie couldn’t help but suggest.

  He laughed. “Nice theory, but if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that the only thing you can count on teenagers to do is to not act the way you want them to.”

  Francie frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It wasn’t a comment on your acting. I just meant that you can never expect teenagers to do what they’re supposed to do in any given situation. Listen, the truth is, the last thing I wanted was Digby dead.”

  “Why?” Francie said, letting a little sarcasm slip into her voice. “Because you two were such good friends?”

  “No, of course not. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”

  “Okay,” Francie said. “I believe you. I’m sorry I took the file. I was just curious. Why do you have a file on him, anyway?”

  Redburn sniffed, glanced down, plucked an invisible piece of lint from his shirt, then looked at her. He seemed to really regard her for a moment.

  Francie was ready for anything: a good scolding, which she probably deserved; getting kicked out of the cast, also probably deserved since she still hadn’t learned all her lines; being threatened with suspension or at least detention—whatever. Instead, Redburn gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk and told her to sit.

  She sat.

  “Digby was probably—no, likely—involved in fossil theft and smuggling. And . . . hmm . . . how do I put this? Law enforcement agencies are looking into it. But before an arrest could be made, he was murdered. The killer was possibly someone who is also involved in the fossil trade, but so far there’s no evidence of that.”

  Francie’s eye flashed on the dinosaur tooth, and she wondered how or if Theo was involved in the fossil trade. But she kept her mouth closed. She hoped Redburn wouldn’t ask her how she had come to be in possession of such a thing.

  Unfortunately, it was his next question. “How did you come by this?” he asked, placing his hand protectively on the tooth.

  “I found it,” she said.

  “Where?” he asked in a measured tone.

  Francie decided she would try to be as honest as possible, but without incriminating Theo. “Muskie Bait,” she said.

  “You found this in Muskie Bait?” Now he sounded incredulous. “For sale, or what?”

  “No. It was outside the store. It was stuck in with the teeth, so you’d hardly notice it.”

  “Yet you noticed it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just happened to notice it,” he repeated.

  “Yeah.” Keep it simple, she silently reminded herself. Don’t rattle on. The more you talk, the more you’re likely to slip up.

  “Okay,” he said. “If you think of anything else you want to share, let me know.”

  Relieved, Francie rose to go.

  “One more thing,” he said. She turned toward him.

  “Remember when I said, ‘Things are not always what they seem’?”

  Francie nodded.

  “Just keep that in mind,” he said.

  21

  Opening Night

  SITTING IN FRONT of the makeup mirror in the girls’ dressing room (also the band room), Francie listened with one ear to the conversations going on around her. One of the girls from the chorus was saying that the cold weather they were having proved that global warming was a hoax.

  “Yeah, Jenny,” Raven said, “because the weather in Walpurgis, Minnesota, pretty much reflects the weather in the entire rest of the world.”

  Francie let out a little laugh, then went back to being nervous. Opening-night jitters mixed with excitement mixed with worry about Theo mixed with a kind of nausea of not knowing what was going on. It all made a mélange of crunchy, salty, sweet, bitter, and yuck, put into a blender, spun around until reduced to a murky brown sludge, and served to her as a preshow cocktail. Francie knew that once she was onstage, the murk would settle, like mud to the bottom of a pond, and her mind would clear.

  Maybe, she thought, applying eyeliner with an unsteady hand, once her mind cleared, something would make sense. Who could have been the killer?

  The interns. It had to be one of the student workers. Had to be! She started painting a line along the lid of her other eye when her phone rang, making her jump, smearing liner all over her eyelid. She picked up her phone with one hand while trying to wipe off the black smudge with the other.

  “Hey,” Nels said. “Listen, I suppose you’re busy right now.”

  “Uh-huh.” Francie closed her left eye and studied the situation in the mirror.

  “Sorry I can’t come to your show.”

  “It’s okay, Nels. Really, it is.” It really was. She was glad he wasn’t going to be there. Even though she would love to see him one of these days, she might die of embarrassment if Nels showed up for the play.

  “Is your brother going to be there?” he asked.

  “Theo?” Francie said. She hadn’t even considered the possibility. “No,” she said quickly. “Nobody’s seen him for days. Weeks, even! The aunts are coming to the matinee on Sunday, but I can’t imagine Theo will come.” She hadn’t allowed herself to think about how she felt about that. Like everything these days, she supposed—mixed.

  “Are you worried about him?” Nels asked.

  “Theo?” she said again.

  “Do you have some other brother?”

  “No, I’m not worried about him,” she said. “He always does this: appear, disappear, repeat. It’s just him.”

  “Well, anyway, I found out something about the interns—Mallory, Gretchen, Jackson, and Pete,” Nels said. “Do you have time for a quick update?”

  Francie jammed the eyeliner wand back in the tube and set it down. He had her attention. “What?”

  “Turns out that all four of them were grilling and eating burgers at Potter’s the night of the murder. Even Mrs. Smattering was there. And they can all vouch for each other.”

  “For every minute?”

  “Apparently. Or at least nobody was out of ear- or eyeshot long enough to have done the d
eed. They all have watertight alibis,” Nels said.

  Francie sighed. “Okay.”

  Bummer. The field was narrowing. Neither Mallory, Gretchen, Jackson, nor Pete could be the killer. Neither could it have been Potter or dear old Mrs. Smattering, not that she was ever a suspect in the first place. And if Redburn was to be believed, it wasn’t him, either. Francie did not think Phoebe could have done it. She was too . . . well, other than her lung capacity, she was a flyweight. There just didn’t seem like there were any other suspects, except, Francie thought, with ever-increasing desperation, Theo.

  Her so-called investigation was supposed to have proved that Theo was not the killer. Instead, what happened was that everything she did, everything she found out, every path she went down just made it seem more and more likely that he was, if not the killer, at least guilty of something.

  Makeup was applied, hair was knotted into some kind of Grecian-looking do, last-minute touches were made to the costume, places were called, and Francie found herself onstage reciting her lines to Phoebe-as-Ismene.

  Now dear Ismene, my sister

  I cannot imagine any sorrow

  That you and I have not gone through. And now—

  Francie continued, at first thinking only of the lines, of herself as Antigone, suffering under the weight of the law, the edict that said her brother’s corpse could not be buried. But to not bury him was an affront to the gods! The suffering of Antigone was Francie’s, the agony of Antigone’s situation Francie felt as her own, the weight of the curse on the house of Oedipus—all this she felt as if she were there, on a dusty Theban street more than two thousand years ago. But when Phoebe-as-Ismene said,

  We are only women,

  Not meant to fight against men

  a line that had always irritated Francie, her eye was drawn to the wings, to something out of place. Someone who didn’t belong. During Ismene’s next lines, Francie squinted past Phoebe into the darkness beyond. Who was that?

  ISMENE: Those who rule are much more powerful.

  We must obey in this . . . and worse.

  I will obey those in control.

  It was the sheriff, standing in the wings, arms crossed, watching, her eyes not on Phoebe but on Francie. Perhaps Francie should tell the sheriff everything she knew. That was probably the more right thing to do. And no doubt the more legal thing. Would that be for the greater good—the good of society?

  ISMENE: It makes no sense to try to do too much.

  ANTIGONE: I wouldn’t urge you to. No, not even if you wanted to.

  Be what you want.

  They said their lines to each other while Francie’s eyes drifted past Phoebe’s face. But, unwilling to look at the sheriff, she shifted her gaze out into the house, at the audience. The bright stage lights made it hard to discern any particular person, so her eye drifted confidently over the shadowy figures seated in the auditorium as she said,

  I’ll still bury him.

  I shall lie down

  With him in death,

  She snagged on the next line when one specific face in the audience was made visible, illuminated by a slightly askew stage light. Theo. She barely choked out the words,

  and I shall be as dear to him as he to me. . . .

  Lines went by in a blur. Francie apparently said them, although all she could think about was Theo, there in the audience, and the sheriff, there in the wings, and the two of them separated only by a black velveteen curtain.

  ISMENE:Poor Antigone,

  I am so afraid for you!

  You should be! Francie thought, her eyes flicking to Phoebe. As Antigone, she said,

  Don’t fear for me.

  You have yourself to consider, after all.

  They went on, back and forth, until Ismene said,

  You are in love with the impossible.

  Francie looked at Phoebe, trying to keep her thoughts on the play but thinking, Isn’t everybody in love with the impossible? This is what she was thinking, but she said,

  ANTIGONE:When my strength is gone, I’ll give up.

  ISMENE:Impossible things should not be tried at all.

  What she wanted to say back was, The most worthwhile things to try are the impossible things. And for that matter, Francie thought, the impossible thing is exactly what I am going to try.

  The first person Francie ran into when she came off the stage from her scene was the sheriff, who gestured to Francie to step aside before she went for her costume change.

  “What is it?” Francie asked.

  “I thought you should be made aware, in case you don’t understand the gravity of the situation, that withholding evidence in a murder investigation is a felony offense.” The sheriff made it sound pretty ominous.

  “It sounds like you’re suggesting that I’m withholding evidence,” Francie said. Her mouth felt dry, but maybe that was from talking so much under hot stage lights. Or maybe it was from having the sheriff standing over her, threatening her with a felony charge. But was it a felony if you withheld evidence during a murder investigation? Or was it during the trial? Even then, it seemed to Francie that it was only in certain circumstances, but she wasn’t really sure about all that. Maybe it was true, or maybe the sheriff was trying to frighten her.

  “For the moment I am just going to ask you if you know where your brother is.”

  “Right this minute?” Francie asked.

  The sheriff sighed. She took Francie’s response, as Francie hoped she would, as a snotty, sarcastic teenager–type response. “No. I mean generally,” the sheriff said.

  “I don’t know,” Francie said. This was true. She did not know where Theo was generally. She only knew where he was right that minute, which was not what the sheriff wanted to know. She had just said so.

  Francie was relieved when the stage manager took her arm and said, “Your costume change, Francie. Hurry!”

  At the end of the show, when Francie looked up from the curtain call, Theo was gone. Thankfully, thankfully, gone. The sheriff, Francie saw in a glance, was also gone. She could only hope they did not both go out the same door.

  Still shaken from the night’s events, she wiped the makeup off her face and reminded herself that, like Antigone, she must try to do the impossible thing. What was the most impossible thing she could try? Proving her brother was not the killer had turned out to be fairly impossible. But something that was impossible to even imagine? Finding her mother. And the answer—irrational, she knew, yet if she didn’t allow herself to think about it but only to feel, it made perfect sense—was to find the silver box.

  “You remember we’re on our way to Arizona tomorrow, right?” Aunt Jeannette said, as they shared a pizza later.

  Francie nodded and said, “Is it okay if I go out to the cabin?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, unless Theo is there,” Jeannette said, picking the pepperoni off her slice of pizza.

  “Frenchy is perfectly capable of taking care of herself!” Astrid objected. “She hasn’t needed her big brother to take care of her these past several years, has she?”

  “Let’s not get into that!” Jeannette said.

  Francie’s head ping-ponged from one aunt to the other. She didn’t think she’d ever heard them have a spat.

  Jeannette turned to Francie. “It will get very cold. You could freeze to death!”

  “Oh, for the love of Mike!” Astrid said. “She’s too sensible to go freezing herself to death!”

  “Well, I don’t think she’d do it on purpose!” Jeannette barked.

  “She’ll be fine.” Astrid picked up the rejected pepperoni slices and plunked them on her pizza.

  Jeannette heaved a grandmotherly sigh and caved. “Oh, all right,” she said. “But you have to know a few things.” She proceeded to give Francie a full rundown on the workings of the cabin and finished by saying, “It’s not winterized so it’s cold in there. Remember that.” Then she added, “No parties, no boys. Except Theo, of course, and if Theo’s there,
then it’s okay if there are boys. I suppose he has friends, too.”

  He doesn’t, Francie thought. Wasn’t it weird that Theo didn’t have any friends? He had never seemed to have any friends, any real ones, even though people seemed to like him. Wasn’t it weird that she had never wondered why until now?

  Finally, it was Thanksgiving vacation. Francie had declined Nels’s invitation to join his family for Thanksgiving. She’d also declined Raven’s invitation to “hang out” over the vacation.

  “Do you even celebrate Thanksgiving?” Francie’d asked.

  “We usually go to a powwow and then eat a big meal—venison, wild rice, squash, maybe even turkey—and then kids watch TV and the grown-ups sit around and complain about white people. I mean, they discuss the injustices indigenous peoples have endured from the time of the pilgrims through the present.”

  Francie laughed. “Well, sorry to miss it,” she said.

  She had her own plans: Francie was going to spend the whole time at the cabin. Sandy agreed to give her a ride in his boat after school Wednesday.

  Stepping into his speedboat, Sandy said, “Are you sure this is a good idea? How long are you planning to be out here? Is Theo going to be here?”

  “Uh-huh,” Francie said.

  Sandy helped her into the boat and she settled herself into a seat.

  “I hope he’s bringing the dinner,” Sandy said, looking at Francie’s little overnight bag. Clearly she’d brought no food. That probably wasn’t very smart, she realized.

  Sandy tilted his head, studying the bag that in her haste she’d neglected to close up. “What’s with the mask and snorkel?” he said. “You’re not, like, going to look for that treasure they say is under Enchantment?”

  “I thought that was just an old legend,” Francie said, zipping up her bag.