Something Suspicious in Sask (8 page)

Katie couldn't stand it any longer. She opened her notebook and started to write.

Emily twisted her head to see. “What are you, some kind of spy?”

“No.” Katie shook her head without looking up.

“A detective. And a good one too. Ask Rusty.”

Emily turned to Rusty.

Rusty looked up from his drawing and pulled a face. “I have to admit, she's not bad.” He grinned.

“And you gotta admire her modesty.”

Emily's eyes shifted back to Katie. “I don't know what you're detecting but if you can help Megan, count on me to help. Can you believe I had to whisper a message to her tonight? Scott wanted to meet her but he was scared to call her cell phone because her mom keeps track of the calls when she gets the bill.”

Katie smiled as she made a note. She felt good.

Emily was the first person over twelve ever to take her seriously. “What makes you think Megan needs help?”

“I don't know. I just figure something's, like, really wrong and Megs can't handle it herself.” Emily's mouth twisted. “But she won't talk to me about it, that's for sure. Or Scott either. We're kinda worried she might have, like, anorexia nervosa.”

“Anorexia nervosa?” Rusty snorted. “What's that? Some kind of dinosaur?”

“No, Dumbo,” Katie said, “it means she will eat hardly anything because she thinks she's fat. We talked about it at school last year.”

“Megan? Fat? She looks like a walking skeleton.”

“Anorexia is an eating disorder,” Emily explained. “I looked it up on the web. It's, like, something wrong with the dopamine receptors in the brain. Or, whatever. Seems like it's mostly girls who get it and they, like, basically stop eating. It's like the only way they can control their lives is to not eat. If they eat anything, they feel guilty, even if it's just like, salad or something. And they never stop exercising.”

“How come they don't starve to death?” Katie wondered, thinking about Megan's bone-thin arms.

“That's the thing. No matter how skinny they get, they still aren't happy. They're hungry but can't admit it. Some girls get to the point where they can't eat, even to save their own lives.”

“That's sick!” Rusty said.

“Yeah,” Emily agreed. “It's, an illness, you know?

One thing I read said anorexia has, like, the highest death rate of any psychiatric disease.”

“Whoa!” Rusty said. “That explains why she's skinny like a bone and grumpy as a turtle.”

“A turtle?” Katie asked.

“Yeah, you know those snapping turtles? When they're hungry, they snap at anything that comes near them. And Megan is hungry all the time.”

Katie rolled her eyes and turned back to Emily.

“Just ignore him,” she said. “He's way weird.”

“But he's right.” Emily's eyes misted over. “That's exactly Megan. She's always hungry, but she won't eat. She's wasting away.”

Emily drained her mug, placed it on the wicker table and stood up. “I don't know how to help her. And her mom's so busy worrying about the farm, she doesn't even notice anything's wrong.” She started for the door. “I need to, like, thank Megan's mom for inviting me. Then I'm gone.”

“Wait!” Katie said. “Could you help me meet up with Scott? I need to question him.”

Emily turned back, a half smile on her lips. “You sure do like asking questions, don't you?” She rested her hand on the doorjamb. “Okay, give me your cell number and I'll, like, call you tomorrow.”

Katie opened her phone to check the number then wrote it on the small pad tucked in the front pocket of her new notebook. She ripped off the sheet and handed it to Emily.

After Emily rattled off in her parents' battered blue truck, Katie and Rusty remained on the porch. Katie wrote notes on everything Emily had told her, a crucial part of any investigation, so she wouldn't forget the smallest detail.

In some remote part of her mind Katie realized Rusty was bent over his sketchbook. She began to wonder what he was drawing. She looked up. He was lost in his work, sketching furiously.

Rusty had always loved to draw, and even though Katie would hate to admit it to him, she admired his skill. She knew he never wanted anyone to see a drawing until it was done and she respected that. So she tried to resist standing up and moving close enough for a good look.

Her good intentions lasted for at least ten seconds. Then she reminded herself that, like all good detectives, she was born to snoop. She stood, stepped closer to Rusty and managed a quick glimpse of a tall slim figure with hair that stood long on top of his head but was cut bluntly over his ears.

“You're drawing Scott?”

Rusty covered his work, but his smile told Katie he was pleased she had recognized the figure. “I'm training myself to draw faces from memory.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Something to do. It makes me more observant.”

“Just faces?”

Rusty shook his head. “No, the whole person, clothes, everything.”

“Can I see? Please?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Because,” she hesitated. “Okay, your drawings are good, Rusty. I like seeing them. Besides, I want to compare it with my notes about Scott.”

“Why?”

“I'll tell you after I see it.”

Rusty leaned over his work, pencil in hand. “Maybe, in a minute, when I'm done.”

Katie sat back down and tried to concentrate on her notes. A clatter of dishes and the chatter of voices that drifted from the kitchen told her the rest of the family would soon wander out here. There wasn't much time.

She tapped her foot impatiently until at last Rusty put his pencil down. Katie snapped her notebook shut.

“Can I see it now?”

Rusty shrugged. “I guess.” He held his sketchbook toward her.

Katie studied the drawing. A tall young man looked up at her, remarkably like Scott, right down to his white T-shirt and jeans that were a bit too short for his long legs.

“What about the cell phone?” she asked.

Rusty frowned, thinking. “I don't remember a phone,” he admitted.

“Me neither. Cliff must be more observant than us.”

She sighed, “You know what? I'm so full I feel sick.

Want to walk up the driveway with me?”

“Why?”

“I told you, I'm full from eating too much cake, so I need some exercise.”

“Ha! I bet you want to see where that red truck was parked.”

There was no point in denying it; Rusty knew her too well. “Okay, I might want to do that too, but I really am full, aren't you?”

Rusty put down his book and patted his stomach.

“Yeah, kind of. If I'm going to eat more cake later, I need some exercise.”

They walked the length of the driveway, swatting mosquitoes with every step. The evening air was hot and sleepy. It smelled like dust. At the road they turned right and walked to a grove of poplars that grew just inside the barbed wire fence bordering Aunt Margaret's farm. Between the fence and the road was a small slough where red-winged blackbirds balanced on the tips of tall brown reeds. The birds filled the air with squeaky little songs and fluttered their short black wings. Here and there red shoulder patches flashed bright in the evening sunlight that filtered through the trees.

Long green grass grew alongside the slough but turned brown near the dirt road where the kids stood. Two wide tracks of flattened grass made a wide semicircle away from the road and back again.

“If Scott parked here,” Rusty said, “he was on the wrong side of the road. I'm going to check out the other side.” He ran across the road.

Katie bent to study the tire imprints on the grass. Rusty's footsteps thudded back across the dirt.

“Nothing's been parked over there,” he said. “No,” Katie said. “His truck would be better hidden on this side.”

A short shrill whistle made Katie's breath catch in her throat. It was followed by loud flapping, like a strong gust of wind catching an awning. Every blackbird took to the air in an instant.

“What the heck was that?” Rusty whispered.

The whistle sounded again; then more flapping and a huge splash. The kids turned toward the slough in time to see a large, brown speckled duck land in the water, wings fluttering.

They moved down the slope. “Look at that!” Katie pointed. “Another nest basket, like the one by the hay field.” Directly above the duck, the man-made nest was partially hidden by reeds, but she could see that it was made of long grasses tightly wound around a wide cylinder made of chicken wire.

A second duck swam over. It had a brown head, pure white chest and neck, and a dark back and tail, but its most noticeable feature was its long pointed tail feathers.

“That must be the male,” Rusty said.

Katie nodded. “What's that lying in the grass?” She crouched at the edge of the slough and worked to free a small section of chicken wire entangled in the long green grass.

“It's the same as the stuff in the equipment shed.” “And the wire that got caught in the cutter bar.” Katie looked across the shallow water. “I wonder who made that nest basket?” She climbed back up toward the road, searching the grass for other chunks of wire that might have been dropped. She stopped abruptly. “Look at this!” Close beside one of the tire prints, at the edge of the long grass, lay a small closed cell phone.

“Hey! Weird.” Rusty picked it up. It had a black leather case with a large plastic clip on the back. Rusty opened it and the little screen lit up.

“It still works, so it hasn't been here for long,”

Katie said. “Hold on, I have an idea.”

She opened her own phone and pushed a few buttons until the word
Redial?
popped up on her screen.

She pushed Send.

Seconds later a raucous tune filled the air. It stopped. And started again. Rusty stared at the phone in his hand. “It's ringing! What do I do?”

“Answer it.”

The phone rang once more before Rusty figured out which button to push. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he said nervously.

“Hi, Rusty,” Katie said. “What's new?”

Rusty pulled a face and disconnected. “So, it's Megan's phone!” he said. “Cliff was right. Scott must have taken it. He must have chucked it out after he was done. But why?”

Katie closed her phone. “I don't know.”

“Look who's coming!” Rusty said.

Broad shoulders hunched forward, muscular arms hanging out from his sides like a gunslinger's, Cliff strode down the center of the road toward them.

“What are you kids doing there?” he yelled.

11

“Let's get out of here,” Rusty whispered. His face turned so pale the sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks stood out in pink blotches.

“Why? We aren't doing anything wrong.”

Katie stepped sideways to place herself between the rapidly approaching man and her cousin. “Don't let him see the cell phone,” she whispered over her shoulder. “Stick it in your pocket.”

“I don't have a pocket!”

“Then clip it to your belt. Face it away; hide it behind your hands.”

“What belt?”

“Rusty!”

“Okay, okay. But I don't know why. I still say we should run.”

“Too late.”

Cliff's heavy workboots sent up little puffs of dust with every step. His face looked tight and angry. He didn't slow down until the toes of his boots almost touched Katie's sandals. She curled her toes and refused to step back.

Cliff towered over the two kids. “What are you doing here?” he repeated, more quietly this time.

“Walking,” Katie said. “We were way full from pigging out on birthday cake and we needed some exercise.”“So we can eat more cake later,” Rusty added.

“Then what are you doing with that wire?” he nodded suspiciously at Katie's hand.

Katie glanced down, surprised to see she was still holding the chunk of chicken wire. “Nothing,” she said. “I found it down there,” she pointed toward the slough, “and we kind of wondered how it got there.”

The anger faded from his eyes. “Sorry, kids. When I saw you with that wire in your hands, I thought you were putting it here.”

“Why would we do that?”

A sheepish smile played around the corners of his mouth. “You're right: I wasn't thinking. It's just that so many odd things have happened around here lately, I guess I'm on edge.” Cliff took several steps toward the slough and then stopped and glanced around, hands on his hips. The curved red handles of a small tool protruded from the back pocket of his jeans. “Where exactly did you find it?” he asked.

“Down there. See? Where the grass is disturbed.” Before Cliff could ask any more questions, Katie asked one of her own. “Why are you out here anyhow? I thought you had work to do.”

“I have stacks of work,” he said impatiently. “But first I needed to check on the stock, so I went to the pasture to be sure the cows were all right. After I saw Scott lurking in the area I wanted to be sure he hadn't left the gates open again.”

“Does he do that a lot?”

“I know he did it once before. That kid's a troublemaker. I said so from the beginning, but no one would believe me.”

“How did you know it was him?”

“How come you ask so many questions?” Cliff asked, but his broad smile took away any sting from his words. He glanced sympathetically from Katie to Rusty. “I guess it must be kind of boring around here for you two kids. Maybe I can find something to keep you busy.”

“No thanks!” Rusty said. “That's what my dad says when he wants me to do chores. Trust me, we aren't that bored.”

Cliff threw his head back and laughed. “Fair enough. But now, I really must get to work. Why don't you two run along to the house? There are a couple of things I need to do here before heading back.” Suddenly the air was filled with the quick raucous notes of a song.