The Pea Soup Poisonings (12 page)

“I don’t want to be an outsider,” said Zoe. “I want to belong to the Spy Club. I can quit later if I want, but at least I’ll have earned that badge. And now...” She slumped down on Spence’s porch step.

“Why don’t you talk to your brother? I mean, ask for an extension?
I
asked for an extension on a book report I had to write last spring and Ms. Hopgood gave it to me. You just have to act sincere and upset, that’s all. Like you’d die if you couldn’t get that extension. I mean, you
know
who the killer is, right, Zoe?”

“Not really, I don’t. Not for absolutely positively sure. And Kelby will never give me an extension.”

“You can try. Come on, we’ll talk to him. He’s not a monster. Is he?’

“No, he’s not a monster. Not quite. He has his good points. But he’s loud. And stubborn. And he loves to play tricks. I mean, he’s my brother! But, well, okay, I guess it won’t do any harm. We’ll go talk to him.”

Kelby was in his room, a room crammed with hockey sticks, baseball bats, golf clubs, basketballs – there wasn’t a sport that Kelby didn’t play, or want to play, or try to play. Sports were his whole occupation in life, except, of course, for the Northern Spy Club.

He was lying back on his bed, reading
Sports Illustrated.
He peered at Zoe and Spence over the top of the magazine. Then he lowered it, a broad smile on his face, as though he’d been expecting them.

“You’re here to surrender,” he said, like he was some Civil War general. He made a
tsking
sound with his tongue.

“No, I’m not here to surrender,” said Zoe. She took a stand in front of the bed, her hands folded tightly across her chest. “I’ve already found the kidnappers. And I’m pretty sure that Madeline Fairweather poisoned Alice’s granny. We think she laced Thelma’s chocolate frosting with that insecticide! We’re waiting right now for the forensics report.”

“Oh yeah?” said Kelby. He looked a little uncomfortable. He waggled his shoulders back and forth. “You have only – ” he glanced at his sports watch where the hands ticked across a Red Sox player’s face – ”eight and a half hours. There’s not enough time for any forensics report. You’ve lost. Let’s face it.” He relaxed back onto his pillow again.

“You can give her an extension,” said Spence, coming bravely forward. “She already solved three kidnapping crimes. You can at least give her till tomorrow noon to solve this one. I mean she’s
solved
it. She just needs the final proof.”

“Cello-boy,” said Kelby, who never called Spence by his real name, “those crimes aren’t the ones she was supposed to solve. The crime she was supposed to solve was Who Killed Alice’s Granny. That was the one she was supposed to solve.”

He smiled sorrowfully, closed his eyes as if he were about to go to sleep.

“Just till tomorrow noon?” Spence pleaded. “Zoe’s your younger
sister”

Kelby looked pained. “I know that,” he said. “That’s why I know she won’t be able to solve the crime. Or,” he added, “walk the beam.”

“I can walk the beam right now,” Zoe shouted, rushing at her brother, pummeling his arm with her fists. “But Dad won’t let us in the barn. Find me another beam and I’ll walk it.”

“Okay. Okay,” said Kelby, warding her off with a hand. “I’m a nice guy. I’ll let you off the hook to walk the beam until tomorrow at one-thirty. Dad has to go to some meeting in Rutland. I’ll call a couple of the other kids and we’ll let you
try
and walk it.”

He lay back on the pillow again. His Northern Spy Club badge glittered in the overhead light. 

“Hey, thanks,” said Spence. “Hear that, Zoe?”

Zoe knew there’d be a catch. And there was.

Kelby held up a finger. “But that’s only if you can
prove –
I repeat
prove –
by
midnight tonight exactly who killed Alice’s granny.” He folded his arms again, peered at his sister through slitted eyes.

Zoe’s eyes filled. She fought back the tears. “How can I do that, Kelby? We won’t have that forensics report till tomorrow. If then. And even then – ”

“Even then,” Spence added, “it won’t
prove
that she killed Alice’s granny. I mean, unless she confesses. Do you really think she’s going to do that?”  He gave a self-satisfied smile.

Downstairs the phone shrilled. Zoe’s mother called up: “Zoe? It’s Alice on the phone. You can take it in my bedroom.”

“You’re
mean,
you know that, Kelby?” Zoe shouted as she left the room. “You’re mean and stubborn.
You
can’t prove who killed Alice’s granny, either, you know you can’t!”

“I don’t have to,” said Kelby. He yawned, and stuck his nose back in his magazine.

“It’s Madeline,” said Alice’s voice, sounding breathless and teary. “She’s gone! She packed a suitcase and now she’s gone. She told me to call my birth mother out in California to come and get me. She left a number.”

“Then that proves she’s guilty! She thinks Thelma ate that poisoned cake. She thinks the kidnappers might tell on her. Why else would she run away like that?”

“I d-don’t know,” wept Alice, who was all alone now in the house.

Zoe thought a minute; she wrapped herself up in the phone line. “Why, I’ll bet Cedric and Chloe
will
tell on her. That she was part of the whole scheme. Look, Alice, I’m going to call the police right now. I’ll make them question those kidnappers.”

“That’s n-not all,” said Alice. She blew her nose, and went on. “I went back down to clean up the cellar? After that stuff fell when we were putting back the boxes? And I found a small bag of white powder. Oh no-o-o. Do you think –”

“Malathion!” shouted Zoe. “I mean, it could be. Wait right there, Alice. Hang on to that bag. Spence and I are coming over.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Hurry Up and Wait

At seven o’clock that evening Zoe got her dad to drive them all to the police station. After all, he’d been a suspect himself. He wanted this crime cleared up “once and for all.”

The police chief wasn’t exactly happy to see a determined father and three children in his office. He was about to leave the station, he told them, he was leaving it in charge of one of his lieutenants. Anyway, he said, how many homicides do you get in one month in the small town of Branbury? He chuckled.

“Besides,” he added, “my wife is expecting me. She’s holding dinner. It’s my birthday.” He gave them all a self-pitying look.

“Don’t you want to solve this crime?” Zoe’s dad asked. “The townspeople are worried, you know. They’re locking their doors. You’ll be a hero to them, I guarantee.”

The chief thrust back his shoulders. The thought obviously fed his ego. His hand trembled a little when Zoe handed over the bag of powder. It was indeed malathion, her dad confirmed. It had probably come from his apple barn. “Stolen of course,” he reminded the chief. “I only use it to kill apple maggots, not human beings.”

“And now she’s gone,” said Zoe. “Alice’s stepmother. You’ll have to find her. But I’ll bet the kidnappers will snitch on her. Just ask them.”

The kidnappers, the chief said, were in the local lockup. He was planning to interview them tomorrow. “Not tonight.” He glanced at his watch and nodded.

“But you’d better get the word out to your officers right now to watch for Madeline Fairweather,” Mr. Elwood urged.

“She drives a t-tan Honda Civic,” said Tiny Alice, who was weeping again from the shock of it all. “The license plate is um, um: CCV288.” Zoe handed her a tissue, and Alice blinked at her gratefully.

“Yes, of course,” said the chief. He peered down at Tiny Alice as though she was an ant that had just crawled up on his shoe.

“And send a detective to interview the kidnappers if you can’t go yourself,” said Zoe’s father. On the way to town Zoe had told him about the Northern Spy Club and her midnight deadline.

“The local paper comes out tomorrow morning,” Mr. Elwood reminded the chief.

The chief examined his fingernails for a moment, and then he picked up the phone.

“And get back to us
before
midnight, please” said Zoe’s dad. “And happy birthday,” he called back as they left the station.

“Happy birthday,” echoed Zoe and Spence. Alice gave a forlorn little wave.

Back home, Zoe’s parents decided that Tiny Alice would spend the night with Zoe. Meanwhile they would keep trying to contact the girl’s birth mother, who hadn’t been home when Alice tried to call earlier. The thought of seeing her birth mother made Alice smile. And Zoe was glad for that. Poor Alice. Though she worried about the birth mother – whether she’d want Alice back or not.

   “You girls can go to bed anyway, when you’re ready,” said Mr. Elwood after they’d all had a late snack of apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. “I’ll come up if there’s any news.”

But Zoe knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. What if the kidnappers didn’t tell on the stepmother? What if there wasn’t poison in that frosting, and the stepmother wasn’t involved? And it was some third party Zoe didn’t even know about? What if the chief decided to go home and have his birthday dinner and not have
anyone
interview the kidnappers?

And what if Alice’s birth mother didn’t come home to take care of her daughter?

“Oh, Alice,” she sighed to the mute pillow beside her. “What if all this doesn’t work out at all? What then?”

Chapter Twenty-eight

A Late Night Phone Call

Zoe was dreaming. She was walking the high beam in the apple barn – or trying to. She was halfway across when she had a terrible urge to sneeze. She couldn’t hold it back. She sneezed once, twice, three times – and lost her balance. She was falling-down, down and down…

She was tumbling into a pile of boxes. They were making a rackety, crackling sound. But they were empty, all of them – empty. Somewhere a siren was shrilling – or was it a phone? What was a phone doing in a barn?

She sat up with a start. What had the dream meant? Had her time run out – to solve the crime? Was that why she’d dreamt of falling? Tiny Alice was sleeping quietly beside her in the big double bed. Zoe didn’t want to waken her, but she had to know the time. She turned on the night light.

It was eleven-forty-eight. Oh no... In twelve minutes she would have lost.

But someone was coming into her room. A moving shadow. She rubbed her eyes, and squinted. It was her father. He was probably coming to tell her to turn out the light. She looked up at him, feeling drained, like an empty glass.

Then she remembered the ringing. Was it in her dream or was it for real?

She climbed out of bed. Her dad was hugging her. He was trying to tell her something. Something about the police. About how they’d caught Madeline Fairweather. How she’d tearfully confessed. How she’d had to confess because the kidnappers had already i
mplicated
her. “Implicated,” her dad said, “it means – ”

“I know what it means,” said Zoe
,
her heart pumping away. “They snitched on her.”

“They snitched on her, right,” her dad went on. “She was going to get part of the profits from some game park the kidnappers were planning to operate on Thelma Fairweather’s farm. She said she was desperate for the money. For herself and Alice. She seemed genuinely concerned about Alice, poor kid. Now what kind of game park would that be?”

“To kill animals. I’ll explain more tomorrow,” said Zoe. “But Madeline confessed that
she’d
killed Alice’s granny? Did she
confess
that, Dad?” She glanced at her watch – she hadn’t taken it off since the week started. She could hardly see its face in the dim light; her arm was trembling.

Oh no! It was almost midnight! Five minutes of.

“She confessed,” said her dad. “For months she’d been putting a pinch of malathion in Agnes’s food. She claimed she didn’t think it would kill. Just make her sick, so she’d turn over the farm to the ‘relatives’ – who would ‘take care’ of the place, they said, until Alice came of age. But Agnes had a heart problem; the insecticide finally
did
kill her. The final pinch went into the pea soup the Bagley sisters brought over.”

“And Thelma?” Zoe asked. “Did Madeline admit she put the malathion in the cake frosting?”

“She did,” said Zoe’s dad. “She admitted it. And this last one was a stronger dose. It was a good thing you went over, and just in time.” He gave his daughter a bear hug.

“You see,” he explained, “Madeline was getting desperate by that time. It seems she owes a lot of money on her credit cards. So she fell in with the Wolfadders.” He sighed. “But now I’m cleared, and so are the old ladies.”

Zoe gave a shriek. “I knew they didn’t do it, the Bagley sisters. Ha! Did you hear that, Kelby?”

Alice sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. “Wha? Who?” she said.

“What’s all that shouting?” Zoe’s mother called from the big bedroom.

“It’s all right, everything’s all right,” Zoe told her. She hurried her father across the hall to Kelby’s room. She wanted her dad to tell Kelby the news. Kelby would never believe
her.

Kelby didn’t say a word. He just listened.

“I’ve won, I’ve solved the crime!” Zoe exulted after her father went back to tell her mother what had happened. “I want my badge, Kelby. Right now. This minute.”

“But you haven’t walked the beam yet,” said Kelby, stretching up his arms, giving an enormous yawn – although Zoe could see he was disappointed that she’d solved the crime. “Dad’s meeting tomorrow is cancelled. He won’t let us in the barn.” He gave Zoe a satisfied look.

“Then we’ll find another barn. Another beam,” cried Zoe, and slung a pillow at her brother.

But Kelby, who didn’t like to lose, simply put the pillow over his matted head, rolled onto his side, and lay there like a mummy.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Zoe Finds a Witness

Zoe’s alarm woke her up at five-fifteen. She had a plan. She shook Tiny Alice awake. “It’s time,” she said.

“Wha?” said Alice, her eyes tiny brown slits. “Time for wha?”