Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader (16 page)

Standing on the top rung of the ladder, Ash stared out at the placid water of the lake for a second or two, nodded and said, “You’re right. You’re right. It’s not time for a swim yet. I am so hungry.” She climbed off the ladder and raced into the kitchen.

A drop of perspiration trickled down the right side of Bouguereau’s face as he exhaled and relaxed his body in relief. He scolded her again, “
Mademoiselle
Brady, that is a dangerous game of chicken to play with a young girl’s life, have you no shame?”

Fingering the boat rope anxiously and looking out to the lake, Tisha replied, “Yeah, well, I guess it doesn’t really matter to me at this point, Boogs. She held up her index finger next to her thumb with just a small slit visible and said, “I was close, this close to becoming Mrs. Wendell Whittaker and having more money than I’ve ever had in my life!” Tisha glanced at her watch again. “Go inside and sit down on a kitchen chair. I’m going to tie you up, even though you’re an old coot, you make me nervous.”

Bouguereau went to the small dining area of the boathouse, grabbed a wooden chair and planted himself on it. Sitting next to Ash, he glanced at her as she gobbled down her meal, smiled and said in a gentle voice, “
Bonjour, Mademoiselle
Richardson.”

Smiling back, Ash lifted a spare rib smothered in barbeque sauce off of her plate and asked, “Are you hungry? You can have some of mine.”

Inhaling the aroma of the food, Bouguereau liltingly replied, “Ah, I have had magnificent dreams of a barbequed spare rib all this day. How did you know?”

Ash laughed and said, “Here let me get you a plate—”

Reaching down and placing her hand on Ash’s shoulder to keep her in her seat, Tisha interrupted, “Dear, no, the man is not hungry. You’re still hungry, finish your food.”

“You’re right. You’re right. I am still hungry,” Ash said with a vacant look as she took another bite of her meal.

Bouguereau’s heart sank as he realized Ash reacted to another hypnotic suggestion from Tisha. He knew a little about hypnosis and what he did know came only from a friendship he had with a local psychiatrist. The one thing he did remember is that the psychiatrist said hypnotists generally use a “trigger” word to activate their subjects to do their commands. I must find out this trigger word that
Mademoiselle
Brady is using, he thought. What word is she saying every time she commands Ash? Ah, I must keep my wits about me!

As Tisha wrapped the boat rope around Bouguereau’s arms and legs, he asked, “Miss Brady, please enlighten this, as you say, old coot. Why this gigantic charade? Why use hypnosis on a little ten-year-old girl? My mind is not as sharp as it used to be and I am afraid I am failing to connect the dots, so to speak.”

She stopped tying him up, sighed and confessed, “This whole con game has gone down the tubes, so I guess it won’t matter now. It was a typical plan to scam a rich guy. We read about Wendell Whittaker on a national newspaper’s website. He’s a wealthy industrialist and just got a divorce, so we figured he’d be looking for a new wife. I come into town, lie about my background, get hired at the high school and hang out at all the right places. I am, after all, young and pretty, if I do say so myself. I did all the usual things to get noticed, you know, laughed at all of his corny jokes, said what a great conversationalist he was—even though I was bored to tears most of the time listening to his technical jargon—anyhow, I won him over. He proposed to me, but with one stipulation: His nutty little daughter, Felicity, had to approve of me. She is a real basket case. That girl really needs professional help with her anger. Anyhow, I couldn’t win her over no matter what I did. I even tried hypnotizing her, but that didn’t work, her anger was too deep. I find out how desperate she is to become a cheerleader and I think—Aha! There’s my ticket to nuptial bliss. I wangled my way into the head cheerleading coach’s job with the intent to get her onto the squad no matter what. Little did I know that Felicity can’t tell her right foot from her left foot, you know what I mean?”

“Hmm, yes, I understand, a bit clumsy,” Bouguereau agreed as he squirmed a bit to stay comfortable in the chair. Finished tying his legs, Tisha snatched his cane from him, leaned it against the wall behind him and began binding his hands. He thought quickly and said, “Miss Brady, if you don’t mind, I am an old man, yes? My back is not what it used to be and this chair is very uncomfortable, would you mind if I had my cane back to at least lean on?”

She tightened the last knot around his wrists, reached behind him, grabbed his cane and inserted it between his bound hands. “See, I’m not as ruthless as you think,” she said. “I also could have tied your arms behind your back, but I know that would be extremely agonizing as well. All I’m interested in is the money; I don’t want to torture anyone.”

Relieved that he finagled the return of his sword cane, Bouguereau exhaled and said, “
Merci beaucoup
.” Glancing up at her, he continued his questioning. “But please tell me, why could you not secure a place for her on the squad? What went wrong with your plan?”

Tisha pointed at Ash and explained, “She’s what went wrong. No matter what I did to sabotage her tryout, she came back and scored just enough points to tie and then win the re-evaluation over Felicity. Ash is, by far, the most outstanding cheerleader for her age group. So the best I could do for Felicity was the first alternate position, and guess what? That wasn’t good enough for Daddy’s little girl! Felicity confronted me that night and said in so many words that I would never marry her father unless she was on the squad; no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Checking her watch and looking at the lake, Tisha turned back to Bouguereau and added, “So, we came up with the alternate plan of hypnotizing Ash and commanding her to stay away from the football game. She was supposed to remain at home and act like she wasn’t interested in being a cheerleader. Then, after the game was over, I could essentially kick her off the squad and insert Felicity permanently. Problem solved, right? Wrong! Ash’s little brain mixed up one of my commands and she wanders out of her house and over to my place. I couldn’t run her back because her parents would become suspicious, so I brought her over here, turned on the television and she was happy. Right then, I knew my plan had backfired, that someone would report her missing.” Tisha shook her head and said, “Sure enough, someone did. Now, I have to settle for a measly one hundred grand. I could have had millions! All because of a lousy cheerleading competition, I am not a happy camper, Boogs!”

Bouguereau’s head snapped up when she mentioned the one hundred grand. Tisha noticed, laughed and said, “Yes, one hundred thousand smackers. Wendell keeps what he calls his ‘mad money’ in a wall safe in his bedroom. Since he’s on a business trip this weekend, I had plenty of time to crack the combination. I’m a woman of many talents, Boogs.”

“One other thing that is puzzling to me, Miss Brady. Several times you have checked your watch, looked at the lake and have used pronouns such as, we and our when you were relating your story. Are you expecting the getaway driver to show up soon?”

“Driver? No, there’s no getaway car. How unimaginative!” Tisha chuckled and checked her watch again. “I’m expecting my mother to be here at any time. She’ll be flying in a little seaplane, land on the lake and putter up to the shore. I jump in with the money, we take off and fly, fly, fly! By the time anyone discovers you, we’ll be miles and miles away, sipping iced tea by the swimming pool.”

“Oui
! That is impressive!” Bouguereau said, nodding. “How did you obtain a seaplane?”

She waved her hand in front of her face and crowed, “Aw, that was easy. Wendell has a company that does a lot of business in Canada and they use several of these seaplanes to hop around the country and to go fishing. I just impersonated Wendell’s secretary and ordered a seaplane be flown to a certain location and my mother drove there and picked it up. Simple!”

“The sun is setting, is she late? Won’t she have a difficult time landing in the dark?” As soon as Bouguereau said the word “dark”, a seaplane buzzed the boathouse, landed on the water and began to approach the Whittaker shore.

“No, actually she’s right on time. We try to keep to a schedule, Boogs. Eliminates a lot of mistakes that way. That’s why we’re so successful at what we do!”

“All done! My, that was delish!” Ash announced. She pushed her plate away and drank the rest of her water.

Tisha walked up to Ash with more boat rope in her hands. “Dear, we are going to play a game now.”

“Oh, goody! A game!" Ash squeaked as she clapped her hands together.

“Dear, this is a very special game. We play it like this: I tie you up, you count slowly to one hundred, then you untie yourself and come looking for me. I’ll be hiding somewhere in the main house. Wait until I say it’s okay.”

Staring off into space, Ash repeated the instructions in a low voice as Tisha tied her hands and then her feet to the chair.

Bouguereau raised his eyebrows with excitement in the realization he had figured out Tisha’s trigger word. Ah, you are a sly one, he thought, but not sly enough to fool me! Your trigger word is
dear
! Now I need to distract her somehow, get her out of the room so that I may reverse the effects of her hypnosis on poor, little Miss Richardson. “
Mademoiselle
Brady, if you are tying her the way you tied me, she’ll never get free—”

“Oh, Boogs, cut it out. You and Ash won’t be in any danger. Right before we leave, I’ll call the police and let them know where you are.”

“No, you won’t call the police. The kid comes with us. I’ve waited a long time to get even with this cop. Now is my chance. He can rot here for all I care.” Tisha’s mother had come up the interior stairs and had overheard their conversation. She stood at the doorway and glared at Bouguereau.

Chapter 27- The Seaplane

“Tony! Look up there!” Judd squinted and pointed up into the western sky where the yellow-orange sun was beginning to set. “Have you ever seen a funnier lookin’ airplane than that? It’s got big feet and it’s flyin’ awful low over the lake!”

“Hey!” Tony said in a commanding voice as he motioned for Curly to stop tracking and to sit down next to him. He placed his hand as a visor over his eyes, looked upward, zeroed in on the plane and said, “That’s a seaplane. Those big feet are the floats it uses to land on the water. That’s weird. It looks like it’s gonna land on the lake.” Watching it disappear over the top of the trees in the distance, Tony yelled to Judd, “C’mon we have to follow that plane!”

“Wait a minute! We ain’t done trackin’ for Ash yet. What’s so special about that plane?” Judd asked as he scratched his head.

“There are three things about that seaplane that worries me,” explained Tony. “Number one: the registration number on the fuselage begins with a ‘C’ which means it’s registered in Canada. What’s a Canadian seaplane doing way down here? Number two: I read in the paper that seaplanes are restricted from landing on the lake, it’s illegal. Number three: it looks like it’s landing pretty close to the Whittaker’s house on the lake. If Miss Brady kidnapped Ash, she might be holding her at Felicity’s house. That’s three pretty strange things happening, especially when you combine it with Ash’s disappearance. When things don’t add up like they should, something is usually not right. Not only that, but Curly has been tracking Ash’s scent in a fairly straight line for some time now, and that line is heading directly toward the Whittaker house!”

“That’s good enough for me. Let’s go!” Judd raced down the sidewalk in a full sprint, but then he stopped. He put his hands on his hips, looked around, turned back to Tony and shouted, “Where’s the Whittaker house?”

“I’m not going to tell you until you promise not to run off like that again,” Tony said as he walked up to Judd. “If Ash is down there, we need to call my dad first and get the police involved. If that seaplane is mixed up with Miss Brady, there’s no telling who we’ll run into down there. It could be some crazy guy just out of jail. You know, you’re big, but there’s always somebody bigger and stronger in the world. Always. You run into the house without knowing what you’re getting into and you could put Ash in more danger than what she’s in now. You…Just... Don’t...Know. Got it?”

Judd put his head down, played with the buttons on his shirt and mumbled, “Yeah, I got it. Sorry, Tony.” He slapped his forehead in a gesture of frustration and added, “But I get so excited and I have to, you know, do somethin’! So, I start running and before I know it, I’m halfway somewhere and I don’t even know where I’m goin’!”

“Okay, okay, settle down.” Tony grabbed Judd by the arm and began walking to the lake. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. The Whittaker house is only one half of a block away. We gotta reconnoiter—”

“Reconooterin'. I know how to do that!”

Tony smiled and said, “Yeah, you do. We gotta reconnoiter the house and make sure Ash is there. Luckily, it’s getting dark and we’ll be able to see into the windows easily, but the people inside won’t be able to see us. One other thing, you gotta be real quiet. If someone is there, we don’t want them to know we’re outside.”

Approaching the Whittaker driveway, Judd pointed at Curly and asked, “What about Curly? Won’t he get excited if Ash is there and starts barkin’ and carryin’ on?”

“Nah, you don’t have to worry about Curly. Airedales, for the most part, are silent trackers unlike other breeds that bark their fool heads off when they’re on the scent. Airedales are serious hunters when they’re tracking prey; they’re quiet ‘cause they want to catch them, not flush’em out for somebody else to shoot. Right, Curly?”