The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery (13 page)

“I guess so.”

“And what about you, Aston LaRue? What are you doing up here? Looking for another turkey tail?”

For a few seconds, Brian considered telling her about his theory, but he decided he couldn't trust her.

“Just hanging,” Brian said, giving her his best all-purpose answer. Jillian seemed to accept it.

“I'm heading back,” she said. “It's getting too dark to see much. Do you need a lift?”

“No, thanks.”

As soon as Jillian was out of sight, Brian felt the confidence drain out of him. Suddenly his great idea did not seem so great. The other entrance to the cave could be fifty feet away, or half a mile. And even if he found it, the opening might be too small for him to squeeze through.

But not too small for a bat.

Brian slowly turned in a circle, scanning the sky. It was still light out, but growing darker by the minute.

A flicker of movement caught his eye—but it was only a bird.

He kept searching, rotating like a radar dish. Again he saw something in the air, but it disappeared into the coulee. There. A black shape fluttered by like a scrap of crepe paper in a whirlwind, in and out of sight in a heartbeat. Definitely a bat. But where had it come from?

A few seconds later, he saw another one. It had seemed to come from down in the coulee. Brian turned his attention in that direction.

There was still light in the sky, but in the shadows of the coulee it was as dark as night. Brian switched on his flashlight and lowered himself down a tumbled slope of mossy boulders. Every few seconds he stopped and shone his light around, hoping to see a bat emerge from some crack or crevice.

In the end, it was his ears, not his eyes, that led him on. A faint chittering and squeaking drew him into a treacherous tangle of fallen trees and slippery boulders. He recognized the enormous boulder he'd been standing on when the cave had been dynamited. He circled the boulder, moved farther down the coulee, then stopped and listened again.

Now the high-pitched sounds seemed to be coming from above him. He started back up, going around the boulder on the opposite side, but was blocked by a second boulder almost as large as the first. Could he fit between them? He sent the beam of his flashlight into the space between the boulders and was startled by two bats coming straight at his face.

He let out a yelp and ducked. He could hear the whisper of the bats' wings as they skimmed over his head.

Making his way around the smaller boulder, Brian climbed onto it from the uphill side, lay on his belly and shined his light straight down into the opening. It was a zigzag crack about four feet long by a little more than a foot wide—big enough to squeeze into—but from what he could see, the shaft dropped straight down, like a well. Easy to get into, but not so easy to climb back out of.

He watched several more bats emerge in ones and twos, then took out his dad's cell phone and punched in Roni's number.

Roni began by Googling Eric's secret name, “Fenton Bloodwater.”

Zero hits. She tried entering just “Fenton” and got 2,600,000 hits, too many to sort through.

What had SamOwen said their parents' secret names were? Fitzroy and Camillia? How many Fitzroys could there be? She typed in “Fitzroy” and got 700,000 hits. Too many. She tried “Fitzroy Bloodwater.” Zippo. Likewise for “Camillia Bloodwater.”

Roni sat back and scowled at her computer. For a few minutes there she had hoped that the Bloodwater twins' silly secret names might be more than a game. But Fitzroy and Camillia Bloodwater were just as absent from cyberspace as Fred Bloodwater was.

Frustrated, Roni began Googling everything she could think of—“Bloodwater Development,” “Ridgewood Residences,” “Bloodwater+Fitzroy” and “Fitzroy+Development.” She either got nothing, or too much, or just a bunch of articles from the
Clarion
that she had already seen.

Then she did a search for “Fitzroy+Camillia.”

Thirty hits. The first one was a baby-name site. The second site was devoted to British genealogy. The third listing took her to a nine-month-old article in the archives of a California newspaper called the
Redwood Valley Sun-Times.
She opened the article: “Valley Couple Sought in Riverwood Estates Case.” She stared at the accompanying photograph for a full thirty seconds before reading the article. When she had finished reading, she looked at the photo again, and a grim smile spread slowly across her face.

 

The photo with the article was a very nice shot of a smiling man and a woman standing in front of a bulldozer.

They looked exactly like Mr. and Mrs. Bloodwater.

 

The thing about cell phones was that sometimes when you really needed to make a call, you couldn't. Brian had to climb back up out of the coulee to the top of the bluff to get a signal. He punched in Roni's number again. She picked up on the first ring.

“The game's afoot,” said Brian.

“Watson? Is that you?”

“Yes. The game's afoot.”

“The what's a what?”

“That's a quote from Sherlock Holmes,” Brian said.

“Oh. Hey, you won't believe what I just found!”

“You won't believe what
I
just found.”

“Mine's better.”

“Not a chance, Sherlock. Listen, I need you to hop on Hillary and come out here to the bluff right now.”

“Now? It's, like, almost ten o'clock.”

“Bring rope—lots of it—a flashlight, a big ball of string, a camera and—”

“Wait—you got into the cave?”

“I found the back door.”

The ball of string and the flashlight were easy, and she could buy a disposable camera at the Quik Mart, but where would she find rope? She didn't want to ask Nick, who was still in the den watching PBS. Asking Nick would lead to too many questions.

Maybe in the basement. Just as she was heading down the stairs, the phone rang. Roni ran back up the steps and picked up the kitchen extension.

“Roni?” It was Eric Bloodwater. Or whatever his name was, really.

“Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for rope.”

“Oh. I just wanted to say, I'm really sorry about the secret passage thing. And it was fun hanging with you today.”

“Uh, yeah, me, too. Listen, I have to be someplace. I can't talk much.”

“Are you going to a rodeo or a hanging?”

“Huh?”

“You know. You said you were looking for rope.”

“I'm going spelunking.” Roni figured there was no way Eric—or rather, Fenton—would know that spelunking meant “to explore a cave.” She was right.

He said, “If you don't want to tell me . . .”

Roni instantly regretted having said anything at all. “Look, I gotta go. Let's talk tomorrow, okay?”

After hanging up, Roni made a quick search of the basement. No rope. She tried the garage and found a small piece of rope hanging from the wall, but not nearly enough. Closing the garage door, she noticed that the lights were on in Mr. Billig's garage, and the door was open.

Perfect. Mr. Billig was the handiest guy in the neighborhood. He had tools like dogs have hair. If anybody had rope, it would be him.

Mr. Billig's legs were sticking out from under his cherry-red 1965 Corvette. A radio balanced on the hood was blasting moldy oldies. Mr. Billig sang along as he worked on his car.

“Mr. Billig?” Roni said.

“. . . fun fun fun . . . ,”
Mr. Billig sang.

Roni raised her voice. “Hello?”

Roni turned off the radio.

“Hey!” Mr. Billig shouted. He wriggled out from beneath his car. “Oh, it's you, Roni.”

“Hi, Mr. Billig.”

“Hi yourself.” Mr. Billig climbed creakily to his feet. He was a small, thin man with a wrinkled, suntanned face and ears that stood straight out. According to Nick, Mr. Billig had gotten stuck being who he was back in the 1960s and just couldn't get out. He seemed happy enough.

“I was wondering if I could borrow some rope.”

“Rope? What kind of rope?”

“Like the kind of rope you could climb.”

Mr. Billig scratched his head. “Rope. Rope. Lesseee . . .” He closed his eyes and scrunched up his already scrunchy face and thought for a moment. Then his eyes popped open and he looked straight up. “Aha!”

Roni tipped her head back and saw, hanging from the rafters, a coil of thick rope.

“Tow rope,” Mr. Billig said. “About a hundred feet. That do ya?”

“I hope so,” Roni said.

 

Ten minutes later, with the heavy coil of rope looped over her shoulder, Roni pulled up to the Quik Mart. She parked her Vespa and walked into the store, still wearing the coil of rope.

“Gonna tie something up, or is that the latest teen fashion?” asked the old man behind the counter.

“Neither,” Roni said. “Do you have any disposable cameras? With a flash?”

“I got all kinds,” said the man. He pointed at the wall behind the counter, where several types of cameras were displayed. “Take your pick.”

Roni heard the door buzzer go off.

“Do any of them have an extra-strong flash?” she asked. “I'll be taking pictures inside a really dark place.”

“Don't know.” The clerk set one of each variety on the counter. Roni sensed someone standing behind her, waiting.

“I'll take this one.” Roni handed the clerk a twenty.

Thump, thump, thump. What was that noise? Was the person behind her bouncing a ball or something?

The clerk rang up her purchase. “So what's the rope for?” he asked.

“I'm going caving,” Roni said.

“At night?” said the clerk.

“What's the difference?” Roni said. “Either way, it's dark in there.”

Thump, thump.

Roni grabbed her change and the camera. She turned and almost ran smack into Professor Bloom.

“Good evening, Miss Delicata,” he said, thumping the rubber tip of his cane on the floor.

“Hi, Professor,” Roni said.

Professor Bloom stared at her for the longest five seconds Roni had ever endured.

“We will be touring the county courthouse tomorrow,” he finally said, setting a carton of milk and a box of bran flakes on the counter. “I will see you there, I trust.”

Roni made her escape and a minute later was back on Hillary, heading up Highway 61 toward Indian Bluff.

Brian squatted near the hole, shining his flashlight at the opening. He didn't want to get too close. Bats were still coming out every now and then. He hoped they would stop before Roni arrived.

He was counting the amount of time between bats. It had been nearly five minutes since he had seen one. Maybe they had all gone out for the evening.

He leaned over the hole and shone his flashlight down into it. Not much to see. He thought he could make out the bottom, but he wasn't sure. As he moved the flashlight, he could see shadows arranging themselves. There was an earth floor about thirty feet below him.

Suddenly he felt hands on his shoulders. He let out a yell and almost fell forward into the hole. The hands pulled him back just in time. He heard Roni's laugh.

Brian twisted free and stood up. “Not funny!” he said. First Jillian, and now Roni had scared him the same way. It was getting old. Although, if it had been him sneaking up on Roni, it would have been hilarious.

“Funny.” Roni turned her flashlight on and shined it into his face. “I totally got you. You screamed like a banshee.”

“What is a banshee, anyway?”

“I have no idea.” Roni aimed the beam of her flashlight into the hole. “Are you really going down there?”

“Me? I thought we were both going!”

“Shouldn't somebody wait up here? Just in case?”

“Just in case what?”

“You know—bears, cave trolls, vampire bats, troglodytes . . .”

“Okay, okay. I'll go down first and check things out. If there are no cave trolls or troglodytes, you can come down, too.”

“We'll see,” said Roni.

Brian took the rope from her and dropped it down until he could see the end touch the cave floor. He wrapped the other end twice around a nearby tree and tied it with a sailor's knot.