The Pea Soup Poisonings (4 page)

The two were standing by the bed; Zoe could see their feet under the cotton bedskirt. The woman’s swollen ankles were stuffed into shiny red pumps; the man was wearing enormous black shoes with scuffed toes. One kick and he could send her and Spence to the moon!

It was dusty under the bed. Zoe’s allergies were acting up again. She was desperately trying not to sneeze. She saw that Spence had a sneeze coming on, too. She didn’t want to think what would happen if he let it out. He was going, “Ah-ah-ah,” and she held her breath. He pressed two fingers under his nose and finally the sneeze subsided. She let out her breath with relief.

The feet moved away from the bed. For what seemed an hour the couple banged about the house, searching. And finally, finally, they opened the front door. The wind swept through the house and into the bedroom. It felt refreshingly cool, like rain after a dry spell.

Cedric said, “It’s not here. Unless she buried it in the garden or something. We’ll have to go back to R-Rockbury. We’ll make her t-talk. T-tell us where it is.”

“She won’t tell,” Chloe said. “She won’t even talk to us now.”

“We’ll find a way to make her t-talk.”

“After dinner,” said Chloe. “Not now. I’m starving.”

“I could eat something myself,” said Cedric. “There’s a steak house in town. We’ll go up to R-Rockbury after.”

“But what if those kids found it?” said Chloe. “If they’ve been in here? That girl who tried to stop us when we took Thelma? A little busybody if ever I saw one.”

“Kids?” Cedric scoffed. “Don’t worry about k-kids. We can take care of
them.”

The door banged shut on their voices and Zoe felt her body slowly unthaw.

“You got it?” Spence whispered.

She stuck a hand in her pocket and encountered the key. It felt cold and hot all at once. Any minute, she thought, it might burn a hole in her shirt.

“Let’s go,” she said, wiggling out from under the dusty bed and letting out the sneeze she’d been holding back. “We’ve got to catch the evening bus.  We’ve got to get to Aunt Thelma before those two get there!”

Chapter Nine

A Nighttime Bus Ride

“Alice called,” Kelby said when Zoe and Spence arrived at her house. “Her mother has the night off from her job at Chat & Chew Restaurant and Alice has to stay home to help clean the attic.”

“Bad luck,” said Zoe. “That means she can’t go to Lili Laski’s supper party with us.”

“Lili Laski’s having a supper party?” asked Spence.

“Of course. We’re both going. You remember,” said Zoe, and gave Spence a knowing look.

“Oh, that party,” he said.

“Zoe arranging your social calendar now, Spence?” Kelby asked. Spence reddened, and then coughed.

Kelby was sitting at the table staring at a bowl of pea soup. “I can’t eat that,” he told his mother. “The Bagley sisters made it. In a chamber pot. It killed Alice’s granny.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” their mother said. “I ate the soup and
I’m
perfectly fine. Now sit down, Zoe, and have some supper. Bowl of pea soup, Spence? It’s delicious. I added a little ham. I think the sisters are vegetarians.”

“Uh, no thanks,” he said. “But I’ll have some
of that.”
He pointed at a dish of macaroni and cheese.

“Sorry, we don’t have time,” said Zoe, tapping Spence on the shoulder. “We’re having supper at my friend Lili Laski’s house. Can you drive us into town, Dad? Please?”

Town was only three miles away. They would catch the six-thirty-five bus to Rockbury and then walk to the place from there. Zoe hoped it wasn’t far.

“Please, Dad?” Her father hadn’t sat down yet. He always had something else to do when dinner was served. One time, just for fun, her mother had called him to eat at three in the afternoon, only to see him wheel about and stride off to the apple barn to do “one more job.”

“Actually,” her father said, running a hand through his shaggy hair, “I have to pick up an herbicide at Agway.”

“Oh, Dan,” said their mother. “Then everything will get cold,” She sighed heavily, then brightened up. “Last one finished does the dishes!”

Zoe’s father shrugged and grinned at Zoe. “Let’s go then, kid. I’m the best darn dish washer you ever saw.”

Her mother laughed. “We’ll have to rent you out.”

“Three and a half days,” Kelby hissed as Zoe and Spence left. “And we have new evidence. Damaging evidence. Gonna put those old ladies right behind bars.”

“What evidence this time?” Zoe demanded.

“Oh, you’ll see.” He gave a sly smile and heaped macaroni and cheese on his plate.
He
didn’t want to have to do the dishes.

In five minutes they were at Lili’s house. Luckily Zoe’s father drove off at once so they didn’t have to go in. They ran off to the Citgo gas station where the bus made its stop – and just in time.

“Where to?” the driver said, a big brawny man with a round bald spot in the center of his head.

Zoe said, “Two for Rockbury, please.”

“We’re going to visit a relative,” Spence informed him, and Zoe sighed. “You don’t have to explain,” she said. “Lots of people live in the town of Rockbury.”

“When are we going to eat?” Spence asked as they took their seats in the center of the bus. She knew he was thinking of that plate of macaroni and cheese he’d missed.

“We’ll eat afterward.” Zoe shook out a handful of chocolate peanuts. “Here. This is a salary advance against tonight.”

Spence shoved the peanuts into his mouth and smiled. “So what’s the strategy? We go in there and snatch her? And then what do we do with her?”

“We wait and see. We play it by ear.”

“The way I play my cello?”

“I guess so. You certainly don’t look at the notes when you play. I mean, it sounds like a fingernail scraping a blackboard.”

“That’s an insult,” said Spence. “And I’m getting off the bus right this minute.” He stood up – and Zoe pulled him back down.

“I’m just kidding. You’re a brilliant cello player. Really.”

“Tell that to my mom,” said Spence. The bus lurched around a corner and threw him against Zoe’s shoulder. “Oops,” he said. “You’ve got sharp bones.”

“The important thing,” said Zoe, ignoring the comment about her bones, “is to find out what this key is for. And warn Alice’s auntie about those bad relatives wanting it. Then we can kidnap her next trip – after we figure out where to hide her.”

“In the blacksmith shop across the street?” said Spence.

“What?”

“It’s locked up, but my father has a key. He owns the land it’s on. They’re trying to turn it into a historic landmark, but for now it’s on our land. It’s got running water and a sink.”

“Perfect. We might kidnap her tonight then. I have enough money for one more ticket.”

“But you were going to use that money for supper.”

“We’ll see.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Rockbury,” the driver announced. Fifteen minutes later the bus came to a smelly, grinding stop in front of a convenience store.

“What time is the bus back to Branbury?” Zoe asked.

“Nine-forty-eight, kid. Sharp. We don’t wait for nobody.”

The doors squealed open and Zoe and Spence found themselves on a cold cement pavement without a soul in sight. The convenience store where they’d stopped had a CLOSED sign in front. The mountains loomed up beyond it, cold and dark blue. It was as though the whole town had gone to bed, and it was only seven-twenty by Zoe’s watch.

“So where
is
this Rockbury place where they’ve got Alice’s aunt?” Spence asked.

Zoe could only shake her head and stare out at the silent town.

Chapter Ten

Home Sweet Rockbury

“There it is,” said Spence, after they’d walked up the road for what seemed an hour but had been only – Zoe peered at her watch in the gathering twilight – twenty minutes. Spence pointed at a large building looming up out of a dark woods.

A sign on an open gate at the foot of the driveway read: ROCKBURY HOME FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED.

“Some ‘home,’” said Zoe, staring up at the gray stone walls. “It has bars on the windows.”

“Jeezum. How do we get her out then?”

“We’ll find a way. I told you we’d play it by ear.”

“Tootley-too,” went Spence on his imaginary cello, and Zoe shushed him. “We’re ‘relatives’ you know,” she reminded him, and turned the brass handle of the large wooden door. A handwritten sign read “VISITING HOURS: 2-3; 7:30-8:30.” But the door was locked. She banged loudly.

At last a slot opened up and a pair of watery green eyes squinted out. “Relatives coming for visiting hours,” Zoe shouted, and the door swung open.

“Hello,” she said cheerily to an ancient female with a cloud of bluish hair who stood behind, looking suspicious. “I’m Zoe and this is my brother Spence. We’re here to see our aunt, Thelma Fairweather.” She held up Thelma’s black sweater. “We’ve come to bring her this. She left without it. Old people’s bodies need heat, you know.”

She shivered a little in the chill air.

The woman’s face softened. “I know,” she said. “I’ve been telling them that. I’m just a volunteer here. And I have to wear a jacket, even in July! The cold just clings to these old walls.”

“Something should be done,” Zoe agreed. “I’ll write a letter.”

The woman’s smile pushed her cheeks into a hundred wrinkles. She let the children in and handed Zoe a pass. “Thelma is in Room 304,” she said, consulting a chart on the scarred desk. “She had visitors only yesterday evening,” she added, as though it was against the rules to have more than two visitors a week. A Mr. and Mrs. Cedric Fairweather. Are they your parents?”

“No,” said Spence.

“Yes,” said Zoe, stepping on his big toe. “That is,
my
parents. Jack here is my half brother, you see. He has a different mother.”

The woman looked sympathetic, and pointed to a stairway in the center of the room. “Three flights up and no elevator,” she complained. “But you children have young legs.”

“We’ll tell them to put in an elevator, too,” said Spence, and smiled sweetly at the woman. She patted him on his carroty head.

“How’re we going to get Thelma out past
her?”
he hissed as they climbed the steep steps.

“You’ll have to distract her.”

“How?”

“You’ll find a way.” Zoe jumped up on a bench on the second floor landing and balanced there for a moment. “Just practicing,” she said when Spence glared up at her.

She paused at the door of room 304, and then pushed it wide. It creaked horribly.

“Get out!” cried a voice.

“Aunt Thelma Fairweather?” said Zoe. “Don’t you remember us? We’re Alice’s friends. We brought you your black sweater.”

“And some Fig Newtons,” added Spence, holding them out.

“I’m not Aunt Thelma Fairweather,” said the voice, “and I said to get out. So get out!”

Zoe saw that there were three women in the room: all seated on a black horsehair sofa. The television was shrieking: on the screen a woman’s stomach was ballooning in and out. “I’ve seen that commercial,” whispered Spence. “The lady has gas. And always right at our dinner time.”

“Get out,” the voice repeated.

“I’m Thelma Fairweather,” said the woman on the end of the sofa. “I say they stay.
You
can get out,” she told the first woman.

“Then I will,” said the woman, and shuffled out of the room in dirty pink slippers, and then back in again. “But there’s nowhere to go in this place.”

“Then sit down and keep quiet,” said Thelma. She motioned the children over to a bed in a corner of the room. They perched on the edge while Thelma got up and put on the sweater Zoe had brought. “Did
they
tell you to bring it? That Cedric and Chloe? That pair of phonies? I’d never in my life heard of a Cedric and Chloe until they showed up, and I’ve lived on this earth seventy-six years.”

“They didn’t tell us,” said Zoe. “We thought of it ourselves. Alice wanted to come,” she explained, “but her mother stayed home from work and wouldn’t let her out of the house. I mean, no one knows we’re here.”

Thelma squinted at Zoe through round gold spectacles. She was a plump woman with fuzzy white hair that surrounded her crinkly pink face like a halo around the sun. “You were the one who tried to help when they took me away,” she said. “Thank you for that. They say I’m losing my mind. And it might happen if I have to live one more day with that pair.” She pointed at the two frazzled-looking women on the horsehair sofa.

“You won’t have to,” said Spence. “We’re taking you out of here tonight.”

“Maybe,” said Zoe. “That is, we won’t take you without your permission. We just need to know a few things. You see, we’re trying to find out who put the herbicide in your sister’s pea soup. And when you were kidnapped, well, we figured the two cases are connected. So Alice let us into your house, and we found...this.” She held up the small gold key. It shone in the dim light of the single ceiling bulb. “They were looking for it,” she said, “that Cedric and Chloe. And we need to know why.”

Aunt Thelma took the key in her pale veined hands. “So that’s it,” she exclaimed, as though she’d just discovered the answer to a difficult math problem. “It’s the key to my safe deposit box in the Branbury National Bank. Now what on earth would those two want to get into that for?” Her forehead wrinkled with the question. “I don’t there’s much of any value in it.”

“Think hard,” said Zoe. “They’re coming here tonight, those two. Keep an eye on the window, Spence.”

“Right,” said Spence, and pressed his nose to the chill glass.

“Well now, there’s my will,” said Thelma. “But my lawyer has a duplicate, so that won’t do them any good.” She swallowed her lower lip with her yellowy upper teeth and stared at Spence as though he might have an answer. He just shrugged, and went back to his watch at the window.

“What else?” asked Zoe. “There must be something else.”

“Oh, a couple of deeds. I own farmland, and then a couple acres in the Branbury swamp –  but who wants that except the salamanders? And then...” She paused. She stuck out a pale pink tongue as if to catch the thought.