The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (17 page)

She said, “I’m glad you’re here, Gary. Eddie
wouldn’t tell me anything until you got here.”

She led me into a small living room filled
with old, tattered furniture and called, “Eddie. Gary’s here.” She
turned to me and said, “He won’t let me go into his room. Secret
stuff. Right. I already know about those girlie magazines he
buys.”

I saw an old, elegantly framed photograph on
the wall and wondered if the man and woman depicted were Drucquers.
They looked at me, stiff and unsmiling, in their formal clothes.
The woman’s dress came down to the floor.

“Our great grandparents,” Ed said from behind
me. “He’s the first cousin of your Thomas who came here to Carter
and bought the farm.”

“They don’t look like very fun-loving
people,” I said.

“The state of photography in those days was
such that they had to hold their pose for several seconds. They
couldn’t afford to smile.”

When I turned around, Ed said, “We’re only
renting this place. We’re going to buy a house soon.”

It was sort of an apology.

“Not soon enough,” Kate said. “I can’t bring
any of my friends here. And we don’t even have a telly, er,
television set.”

“That’s all right,” I said, feeling
embarrassed for them. “Neither do Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff.”

“But at least they’ve got a big house,” Kate
said. “And the barn. I hope we get to play in the barn again
soon.”

She smiled at me, and I was sure her words
had a double meaning. I hoped that Ed didn’t notice.

“Sit down,” Ed said, placing a binder on a
scratched coffee table in front of a badly recovered couch. He sat
down on the couch.

Kate sat on one side of Ed, and I sat on the
other.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

“She’s at work,” Kate said. “She works at the
general store in Carter Center. She’ll be home in an hour.”

“What does your dad do?” It was an innocent
question, but neither of them answered immediately.

After a pause, Ed said, “He works in the
gypsum plant.”

The plant was alongside the peanut railroad,
not far from this house. Ed didn’t elaborate on the type of work he
did, and I decided it wasn’t a good idea to ask any more
questions.

Ed opened the three-ring binder to a sheet of
ruled, notebook paper, like the kind we used in school. It was
written on in pencil, and I got a quick look at a drawing that
might be a map. Then Ed quickly turned the page so that we could
only see the back of the sheet, which was blank.

Ed said, “After Ralph died, Cousin Dorothy
asked me to go through his possessions and see if there was
anything I wanted. I took some books, an archery set, and a few
other things. I took this binder, because I thought it might
contain some notes from his classes that I could use. Later, when I
went through it, I discovered this.”

“What does it say,” Kate asked, breathlessly.
“I couldn’t read it.”

“I’ll tell you what it says. It refers to the
necklace by the letter N. It says it’s in a blue box hidden in the
northwest corner of the hayloft. And there’s a map. That corner is
currently inaccessible because of the hay bales.”

“So he hid it when the bales weren’t there,”
Kate said.

“The bales were put in last fall,” I said. “A
year ago.”

“So he did it before that.”

Ed said, “I assume he found a hole in the
corner of the hayloft to hide the box in, so that the farmer
wouldn’t find it. I found some cracks along other parts of the wall
that might be big enough to hide something.”

So that’s why he had been nosing around.

“We won’t know until the hay bales are gone,”
Kate said.

“How do you know that N refers to the
necklace?” I asked, reaching for the paper. I wanted to see the
writing.

Ed closed the notebook and said, “Sorry, but
I think I should be the only one to handle it. After all, this is
evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Evidence that Ralph stole the necklace from
his parents.”

Kate gasped, and I said, “Do you really
believe that? First of all, what makes you think that Aunt Dorothy
ever had the necklace?”

“What else can we believe? The rumor is that
her ancestor, Thomas, brought it to America. Now we see that it
must be true.”

“We won’t know that until we can look for the
necklace. Which might not be until next spring.”

“Can’t we ask Cousin Dorothy about it?” Kate
asked.

“Not advisable,” Ed said. “If she kept it a
secret this long, she wouldn’t admit to having it now. If she had
hidden it somewhere else, herself, she may not even know it’s
missing. And we don’t want to have to tell her that Ralph was a
thief unless we can prove it. She will not take kindly to it. It is
in our best interest not to say anything to anybody until we find
it.”

“What do you think Ralph was going to do with
it?”

“What else? Sell it and keep the money. He
was probably just waiting until he was older and could get away
with it.”

“I don’t believe Ralph was a thief,” I
said.

“The proof of the pudding will be when we
find the necklace.”

“So why are you telling Kate and me about
it?” I asked, cynically. “Why not find it and keep the money for
yourself?”

“I am shocked that you would say that,” Ed
said in his best English accent. “Of course, we will split the
money among the three families. I am letting you two in on it,
because it is too big a burden for me to carry by myself. But for
reasons already stated, I believe we should not tell the
grownups.”

“So we can’t actually look for the necklace
until spring,” Kate said. She sounded disappointed.

“Another secret to keep,” I grumbled. “I’m
not promising anything.”

“But I know you don’t want to hurt Cousin
Dorothy, unnecessarily,” Ed said, soothingly.

I was between a rock and a hard place. I
grudgingly accepted the need for secrecy. Temporarily.

“Well, if we can’t do anything more now,
let’s go watch the train go by,” Kate said, regaining her good
spirits. “We can walk through the woods right to the tracks.”

The peanut track did run close by. That meant
that the house they were living in was almost due west of the farm.
The train went in one direction during the afternoon and then back
in the other direction late at night.

“I can’t go,” Ed said. “I have to write a
story for the paper.”

“Will you go with me, Gary?”

It was a brisk autumn day outside, a good one
for a walk in the woods. What could happen?

“All right.”

We put on our jackets, and Kate put a scarf
over her head. We went out into the sunlight. It was good to see
the sun again after the recent rain. The woods were adjacent to the
lot where the house was located, so we entered them almost
immediately. The ground was soft from the rain and littered with
fallen branches. Some had been blown down by the wind that had
accompanied the rain.

When Kate stumbled over a branch, I grabbed
her hand. She righted herself but didn’t let go, and so we walked
to the railroad tracks hand in hand. When we got to the tracks, the
train was just coming into view down the line.

Kate was still holding my hand. She turned
toward me and said, “Gary, why don’t you like me?”

I should have seen this coming, but I was
unprepared. I said, “I do like you,” although it didn’t sound
convincing.

“You couldn’t wait to get out of the fort and
away from me.”

“That’s because…because you’re my
cousin.”

“Eddie says we’re fourth cousins. Big
deal.”

She had me there. “Well, you’re young
yet.”

“I’m very mature for my age.”

I couldn’t dispute that, either. I was
struggling for something more to say when she said, “I’m not asking
that we go steady or anything like that. I just want you to like me
a little.”

“All right, I like you a little,” I said.
“About this much.” I held up my thumb and forefinger a fraction of
an inch apart.

She shoved me, feigning irritation, and said,
“Then give me a little cousinly kiss.”

I bent down, intending to give her a peck on
the cheek, but her idea of a cousinly kiss was more than a peck and
involved lips. I broke away after a few seconds, saying, “That’s
about all the cousinly kisses I can take for one day.”

“Then write me a limerick. You wrote one
about Ed.”

The train sounded its horn as it approached,
as if warning us to be discreet. We waved to the engineer as it
rolled slowly by. When the noise subsided and we could talk again,
I said:

“
There is a young lady name Kate,

Who all the boys wish they could date.

She’s funny and charming,

Completely disarming;

I’m sure she will find a good mate.”

“Okay, I get the picture,” Kate said. “Come
on, let’s go back to the house.”

She turned and walked away from me.

***

Dinners with my aunt and uncle were
improving. They were talking more and smiling more. Although I
certainly wasn’t a replacement for Ralph, I think they were glad to
have me staying with them.

That night we ate roast chicken, mashed
potatoes, and squash, with a salad of lettuce and tomato, a common
meal in farm country. I asked them what kind of job Mr. Drucquer
had at the gypsum plant.

“There’s a mine, but he doesn’t work in it.
He works on the surface in the factory and warehouse,” Uncle Jeff
said. “That’s where the gypsum is made into wallboard used in
construction.”

“What does he do?”

“He told me he’s had a number of jobs. He’s a
member of the union and the workers can bid on jobs as they become
available. Anything from the assembly line where the wallboard is
made, to stacking the wallboard on skids, to driving lift trucks
that are used to carry the full skids into the warehouse, to
loading trucks and freight cars.”

“Those jobs don’t sound like they require a
lot of training.”

“They’re basic laboring jobs. And you’re
right. Most people can learn to drive a lift truck in a day.”

“So how much does it pay?”

“About two dollars an hour. Time and a half
for overtime. Lots of overtime is available during the summer when
business is good, but they often cut back to three days a week in
the winter when not much building is going on in this part of the
country. Why do you ask?”

“I saw the house where they live, today.”

“Yes, that’s unfortunate. Hopefully, that’s
temporary.” Uncle Jeff smiled a wry smile. “Although it’s been
temporary for two years.”

“John didn’t finish the English equivalent of
high school,” Aunt Dorothy said. “He had to go to work because his
father got sick. But he’s studying accounting and should be able to
get a better job one of these days.”

I hoped that was true, for the sake of the
kids. I decided to try another subject. But I had to approach it
carefully.

“Aunt Dorothy, what do you think of the
stories about the diamond necklace?”

“Old wives’ tales. I don’t believe there was
a necklace. If there had been, it would have surfaced long ago. And
probably been sold, since my ancestors often didn’t have two coins
to jingle in their pockets.”

That didn’t leave much room for discussion. I
decided it was time for a second helping of chicken.

CHAPTER 18

The lunch bunch ate together the next day. We
didn’t say much at first, but after Barney had eaten a few bites,
he said, “I talked to someone who admitted going up on the catwalk
with Dr. Graves.”

“A boy?” I asked.

Barney nodded.

“Who is it?” Sylvia asked.

Barney shook his head and waited until he had
chewed a bite thoroughly and swallowed it before he spoke
again.

“Can’t say. It’s the same situation as
Gary’s. But he’s a freshman. Graves likes the young ones.”

“Did he say what happened?”

“Same story. They went up on the catwalk.
Graves asked him to sit on his lap. Then they went down, and he
returned to class.”

“That doesn’t do us much good if he won’t
testify about it,” Sylvia said, bitterly.

“He said he would testify under one
condition. I told him this had happened to someone else. He said
he’ll testify if that person testifies at the same time.”

Three pairs of eyes looked at me. I who
wanted to drop this whole line of inquiry, because I had the most
to lose. But Sylvia had already lost a lot—friends, status. And
what about the boys Dr. Graves was playing games with? What were
they losing?

“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” I
said.

***

“Would you like to come in and have a soda?”
Sylvia asked, as I stopped the car across the street from her
house.

I had declined her invitations up to now,
because I always had something to do. But not today. Except shoot
baskets in the barn. And that could wait.

“Sure.”

We ran across the street, and she produced a
key, which she used to open the door. We stepped inside to what
sounded like a faint echo, but maybe it was the sound of silence.
There were no noises indicating habitation by a living person.

“Where’s your dad?” I asked.

“He’s writing some articles. Anonymously, of
course. And Mom’s working. It’s lonely here in the afternoon.”

That’s why she had invited me inside. Sylvia
led the way to the kitchen, which was straight down the hall past
the stairs. She gave me my choice of soft drinks and took one
herself. Then she showed me around the downstairs, which I hadn’t
seen yet. The living room was comfortable. The furniture wasn’t
new, but it was in good repair, in contrast to the Drucquer house.
There was a separate dining room with a table, chairs, and a
sideboard that Sylvia informed me were antique.

When we completed the tour, Sylvia said,
“Would you like to play a game or something?”