Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Savant’s Hand

 by Eric

"Have fun with the characters and let the chips fall."

Shana Powers

 

Chapter 1 – Terror in the streets.

"Incoming fire has the right of way."

-excerpt from Murphy’s Rules of Combat

 

Trixie Belden, Honey Wheeler, and Diana Lynch made their way down main street of Sleepyside one early December day. They laughed and talked. It was the first time in several weeks that they had been able to spend time together like this, and without a care in the world, they wandered aimlessly simply enjoying each other’s company.

Life was seldom completely care free for the three girls, so they tended to cherish it when it was.

It wasn’t that they liked not caring about anything. Far from it, what the girls cared about was a long and distinguished list. They cared for each other to be certain, for they were old friends. They also cared about their other friends, including Trixie’s two older brothers Brian and Mart, Honey’s adopted brother Jim, and the nephew of the Wheeler’s groom Dan Mangan.

They also cared about the club that they had all formed, the Bob-White of the Glen. They cared about the purpose of the club to help each other or anyone in need. They also cared about the charity projects the club worked to contribute to.

And lastly, with varying amounts of enthusiasm, they cared about how Trixie would get involved in the solving of mysteries.

But for this sunny, but briskly cold December morning, all these cares were pushed aside for the morning, for the single care of being together and enjoying each other’s company.

Talk and laughter between the girls was steady as they window shopped, discussed the upcoming Holiday Season, and other matters of little consequence. Things seemed as simple and innocent, and carefree as they had ever been for as long as any of the girls had remembered.

In the blink of an eye, that all changed.

The girls’ hearts collectively skipped a beat at the sound of a low dull thud that shook the ground, and a vibration that could be felt like when you stood too close to a loud bass speaker.

The girls only had time stare at each other blankly in surprise for a moment before the first sound was followed by an ear-splitting explosion.

The roar of the blast was followed by a shower of thick glass as the front window of the First National Bank across the street blew out with a large dull flash.

The girls whirled around in time to hear bits of glass whistle by too fast to be seen. Then, less than a moment later, the compression wave picked them up like a large angry hand, and threw them down on the sidewalk.

Honey froze with fright. Di screamed. Trixie sat up in a strange daze to see what happened.

Moments later, four figures emerged from the front door of the bank. All wore ski masks, large coats, and combat boots. Each also carried a pile of guns, both in their hands and slung across their backs.

The bank alarm rang in conjunction with alarms from all manner of street businesses damaged in the blast and a myriad of car alarms triggered by the shock wave. Adding to the cacophony of noise were the sounds of screams and panic as well the howling and barking of dogs.

Even before the rumbling stopped, Trixie made out the shrieking police whistles of all the beat cops running to see what was wrong. She quickly made out Spider Webster. He had moved back to Sleepyside several months ago after problems with the police union in White Plains. He and another cop were running up and motioning for people to clear out of the way.

The response of the robbers was swift and terrifying. The first raised two black automatic pistols and let go at Spider with a deadly hail of bullets. Spider ducked to avoid the incoming bullets, but bravely advanced still trying to move people out of the way.

The next two turned on the other police officer and fired at him with their sub-machineguns. The officer dove behind a parked car, which was quickly turned into Swiss cheese with sickening pops and crunches, the sound of tearing metal and several glass explosions.

The last shooter’s response was the most terrifying of all. He raised a large black assault rifle and with a psychopathic gleam in his eyes and sprayed wildly at the row of shops across the street.

Trixie clearly made out the cracks of bullets exiting the sound barrier right over her head and the explosions of glass in the shops’ windows right behind her.

Moments later, dozens of sirens could be heard as police and emergency vehicles converged on the bank. Several more beat cops emerged on the street and fearfully drew their revolvers to return fire.

Soon the roar of gunfire was deafening. The amount of damage that the gunmen inflicted to the surrounding cars and buildings was frightful, but thankfully, other than a few volleys and bursts to wave off the cops, they didn’t seem to be shooting at people.

Spider shouted and screamed at several cowering cops and newly arrived Sheriffs deputies until they cautiously followed him to clear people from the streets. Others, Trixie noted, who probably hadn’t even fired a weapon in anger in all the years they had been police shook like leaves trying to aim or reload their service revolvers.

With a strange detachment, she stood up and blankly stared at the fray, like Tom Hanks coming onto the beach in Normandy in Saving Private Ryan. She stood almost completely motionless, and soon all the noise faded into silence, to be replaced by dim echoes heard through the sound of blood rushing through her ears.

Sgt. Molinson came running around the corner, white as sheet and drenched with a cold sweat, but with a grim look of determination on his face. He stood for a moment with two other officers. They all wore bullet proof vests, and carried shotguns. After taking a brief moment to size up the situation, he slowly advanced with his two men on the gunmen, firing as needed.

The gunmen moved down the street, now taking special care to wreck every police vehicle on the scene with a hail of bullets. Molinson and his men quickened their pursuit, and he shouted orders as he went for the men on his perimeter to tighten the circle.

But the disorganized attempt at containing them was not to be. The Sleepyside police were inexperienced and outgunned. The gunmen easily blasted themselves a hole in the circle to escape.

Trixie noted out of the corner of her eye, that Honey and Di still lay on the sidewalk where they had fallen. Some men following Spider had nearly reached them. Spider was shouting something at her himself, but all she could hear was a dim voice.

He got in front of her. She could now make out the "get out of here", as she saw over his shoulder that the gunmen were climbing into a waiting truck. The ringleader spotted Spider who was now the closest cop to the escape vehicle. He raised his pistol and fired.

The sounds of the world came back in full volume with the sickening crack of a bullet hitting Spider in the back of his shoulder.

"Spider!" Trixie screamed as he blanched and went down in a crumpled heap. "Spider!"

She quickly knelt down to help him as the gunmen revved the engine of the truck and sped off towards the highway. She heard something else coming from the truck as it sped off, but in her concern for Spider, the significance of what she heard wouldn’t enter her mind until much later.

 

Chapter 2 – Aftershocks

 

"How do you sleep at night . . ?"

-Ministry, Filth Pig

 

The mayhem of the robbery was nothing compared to the mayhem that followed. People were taken off in droves, shaking and terrified, to the hospital, where doctors were liberally administering sedatives till they could calm everyone down, and figure out what to do.

A horde of state troopers in full riot armor and kit quickly lined the streets to prevent looting and mobs.

Spider and the few other brave policemen who had sustained injury were quickly taken to the emergency room. A teary-eyed Trixie rode with him, holding his hand the whole way until paramedics gently pulled her away to roll him into the OR.

She was quickly discovered, by a silent and still pale Sgt. Molinson, who gently led her off to a doctor, who checked her carefully for injury. After a few brief questions by a police psychologist, she was taken somewhere quiet, where a nurse gave her some pills to take. They quickly put her into a dreamy state of lassitude that made her feel like she was dreaming while awake. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there in that state when someone gently took her hands. She slowly looked up to see Jim. It was obvious that he had been openly crying. She leapt up to hug him as he started to scold her in a choked up voice.

"You crazy, crazy girl. What were you thinking? What in the world were you thinking?"

She didn’t answer. She knew he didn’t expect her too.

They held each other for a long time before she finally spoke.

"Spider?"

"He’ll be fine. He just got out of surgery. The doctor said he’s gonna make it."

"Honey and Di?"

"They weren’t hurt. I think the doctors are with them right now."

"Where are the others?"

"Outside waiting. They wouldn’t let us in to see anybody. I sneaked past in the confusion to find you."

"Let’s go see them."

Even when they stopped hugging, Jim still held her tightly. She was grateful in more ways than one. Whatever the doctors and nurses had given her made her very dizzy when she stood up.

When she emerged into the waiting room on Jim’s arm, the rest of the Bob-Whites and families moved quickly to greet her. Honey had also came to meet her. Noticeably absent were Di and Mrs. Belden.

In the flurry of welcomes and "are you okays?" Trixie managed a weak smile. She finally asked, "Where’s Moms? Where’s Di?"

"Di is still with the doctors. And well, you mother is . . ."

Mr. Belden looked down at his feet. Mart and Brian began to fidget nervously.

"Your mother is under observation," Mr. Belden finally blurted out.

"What?! What do you mean?!" Trixie shouted.

"Well . . . when your mother heard what happened, she had a bit of . . . breakdown."

Trixie nearly went into hysterics.

"Beatrix!" her father finally snapped. "Having one yourself isn’t going to help her. She’s going to be fine. But you need to get it together. She needs you to be strong right now. Knowing you’re okay will help her be okay. Do you understand me?"

Trixie nodded.

Although Trixie got a message that Sgt. Molinson would want to talk to her the next day, Trixie insisted on talking to Dr. Ferris herself about Spider. The Bob-Whites ended up following her till she found him. He had good news.

"The bullet was a low caliber hollow-point. Since Spider was dressed for the weather, the layers of fabric helped soak up the shock. The extra fabric clogged up the nose, and so it couldn’t expand properly when it got in him. The bone was only fractured, so now that we got the bullet out, he should be back to his old self within a few months."

The Bob-Whites expressed their thanks, and left.

Things at Crabapple Farm seemed almost completely back to normal by the next morning. Other than the fact that Moms had slept later than normal, she seemed back to her old cheerful self when she finally did get up.

Trixie didn’t get a chance to ask her about anything however, for shortly after she got up, Sgt. Molinson called indicating that he wanted to speak to her as soon as possible.

Brian drove her to the station. When she went inside, Molinson silently indicated for her to follow him into his office. Brian gave her a quiet look of reassurance, and she followed him in. Molinson then closed the door.

Trixie began to feel strangely detached as she had the previous day during the fire-fight. Sgt. Molinson looked as though he hadn’t slept the night before.

"Well Miss Belden," he began in a tone she really didn’t care for. "Congratulations. You are now in the middle of the biggest mess this town has ever seen."

Trixie gave him an irritated look but said nothing.

"I suppose you’re ready to tell me how to run the department again, and that we need to be waiting on you hand and foot to follow up on your every lead, but I’ve had a really long bad weekend that is far from over. So why don’t we just skip past all that, and you just tell me what you saw."

Trixie was still silent.

"Come on! Speak up! You’ve never been so quiet before. I could never get you to be quiet before. Always at my desk telling me what I need to be doing."

Trixie was still silent.

"Look, I don’t have all day! I need a statement. I’ve still got four armed maniacs on the loose, and a town howling for something to be done. You got the best look at them. One of my men is down because you didn’t have the good sense to get out of the way, so since he paid for your curiosity with his blood, why don’t you share with me what he got shot for so that we can catch these guys."

Molinson’s harsh words immediately snapped her out of her near trance. Tears rolled down her face at the mention of Spider.

"Look, Miss Belden . . ."

The secure phone in Trixie’s purse rang. Both Molinson and herself jumped with a start. Trixie wiped her eyes and calmly answered it. Molinson watched intently as Trixie held the phone to her ear and nodded.

"It’s for you."

She handed the phone to the startled Sergeant. Even from where she sat, she could hear Officer Robert Jones of the NSA start to yell at the surprised police officer.

"Now look you two-bit, paper-pushing excuse for a badge. You listen and you listen good. I fully realize that your idea of law enforcement is meeting your traffic ticket quota by the end of the fiscal year, but if you think I’m going to sit by while you try to blame this girl for . . ."

As Jones laid into Molinson, he grew red with anger and embarrassment, but he was also sweating with fear. When Jones finished, he calmly handed the phone back to Trixie, and waited for a few moments to regain control of his temper. He then slowly sat back down and picked up a pen.

"Let’s start at the beginning," he said with forced calm.

They spent the next half an hour going over every detail that Trixie could remember. After they were finished, and Trixie could tell that his anger had passed, he looked up speculatively.

"Did you notice anything else?"

Trixie thought carefully for a few moments. Sgt. Molinson made no effort to rush her. There were a couple details that she had carefully remembered earlier that where now just out of immediate grasp. She played over the events of the previous morning more intently than she had since they happened. As soon as she remembered, she blurt them out.

"They didn’t take anything!"

Sgt. Molinson looked at her intently. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. They didn’t have anything with them from the bank. Unless they took something really small that they could hide in their jackets, they left empty handed."

Sgt. Molinson made careful note. "The investigators at the scene haven’t finished going over everything to verify this, but so far this is very possible. Do you remember anything else?"

Trixie spent another few minutes going over details in her head.

"There was music coming from the escape vehicle."

"Music? What kind?"

Trixie thought about it for a moment.

"Something newer. Something electronic. That’s all I remember."

Sgt. Molinson made careful note of that. Then, for the first time that morning he said something in a warm, friendly, non-confrontational tone.

"Thank you Trixie. This will be a big help. I’m sorry I was so gruff. I’ve been a cop for nearly twenty years now, and this was far and away the most frightening, terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me. Even more so because men under my command were at risk. I can’t tell you how terrible it was to see one of my own get hurt."

Trixie nodded.

"You can go now. But don’t hesitate to call me if you remember anything else."

Trixie slowly got up to leave.

"Can you do me one last favor though?"

Trixie turned and looked at him.

"Will you visit Spider when the doctor says he can have visitors? I think seeing that you’re okay will really help him feel better."

Trixie smiled. "I will."

 

 

Chapter 3 – The Blame Game

 

"Fix the problem, not the blame."

-Ancient Japanese Proverb

 

Although Trixie was briefly cheered up by Sgt. Molinson’s change in demeanor towards the end of her interview, her thoughts keep going back to what he had told her: Paid for your curiosity with his blood.

The more she thought about it, the more upset she got.

Have I become so desensitized to the dangerous situations I have kept getting into the last few years that it’s blinded to me to them? Have I become so used to risk that I risk others without thinking about it? Everyone tells me how much they worry, and I forget about it by the time I catch my breath. Now the law of averages has finally caught up with my poor judgement. Only it didn’t catch me. It caught someone who worried about me. It caught someone who was trying very hard to keep me from getting hurt by my own poor decision. It could have been me in the hospital bed. Maybe it should be me. Then at least I would have paid for it myself. What if he had died? What if it had been Honey or Di that died? It would have been because of me.

Trixie blinked back the tears as Brian pulled into the Belden driveway. He hadn’t said a word since they left the station.

Trixie entered the house to find things seemingly back to normal. Bobby played with Reddy. Mr. Belden sat reading about the attack on his place of work in the Sunday paper. Mart was helping Moms do the breakfast dishes. As they finished up, Mart left to attend to other chores.

"Oh Trixie, you’re back. I kept your breakfast warm."

"I’m not hungry."

"Come Trixie. You have to eat something."

"Are you okay Moms?" Trixie blurted out.

Her mother looked up at her for a moment. "Yes. Trixie. I’m fine."

Trixie was unsure of how to proceed, so she simply blurted out her next question. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Well, I’m not sure what you mean, but I think so. The doctor gave me some pills yesterday, but I threw them away. I think the pills were the most dreadful thing about yesterday. I didn’t like the way they made me feel. Not at all. I really can’t see how anyone really expects to be happy just by taking something like that."

"You’re not upset about . . . I mean . . . you’re not worried anymore . . ."

Mrs. Belden turned away and stared down at the dishes she was drying.

"Well, I’m certainly not happy about what happened yesterday, but I’m over it now. Life goes on. I mean, I’ve been through this so many times before with you . . ."

She get didn’t finish before Trixie fled up to her room to cry.

 

It wasn’t until she quietly sobbed that she heard someone enter her room. She finally turned to see Mart sitting on her bed looking at her intently with concern.

"What’s wrong Trix?"

Trixie told him about her conversation with Molinson, and his words that kept echoing through her head.

Mart’s expression softened with sympathy, but his tone revealed great anger.

"If you really think that what happened to Spider is your fault, then Jones needed to do more than yell at Molinson."

"But it is!" Trixie wailed. "If I hadn’t stood there watching like a complete ghoul, then he wouldn’t be in the hospital."

"Trixie!" Mart admonished. "The only reason Spider is in the hospital is because someone shot him. And that someone wasn’t you. You can’t take responsibility for the actions of someone else and Molinson had no business putting this on your shoulders."

"But I was . . ."

"Was what? Enjoying yourself? Having a day on the town with your best friends? Doing what normal people do? Being a teenage girl? Just what did you do that made those men rob a bank? How was it your fault that some sick psychos wanted something they didn’t earn and were ready to kill to get it?"

Trixie pondered Mart’s words.

"But I should have run. Should have gotten away. Spider shouldn’t have had to risk himself by coming for me. I was just standing there like such a . . ."

"Normal person?" Mart supplied.

"Normal people don’t . . ."

"Don’t what? Trixie I have some news for you, but you’re not so different as you think you are. Haven’t you heard? People are curious. People like to watch. People like to see what’s going on. Even when what they see is terrible. It’s called morbid curiosity. People tune in every night to watch war, murder and horror on the news. People go to scary movies. People follow ambulances and fire trucks to see what’s going on. People gossip about tragedy and misfortune."

"People ran away from the fight. I didn’t." Trixie stated.

"Those people were scared. Those people panicked. And you didn’t. Those people were controlled by their fear. But you weren’t. You were just curious. Trixie, I have news for you. Every year the military trains each and every person who wants to be part of the one and half million in the U.S. armed services. And with every single one of them, the first thing they to have beat into their heads is to duck when they are being shot at. They have to teach each and every one of them not to do what is in their basic nature to do: look and see what’s going on."

"I sometimes think that the Blame Game is the whole problem with the world right now. We’ve seen all sorts causes enter the public spotlight over the last decade. All sorts of people speak about all sorts of problems that need attention: violence in schools and the inner city, drugs, sexism, homophobia, racism, and the environment, to name a few. And these may be worthy causes. But somewhere along the way we lost sight of personal accountability. We want to find someone or something to blame. People try to blame movies, TV, music, fads and styles, guns or companies that make something that someone somewhere misused even just once. We completely look past the fact that with each crime, each horror, or each wrong there was a decision someone made to do it. I think as long we keep ignoring this decision to do wrong in search of a scapegoat, that these problems will never be solved."

"What happened yesterday was because of the decision of four people to steal and hurt. You didn’t make that choice for them. Nothing did. Not a TV show or movie they watched. Not a song they heard. Not a drug they took. Not the guns they carried. And I don’t want to see you tear yourself up over something for which you had no control."

Trixie stopped sobbing and looked up at her almost twin brother.

"No fooling," he added.

Trixie finally giggled.

"I still feel terrible about what I’ve put Moms through."

"She’s a mother and she will always worry. Mothers do that. But that doesn’t mean she’s upset with you. She may be upset at what happens to you, but that doesn’t mean she’s upset with you."

"You don’t think so?"

"Trixie, you told Mr. Wheeler once yourself, that you couldn’t help it if mysterious things happened around you. No one can. Unlike most people though, you notice it and speak up. And when you speak up, something usually gets done about it. Moms knows that. All she can be mad at you for is when you do take unnecessary risks. But she’ll never be mad at you for what happens when you’re around."

Trixie was quiet for a few more minutes.

"Just make sure you think before you act, and don’t make any hasty decisions that you have cause to regret later."

"It always boils down to that doesn’t it?"

"Pretty much. As long as Moms knows that you try to make the right choices, then all she can do is hope that fate doesn’t have something bad for you in the cards."

"That makes sense I suppose."

"Moms is pretty smart about those kinds of things."

Trixie giggled again. "Yeah. I guess she is."

"Come on. Let’s go downstairs. You can start by choosing to have a healthy breakfast. That will at least put some of her worries to rest."

"That’s probably a choice you never have a hard time making."

"Great minds think alike."

 

Chapter 4 - Scapegoat Politics

 

"..but I don’t blame the youngsters at all. No, not in the slightest. It’s parents, you see, who must bear the full responsibility for the actions of their children."

-Margo Birch, Mystery of the Midnight Marauder

 

". . .when clubs- really gangs- can the source of much trouble."

-Mr. Stratton, the Mysterious Code

 

"Trixie," Mr. Belden said. "There is going to be a town meeting tonight about what happened. I am going to go, and wanted to know if you wanted to go as well."

Although Trixie couldn’t quite put her finger on why, she sensed that this was a loaded question. She thought about it for a moment.

"Yes. I think I would like to be there."

"Good. We’ll have an early dinner so that we can be there early. I have a feeling that it’s going to be standing room only."

"I think I speak for us both when I say that we want to be there too," Brian said. Mart quickly nodded in agreement.

 

Minus Moms and Bobby, the Beldens made their way into a very crowded town hall and quickly found seats, although that meant sitting in separate parts of the hall. Trixie looked about and ascertained that in addition to the Beldens, Mr. and Mrs. Lynch had come with a very frail looking Di, the Wheelers were in attendance with Jim and Honey, and even Regan and Mr. Maypenny had come with Dan.

Milling about the table where the Mayor and City Council sat, were numerous police officers, priests and ministers from all the area churches, several suited men that Trixie guessed were FBI, the members of the school board, and numerous other prominent Sleepyside residents. Talking to numerous people around the table at the head of the hall was Tad Webster. Trixie felt a pang as she realized that she hadn’t seen or thought of him since the incident. I really should have called him.

As soon as the hall was jammed, the Mayor of Sleepyside went to the podium and rapped a gavel for order. The VIPs without seats stood off to the side of the table and the hall became silent as the Mayor cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank you all for showing up tonight on such short notice for this emergency meeting. I would like to start by informing you all, for those of you who haven’t heard, that Officer Steven "Spider" Webster is okay, and expected to fully recover."

There was loud cheering and applause. The Mayor then rapped his gavel for silence again.

"I would also like to tell you that every effort is being made to locate and arrest the perpetrators of this horrible crime. For further details I am going to turn the podium over to the chief police."

Police Chief Moran strode up to the podium.

"Before I go into any details, I would like to add my thanks and joy that Officer Webster is going to be okay."

"Because of the serious nature of the crime, the Sleepyside Police Department is working in direct conjunction with the FBI and the ATF. As we speak, ATF explosives experts are picking up every last piece of everything at the crime scene for detailed analysis at their labs in Washington DC. The head ATF agent has assured me that not a single piece of glass or pebble will be left unchecked for clues. He tells me that by the time they are done looking, the floors of the bank and the surrounding streets will be clean enough to eat off of. He says if he has to send all of Sleepyside to DC in small plastic bags to get the evidence he needs, then that’s exactly what he will do.

The FBI, in conjunction with Marshals from the Justice Department are overseeing a massive ten state manhunt, and are checking every last database at their disposal."

"Who are these people?" someone in the crowd shouted. Trixie turned to see that the agitated speaker was none other than a very irate looking Grandpa Crimper.

"We don’t know at this time. Like I said, the feds are looking at every known crew with this MO. It’s going to take some time to compile a list of possible suspects, but we already have a few leads."

"Like what?" asked Sleepyside Sun reporter Vera Parker.

"For what leads we have, I am going to turn the podium over to Sergeant Wendell Molinson who is heading up that aspect of the investigation."

Sgt. Molinson took the podium.

"We have every reason to believe that due to the quick entry into the bank, circumvented alarms, and placement of the charges, that this robbery was planned well in advance. We believe the crew was very technically proficient, and had some form of advanced information as to what they needed to do."

"Do you mean they were already in town to scope the place out or that they had inside information?" Vera Parker asked.

"At this point in time we haven’t ruled out either possibility."

"Do you have any information at all as to the identity or demographic of the crew?" she followed up.

Sgt. Molinson took a deep breath before he answered.

"At this point the evidence points to a group of young perpetrators. Very possibly teenagers."

This answer led to a general outcry in the hall. It was several minutes before the Mayor could restore order. Although he tried to call on people with raised hands, questions or statements got blurted out almost too fast to be answered.

"What are you and the school board going to do about this?" was the first demand.

"At this point we haven’t decided yet, but we are considering additional loitering ordinances, and a strict curfew. Mr. Stratton has also suggested tightening the dress code at the school, more careful monitoring of internet access and reading material and once again the possible banning of non school sponsored clubs."

This statement led to more outcry.

"We need prayer back in the schools!" one of the local priests shouted. "We can’t let some out of town ACLU lawyer tell us what we can and can’t teach our children."

This led to even more heated statements and debate.

Over the next fifteen minutes Trixie sat silently listening to all of the suggestions being made. Suggestions ranged from more police on the streets, more frequent sweeps of Hawthorne street, laws giving the police power to drive "undesirables" out of town, a ban on non school or church related youth gatherings, to closing of the pool halls and bars altogether. Many talked of making these changes with blue laws if the city council wouldn’t officially put them on the books.

This sounds like a cross between 1984 and that old movie Footloose, Trixie thought. She did note that none of the Bob-White parents had spoken a single word yet.

A single, loud stern voice silenced all the debate immediately.

The entire hall went silent with surprise and turned to Peter Belden after he loudly proclaimed:

"ARE YOU SURE?!"

The Mayor was the first to recover his wits.

"What do you mean Mr. Belden?"

"You heard me just fine. I asked you: ARE YOU SURE?!"

"Sure of what?"

"Sure that this is the work of young people?"

Sgt. Molinson moved quickly to the podium to answer.

"Of course we aren’t sure. We won’t be until we catch them. All I said is that we have strong evidence pointing to the fact that they are. Strong enough to make the focus of this investigation a search for young suspects."

"But if you aren’t 100% sure, aren’t all these ‘solutions’ we are talking about premature?"

This statement was answered with heated outcry and protest from the audience.

Without another word, Peter Belden made his way to podium and gently nudged the Mayor and Sgt. Molinson aside. The auditorium became silent as he cleared his throat and began to speak.

 

Chapter 5 – Peter Belden and a Soapbox

 

"We watch the children pray . . ."

-Metal Church

 

"I think I’ve really heard enough of this. I share your concern about crime in this town. I know how bad it is getting. I am not debating the fact that there is a problem in Sleepyside and that something desperately needs to be done about it. Trust me, I have seen and experienced a lot of this crime wave personally. There is nothing anyone in here can tell me about how bad it’s getting that I don’t already know. For those of you who might have forgotten, the summer before last, I had the Dodge kidnappers threatening to kill my youngest son in my own house in front of my own eyes. The summer before that I had ring of thieves from the city in the woods behind my house blackmailing my son into bringing them food. And I’m sure no one has forgotten the FBI SWAT team that had to go into my house a month ago to save my oldest son and his friends from international terrorists. Now one of Sleepyside’s finest is in the hospital for heroically saving my daughter from the criminals who have left my workplace in a shambles. I don’t think there is anyone in this room who can say they have been more affected by this crime wave than I have, with the possible exception of my children and their friends.

"But enough is enough! Once again we find our town in a state of crisis, and once again we are talking about the same old responses and solutions that didn’t mean a thing before; we are blaming and persecuting our young people over problems they haven’t caused."

"The members of the school board sat in this very hall almost two years ago discussing solutions to the break ins and looting in the school. Before anyone knew who it was, it was all blamed on the young people. As a result, my daughter and her friends turned their club into one of the hardest working and most charitable organizations this town has ever seen. And as it turned out, young people were not responsible. It was the work of the Thompson family."

"Last spring, I go away for the weekend, and I when I return, I find out that my middle son was nearly jailed over the depredations of the Midnight Marauder. After everything the Bob-Whites had done to prove they weren’t trouble makers after the first incident, my son was still singled out and nearly jailed on misinterpreted evidence and false suspicion. And once again, a young person was not the culprit."

"Now here we are again, with shaky evidence and suspicion. And here we are looking to blame young people. I listen to you all, and I wonder if you have completely forgotten that young people have never been the cause of crime in this town. We’ve all done our best to raise our kids; seen to it that they have the best schools and the best opportunities that we can give them. We’ve done our best to instill them with values and responsibilities, and I don’t think we’ve done a bad job. I know that it’s with great pride that I see what my own children and their friends have accomplished. And I don’t think I’m alone in that pride. I’m sure we were all proud for the parents of the members of the football team when they brought back a third place trophy from the state championship. I’m sure we are all proud of the high test scores that our schools routinely make, and of the futures that our children have made for themselves in the world. We all have a lot to be proud off."

"How much good are our children going to have to do before we realize they haven’t done anything wrong? How much will our children have to accomplish before we stop trying to blame them for every problem in Sleepyside that we can’t handle?

"Is my son Brian going to have to find a cure for cancer before he’s told he can be out late at night. Is my son Mart going to have to farm all of upstate New York before the police stop trying to lock him up every time there is an act of vandalism in town? Is Jim Frayne going to have to take in every orphan in the country before he’s told that he can hang out with his friends in public? And most importantly of all: is my daughter going to have to solve every crime, and catch every felon that sets up shop in Sleepyside so that she and her peers are not blindly blamed for what these criminals do."

"I sometimes wonder which does more good for peace and safety in this town: the tax money I pay that goes into the police budget, or the allowance I pay my daughter. I sometimes wonder if any work gets done by the police in this town at all.

"In the last three years, Sleepyside has seen crews of thieves, vandals, bookies, international counterfeiters, international jewel thieves, kidnappers, and terrorists. And every one of these has been brought to justice because of a girl who just turned fifteen last May.

And as proud of my daughter as I am, I think you can understand my apprehension at having to depend on her to sleep safely at night. We as a town shouldn’t have to depend on a junior high or high school aged girl for that sort of thing. We should be able to depend on a professionally run police force.

But once again, all I seem to be hearing from this force is that they are looking for another scapegoat instead of a solution to the mystery.

And it is with special outrage, Sgt. Molinson, that I find out that you were trying to blame my daughter for the injury that your brave officer sustained. SHE DIDN’T SHOOT HIM!"

 

The crowd had silently listened to Peter Belden’s speech. If the outcries and debate had been heated before, now there was absolute bedlam. It took the Mayor nearly ten minutes to quiet the room down again. The first to speak after the hall calmed down was Mr. Wheeler.

"I think I share Mr. Belden’s sentiments. My own daughter has been a part of the solution to crime in this town along with his, and I don’t think Mrs. Wheeler and myself are any more comfortable with the situation than he is. I was also on hand when our children did all the legwork for the feds in cracking a gun smuggling ring in Missouri. I would like to add however, that in addition to Mr. Belden’s concerns, I am a getting really tired of hearing that my daughter is being told that she can’t be civic-minded or charitable because of my own financial success."

"Here here!" Mr. Lynch added.

"What about that biker kid?" an angry parent snapped. "He was trouble and brought trouble with him from the city more than once. That Luke kid, and those thieves wouldn’t have come here if it hadn’t been for him."

Both Regan and Mr. Maypenny were sputtering with anger and were nearly fighting with each other in eagerness to answer to the charges.

"My nephew did come here with Luke intent on getting in trouble. But he because of the positive influence of the young people of this town he chose not to. There was no robbery, and because of my nephew’s testimony, Luke was put away.

"And unless you’ve been living under a damp rock," Regan added hotly, "you would realize that my nephew has been instrumental in bringing those other city trouble makers to justice when they tried to follow him here."

 

The debate continued for a while longer, but by the time the parents and guardians of the Bob-Whites finished speaking, it was decided that no potentially rash or reactionary measures would be taken. The Mayor reasserted that the investigation would continue in full force and that appropriate action would be taken when the identity of the perpetrators was found.

It was fairly late when the Belden’s returned home, and Trixie felt both physically and emotionally exhausted from the roller coaster of events that had taken place that day. She fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

 

Chapter 6 – A Lecture and a Rule

 

"What’s worth doing is worth doing right."

-Unknown

 

Although Trixie was used to the unwanted attention she got after being involved in a publicly known case, the next day at school, the attention was very different.

Rather than the loud praise and admiration her peers normally expressed, she got quiet recognition and softly spoken words of sympathy. An unlike other times, most of her peers didn’t bother her for every detail.

She was fairly certain that Mr. Stratton had a few words with the some of the students about being sensitive and tactful regarding what she had been through, but for whatever reason she was grateful for how quiet her day was.

Even when she was with Honey or Di or other members of the Bob-Whites, she spent most of the day thinking about what her father had boldly told the town the night before. She overheard many of the other students discussing it as well. Although feelings about Peter’s speech were still very mixed among the adults of Sleepyside, the general opinion of the young people was much higher for the man who had stuck up for them. For those students who did speak to her about what happened, she got many messages of praise that she was supposed to pass on her to her father.

When the school day ended however, Trixie felt growing apprehension at returning home. She couldn’t put a name to her fears, but they were impossible to ignore.

She came home, and Peter was already home. The bank was still closed on account of the damage, but he had gone in for a little while to help get things straightened out, and make arrangements for people who still needed to bank. Trixie sensed instantly, however, that he had been up to something else. He put down the Monday special edition of the paper which ran the story of the meeting the night before, and had a transcript of his speech the moment Trixie entered the living room. He then gave her a penetrating look.

"Trixie I wanted to talk to you about what happened this weekend."

Oh Woe! Here it comes.

"You’ve spent a great deal of time over the last two years or so solving mysteries. Whereas some of them have been reasonably innocent and light, others have had you tangled up with some very dangerous people and big cases. Now, thankfully they have all turned out for the better, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have issues with how you have handled them."

"Now your mother and I have spoken with you about this on numerous occasions. We have spoken to you about exercising a little sense, thinking before you act, and not getting involved with dangerous situations and people. And despite all your promises to do so, you keep doing things like this. You have given us, not to mention the Wheelers, the Lynches and Regan and Mr. Maypenny no small amount of worry, because your choices have affected them as well. The minute your friends get involved in these situations with you, you cause them worry as well.

"I laid into Sgt. Molinson and a lot of other people pretty good last night. There were some things they needed to hear, and I decided that I was going to be the one to have to tell them. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had any problems with the way you have acted. There are some things I need to tell you, because you need to hear them. And now that the mess those robbers have created has the whole town up in arms, I think I need to tell you these things now."

Here it comes, Trixie thought again, no more sleuthing.

"Do you know why Sgt. Molinson gets so upset with you sometimes? It’s because your safety is his responsibility. That’s what he gets paid to do. You make his job harder when you take unnecessary risks. But it’s also because every time you interfere with his job by trying to solve mysteries on your own, you risk messing up his cases against criminals. Things have worked out for the best so far, but because of the way the law works, and the rules he has to follow, you’re interference means risking letting the criminals go."

Trixie blinked at Peter Belden uncomprehendingly.

"Trixie, because of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the laws of the land, there are certain rules that everyone has to follow when catching and prosecuting a criminal act. They involve things like "innocent until proven guilty", "lawful search and seizure," and "due process". In order to do his job, Sgt. Molinson has to have proper cause to go after someone suspected of committing a crime. He can’t just decide that something is fishy, and start stalking someone on a hunch. He can’t trespass without a court order. I’m sure you’ve studied some of these rules in your civics class last year."

Trixie nodded dumbly.

"He has to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. He can’t follow or go after anyone without a tangible reason. He can’t snoop. What I’m trying to say Trixie, is that he is not allowed to handle cases like you do, because that often involves breaking the rules. And do you know what happens when he breaks the rules?"

Trixie looked at her father for a moment and then answered. "The criminal gets off."

"Exactly! Trixie, a lot of your cases have turned out for the best because the criminals you rounded up were already convicted and on the run, or caught in the act, or because you found sufficient evidence so that Molinson or Jones could go to court without you. But if you become a detective like you want to when you get older, someday it’s going to be you in that courtroom, facing down a suspect who is going to get a completely fair trial by a jury of his peers. And this criminal is going to be represented by a lawyer who is going to do his very best to pick apart your case against his client. He is going to try to destroy your case to the best of his ability. He will ruthlessly attack every last bit of your testimony. He’ll ask you why you were after his client. He’ll ask why you’re so nosy. He’ll ask you why you had this hunch or this feeling. He’ll attack your story, your character, your integrity, your memory, your dependability, your responsibility, or whatever it takes to make sure that his client wasn’t wronged. And if the jury decides there is even the slightest breaking of the rules on your part, then the criminal will walk away, with the same freedom and benefit of the doubt that you have."

Trixie looked down at her feet.

"Trixie, these rules are what makes this country a fair and just place to live. But as much as I believe in these rules, I don’t think you want to see criminal and scum walk any more than I do. It just means that for those in this country that enforce the law, they have to be careful and professional enough to make sure they follow the rules. To make sure that a murderer doesn’t walk away because of improper police procedure. Because if they break them, they are betraying the very system that they fight for."

Trixie was very quiet for a moment. She sat down and let the tears come. Mr. Belden let her ponder what he said for a moment before he spoke again.

"Your mother and I had a long talk today about your sleuthing and cases."

Trixie closed her eyes to brace herself for the news.

"And we decided that there will absolutely, positively be no sleuthing . . ."

The tears were freely flowing now.

". . . .until you study up on how to do it right."

Trixie blinked with surprise. Mr. Belden now had a pile of books in his lap.

"I got some of these today from the DA’s office and the library. I also borrowed some from a lawyer that has his business account at the bank. This will be a good start for what you need to know. Given your habit of snooping, why don’t you start with this book here on the fourth amendment."

Trixie was still too stunned to speak.

"I’m quite serious young woman. Your mother and I have spent too much time hoping that you would grow out of sleuthing, but since you still seem as determined as ever to be a detective, then you may as well learn to do it right. That phone you carry is mute testimony to that. If the U.S. intelligence establishment has faith in you then I guess we can too. There’s no denying that you have a gift for this sort of thing, and that makes it all the more important that you learn the rules and the right way to use it."

Trixie impulsively leapt up and gave her father a hug.

"Now Trixie, I’m very serious about this, and if you don’t take this seriously too, there will be no more sleuthing at all. You are going to read and learn about every single thing in these books before you even think about getting involved in another case. If something comes up before you are finished, you will tell me, you will call Sgt. Molinson, and then you will forget about it. This sleuthing ban is absolute until you have finished at least this basic set of studies. Even when I have decided that you know enough about this, we are still going to set some rules about how you get involved in cases. Do you understand?"

Trixie nodded, sat back down with one of the books and wiped her eyes. She then got up to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water as her father set the books on the living room coffee table and picked up his paper.

"Oh and Trixie."

"Yes Dad?"

"This sleuthing ban goes especially for those bank robbers. Don’t you even think about trying to find those psychos. Do you understand?"

"Yes Dad."

Trixie turned and was about to enter the swinging door into the kitchen. She had a sudden suspicion followed by an irritated flash. She was probably going to get into trouble for this, but her anger would not be satisfied any other way.

With a swift kick, she booted the swinging door to the kitchen in forcefully. She heard a double set of thumps and cries of surprise and pain as the door hit the eavesdropping Brian and Mart in the head.

 

 

Chapter 7 – Brave New Di

 

"I’m just a sucker with no self-esteem."

-The Offspring, Self-esteem

 

Trixie spent her free time over the next few days studying the books that her father had obtained her. Life went on as normal.

After working round the clock for several days, the feds and the police largely finished collecting evidence from the bank, and work on repairs began immediately. By Thursday, enough had been fixed for the bank to operate on normal business hours.

Little was heard about what had been discovered about the robbery. This was not to say that things were quiet about the case. It came out the day after the meeting that Sgt. Molinson had been suspended indefinitely for reasons that were not officially disclosed.

By Friday however, the biggest thing on Trixie’s mind was that she hadn’t seen Di. Di had been in school on Monday and Tuesday, looking frail and frequently seen taking pills. Now she had missed three days of school, and there had been no word from her whatsoever.

Trixie, Honey and Mart ended up discussing Di’s strange absence that day at lunch.

"Maybe she’s sick. She hasn’t looked too well all week," Mart said with concern.

"I don’t think she ever quite got over the shock of what happened," Honey said with concern. "I’ve been in dangerous situations with Trixie, and as much I hate to say it, I think I’m actually starting to get used to it. Di never has though. She was almost never with us when we got into a pinch."

"If she wasn’t sick before, she may be now with all those pills she’s been taking," Trixie added. "Moms said her stomach felt fragile for two days after she stopped taking hers, and she only took the ones that the doctor made her take at the hospital."

"Maybe we should check in on her and see if she’s okay?" Mart suggested.

"I was thinking the same thing," Trixie said. "But I think maybe only Honey and I should go. She’ll be more likely to open up about what’s wrong if it’s just us. You know how she can be."

"Yeah," Mart quickly agreed. "That sounds good to me."

Under normal circumstances, Mart would have protested, if for no other reason than to be difficult with Trixie, but his concern for Di at this point quickly overcame that urge.

 

Mrs. Lynch greeted the girls warmly as Harrison showed them in to the living room where she sat.

"Oh hi girls! I’m so glad you came by."

"Hi Mrs. Lynch!" the girls chorused.

"We were worried about Di. We haven’t seen or heard from her since Tuesday," Trixie said.

Mrs. Lynch’s expression grew worried and fearful, and her voice grew hushed.

"I’m really besides myself with worry too. She hasn’t been the same since that dreadful robbery."

"What’s wrong?" Honey asked with concern.

"The doctor said that she is probably still in shock over what happened, and that she is still trying to come to grips with the fact that she almost died. He can’t be sure though, because she won’t really talk to anybody about what’s bothering her. He said there was nothing we could really do except give her pills to keep her calm and wait for her to hopefully come around and talk about it. It’s just so hard to wait and do nothing though. I was about to call you myself, but my husband told me to wait."

"What has she been doing?" Trixie asked.

"Wednesday, she told us that she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to school. We told her that was fine, and that she could stay home as long as she needed to. Heavens, after what happened to her, I didn’t blame her at all. I can’t say I’d be any better off myself."

"Then what?" Trixie pressed.

"She comes down to eat, but other than that, hasn’t left her room very much. Harrison told me that she sleeps a lot in the day and often stays up all night in the den next to the fireplace. He said last night she was reading. I don’t thinks she’s even bothered to get dressed since yesterday."

"Reading? What has she been reading?"

"I’m not sure."

"And she hasn’t done anything else."

"She still goes once a day to visit her brothers and sisters in the nursery. That’s the only time she seems happy. But right after she comes from visiting them she is always crying."

Honey’s worried sympathy showed plainly on her face. Trixie decided it was time to do something.

"We’ll go talk to her right now."

"Oh thank you so much. I’m sure it would cheer her up to see you. You two really are her very best friends."

Trixie smiled and led Honey up the stairs to Di’s room.

 

Di was a mess when they found her. Her hair was a mess, she wore no makeup, and her wrinkled expression showed plainly of fatigue. It was also immediately obvious that she had very recently been crying. She sat up on her bed tightly clutching a pillow. Her normally pristine silk pajamas and robe were wrinkled and she looked very disheveled.

She looked up in surprise at Honey and Trixie as they entered, but her smile was very warm. She was obviously happy to see them.

"Hi! Come on in. Sorry I’m such a mess."

"It’s okay Di. We were just so worried about you," Honey said.

Di smiled. "I’m okay. I just needed some time to think."

"We haven’t heard a thing out of you since Tuesday."

"What day is today?" Di asked.

"It’s Friday," Trixie told her.

"Really? Already? Doesn’t seem like it’s been that long."

Trixie giggled. "I lose track of time like that sometimes too."

"How goes your studies?" Di asked Trixie with a smile.

Trixie grinned. "Slowly, but well. I guess I really can’t complain. I thought I was going to be banned from sleuthing altogether. I just wish I could look into that robbery."

Trixie suddenly wished that she had bitten her tongue off for mentioning the robbery.

Di just laughed. "Mart was telling me Tuesday where the bump on his head came from."

It was Trixie’s turn to laugh. "I earned KP for that one, but it was worth every dirty dish."

Di then gave the two girls a look of admiration, "Detective is your middle names. I’m sure you’ll solve this mystery. You always do."

"Actually, my middle name is Gayle," Honey said with a giggle, "but don’t tell anybody."

Trixie gave Honey a look. "Madeleine Gayle Wheeler? I never knew that."

"You never asked."

Before Trixie and Honey had a chance to gently broach the subject of what had been bothering Di, she brought it up all on her own.

"Trixie, what’s it like to be so smart and brave?"

Trixie looked at her with a start.

"I don’t know about smart and brave is not the word I would use. Lack of a sense of mortality is much more descriptive."

"You know what I mean," Di protested. "How are you always able to be level headed in a dangerous situation? How are you able to act when people like me are paralyzed with fear?"

Trixie gave Di and long look. "Is this what this is all about? You are upset because you were scared."

Di looked down quietly, and her eyes filled with tears again. "Yes. I mean, I was really upset about what happened to us. I cry every time I see my little brothers and sisters. I keep thinking about how one stray bullet would have kept me from ever seeing them again. Them, or anyone else I care about. But I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last few days about what kind of person I am, and the more I think about it, the more I cry."

Honey quickly moved to Di’s side. "You mustn’t think like that. We love you just the way you are."

"I don’t," Di stated bluntly. The tears were freely flowing now. "I keep thinking about how afraid I am all the time. And how upset I get over even the stupidest little things."

"Who do you want to be Di?" Trixie asked quietly.

"I want to be more like you. I want to be brave."

 

 

Chapter 8 - Di’s Master Plan

 

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer."

-Eon, Fear: The Mindkiller

 

Trixie was so taken aback that she wasn’t sure what to say.

Di gave her a steady look and began to speak. "I don’t want to go through this part of my life being known for what I am. I want to be known for who I am. I want to be remembered as more than just the ‘prettiest girl in the class’ or the ‘leading lady’ in all the school plays. I was born looking like this. It has nothing to do with who I have chosen to be. Who I’ve chosen to be is a high-strung scared little girl, and I don’t like that choice at all."

"You two are known for what you do. What you accomplish. The good you do both in terms of charity and in solving mysteries. You are known for how brave and smart you are, and the good that you do with these qualities. And people will remember these things much longer than they will remember just another pretty face."

"You’ve been part of the good we have done Di," Trixie told her. "The BWGs are a team. We all work to do good, and you have been just as much a part of that as we have."

"It may seem that way to you, but it doesn’t always to me. I’m glad to have been a part of what we’ve done, but it seems to me like we help you with the ideas you come up with to raise money, or the cases that you find to solve. And when you need help with a case, it’s always Honey or Dan or Jim or Mart that helps you figure out that last detail that helps you solve it."

Trixie started to grow red with embarrassment.

"Trixie! Why are you always so embarrassed when people tell you the truth!" Di said getting angry. "You don’t have to be modest about these things! You are a good person and have nothing to be ashamed about! Not like me!" Di looked as though she was about to really cry again.

Honey quickly held her. Trixie drew herself up.

"Di. I’m glad you look up to me. Maybe more than you should, but I am glad just the same. But you said it yourself. Who you are is a choice you make. If you want to be better, braver person, then it’s all up to you."

"I keep trying," Di wailed. "I sat in that bathroom in that haunted house ready to follow you. Then that face appeared in the mirror and I couldn’t do anything but scream and faint. Then when those madmen were shooting up the town, all I could do was lay there and shake. I couldn’t even move. Then when I finally look up, you stand up and fearlessly look at them until they leave. As hard as I try, I keep being afraid and easily upset."

"Di," Trixie said patiently, "maybe this isn’t working because you are trying to do the wrong thing."

Di looked at her confused. "What do you mean?"

"The secret isn’t trying not to ever be afraid or upset. A person who is never afraid is crazy, and a person who is never upset is a sociopath. I always get scared, and I always get upset. I’m not going to lie to you about that. The choices I make are not to not be afraid or upset. At least when there is something to be afraid of or upset about. And what we saw in the house, or at the bank Saturday were definitely things a normal person should be afraid of or upset about. I just chose to not let it affect me for the worse. It doesn’t always work, but I think I try enough to make the difference."

Di pondered Trixie’s words carefully for a long while. Trixie and Honey waited patiently as she thought it over. Trixie finally spoke again.

"I wish there was some magic formula that I could give you to help you make these choices, but there isn’t. Life is too unpredictable to be able to say what the right and wrong thing to do in every situation is going to be. You just have to be able to stop and think each time something happens. And when you figure out how to do that, then please let me know. I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a while."

Both Di and Honey giggled.

"Will you help me?" Di finally asked.

"Of course we will Di," Trixie told her. "You know you don’t even have to ask. What do you want us to do?"

"Let me help."

"Help with what?"

"Help with this case."

Trixie gave her a steady look. "Di, I can’t even work on this case. If I do, my father is going to make sure I don’t sleuth till I’m old and gray. As is stands, he gave me a least three months worth of reading to do before I can even think about working on any case at all."

"But you always find a way to solve the mysteries."

"I have steered around him before, but this is different. My dad really wants me to think before I act, and my past recklessness to stop. And he’s right. We are dealing with really sick people who hurt without thinking about it. I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved in this case any more than it is for me or Honey. If you can wait till I get all this reading done though, I promise that you can be involved with our next one. Not that we ever tried to exclude you from the old ones."

Di smiled warmly and looked happier than she had in a while.

"Thank you Trixie. It means a lot to me."

Trixie smiled back, but then her tone got very business like.

"Why don’t you get cleaned up so that we can go to Wimpy’s. You’ve been cooped up and mopey for long enough. You need to get out, and I think with all the cops and feds downtown right now looking over the crime scene, we won’t have to worry about another robbery."

Di smiled. "I’d like that."

"Great. We’ll be waiting downstairs. Come down when you’re ready."

As Di showered and got dressed, she thought a lot about what Trixie had told her. She then came to a decision.

My father didn’t tell me not to look into this case, so I think I’m going to do a little investigating of my own. I’ll ask Dan to help. He’s street smart, will keep quiet, and he will keep me from taking any unnecessary risks. This will be the first good deed from the new and improved Diana Lynch.

 

 

Chapter 9 – The Investigation Begins.

 

"I meet my girl, she’s dressed to kill
and all we gonna do, is walk around and catch the thrill . . ."

-The Scorpions, The Zoo

 

Di was back in school Monday, back to normal, and as cheerful as ever. She explained her absence as simple illness, and talk around the school went back to other matters like finals and the approaching holidays and the holiday break.

As Friday approached however, Di grew more pensive and impatient. Trixie and the other Bob-Whites weren’t quite sure what to make of this. Although the other Bob-Whites soon learned of the conversation Di had with Trixie and Honey, it was becoming more and more obvious that she was up to something.

No amount of questioning however, would get any sort of information out her. She would simply deny anything was up, and although the others didn’t quite believe her, she gave no clues as to what this was. Only Dan seemed unsuspicious, although his lack of suspicions also duly noted by Trixie.

By Thursday night, Di sat alone in her room, going through her closets looking for just the right outfit. In specific, she was looking at a lot of new clothes she had just purchased over the week. Her parents were so happy to see her cheerful and functional again, that she had decided to shamelessly use this get money out of them for what she needed for her plan. Soon she was trying on all sorts of things in front of the mirror. This went on for another half an hour before she fell back down on her bed with an exasperated sigh. Moments later she rolled over, picked up the phone, dialed a number and rolled over on her back to talk.

"Dan?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Busy?"

"No. Not really. Just got finished with my rounds. That makes me done for the day."

"I need to ask you something."

"Sure."

"Remember what we talked about the other day?"

"Yeah. Are you still sure you want to do this?"

"Yes. Did you get us those fake ID’s?"

"Yes I did. I’ll give it to you tomorrow, so you can memorize what’s on it."

"Good. I need to ask you something else."

"Okay. How do I dress to look more like a biker woman?"

"What you talked about before should be fine. Just don’t overdo it. Keep it simple."

"Help me out. Be more specific."

"I don’t know . . . let’s see. . ."

 

On the pretense of being tired, Di declined to go out that Friday night. And that wasn’t entirely untrue. It was only with major effort that she had slipped away from her mother on their White Plains shopping trip after school that day to get her belly button pierced. It hurt like the dickens, and now was starting to ferociously itch. She was going to have to be very careful to keep it covered till it needed to be seen. Then she had every intention of removing the infernal ring and letting the pierce heal. But for her and Dan’s investigative expedition tomorrow, she decided that she was going to go all the way with her disguise and do it right.

 

Saturday afternoon finally rolled around, and Di was very nervous. Some people have butterflies when they were nervous. Di was no exception. She was very familiar with the feeling. But today she didn’t have butterflies. She had Mothra. She was sure that if she went to the doctor right now she would be told to take two Godzillas and call him in the morning.

Although she was currently dressed for a normal day out, her disguise was tucked away in a large shopping bag that she hoped that no one would ask about. She paced nervously on the terrace hoping that as soon as Dan showed up she could slip away with him before Harrison or anyone else in the house could see her leave.

Dan showed up right when he promised to, and soon they were off. Because of the nature of her costume, Di was grateful for the unseasonably warm weather. There was a light layer of snow on the ground already, but the day was still warm. Dan of course was dressed as the old school Dan once again. Di took him by the hand and led him to the trees along the river as quickly as possible to get out of view of the Lynch house on their way to town. Once they made it that far, Di let herself relax a little. She noticed Dan looked a little bit tired.

"Tired already?"

"Yeah. A little. I got up a little earlier than normal to get my daily chores done. Maypenny asked me to get a few other things done before I left. Then Hannah called, so I talked to her for a while."

"Hannah? Is she the cheerleader you went out with the night before the robbery?"

"Yeah."

"Are you two official?"

"I don’t know," Dan said with a grin. "We just enjoy each others company."

Di smiled, and then noticed that Dan was playing with something in his jacket pockets.

"What are those?"

"Brass knuckles."

"What are those?"

"Metal rings you put over your fingers when you make a fist to hit people harder."

"Why do you have those? Are you expecting to fight?"

"I hope not. But these places can get a little rowdy sometimes. I just wanted a little extra edge in case things got out of hand. Picked them up yesterday. Don’t tell anyone though. If word gets back to Regan or the Judge that I bought a weapon, I’m really gonna be in trouble."

"You’re secret is safe with me. We’ll just be careful."

"Sounds good."

"Dan?"

"Yes."

"Do you really think this is going to work?"

"I don’t know. I asked around, and I was told that this is the place where people go when they need information like the stuff the robbers needed. I don’t know who they talk to or how they get it. But one thing is for sure."

"What?"

"We can’t be too nosy. Stick to the plan. Don’t ask anyone about anything. We just hang out and listen. We will be the outsiders there, so we can’t push our luck by asking even a single question. At least not a first. If we get a chance to, let me handle it. But if we don’t, then don’t do anything rash. We may walk away form this today without a single lead, and that may be that. But that’s fine as long as we get away without incident. I only agreed to this because you said that you would be careful and not take any chances."

"Whatever you say."

 

Di emerged from the bathroom at the train station in disguise and "in character". As she made her way over to the lockers to stow her bag of clothes, she smiled at Dan.

"What do you think?"

"Geez Di. When you said short skirt, you weren’t kidding. What happens if you drop something?"

Di gave Dan a hard look. "If you aren’t gentlemanly enough to pick it up for me, then I guess everyone is going to see what else I own that’s lavender."

Di had never seen Dan blush before, but decided it was very cute.

"Let’s go," she said with a laugh and holding out her hand. "I’m eager to start investigating."

 

 

Chapter 10 – Bars and Bikers and Bob-Whites (oh my)

 

"Denim and Leather, go great together. It was you who set the spirit free. . ." -Saxon, Denim and Leather.

 

Di and Dan quickly cut across from main street over to Hawthorne. They had never been here before, but Dan had gotten directions from someone at school. Although Dan was appearing completely nonchalant as he walked down the street with Di in hand, Di kept pulling closer and quickly grew quiet. She became quickly lost in thought.

What in the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you just read a self help book and move on with your life? Look at this place. It looks like a DMZ. I don’t know how Trixie comes to places like this.

Di took a deep breath and forced herself to relax.

Think it through. Just like Trixie said. Is there anything here to be scared of or upset about? We aren’t being threatened by a run down street. We aren’t being bothered by any of these people, no matter how scary they look. Don’t have to be scared of the run down buildings or the trash. I guess that means I don’t have to be scared. Just keep thinking about everything you see sensibly, and you’ll be fine.

Hawthorne street soon changed from densely packed derelict buildings to run down houses in small yards. Soon it became larger run down houses in larger yards. Soon it was almost like a lonely country road. Right where it connected to the highway was a small, old wooden building, that reminded Di of a saloon from an old western. The roof over the porch was sagging, and all that was really visible through the dirty windows were the brightly colored neon signs advertising different brands of beer. In addition to some old cars and a low-rider, there were a row of four Harley Davidson motorcycles parked in front of the establishment. A large wooden sign above the door read: The Hudson Roadhouse. A larger neon sign with the name of the bar sat atop a telephone pole sized signpost by the road. The plot of land around the bar was choked with the yellow stalks of dead weeds. There were two rusted frames of cars on blocks, and several stacks of tires, hub-caps and wheel hubs cluttered about the sides of the building.

"Are you ready?" Dan asked with a grin.

"Yes," Di replied with a nervous giggle. She got in character once again and they walked into the bar.

Although Di had been imagining an interrogation and carding to get in, no one seemed to notice. The interior was smoky from cigarettes and few people seemed to be there. Light only came from hooded lamps with beer logos hanging above each table. There were a few bright hanging lights above each pool table. The only pool players that were more than shadowy figures in the darkness were the ones taking their turn.

Dan went to the bar and came back with two large mugs of beer. She gave him a startled look, but he simply winked and handed her one.

"Non-alcoholic," he whispered.

She smiled with relief and took a large drink. She nearly spit it back out all over Dan.

How do people drink this? If it tastes this nasty without the alcohol, it must be really filthy with it.

If Dan was bothered by how bad it tasted, he didn’t show it.

Di quickly became restless, so to put her at ease, Dan suggested a game of pool. After teaching her eight ball, they were soon playing and seemed perfectly at ease in the bar. The only thing that did make Di a bit uneasy was when she noticed some of the looks she was getting from the men playing pool at the other tables.

Relax. She thought to herself. They’re just looking at you like all the guys from school do. As long as they just pay attention to my short skirt, how much makeup I have on, or something like that, then it’s okay. I don’t want them to start thinking about how young I really am.

After a few minutes, Di was able to smile about the whole thing.

Either I really do have them fooled, or they don’t care.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she began to discreetly look around at the other patrons. The owners of the large chopper bikes outside were playing pool at the next table. They all looked to be about three hundred pounds, and had shaggy long hair and beards streaked with gray. They wore old ratty jeans, leather jackets and red bandanas. On the back of each of the leather jackets was a bold logo that read: The Hell’s Angels. Upon reading this, she leaned over to Dan to quietly ask him.

"I thought they were made up for TV?"

"No," Dan answered with a grin, "they are very real. And nationwide. They have been around for nearly forty years. They each belong to local chapters which in turn answer to a national hierarchy. They are probably just as organized as the Bob-Whites, if not more. And they aren’t alone."

"What do you mean?"

"They are one of five large biker nations that exist in America today. They are the oldest and most well known, but the others are just as big, and probably more dangerous. I read about it all in one of Spider’s old SWAT magazines."

Di looked suitably impressed. "You’ll make a good cop."

Dan just smiled and began to rack up the balls again. Di continued to discreetly scan the other patrons. It was when her scanning drifted to the next table that she gave a start and nearly blew her cover.

"Dan!" she whispered fiercely. "Look over there!"

Dan looked up slowly to see what she was talking about. He did a double take as well. The pool players at this table were Tad Webster, Matt Devlin and some of the other members of the Hawks. Playing pool with them was the very punk looking Corey Dawson. Hanging on Tad’s arm was Jane Morgan, dressed nearly identically to Di: short-skirt, bare midriff, denim jacket, heels, heavy make-up and all.

Oooohhh that girl! Can she even be more original?

Di forced herself to relax.

Have they been here all along? Probably. I guess they had the same idea we did. It was Tad’s brother that got hurt after all. I guess all Dan and I can do is play it cool and keep watching.

Dan obviously had the same idea. He simply went back to setting up the pool table and handed her a cue stick to break.

They were hardly into the next game when three new figures walked in the door. Di looked up at the newcomers to see Jim, Brian and Mart dressed in their best approximation of biker garb. They looked rather comical. Di gave a long sigh.

I guess this is the real reason they haven’t shaved all week.

Soon they were seated at the bar trying to look tough. Di could hear Mart trying to start a conversation with the bartender.

An hour passed with an uneasy silence pervading the bar as the three groups of friends tried to pretend that they didn’t know each other. A few more normal patrons trickled in as the afternoon progressed, and soon there was a moderate crowd occupying the Roadhouse. Di and Dan continued to play pool and be nonchalant when Di heard Dan give a quiet but startled exclamation.

"Oh dear God!"

Di looked up to see three new patrons enter the bar. Two of the three were none other than Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler in some very old, wrinkled hippie clothing that looked like it had been recently fished out of an old trunk. She didn’t recognize the third person who was a woman that looked biker to the core.

Oh my God. There are more Bob-Whites in here than regular patrons. Those two look worse than Jim, Brian and Mart do. I wonder who that other woman is? I wouldn’t have guessed that they knew someone like that. Maybe they called her to help like I did with Dan. Someone who knew the ropes.

Unlike the younger Bob-Whites, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler had no worries about having a drink. They both started off with a whiskey and Coke, and Di noticed Jim blanche at how quickly and easily they both pounded their drinks. The woman with them started off with two drinks like the Wheelers had and finished them in the same amount of time as it took Matthew and Madeleine to finish one.

No sooner had Mr. Wheeler’s glass hit the table when he noticed with no small amount of alarm that he was sitting at the bar next to his stepson and friends. Moments later, after glancing about the bar, he realized who most of the patrons were. Jim was already completely red with embarrassment.

"I think we’d better go," Dan told Di quietly.

"I think you’re right," Di quietly agreed.

They calmly gathered their jackets to leave when Di noticed a new patron for the first time.

"Hold on Dan. There is someone I want to talk to."

"Okay. But hurry."

Di smiled and sauntered over to another pool table with a defiant, but sensual strut. She walked up to a blue-suited Olyphant who was busy chalking up a pool stick.

"Hey deary," she started with her best Brooklyn drawl. "Didn’t realize you were out already."

Mr. Olyphant turned with a start, but as he sized up Di his grin grew appreciative. He seemed unperturbed by her remark.

"Good behavior," he started with a wide grin. "They had to make room in Attica for all the crack-heads and violent offenders. Can I get you a drink sweetie?"

"No thanks," she drawled, "but I noticed you needed a light."

Olyphant handed the pool stick to one of his seedy friends, took the large unlit cigar out of his mouth and grinned. Di handed him a blue book of the Lynch family matches and walked off with a smile. She could almost hear the sound of his jaw hitting the floor as she slid her arm into Dan’s and walked out the door.

 

 

Chapter 11 – Night of the Living Secret Agreements

 

"Oh what a tangled web we weave . . . ."

 

It was a heated and chaotic scene in the Bob-White clubhouse that night. In addition to the Bob-Whites, crowded into the small cottage that had once been the Manor House gatehouse were Tad, Matt, Jane, Corey, the other Hawks, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, and the strange biker woman that had come with them to the Roadhouse. Only absent were Trixie and Honey.

Di, who like just about everyone else, hadn’t had a chance to get out of costume managed to find a seat on the bench near the oil heater. As she rubbed her hands for warmth, she noticed the heavy smell of whiskey. She turned to see that she was sitting next to the strange biker woman. She looked over at the stranger very closely. There was something very familiar about her. The woman had recently dyed her hair and styled it differently and wore a lot of make-up, but she felt like she should know her anyway. The black leather pants seemed new and weird as well. It suddenly dawned on her.

"Miss Trask!" she suddenly exclaimed.

Miss Trask smiled back at her and winked. There were several other startled outbursts from others in the clubhouse as they realized who it was.

After several attempts at getting control of the mob, it was finally Dan who got everyone to shut up and listen to him. "ALRIGHT!" he shouted. "We have some things we really need to discuss here."

"Yeah!" Mr. Wheeler snapped, "like why all you kids were in a bar!"

There was more outburst and heated debate. This time it was Jim who gained control of the mob.

"Look! Alright! I agree. We all have some explaining to do. But we aren’t going to accomplish anything by yelling at each other. I think it’s obvious we all had the same idea. We’ve sat here over the last two and a half years and watched Trixie get involved in all kinds of cases. We’ve watched her get into all sorts of dangerous situations because of this. And now after Mr. Belden’s speech we are all probably feeling as guilty as he was worried for depending on her to sleep safely at night in this town."

"That doesn’t change the fact that we went bumbling into this too," Dan said. "She has finally been seriously taken to task by her parents for reckless behavior, and here we are acting just as bad as she would, if not worse. I’m beginning to wonder after that circus what problem we had with her behavior at all. Maybe if it had just been Di and myself then . . . ."

"Hey," Tad interrupted angrily, "I don’t see how this is any of your business at all. It wasn’t your brother that was gunned down in the streets."

"Look!" Dan shot back, "I’m really sorry about what happened to Spider. We all are. I don’t think anyone in this room is doubting your concern. But don’t you go around acting like you were the only one that was hurt or affected by this. A lot of people could have been hurt or killed, and I think that makes it everyone’s business."

"All right!" Mart shouted. "Let’s stop arguing over who was out of line this afternoon. What’s done is done. I think we all had good intentions by looking into this. The question is, what are we going to do about this now."

"I think this is a matter that should be handled by the adults," Mr. Wheeler asserted.

"We’re all involved now whether we like it or not," Dan replied. "And no offense Mr. Wheeler, but if this is how well you plan to handle this investigation, then maybe you’d better let us help you."

"I found this lead just as well as you did," he stated angrily.

"Yeah, maybe you did," Dan said, "but you acted on it very poorly. You look like a casting reject for a bad Oliver Stone movie."

Mr. Wheeler flushed with anger, but said nothing.

"I’d say," Brian began in his quiet and sensible tone, "that since we are all obviously interested in this case, and going to look into it whether we should or not, that we work together. As long as we act sensibly in the future, there’s no reason why we can’t work together to crack this."

"We don’t have much to go on," Miss Trask said.

"No, we don’t," Dan said. "But that doesn’t mean anything at this point. With all of us looking into this, there’s no reason we can’t turn something up. If Trixie can normally do this all by herself, then I think as a group we can do it too."

"We sure could use Trixie’s help," Di remarked. "She’s so good at finding clues and putting things together."

"No!" Jim snapped fervently. "We have to leave her out of this. Trixie is finally coming to terms with a lot of her past mistakes and recklessness. And now she finally has a chance to learn from them and properly pursue her dreams. Not only does she have a chance to properly pursue her dreams, but she is now doing so with the blessing of her parents. With her new connections in government, her recommendations, and the deal she made with her father, this can all really happen. This all means a lot to her, and we are NOT going to screw this up by dragging her into this and getting her in trouble. If we do this, we do this ourselves, and we can’t let her or her parents know what we are up to."

The room fell quiet for a moment. Jim finally spoke up again. "Is it agreed then? We all work to solve this and we keep Trixie and Mr. and Mrs. Belden out of the loop?"

All present nodded in agreement. Even Brian and Mart.

"Where is my sister anyway?" Brian asked.

"She and Honey went shopping, and then to the movie." Miss Trask informed them. "I need to get out of costume before Tom goes to pick them up, or we’ll blow this right now. And does anyone have a pot of black coffee? I think I drank more than I should have."

 

 

Trixie and Honey made their way down the street, laughing, talking and window shopping before the movie started at the Cameo.

"So Trixie? Did you ever find out what Di was up to?" Honey asked.

"No. But I’m beginning to think it wasn’t just her. Everyone has been acting really weird all week. First Mart, Brian and Jim get a wild urge to look more manly and grow beards. Then Di goes on the biggest non-Holiday shopping spree I’ve ever seen her go on, and Tad and the Hawks suddenly start dressing like the old Dan and acting like bikers. They even invited Corey to start hanging out with them."

Honey giggled. "That is weird. Tad hates Corey. Now they’re best friends? Who would have thought? I’ve noticed some weird things too though."

"Like what?"

"Like my parents and Miss Trask. They’ve been trying to ‘hang out’ with me all week. That, and they ask me all sorts of crazy questions."

"Really? About what?"

"About all sorts of things. Everything from what’s popular for younger people to wear these days, to how all the criminals we’ve ever caught looked like and dressed."

"That is weird. There is something very mysterious going on."

"Is that so?" a rude voice interrupted.

Trixie and Honey turned with a start to see a very disheveled and dirty man sitting on a park bench. His hair was a mess, and he was wrapped up in very dirty coats and a filthy scarf. Clutched in his hands was a bottle of whiskey wrapped in a crinkled paper bag. He smelled very strongly of whiskey and looked very drunk. It took Trixie a minute to identify him.

"Sgt. Molinson?" she exclaimed with surprise.

"Detective Belden," he greeted rudely. "You must be pleased as punch. You finally got me out of the way. Now you can investigate all you want without any hard working cops getting in your way."

Trixie was taken aback by his tone, but quickly sat down beside him.

"Look I know you’re probably very upset with me. And you have every right to be. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry."

The sergeant was very startled by her sincerity, and after he was able to focus his eyes, gave her a direct gaze.

"I know why you were always so upset with me. I have been reading a lot about what it means to be a cop, and why you have to do things the way you do. My Dad made me," she said, emphasizing the word Dad.

"When did he do that? After he hung me out to dry."

"Yes. But I don’t think that’s why he said what he said. I think he was just as upset about how I acted as you were. He was upset enough about it to make me learn why you were always mad."

Sgt. Molinson was quiet for a moment. Then he started to weep.

"I worked hard," he wailed. "Tried to do my best. And no matter how well I do, I always end up getting shown-up by a teenaged girl."

"It’s not about showing anybody up. It’s about doing the right thing and making Sleepyside a better, safer place to live. And we both had a part in that. We both accomplished something that neither of us could have done alone. Maybe I found the crooks, but you were the one who booked them, followed the rules, and took them to trial. I never could have done that. If it had been up to me, then they all probably would have walked. Heck, you even covered for me in all those cases where I broke the rules; when I snooped or stalked. And I don’t think I even have to mention how you always handled the danger. Always came to save me when I got into trouble. If you hadn’t always been there my investigating days would have ended a long time ago."

The Sergeant grew quiet again. He then turned to her with a surprising request.

"Help me."

"What?"

"I need your help. I go back to work in a couple of days. I’m going to have sift through a mountain of clues. I’m going to have to do what you are good at. If you can crack the case then I can bust these guys. We can be a team."

Trixie wasn’t sure how much of this request was the alcohol talking.

"I can’t get involved. If I snoop or stalk, then I’ll risk blowing this for you like I always have. Besides, my parents will kill me."

"You don’t have to do any of that. Just figure out the clues. I’ll do the rest. And don’t worry. I’ll just email you. You’re parents will never know. It will be our secret, and when we get these guys, it will be our next accomplishment for a better, safer Sleepyside."

Trixie was quiet for a moment, but finally reluctantly agreed.

"Okay. I guess if that’s what you want. I’ll be waiting for your email."

"Good," was Molinson’s only answer. He then turned his attention back to his bottle.

Trixie and Honey proceeded quietly down the street after the strange conversation, not uttering a word till they got to the movie.

 

 

 

Chapter 12 – The Investigation Begins, Take Two

 

"Prepare for Hyper-Active!"

-Rick Moranis (Dark Helmet), Spaceballs

 

Back at the Bob-White Clubhouse, talk turned to how to handle the case.

"Okay then," Tad finally said, "How do we handle this without the heralded Bob-White master detective?"

"I think delegation of responsibility is the only way we have a chance," Brian said. "I think that since Dan here is the only other one really knowledgeable about these sorts of things that we put him in charge of the investigation."

"Why him?" Tad protested.

"He’s street smart and the most knowledgeable about criminal matters and street life from his gang days. That, and he has studied a lot about investigations and law enforcement because of his dream of becoming a cop."

"Fair enough," Tad said. "What do the rest of us do?"

"I guess that’s up to Dan now."

Dan was silent for a minute.

"Alright. This is the what’s going to happen. Mr. Wheeler."

"Yes."

"You are going to start calling in favors. Talking to connections."

"What connections, and what am I trying to find out?"

"What those guys were after in the bank. I heard through the grapevine that the main charge the robbers used was set to blast open a safety deposit box. A very specific one. Everyone has been pretty tight lipped about which one, and what was supposed to be in it, but you lean on whoever you need to, to find out."

"Okay."

"And when you do find out, go from there. If it was an antique, or some other kind of valuable, you and Mrs. Wheeler start looking into that. Find out everything you can."

"Okay."

"As for the rest of you. We’ll go from there. We can’t do much until we see how this lead pans out. But from here on out, we need to plan before we stage an invasion of a bar and clean them out of non-alcoholic beer. If we have to do any more undercover work, we will keep the groups small. And with every group, either Tad, Corey or myself will have to go. We seem to be the only ones capable of blending and being discreet."

Jim, Mart and Brian began to sputter in protest.

"Look guys," Dan said before they could complain, "No offense. I’m not trying to challenge your coolness or anything, but you guys look about as counter culture as your parents. Look at you. You look like you sneaked out of a Geometry class to go to the bar. What did you call yourselves? The Hell’s Angles?"

Corey, Tad, Jane, Di and the Hawks burst into laughter. The three boys began to squirm with embarrassment. When the laughter finally died down, they nodded their silent agreement.

"So what does what happened today actually mean?" Mr. Wheeler finally asked. "We all went to the Roadhouse because we heard that crooks went there for information. We didn’t find anything out."

"Actually we did," Di declared.

All eyes turned to her. "I ran into Olyphant. The same one who hooked up my phony uncle with what he needed to know. We figured out even then that he was Sleepyside’s premier information broker for crooks. The Roadhouse probably earned it’s status as the place to go because even before he did time it was his favorite place to hang out besides his hotel. Now I don’t know when he got out, but I don’t think it could have been that long ago. I think if nothing else, that rules out the Roadhouse as the source."

"Which means," Dan added, "that it is all that much more important that we find and follow up other clues. I think the nature of what they were after will be our best angle."

There was little more discussion as the large group disbanded to search for the Sleepyside bank robbers.

 

Trixie arose early the next morning. Things seemed back to normal around Crabapple Farm. Even Mart and Brian seemed back to normal. Much to her parents delight, they both decided to shave that morning, and after finishing her own chores, her attention was once again focused on her studies. Her thoughts, however, kept drifting back to all the strange Bob-White behavior over the last week and the strange request made by Sgt. Molinson.

Shortly before lunch, she put down her criminal justice textbook and checked her email. Much to her surprise, there was already a message from Sgt. Molinson. It simply read:

See if you can specifically identify the music you heard.

Trixie thought about this for a moment.

If it is something modern and electronic, then there is only one person to talk to.

Trixie went downstairs, after erasing the all but the return email address, and asked her father if she could have Corey help her identify what she heard to tell the police. He agreed, and right after lunch, she made the call to invite him over.

Soon, Corey drove up and got out of his car with a backpack full of CDs. He also had a large cup from a nearby convenience store. As soon as Trixie saw him, she went downstairs to greet him at the front door. It was while she was coming downstairs that Bobby ran up to Corey to greet him. No one saw Corey offer the cup to Bobby, or Bobby drink it down in under a minute.

Trixie greeted him warmly and took him upstairs. She immediately noticed that Brian and Mart were lurking nearby and making a thinly veiled effort to hang around and see what they were up to. Trixie just ignored them, and soon she was carefully listening to dozens of CD’s and MP3 files trying to see if any of them sounded familiar.

By the end of the afternoon, she was well versed in, and could specifically identify what Industrial music was, as well as Techno, Techno-Rave, Acid-house, Ambient, Gothic, Electronica and old school Alternative and New Wave. She even discovered that she liked some of it.

Although it was very hard to remember, she seemed to be slowly narrowing down the choices. Corey just seemed to enjoy sharing the treasures of his music collection with someone new. Their afternoon was abruptly interrupted with a loud crash following by some yelling and uncontrolled bursts of young laughter.

"Oh dear!" Trixie started. "I hope Bobby isn’t getting into trouble."

From the sounds of the scolding downstairs, he was. Trixie had been given the afternoon off from taking care of him, so she just closed her door down to a crack and tried to ignore all the noise.

Moments later there was another crash, followed by more yelling. The series of thunderous footsteps echoing from the stairwell almost seemed to shake the house. Trixie caught a glimpse of a pair of blurs running by.

"What was that?" Corey asked in surprise.

Trixie reddened with embarrassment. "My little brother," she explained sheepishly. "He gets really worked up sometimes when he’s bored. And his hyperactivity is contagious to the dog."

Reddy’s barks soon illustrated her point.

"I should have taken a picture," Corey remarked with a grin, "but I hear that they won’t be able to properly render motion blur till the next generation of 3D accelerator cards."

Trixie giggled and went to her computer to change the music to the next selection. She blushed with embarrassment again as she turned up her speakers to dampen out some of the noise of Bobby and Reddy playing in his room. It sounded like a drier full of superballs and rebar. Soon the racket made it’s way down the hall.

Now both Trixie and Corey couldn’t stop giggling.

They were into half of the next song when another series of crashes could be heard coming from down the hall. This was shortly augmented by Mart’s yelling.

"Oh dear!" Trixie exclaimed again. "I really feel bad. At the same time, I’m glad I don’t have to watch him right now."

"Is he always like this?" Corey asked.

"Not all the time, but quite a bit. I’m just surprised he is being so openly hyper right now. Usually with the approach of Christmas he at least makes some effort to settle down. Normally it just takes one warning about Santa Claus watching to settle him down."

"Maybe I shouldn’t have given him that Mountain Dew."

"YOU GAVE HIM WHAT?!!!!!"

"A Mountain Dew. He said he liked soda and was thirsty."

"HOW MUCH DID YOU GIVE HIM?!"

"One of Mr. Lytell’s new Thirst-Breakers."

Trixie nearly fainted. She quickly recovered however and flushed with anger.

"Do you have any idea how much caffeine is in Mountain Dew?" she sputtered. "It has the most of any soda! You don’t give that to kids!"

"Hey," Corey said defensively, "It’s not. Jolt Cola has way more. It’s not that bad anyway. I was raised on the stuff."

"That explains a lot!" she snapped back. "We don’t give Bobby soda ever. Not unless it’s caffeine free and low sugar. He’s bad enough without it."

As much as he tried to hold it in, Corey soon burst into laughter. Trixie stormed.

"OOOHHHHH! I ought to make you put him to bed tonight! I’ll have to read him War and Peace before he settles down. That will be after I mop up the tidal wave he makes in the bathtub."

Corey laughed till his eyes watered. When he finally caught enough of his breath to speak he made a "constructive" suggestion. "Why don’t you make use of all that extra energy? As soon as you get him in the tub, throw in the laundry."

As angry as Trixie was, and as angry as she tried to stay, Corey’s joke caught her so off guard that soon she collapsed with laughter. Soon they were both too weak from laughter to stand up.

The door to Trixie’s room burst open. A furious Mart and Brian gazed in with indignation. "What’s so funny!" Mart stormed. "You wouldn’t be laughing if he knocked over your bookshelves!"

Trixie and Corey were now gasping for breath.

"We ought to lock him up in your room!" the normally calm Brian raged. "Then maybe he can wreck your desk!"

The tirades of her brothers only fueled her laughter. But the laughter was contagious, and soon all four were laughing so hard they couldn’t stop. When Trixie was finally able to speak again, she wiped her eyes, sat up with great effort, and offered to help her brothers clean up.

 

 

Chapter 13 – The Next Expedition

 

"In our family, we put the fun in dys-fun-ctional."

-Ashley Judd

 

When the four friends finally settled down, minus the request from Sgt. Molinson, Trixie told her brothers what she and Corey were doing. After setting Mart and Brian’s rooms to right, and putting Bobby down for his nap, they went back to Trixie’s room to listen to more music.

Unlike the past, where she was usually criticized for her investigative efforts, her brothers seemed excited and enthusiastic about helping her with this clue. She was almost certain at this point that they were up to something, but decided not to press the issue. By dinner time, as Brian and Mart went to get Bobby, who had spent the afternoon flopping on his bed like a fish out of water, Trixie was fairly certain she had identified the song that she had heard. She placed a call to Sgt. Molinson, and soon things went back to normal.

Bobby, worn out from his afternoon in fifth gear went to bed very quietly as was soon sound asleep.

Things moved very quickly after that. Although Trixie, happy that she had helped was content to go back to her studies and daily routine, Brian and Mart were quick to report the clue to the others. Acting on that and some other information that Mr. Wheeler had dug up, Dan issued a series of quick instructions to the investigative team he led.

The end result that night for Corey Dawson and Madeleine Wheeler was that they were dressed up and on their way to a warehouse rave somewhere between White Plains and Scarsdale.

Corey was dressed much like he had been for his first day of school at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High. Madeleine Wheeler, much to his surprise had found a very stunning and appropriate outfit for the evening that would enable her blend very easily. She looked much like Catherine Deneuve in the opening scene of the old vampire movie The Hunger with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon, stalking through the gothic New York club while Peter Murphy of Bauhaus sang up in the cage. The shades however, had been replaced with a black veil.

It became quickly apparent as they drove silently down the road in Corey’s car that Madeleine was feeling very apprehensive about the whole thing. She pensively fidgeted a great deal. Corey wasn’t sure what to say or do. She finally laughed.

"You know, when Matthew told me that we should become more active parents and be more involved with Honey, I never dreamed in million years that I would be investigating a bank robbery by going to a dance dressed in this outlandish clothing."

It was Corey’s turn to fidget. "Don’t worry about it. You look good."

Mrs. Wheeler laughed again.

"What did you imagine?" Corey finally asked.

"Oh the usual parent stuff. PTA meetings. Going to see Honey speak her one line in a school play. Signing report cards. Taking her to small town fairs and parades. I just wanted her to be happy."

"I think she’s very happy now. Why wasn’t she happy before?"

"I’m not exactly sure. I used to always think it was because she was always so sick. Much more than I used to be when I was her age. It never occurred to me that she had any other reason to be unhappy."

"Why?"

"She had everything I had growing up. We sent her to the best schools, the best camps. Just like I did growing up. We tried to give her everything she wanted and needed."

"So you raised her just like you were raised. Not involved at all."

"Not personally involved a lot. Matthew was kind of hesitant about the whole idea, but I didn’t see anything wrong with the way I was raised. He gave in, but he would still get involved sometimes on his own. He would take her places, or take her riding."

"Were you happy?"

"Yes. For the most part. I mean that kind of life can be very scary and lonely for a kid at first, but you get used to it. You learn to be self-reliant. But once you make friends it’s really not that different from the way other kids grow up at all. At least I didn’t think so. I made some very dear friends at camp and school. With friends like that, I was very happy. I figured once Honey got older, she would make close friends at school just like I did. I was completely taken aback the day she told me that she hadn’t. That’s when Matthew put his foot down, and decided that we should move and try to give her a more normal childhood."

"Was your husband raised the same way you were?"

"Kind of. His family wasn’t old money like mine was. He had a fairly typical childhood I guess. He didn’t go off to boarding school until he was in high school. From what he tells me, he was kind of a wild kid, and the fact that he went to boarding school had more to do with his own father trying to straighten him out than it did with any sort of educational tradition."

"Is that when you met him?"

"Around then. Our schools were not co-ed, but near each other. Periodically there would be dances and mixers held. That’s when we met."

"What happened then," Corey asked, now completely caught up in the story.

"He swept me off my feet. He was still a wild rebellious one. My parents hated him, and I think that was part of the appeal. But more than that, he would do crazy things that drove me wild."

"Like what?"

"Like risk life and limb to come serenade me at the dorm where I stayed. Once we started dating, he would sneak me out at night sometimes to go do something crazy. Like the time when we went skinny dipping in the nearby lake. I was so cold and afraid we would get caught that it never occurred to me to be embarrassed about what I was doing or about being naked in front of a guy I had only been dating for a month."

Madeleine laughed again. "But he made his fortune. We got married. We had a girl. And now here I am dressed like a weirdo on my way to some underground party in the hopes of making her happy."

Corey was quiet for a moment. "I think you’re looking it all wrong. Maybe what we are doing right now is crazy, for all sorts of reasons. But the fact of the matter is that Honey is very happy right now. She’s happy because you cared enough to make sure she was. You cared enough to find out why she was unhappy. You cared enough to do something about it. You put your daughters health, happiness and well-being ahead of any sort of tradition or need of your own. And even if you weren’t there in the beginning, I don’t think she’ll ever forget the fact that you are trying to be there for her now."

Madeleine gave Corey a long look. "You almost sound bitter. Is your mother there for you?"

Corey was quiet for a moment. "She’s there. I don’t know if she’s there for me. But she’s there. She acts like I am an unwanted responsibility. She was very motherly at first, trying to shape me into the child that she always wanted to have. It just wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I remember the very day that I stood up for myself and did something I wanted for me, and not for her. I don’t even remember what it was. It was probably something stupid. I just remember that I did stand up to her, and since then it seems like she’s stopped giving a damn. If I wasn’t going to be who she wanted me to be, then I wasn’t something that concerned her past her basic responsibilities as a mother. She tells me things every now and then like ‘Do you your homework,’ or ‘be back before midnight’. But past that I don’t think we’ve even really spoken to each other in about four years."

Madeleine was taken aback by Corey’s blunt confession. "What about your father?"

"He cares enough to fight. That’s about all we do. We fight daily about my grades, my clothes, my habits. Anything I do, we fight about. He does his very best to make sure that I feel worthless for not living up to his standards. When I do we reach a silent state of status quo. But that only lasts for the ten minutes until I screw up again. Then we fight some more."

Madeleine wasn’t sure what to tell him, so returned to her pensive fidgeting until they got to the rave.

 

 

Chapter 14 – At the Rave

 

"I have seen the future, and it’s name is industrial dance."

-Ed Murray

 

Even beneath her black veil, Corey could tell that Madeleine watched the scene taking place in the parking lot with a wide eyed stare.

"Corey?" she asked with concern as she looked around at the crowd of goths and ravers, "Do you think any of these people might be doing drugs?"

Corey gave her an exasperated sigh. "Lady? How big was the damp rock?"

"Will it be dangerous?"

"Probably not. I’ve been to a lot of the raves here. Drug use is not as common as it is elsewhere. Just watch out for those few. If you see anybody with the thousand yard stare, or starting to freak out, just walk away and try not to make any sudden moves. Shall we go?"

A very nervous Madeleine Wheeler walked closely to Corey as they made there way through the crowds of strange people to the warehouse doors, where some of the organizers took money and looked them over for weapons.

The strobe lights and flashing colored lights high up in the rafters made Mrs. Wheeler very dizzy. The initial smell of sweaty dancers, cigarette smoke, and dry ice vapor made her cover her own nose and mouth with a white handkerchief. She then began to watch the crowd with wide-eyed astonishment.

A large portion of the crowd were thin people of indeterminate gender with long hair, black plastic dominos, tight black leather pants, and long sleeve black lace shirts. Each of these strange dancers also wore a surgeon’s mask over their nose and mouth coated on the inside with menthol rub. A large number of them wore a pacifier on a neck chain.

There were a number of girls with jet-black Elvira hair wearing black slips as dresses. Another pair of girls were wearing skin-tight outfits in bright red, white and blue. They had high platform sneakers and bright red dredlocked hair.

Also present were several groups of metalheads and punks from the city decked out in leather and denim jackets, camouflage pants, torn jeans, tour shirts, long or spiked hair, chains, and combat boots.

To round out the crowd were a few people in much more normal, run-of-the-mill provocative clothing.

The music was about the loudest Mrs. Wheeler had ever heard, and nearly made her jump when she first felt the pounding bass notes in addition to hearing them.

At the first lull in the loud music, Corey leaned over to her to speak. "We aren’t going to find out anything just standing here. We have to mingle."

She took a deep breath, and waited for the music to start. The DJ put on Corey’s favorite Crystal Method song, "Keep Hope Alive." She then quickly took Corey by the wrist and led him out to where the dancing was taking place. Although rigid and jerky at first, once she found the rhythm, Corey was once again amazed at how quickly she adapted and learned. Soon they were dancing in the strobe light and looked completely in place.

The ravers didn’t seem to be very social outside of their little packs. A lot of the masked ones didn’t seem to talk to anyone when they weren’t dancing. A lot of them even danced alone. And when not dancing, they seemed to silently lurk or brood. Mrs. Wheeler found the masked people very intimidating and just a little bit scary.

Enough of the others however, seemed social enough to ask her to dance, and she even ended up talking to a few of them. Over the course of the night, much to her surprise, she found herself hanging out with a particular group who had seemed to almost adopt her.

The first was a very petite girl with wild Sid Vicious hair, a tye-dyed shirt and green broomstick skirt. Her name was Jannie, and before the night was over, Mrs. Wheeler heard her recite a lot of her poems. The next member of the group was a painter named Paulo. He was shirtless, wearing only purple vinyl pants and combat boots. He also looked like he could stand to eat a pound or two of lard or butter. Paulo’s best friends were two aspiring theater and movie actors named Nigel and Frank. They were dressed like the majority of the ravers, minus the domino and surgeons masks. Last was the musician John. He was the most normal looking of the group of friends, but also the quietest.

Despite the fact that Mrs. Wheeler was happy to meet these people, she quickly dragged Corey over to meet them as well as a kind of safety measure. She still wasn’t comfortable enough in this place by herself, and didn’t trust herself to do this on her own. She didn’t even have the slightest idea how to begin looking for clues, or how to find out if these new acquaintances could help them at all.

Corey seemed unconcerned, and leapt in with both feet. Soon it seemed like he had known them a long time. Mrs. Wheeler finally allowed herself to relax, and gave a Corey a quick nod to let him know that this was his show now, and that she was depending on him.

He gave her a quick wink and after that, the night went much more smoothly.

 

 

Chapter 15 – The Artist’s Commune

 

"Last night I thought I saw you wishing for your dreams tonight"

-Last Dance, Do You Believe in Angels

 

It was quite some time later when Corey and Madeleine ended up at a crowded and run down house on the outskirts of White Plains. They had followed a small procession of cars of friends they had met at the rave to a party that was to take place shortly after the cops had broken it up.

Corey and Madeleine had yet to discuss anything about the case, but a quick nod from Corey after the invitation told her that he had a hunch that they were finally on to something. She was unsure as to why Corey was so sure, but decided that since they hadn’t discovered anything else about the case that they had nothing to loose by going to this party. It was very late however, and she was very tired, so she hoped that this wouldn’t take much longer. As interesting as tonight had been for Madeleine Wheeler, she thought it was high time she left this strange situation and got back to the real world.

Although the house only had three bedrooms, it was being inhabited by much more. All of the friends they had made were renting the place, although only Jannie and Paulo’s names were on the lease. In addition to the renters, there seemed to be another three or four staying over for various reasons, and this seemed to be the normal state of affairs. Some were between living arrangements and some were just friends of the five who liked to hang out constantly. Then there was the complimentary boyfriend or girlfriend who did have other places to stay but were over constantly to be with their significant other.

Things like ownership of all the various things around the house, in addition to who was responsible for what seemed to be very nebulous at best. Nigel had a large collection of comics, soft porn and men’s magazines, and several pieces of the very jury-rigged home entertainment center. Frank had a lot of CD’s and movies, in addition to his own pieces of electronics and furniture. Jannie owned all the posters, art, and most of the dishes and cooking utensils. Paulo had the very jury-rigged computer and the fish tank, and the house supply of role-playing game books and comic book action figures. Ownership of the cats and dogs that abounded in the house was also up in the air. Although each knew who technically owned what, everything in the house almost seemed completely communal, and changed ownership a lot. Things were commonly borrowed, loaned, forgotten about and the very act of moving seemed to alter what sort of stuff each person ended up with.

Steady employment also seemed to be very unpopular with the residents of the house. Most of them had an odd assortment of three or four part time jobs, for a lot of which, they got paid under the table. The only one present who seemed to have a regular job for which one would have to fill a formal application and Social Security number was Jannie, who waitressed at a nearby greasy spoon. They had all waited tables or worked fast food at one point in their lives. Things like owning the TV, or supplying the beer or cigarettes seemed to be regarded just as equal a contribution as actually helping with the rent.

Mrs. Wheeler quickly noticed a few things more than anything else about this strange group. Each of these "starving artists" that lived at the house was a dreamer. They could each tell her at length their master plan for taking over Hollywood, the New York art scene or the independent music scene. Each could tell her at great length what was wrong with the art, music or film of the day, and how they were going to change it all. They each had a very firm set of unique opinions that they were more than willing to discuss or debate. But the most ironic thing of all was how little imagination each of these artists had. They had seen every movie, heard every song, and been exposed to a great deal of art and media in every form, yet all of their plans seemed to revolve around notions like doing screen comic book adaptations right instead of selling out. They all "knew" they could do better than everything they had seen or watched, but when asked how, they were either unable to explain, or had very thin and uncreative ideas.

Yet for how vividly each of the them could explain their dreams, they didn’t seem to be very motivated to do much about it. What they had in vision, they lacked in any sort of drive. Their day to day life seemed to revolve around making sure they had a place to stay for a while and having enough money to supply the comic collections, music and video collections, beer, cigarettes, and other wide assortment of interests.

It didn’t seem to occur to any of them to save, or make any sort of immediate plans to improve their lives or living situation past an elaborate system of mooching, ruining their credit rating or spending their tax refunds. It didn’t even seem to occur to any of them to work towards their elaborate dreams. Jannie wrote a lot of poetry and a few stories, but never did anything with them. She seldom even let anyone read them. Paulo seemed more interested in painting his own replicas of pictures from magazines or comics than coming up with anything of his own. The actors spent a lot of time complaining about how bad movies had gotten and wondering why they hadn’t been handed choice roles or production companies. They hadn’t even really made the effort to try out for parts or find an agent. And the musician John played a lot, but didn’t seemed too interested in writing his own music or finding a band to play with.

The second thing Mrs. Wheeler noticed past their lack of motivation was that they were very involved with each others lives. They each knew each others life story and were caught up with every last bit of gossip and secret that each of them had. Every little crisis or conflict seemed to be everybody’s business by default, and even the little things seemed to get turned into very big dramatic problems.

Corey seemed to be used to this sort of crowd, and past a mild expression of disgust, seemed to be unfazed by what was going on. Madeleine, however found herself become more and more depressed as she watched with morbid fascination the goings on of the house.

How can anyone live such a bleak and hopeless life? I’ve never seen such people. And it doesn’t even seem to bother them. They seem just as happy as anyone else. At least on the surface. What a strange world the white rabbit has brought me to. Hope I wake up soon.

 

 

Chapter 16 – A Lead and a Meeting

 

"I love it when a plan comes together"

-George Peppard, the A-Team

 

Madeleine Wheeler glanced nervously at her watch. Although it seemed like she and Corey had been here forever, they had only been there an hour. Still, it was several hours later than Madeleine was used to staying up even on party nights.

She gave Corey another quick look. He was puzzled at first until Madeleine’s expression grew impatient. He shot her a look that said, "Relax!" and gathered himself up to make his move.

The party had wound down. Now everyone sat sleepily around the crowded living room. Paulo fished a video from his room and soon the entire group was watching some movie that Mrs. Wheeler had never heard of. It was horrendously bad, and had a strange name; something like The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak. Paulo, Nigel and Frank of course loved it. They had more good things to say about it than anything even remotely mainstream or good. An idle comment from someone got all three of them trash talking Titanic, Batman and a whole pile of other popular movies.

Paulo got up and wandered into the kitchen. He came back out with an old box of macaroni and cheese.

"Do we have any milk?" he asked the others.

"No," Jannie answered. "Haven’t been shopping yet."

"What about that old butter milk in the fridge?"

"Dude, I think that’s like three months past date," Nigel told him. "I think it was in there when we moved into this place."

"Only three months? That will work."

(I plead the fifth on grounds that I may incriminate myself, Eric)

Madeleine started to cry out in disgust but quickly silenced herself by slapping her hand over her month.

There were a number of amused grins from around the room. Paulo then wandered back out. "Dude? Do we have any bread?"

"I think it’s moldy."

"I’ll just use the good slices. Do we have anything to make sandwiches?"

"There’s some old peanut butter. And some Fritos I think."

"Cool." Paulo then left to make his diner.

Madeleine quickly found a breath mint from her purse and sucked on it fiercely to try to control the heaving of her stomach. Mercifully, Corey decided to act then.

"Dudes! I heard the scene is growing. Heard some dudes were scoping for a rave up north around Sleepyside."

"Haven’t heard of it." Nigel commented. "Which dudes?"

"Some dudes in a truck. Only saw them once. They constantly listen to old industrial stuff like Front 242, Skinny Puppy or Throbbing Gristle."

John squinted in concentration for a moment. "Oh I know that guy! He’s a real weirdo!"

Dear God, Madeleine thought, coming from these people, what kind of freak of nature would they consider weird.

"Do you know him?"

"Yeah. Rick I think. Don’t know his last name. Hooked him up a few months ago."

"With what? Some tunes? Some equipment?"

"Naw. He wanted some old catalogs I had. Paladin Press stuff. Those ones where you can get the Anarchist Cookbook and stuff like that. All that militia stuff."

"Really!?" Corey exclaimed. "I thought he was up looking for a place further from the city to hold a rave."

"He might have been, but I doubt it. That’s not really his scene. He runs with some weird fringe religion. Something he got into at SUNY Buffalo, when he was a part of Campus Crusade for Cthulhu."

Corey’s eyes went wide at the name of the group and he went silent. Several minutes later he took Madeleine by the hand and announced that they had to go. After lengthy farewells and promises to stay in touch and come party again the two investigators were off back to Sleepyside.

 

The members of the Bob-White investigative team made there way to the clubhouse late that night, several days after the rave. The meeting had been put off until Trixie and Honey were once again off doing something on their own.

The night was cold, and a late winter storm had put a fair amount of snow on the ground. With little over a week and half till Christmas, most in Sleepyside had moved past the tragedy and were waiting in eager anticipation of the holidays.

Foremost in the minds of the investigators however, was the progress on their case.

In addition to Corey and Mrs. Wheeler’s expedition, all the other members of the team had been busy tracking down other leads. Dan had called a meeting in hopes of putting together what they had learned.

As the bundled Corey Dawson made his way down the forest path, Mr. Wheeler made an effort to straggle behind to talk to him. Most of the others hurried ahead to the warmth of the clubhouse, where Jim and Dan had come early to fire up the oil heater.

It wasn’t till they were well behind the rest of the group when Mr. Wheeler pulled Corey aside. Corey looked up startled.

"Young man. We need to have a talk."

"What did I do?" Corey asked defensively.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Sir?" Corey replied in a puzzled tone.

"What did you do to my wife?"

"I didn’t do anything."

"Like fun you didn’t young man. She has been acting weird ever since she returned from your little trip in the middle of the night. What happened?"

"I don’t know," Corey replied. "I guess she was kind of freaked out at everything she saw. What did she do?"

"What didn’t she do!" Mr. Wheeler snapped. "That woman hasn’t been the same. First she takes an hour long shower. Then she goes into the kitchen first thing in the morning and checks every last can and container of food for a date. Threw the buttermilk out anyway. Then she has a long talk with our daughter about goals and planning for her future."

Corey blew warm air on his hands to hide a smile.

"Then, just when I think she was going to get back to normal, the delivery shows up."

"Delivery?"

"CD’s. At first I thought they must have had the wrong house. But she came down and signed for them. I can’t say I care for them at all. BT? Orb? KMFDM? Chemical Brothers? Gossamer? Lords of Acid? Crystal Method? Velvet Acid Christ? My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult?"

Corey burst into laughter. "It’s a long story sir. I’ll tell you when I have a chance. Right now we should get to the meeting. We have a lot to discuss."

Mr. Wheeler gave Corey a long hard look. "This is far from over young man."

"Fair enough," replied with a smile, and the two finally walked to the clubhouse.

 

Inside the clubhouse, a quiet but excited group of people sat around eagerly awaiting to share what they had learned.

Dan called the meeting to order.

"All right. Looks like a lot of you are very excited to tell us about what you learned. I gather from this that your various expeditions were successful. Why don’t we start with the one looking into our original clue. Mr. Wheeler. The floor is yours."

 

 

Chapter 17 – The Tale of the Savant’s Hand

"For they know, that which is forgotten need not necessarily be dead . . ." H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath

 

Mr. Wheeler stood up in a very business like fashion. He looked over the Bob-Whites and other young people as seriously as he did his own business associates. From a leather briefcase he pulled out a neatly organized stack of forms, printouts and newspaper clippings.

"I believe I found out what our robbers were after. The safety deposit box blasted open belonged to an area antique dealer that set up in Sleepyside after the arrest of Margo Birch last spring. He was not nearly as well known, but probably more well connected. Not only is he more well connected, but specializes in the occult. A lot of his business was in old religious relics from uncommon religions. Because of what he did, and because of the significance attached to some of his pieces, he chose to keep a low profile."

"What do you mean by that?" Di asked him.

"First and foremost, he did not want his interest in the occult to be mistaken with his own personal religious beliefs. He is devoutly Christian, and doesn’t want people to think otherwise. He wants to avoid the kind of scandal like the ones surrounding Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame."

"Which was?" Di asked. Dan answered her question.

"Jimmy Page was well known for his fascination with the life and times of Alister Crowley, the father of modern occult. He collected his things, and even lived in his old house. He however, recently won a libel suit against a tabloid claiming that he was a cultist himself and stood by in robes while the drummer John Bonham died."

"Secondly," Mr. Wheeler continued, "because of the significance other people have placed on certain pieces of his collection, he did not want to become the target of thieves and robbers who didn’t think he should have these pieces."

"But it looks like someone found out anyway." Jim commented.

"Exactly," Mr. Wheeler declared.

"So what was in the box?" Jim asked.

"What was in the box was not what was supposed to be in the box."

"What was supposed to be in the box?" Tad Webster asked.

"What was supposed to be in the box was an ancient relic referred to as the Savant’s Hand."

"And what was actually in the box?" Jane Morgan asked.

"A winning lottery ticket. A ticket, I may add, that was stolen."

"All that money and stuff in there, and all they take is a lottery ticket?" Brian asked. "Just what is this hand supposed to be anyway?"

"Exactly that," Mr. Wheeler explained. "A shriveled but preserved hand of an ancient religious figure called the Savant. I guess it’s actually supposed to date back to the seventh century, but I don’t have any details about that. That wasn’t my end of the investigation."

"The hand itself is a fairly famous relic in the circles of people who collect or are interested in this sort of thing, and it’s occult significance notwithstanding, it has a very interesting history."

"The hand was supposedly discovered by an archeological expedition outside of Damascus sometime in the late thirties. Shortly after the return of the expedition, the archeologist and his whole expedition died under very mysterious circumstances. The authority’s at the time did not rule out foul play, although the case was never solved. The relic was left to the family of the archeologist, who were soon approached by members of a strange cult, claiming that the hand would bring misfortune to those who owned it. The cult demanded the immediate return of the hand, but the family did not hand it over.

"Several years later, the family’s house burned to the ground in a fire that left no survivors save a distant visiting cousin. No sign of the hand was found, although it was widely speculated that this cousin secretly sold it off and used the money to start over.

"Since that tragic night the hand periodically turned up in various odd collections here and there. A lot of these collectors also met unexpected, and sometimes horrific ends, although skeptical occult investigators believe that the cult after the hand may have been involved in murders in an attempt to regain possession of it."

"Where did it turn up?" Jim asked. "Where did this collector find it?"

"He found it in a pawn shop in Greenwich Village. He bought it very cheap from a pawnbroker who seemed very eager to get rid of it. The sale hadn’t been finalized at the time of the robbery."

"Why is that?" Mart asked.

"Because when people discovered he had it, the pawnbroker decided to hold out for a better price. People were making all sorts of offers, so he put the hand up for auction on eBay. The winner, however, turned out to be a deadbeat bidder, and he was renegotiating the sale when the robbery occurred."

"Do we know anything about who the other interested buyers were?" Dan asked.

"That was our department," Tad said.

"Then Tad, you have the floor."

Mr. Wheeler sat down, and quietly showed the packets of paper to several of the people sitting around him. Tad stood up and began to speak.

"Jane, Matt, the Hawks and I went to this place in the village to ask him about it. He was passively familiar with the stories surrounding the hand, but paid them no heed. He just wanted to get rid of it because he thought it was disgusting and brought the wrong kind of people into his shop."

"I can imagine," Mrs. Wheeler said bluntly.

"The group he remembers the most were a group of very unwashed, slovenly looking kids he said looked to be about high school aged, or maybe early college. They didn’t have much money, but kept badgering him to sell it to them anyway. He said they came back three or four times, until he told them to stay out of his shop.

"He thinks they may have been the ones that won the bidding on eBay, but he isn’t sure. He said he just left negative feedback, because they kept trying to get him to send it before they paid."

"Do you think they may have been members of this cult?" Dan asked Tad.

"I don’t know," Tad stated. "I didn’t even know about this cult until now. Do they have a name? I know savant is a word, and not normally a name. Did the Savant have another name?"

"Savant is a term for a learned scholar," Mart supplied, "and he did have a name. He was the Mad Arab. His name was Abdul Alhazred."

 

 

Chapter 18 – Howard Phillips Lovecraft 1890-1937

 

"Now that time has given us some perspective on his work, I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."

-Stephen King

 

Dan looked at Mart, Di and Brian. "Okay. You have the floor."

"We looked into the Savant," Mart began. "There wasn’t much in Sleepyside Public Library, and we didn’t really have time to use Interlibrary Loan, so we made a special trip to the main branch of the New York Public library."

"Did you see a ghostly librarian?" Corey teased.

"No," Mart said with a grin. "And no slime on the card catalogue either. Just some symmetrically stacked books."

"You’re right," Corey replied in his best Bill Murray voice. "No human would stack books like this."

"Do you two mind," Dan interrupted. "You can make Ghostbusters jokes later."

"Sorry," Mart apologized. "Although there is historical references to a person with such a name, the Mad Arab’s claim to fame these days are in the works of one Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

"H.P. Lovecraft was born Providence Rhode Island, were he lived most of his life. Due to a very unusual upbringing, by two parents who both died insane, he developed a lot of strange ideas and habits from very early on. He was a night owl from a very early age. He loved cats and hated music and seafood, of which he was allergic to. He was very reclusive and not used to people being around at all. He was a self professed xenophobe, misanthrope, and for a short time before he married a Jewish woman, a Nazi sympathizer. With unrestricted access to his parents library, he became a very prolific reader. One of the books that captivated him at an early age was 1001 Arabian Nights. Thus, he adopted the pen name of Abdul Alhazred.

He began writing his own stories at the age of fifteen, among them: The Beast in the Cave. From reading Poe, he developed a taste for the macabre. Although he never had the notoriety of Poe, many who have read him believe that he picked up where Poe left off and took it to new heights. But perhaps the most influential writer on Lovecraft’s style was the Irish Lord Dunasay. Dunasay’s fanatic tales of magic and the faerie captivated Lovecraft from the start, and when Lovecraft started to really work on his own stories, he tried to add to the "Dunsian mythos".

Lovecraft eventually got his stories published in Weird Tales magazine, and developed, if you will excuse the pun, a cult following. It was during this period in time that he made numerous friends with other writers of the day. Not the least of which was Robert E. Howard, better known for his character Conan the Barbarian. He was a prolific with his correspondence; he wrote over 40,000 letters in his life to all of his friends. Most of them are now archived at his old home in Providence.

His stories moved past what Dunasay had done and started to develop a feel of their own. It was with the story, the Call of Cthulhu (pronounced K-TU-LU, Eric), published in 1926, that he consciously tied together his stories into his own mythos. When his colleagues pointed this out, he quickly encouraged others to participate. Soon the stories of August Derleth, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert E. Howard, and even some writers who predated him such as Robert Chambers and Ambrose Bierce were considered part of the Lovecraft mythology. Many have contributed to it since, such as Robert Bloch, better know for his book that became the Hitchcock movie, Psycho. The Poe novel, A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is also considered part of the Lovecraft mythology. It is one of the earliest examples of a writer’s ‘world’ or ‘universe’ as it has become know today. He continued to write tales in his universe until his death in 1937. Much later his old friend August Derleth formed a publishing company Arkham House, to collect and republish his stories. Now they are also available as Del Rey paperbacks."

The room was silent as Mart let Di take up the story.

"Lovecraft’s mythology revolved around the science and what was human knowledge at the time. They were current with what people knew. In the world of the twenties, science had not reached the information age. We had not fully explored the world yet. No one had been to the polar regions yet. But for what was known, his science and geography was current. And at that point, no one was sure of the age of the earth. The very premise of his world was that the earth was much older than we believed, and even before life as we knew it began, the earth had already been home to several alien races, and a race of ultra-powerful, malevolent god-like beings know as the Ancient Ones.

But the ancient ones had been banished from the earth by another race of gods known as the Elder Gods, who lived in the nebula in the belt of the Orion constellation. They were banished to a dimension where people can only go when they dream. The stuff of nightmares.

But they yearned to come back. They yearned to return to earth to enslave humanity and feed on their souls. And hidden away in the most ancient of ruins were the spells and incantations needed to bring them back. Such was the power of the Ancient Ones that even from the dream world, once you knew of them, they had the power to possess you and try to get you to use the magic needed to bring them back. It was an awareness that drove many of the characters in the stories completely mad. Many of his stories revolve around a scholar unwittingly stumbling upon little bits of knowledge that they put together and how the revelations drive them insane. Kind of like an ant learning that it lives in an exterminator’s house. Others revolve around much more direct actions of his many types of betrarchian horrors."

"And I would like to humbly add," Mart said with a grin, "that Lovecraft had a vocabulary that makes me jealous."

There was laughter from the clubhouse.

"So where does the Mad Arab come into this?" Mrs. Wheeler asked.

"The Mad Arab," Brian explained, "was the one in the stories who put most of the forbidden knowledge of the Ancient Ones and the magic needed to conjure them into a book called the Necronomicon, or the Book of the Dead. The knowledge drove him insane, but as the story goes, when he tried to destroy the book, invisible demons rended him apart in broad daylight. The Necronomicon was always being sought after in the stories by the possessed villain trying to bring back one of the Ancient Ones."

The audience in the clubhouse gave a collective shudder.

"Mart," Brian said, "if you catch me trying to read any more of those stories before dark, will you give me a swift kick. Those are about the scariest I have ever read."

"Only if you do the same to me. Herbert West: Reanimator gave me nightmares. And I certainly wouldn’t want to run into Cthulhu in a dark alley."

 

 

Chapter 19 – Conclusions

 

"Crazy, toys in the attic, he’s crazy . . ."

Pink Floyd, The Trial

 

"I guess it’s our turn." Dan said, looking at Jim. Jim nodded and began to speak.

"The works of Lovecraft proved to be much more than just a cult literary phenomenon."

"You mean people thought this was real?" Mart asked incredulously.

"Yes. And not just a few. Since a lot of Lovecraft’s beasties and gods were borrowed, at least thematically from other mythologies, a lot of cultists took it a lot more seriously than he had intended. People drew parallels between characters such as Cthulhu and their mythological inspirations such Tiamat or Pazuzu from ancient Babylon and Summeria. For those of you who are curious, Pazuzu is the statue in Iraq that the guy looks at in the beginning of the Exorcist, and the same demon that briefly appears during the rite. To this day, there are those that maintain that Lovecraft’s maladies were the result of him learning these truths for himself. Some even maintain that the ‘real’ Necronomicon is hidden away in the Library of Congress."

"Even today, the influence of Lovecraft survives, in spirit if not in name. You can go to a comic book store and buy a ‘Necronomicon’ illustrated by the artist H.R. Giger. You can go to a gaming shop and buy the role-playing game The Call of Cthulhu, published by Choasium, including dozens of illustrated sourcebooks. Every election year Choasium runs a promotional: Cthulhu for President. Their campaign slogan is: Why vote for the lesser of two evils? Even the final boss in the computer game Quake is named for a Lovecraft Ancient One."

"Which brings us to our last clue," Dan said. "Corey. You have the floor."

Corey stood up and began. "Part of modern day fandom to Lovecraft is a series of college clubs throughout the country called the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu. Mostly they just wear buttons and talk about Lovecraft. It is not generally something they take seriously and just do for fun."

"Through our friends at the rave, I found out about a comic book casualty that takes this stuff a little too seriously. Most heavy comic book fans have a very tenuous grasp on reality as it is. He owns a truck like the getaway vehicle, and listens to the kind of music Trixie heard. I did a little more looking after the rave, and discovered that this boy was an engineering drop out from SUNY Buffalo who has the technical expertise to pull something like this off. He had obtained from our friends the catalogs and books he needed to learn to disable alarms and build bombs. And I just discovered yesterday that right before he dropped out of school, the Student Association had just filed a police report about embezzled money that he ran off with, that he filed for through this particular club. With the amount he took and the right connections, he could have easily purchased the guns and gear he needed to outfit his crew."

The room fell silent again for a minute.

"So what does this all mean?" Mrs. Wheeler finally asked.

"Let me see if I can summarize," Dan said. "We have our suspect Rick who reads comics and runs this campus club. At some point someone snowed him into believing that the works of H.P. Lovecraft were real. Maybe the same cult that has existed since the stories became popular."

Corey gave a snort of contempt. "If he’s a fanboy comic book casualty, then snowing him wasn’t hard."

Dan continued. "He learns, through one way or another about the Savant’s Hand, which he believes is actually the preserved hand of Abdul Alhazred saved from the demon attack some 1300 years ago. Bad things happen to everyone who’s owned the hand. Whether it is coincidence or foul play on behalf of the cult we don’t know.

Regardless, because of what he believes, he decides he has to have it. First he tries to buy it, but the owner won’t trade it for comics or Magic: The Gathering cards."

Corey laughed out loud at Dan’s joke. Dan smiled and continued.

"So then he tires to get it out of him through eBay, but the owner won’t ship without payment. So then he somehow finds out about where it is really going, but doesn’t realize it hasn’t gotten there yet. He has been studying up on domestic terrorism 101, and decides if he can’t get it one way, he will take it another. So he runs with SA money from Buffalo, kits out a crew, and tries to take it by force."

Mart was the first to speak after Dan finished. "That is a very sound theory that fits the facts, but we lack conclusive proof. We think he is the same one that went to the pawn shop and we think he is the same one who embezzled the funds, and we think that he is the deadbeat online bidder. How do we prove that this is all the same person?"

"There’s always the forensics angle," Tad suggested. "If we go to the police with what we have, they can at least find Rick’s truck. If there is any sort of blast debris on it, or anything linking it to Main Street Sleepyside at the time of the robbery, then I think they can bust him."

"They probably won’t find the truck," Brian commented, "or the guns, or anything they wore or used. This guy may be no rocket scientist and know his X-Men powers better than he can spell, buts he’s probably no idiot and anyone can rent Heat and know to ditch the evidence."

"We really can’t say that," Miss Trask interrupted. "We are obviously dealing with someone very delusional and mentally ill. We are talking about someone who’s religion came from comics and horror short stories. We can’t count on him doing anything rational."

"I disagree," Jim interrupted. "Yes, he is probably very delusional, but he obviously remembered enough of his science classes to build bombs and circumvent alarms. They did this by the numbers and were in and out of there in a hurry. I think we can count on him having taken steps to dispose of incriminating evidence."

"So what does that leave us with?" Mrs. Wheeler asked. "All this we dug up, and we still have nothing."

"No. I think we have a lot," Mr. Wheeler said. "Enough to give the authorities a real good idea of where to look. I’d say we cash in our chips and let the professionals take over."

"There is one more thing," Di said suddenly. "Two actually."

Everyone turned to look at her.

"The ticket. Maybe our thief will try to cash in on it. It obviously wasn’t a two dollar scratcher if it was in a safety deposit box."

"But even if it was a big one, it wasn’t the jackpot, or the owner would have cashed it in already. Anything up to five hundred can be cashed in wherever they sell those tickets, and they sell those at just about every convenience store in the state. Even Mr. Lytell sells them now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been cashed in already."

"Well if it was a modern store," Jim added, "then maybe they got our boy on camera."

"I know for a fact," Mr. Wheeler interjected, "that the feds are already looking into that angle, so we may as well forget about that lead."

"Well that still leaves us with a juicy lead," Di said. "If our boy is this obsessed and has gone through all this trouble, and these multiple attempts to get the hand, then why won’t he try again? I think the question we need to be asking is where is the hand?"

 

 

Chapter 20 – A Vote and a Stakeout

 

"No plan of battle survives the first shot"

-excerpt form Murphy’s Rules of Combat

 

The clubhouse fell silent again for a moment.

"That’s a really good point Di," Dan finally said, "and I’m sure Mr. Wheeler could find out, but what exactly are you suggesting we do?"

"Maybe we could stake it out," Tad suggested.

"I think we’re getting into the area of ‘Trixie’ style past recklessness that she is trying to stop," Jim said. "I don’t think this is something we should do on our own."

"Why not?" Tad argued. "We don’t have to catch them. Just watch for an attempt and call in the heat."

"I’m sure it seemed that way to Trixie every time she went off investigating by herself or with Honey," Jim replied. "It seldom ends up being that simple or uncomplicated."

"I agree with Jim," Dan stated. "Maybe if this will be a simple stakeout, the authorities will let us be on hand when they grab him. If not, I think we’ve done all we can. I say we go with what we have, including Di’s lead to the feds right now. It’s the safest and most sensible thing to do."

"That’s not any fun," Mrs. Wheeler suddenly stated. "All this we’ve done, and now we just sit back and let the cops get the credit."

The debate quickly grew heated. In the end they decided to take a vote. As the votes were counted, they came out in favor of going to the feds.

"I guess that settles it," Dan said. "What now?"

"Why don’t we all head back up to the Manor House?" Mr. Wheeler suggested. "We’ll consolidate all of our statements, information and findings into a computer file. I just got Office 2000. Then we’ll burn it all onto a CD-R and take it to the feds. I’m sure the cook can dig up some leftover desert and throw on a pot of coffee while we put this together."

As all the guests milled around Mr. Wheeler’s study, Honey was positively fuming.

"Don’t be upset dear," Mrs. Wheeler said in a mollifying tone. "We didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you. "We just didn’t want to get Trixie in trouble."

Honey didn’t reply, but continued seething. Miss Trask tried next.

"Honey, you mustn’t take this personally. We just ended up having to meet when you were out with Trixie. You know how cases can go sometimes. You have fibbed to me before when you wanted to go investigating with Trixie."

Honey gave Miss Trask a nasty glare, and continued with her silent furious pout. The last to try to calm her down was Brian.

"Look Honey. Darling. I was going to tell you. I really was, but . . ."

Brian yelped in surprise as an empty Diet Coke can hit him on the side of the head. Everyone backed away now that Honey had moved up to throwing things.

 

Back at Crabapple Farm, Trixie pensively surfed the net on her computer, and wondered where everyone had gone. Brian and Mart had disappeared to "Christmas shop", but she noticed that his jalopy was still in the driveway.

She had read her law and criminology books till she couldn’t read anymore, and finally decided to window shop online. While surfing through her various files, she went back to the email address from Molinson, and her thoughts drifted back to the case that she hadn’t been able to work on.

In one fell swoop, master detective Trixie Belden made the logical connection that it had taken the rest of the Bob-Whites nearly three weeks to come to.

Maybe they’re still looking for what they didn’t get. They left empty handed after all. I’ll email Molinson.

She quickly punched up a new message and made this point to him. He returned her message only minutes later.

It read:

That’s a really good point. I’ll look into it.

Just heard from your friends. They say they are bringing me in a hot lead first thing in the morning.

I’ll keep you posted.

"What?!" she cried out aloud. "What’s been going on around here?"

 

It was only a few days before Christmas. The Bob-Whites, Hawks, Trixie, Corey, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Sgt. Molinson and members of the sat in a second floor den of a house across Albany Post Road from the house of the Sleepyside antique dealer in possession of the Savant’s Hand. With them were the FBI Hostage Rescue Team that had rescued Dan, Jim and Brian from the terrorists two months before.

All were bundled for the weather, since the window was open for the sniper team that watched the front of the house across the street. From in front of the roaring fire, Di and Dan, with the help of everyone else, told Trixie the story of what they had been up to for the last several weeks.

Honey was fuming again, but both Trixie and Sgt. Molinson sat expressionless as the story was told. When they finally finished, the room fell silent. Trixie could feel the tension building as they all eagerly waited to see what she would say. Many strained expressions gazed intently at her face, trying to determine whether or not she was mad or upset.

"What do you think Trix?" Jim finally asked. "Not bad for a bunch of amateurs."

Trixie couldn’t hold it in any longer. Neither could Sgt. Molinson. They both laughed till their eyes watered. Trixie noticed that even the serious faced snipers and entry commandos from the FBI couldn’t help but grin at the crazy story.

One of them looked up at the unit commander Carter.

"Maybe we should move our headquarters from Quantico to Sleepyside. This seems to be where all the action is. It will save us a lot on deployment time."

The commandos laughed, and went back to their stakeout.

 

Things were quiet for a while. There was small talk of Christmas, but everyone was too apprehensive to say much. Honey finally recovered from her anger enough to talk to Trixie quietly about everything the rest of the club had been into. Soon even Sgt. Molinson joined their conversation. It was very strange to see a grizzled, middle-aged cop gossiping and giggling with two teenaged girls, but they didn’t seem to care, and he didn’t seem to be self conscious about it at all.

Special Agent Carter leapt into action without warning. He waved one arm for everyone to be quiet and spoke quickly into his radio.

"Rock’s in the sock! Suspect vehicle has pulled up to the house."

He took one more quick glance. "Suspects are armed and moving on the house. Engage. Weapons are free."

He then gave a quick glance at the snipers. "Neutralize the escape vehicle!"

In a blur of motion, the sniper ejected the soft-nosed bullet he had loaded and replaced it with a blue-tipped one. The commander gave a glance of warning to everyone in the room, and everyone quickly covered their ears.

The blast was still deafening, but a nice clean hole appeared in the engine of the truck. Fluids of all kinds started to leak out on to the curb bellow. Two lightning fast follow up shots blew out both tires facing the house across the street.

"Oswald was an amateur," the sniper cracked. His spotter smiled, but made another joke in return. "Do this at further than thirty yards, and then you can talk."

Although Trixie and the others couldn’t see what was going on, she could hear yelling and shouting as the HRT commandos entered the house to capture the robbers.

She finally couldn’t take it anymore. She very slowly stood up from where she sat and craned her neck to try to get a glimpse of what was going on. She turned with a start, as she realized that Sgt. Molinson was trying to do the same, peering out like an excited little kid.

It was then that she got a glimpse of a lone figure running off through into the woods behind the antique dealers house.

"One of them is getting away!" she shouted and pointed.

 

 

Chapter 21 – Over the river and through the woods . . .

 

". . . to capture the crooks we go. The Bob-Whites know the way, to save the day . . ." -I just made that up

 

Carter looked over in surprise.

"We have one on foot headed into the woods. Back-up teams, move to engage!"

There was static over the radio along with muffled chatter. Carter grew livid. He then shot a nasty look at Molinson.

"My teams say they just hit roadblocks set up by your boys because of icy roads! You assured me complete cooperation from your department!"

Molinson snapped back at him defensively. "It wasn’t my boys! It might be the state troopers. They do it sometimes on their own. Albany Post Road technically is a state highway."

Carter lost his cool and threw his radio down against the ground. He then quickly picked it up. "Teams two and three, move in on foot. Suspect is headed through the woods towards . . ." Carter looked desperately around the room.

"If he keeps going straight, he’ll end up on Glen Road. But he could also end up in Sleepyside Hollow," Dan supplied excitedly. "Or near Mr. Maypenny’s cabin!"

There was absolute mayhem in the room as everyone quickly debated what to do next.

"We have to find him!" Jim shouted. "That maniac is armed. He might hurt Mr. Maypenny or . . ."

"Rose Crandall" Di supplied.

Carter desperately tried to get everyone to calm down and stay put, but no mere Federal agent was going to stop the Bob-Whites from swinging into action. Trixie desperately wanted to join the chase, but was mindful of the promise she made to her father.

Soon everyone in the room scrambled out, except for the snipers, Sgt. Molinson, Trixie and a more level headed Honey and Brian.

 

Outside, Tad ran to Spider’s motorcycle with Jane Morgan close on his heals. Matt Devlin and the other Hawks ran to their bikes.

"I have to be careful with Spider’s bike, so I’ll ride down to Glen Road along this road," Tad shouted. "I can ride around the barriers. Since you guys have dirt bikes, you head through the trails in the woods and see if you can get him. And be careful!"

Matt and the Hawks gave Tad the thumbs up, and soon all the bikes roared off in different directions.

 

Behind the stakeout house, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler and Miss Trask ran down to a very startled Tom Delanoy who sat in the Wheeler limo with the heater on and the radio playing.

"Tom!" Mr. Wheeler snapped. "Quit screwing around and get us back to the Manor house!"

"Sir?"

"GET US BACK TO THE MANOR HOUSE NOW!"

Tom didn’t even have to time to get out of the car to open the door for them. They literally dove in and scrambled around in the back seat while Tom slowly pulled out.

"WILL YOU STEP ON IT?!"

Tom gave a nervous laugh. "Sir. I think the road is blocked. We may have to find another way around."

"Just drive through it!"

"Sir?"

"You heard me. Drive through it."

"We might dent up the car."

"I didn’t ask you if we were going to dent up the car. I asked you to get us home NOW!"

Tom was quickly silenced by Mr. Wheeler’s yelling.

"Madeleine! Marge! We need to call ahead to Regan to have Jupiter, Susie and Lady saddled and ready to go. We can’t go through the woods in the car. And ask Regan if I can borrow his rifle and his shotgun."

Miss Trask quickly found the car phone and began dialing.

Tom nervously sped up as he saw the wooden barriers with lights across the road.

"Geronimo!"

 

 

Jim, Mart, Corey, Dan and Di quickly met around the back side of the collectors house. Di and Corey were already panting and out of breath.

"What do we do?" Di nearly yelled.

"We’ll never catch him on foot," Dan replied. "We need to find a faster way to chase him down."

"I saw a snowmobile parked behind the shed," Jim said excitedly. "I also saw some cross-country skis and things in the shed itself. I’ll go ask if we can borrow them."

"The owner isn’t even home," Dan said. "He was cleared out for the stakeout. We need to go now. We’ll just have to be careful, and explain when we get back."

"Alright," Jim agreed. "Who goes where?"

"Maypenny’s cabin is the furthest from here," Dan explained. "Di and I will take the snowmobile, and go there to warn him. Then we’ll circle back looking for the perp. I might even be able to borrow one of Maypenny’s hunting rifles."

"Can you ski?" Mart asked Corey.

"I can ski well," Corey explained. "If someone can show me the way, I can ski to the Hollow."

"I’ll go with you two," Jim told them. "We may even be able to track this boy. It shouldn’t be that hard in the snow."

"Cool. What are we waiting for?"

Dan and Di quickly made their over to the snowmobile, mounted and started off. The rest quickly put on the skis and quickly glided off into the woods. The HRT commandos came around the house just in time to see the Bob-Whites disappear into the woods.

 

Back up in the den, Trixie sat pensively with Honey and Brian. Sgt. Molinson paced back and forth, getting periodic updates through his police radio.

He finally turned to Trixie. His tone was irritable, but he was smiling as he told her, "Trixie, just when I get you straightened out, you’re friends get crazier than you did."

Trixie just smiled in response. "What is going on anyway?"

"I’m not totally sure. I just know that a black limo just barreled through a roadblock, and that your friends just tore off in the woods before the feds could form up a proper search."

"Mom and Dad?" Honey asked with surprise.

"I guess so," he replied. "This whole town has gone mystery crazy. I just hope nobody gets hurt."

"Does anybody even know where this guy is headed or where to look?" Brian asked.

"Not really. The feds want to form a perimeter and then carefully sweep in. But with so many people in the woods now, they may have to move in faster, before our boy decides to take hostages."

Trixie was quiet for a moment, and she thought over what was happening.

"Sir, I think I know where he is going."

Sergeant Molinson looked at her with a start. He then had a sudden sly look.

"Let’s go."

"What?"

"Let’s go get the bad guys. We’re a team remember."

Trixie returned his sly look. "Okay."

 

 

Chapter 22 – A Ticket and a Showdown

 

"If it’s stupid and it works, then it isn’t stupid"

-You guessed it. Murphy’s Rules of Combat.

 

Rick Feldman waited nervously outside of Mr. Lytell’s store on Glen Road. His friend Chris was inside getting five-hundred dollars for a lottery ticket from the very grumpy store keeper who was checking and rechecking to make sure the ticket was a genuine winner. He was uncomfortable with both an automatic pistol and a shriveled hand stuffed in his coat, but it he was going to have to blend until he could figure out how to get out this mess.

The Hand will give me strength.

Chris finally emerged from the store.

"What do we do now? The feds are all over this place like a cheap suit." Chris asked.

"I saw some houses up the road. We can hot-wire a car. Hopefully a local car will be recognized as familiar background and won’t be stopped. If that doesn’t work, we can hike through the woods past the roadblocks and ‘jack somebody. We’ll be safe once we make it to Innsmouth."

"Sounds good."

"Do you still have that GPS receiver?"

"Yeah. Let’s get going."

The two robbers were only a few steps up the road when they saw three horses galloping down the road. Two of the riders carried rifles.

"Damn!" Rick shouted. "We’ve been made. That store keeper sold us out to those Mounties!"

"I just thought he was calling to verify the ticket." Chris protested.

"Just shut up and go that way!" Rick snapped. The two started around the store when they heard excited voices coming through the woods down the path made by Rick’s footprints in the snow.

"Gee!" Chris snapped sarcastically, "Do you think you could have left them a wider trail?"

Rick ignored the remark, and pushed Chris to move a different direction through the woods. They soon stopped as they heard an approaching snowmobile. This was quickly followed by the sound of sirens coming down Glen Road the opposite direction from the riders.

"Dude! We’re almost surrounded. We have to do something. Maybe we can run into the woods across the road."

"No. They’re all too close. They’ll see us. Go back in the store!"

"What!"

"Go back in the store, and grab that geezer before he calls the news crews too."

Rick and Chris drew their guns and proceeded back in the store. Mr. Lytell was already standing on the step waiting for them.

"Young man!" he snapped. "I just found out that that ticket was stolen and . . ." He gave a yell of surprise when he saw the guns and quickly fled to the trees. The two robbers headed inside without a hostage.

The mob arrived almost simultaneously. The absolute first on the scene were two Sleepyside police cruisers that pulled into parking lot to form a perimeter. The officers got out, now equipped with new vests and guns that had been purchased for them by the village. The Wheelers pulled in their horses as soon as they reached the cars partially blocking the road.

Dan and Di were the next to arrive on the back of the snowmobile, and the officers on the scene quickly waved them behind the perimeter. Next to emerge were the three skiers who, after having heard the sirens, had the good sense to circle around.

Tad and the Hawks were the last to show up.

Holes appeared in the front window, as the robbers fired a out a few panicky shots. Everybody got low, or moved back.

"What are you going to do?! Mr. Lytell shouted to one of the officers on the scene. "They’re wrecking my store!"

"We have orders to wait sir," the officer replied.

"Wait?! Wait for what?"

The officer winked. "The cavalry."

Mr. Lytell began to sputter in protest. He was cut off by a strange new sound coming down the road. It was oddly familiar. He just couldn’t place where he had heard it before. It suddenly dawned on him.

It can’t be!

Around the hole in the perimeter came Brian’s jalopy! The top had been put down, and Mr. Lytell could clearly see Brian was driving it himself. He looked almost comical wearing a black armored police helmet. Hanging on and standing on the running boards were four Sleepyside police officers covered head to toe in new black armor, and carrying clear plastic riot shields. The first two of the these four were none other than Sgt. Molinson and Spider Webster!

As the Jalopy pulled up to the front of the store and slowed down, the two riders riding shotgun stood up. Because they also wore armored helmets and vests it took Mr. Lytell a minute to identify them.

Trixie Belden and Honey Wheeler!?

Before Mr. Lytell could recover his wits, the two girls stood up and raised big black, drum fed police grenade launchers and fired.

Two large gas grenades flew through the front window, and within moments, the entire store was filled with CS tear gas.

The four officers leapt off the jalopy and hit the ground running.

Moments later they pulled out two coughing and choking robbers. Sgt. Molinson and Spider quickly cuffed them and read them their rights. By the time the HRT commandos showed up in a helicopter it was all over.

 

It was when Spider, the Wheelers, the Hawks and the Bob-Whites were giving interviews for the local TV news crews when Mr. and Mrs. Belden showed up with Bobby in tow.

"Hey Trixie, neat gun!" Bobby exclaimed.

Although Mr. Belden didn’t quite realize the significance of Bobby’s remark at first, he did a double take and quickly began looking for his daughter.

Trixie was standing with Honey, Spider and Molinson. She almost looked normal: Bright red sweater, blue windbreaker, matching knitted scarf and ski cap, jeans, snow boots, knitted red leg warmers, grenade launcher . . . She looked like something out of Aliens meets Martha Stewart.

"Beatrix Belden! What on earth are you doing with that!?"

Trixie jumped with a start. Although Honey and Brian had already returned their armor and equipment, Trixie had almost forgotten that she had an Arwen 37mm grenade launcher hanging by a nylon strap around her neck. She guiltily let go of the grips, unslung it and handed it to Spider.

"Sorry Dad. It’s not mine. Sgt. Molinson loaned it to me. There weren’t enough officers nearby for a full raid in time."

Peter Belden gave a withering stare to Sgt. Molinson. Before he could say anything Mrs. Belden calmly walked up and grabbed him by the ear. She hauled him off and started to scream at him.

Trixie turned away uncomfortably, to see Mr. Lytell nearly in tears over the mess in his store. Miss Trask went up to comfort him. She could make out Miss Trask asking him out, and saying she would do anything to make him feel better.

 

 

The entire mob found itself once again in the large living room at the Manor House, with everyone telling their part of the story. Mr. Belden sat and fumed, periodically giving Sgt. Molinson, Mart and Brian very dirty looks.

Vera Parker sat quietly listening and asking questions. She didn’t even trust herself to get enough notes, so she simply recorded the entire interview.

The story had progressed to the events of that afternoon.

"We were already back at the Manor House getting ready to leave and search when Mr. Lytell called us," Miss Trask started. "He knew I had been looking into this, and told me that he had just cashed in the stolen lottery ticket. That’s how we knew where to go."

"I figured as much," Trixie said. "It would be convenient getaway money, and their friend Chris was probably left to cash it while they robbed the dealer for the hand. They probably hadn’t counted on people waiting for them at the house because they had gotten away clean from the attempt at the First National Bank."

"Before we left," Mrs. Wheeler continued, "we called Mr. Maypenny to warn him, and tell him where we were going. Dan and Diana were already there, so I guess he told them where to go."

"He did." Dan said.

"After I told my theory to Sgt. Molinson," Trixie said, "we took Brian’s jalopy to get Spider and the boys. His car wouldn’t start and he didn’t want the nearby patrolmen to waste time picking us up. He wanted them to get to the store and bottle them up."

"There’s one thing I still don’t get about this," Mr. Belden finally said when he calmed down. "You said how Rick and his boys got the money and know how to rob the bank, but did you ever find out how they got the inside information they needed?"

"I did," Sgt. Molinson declared.

Everyone turned to him.

"Olyphant’s nephew was running the information business till his uncle got out. He bribed someone at the contracting firm that installed the new security at the bank a year or so back. Passed it onto Rick. I knew about him and that he was up to no good, so the day after the robbery, I went to talk to him about it all. He got smart with me."

"So what did you do?" Trixie asked.

"Beat the crap out of him. He was much more talkative with a dislocated shoulder, three broken fingers and a fractured femur. He still wouldn’t tell me who he sold it to. I was about to get really rough, when the feds caught me working him over. Got suspended over that. Lucky for me Trixie, you helped me get evidence according to rules and procedure."

"But I thought you were . . ."

"Suspended over what I told you. I got an earful for that too, but it wasn’t why I was busted."

And hence, the story of the Savant’s Hand had been told.

 

Epilogue-

Trixie sat lazily under the tree at Crabapple Farm enjoying a few last lazy moments before a full effort to clean up the living room would begin as well as preparations for the annual Belden Christmas party. This year in addition to the normal guests, the Molinson family, the Websters, the Morgans, and the Dawsons would be attending.

She had an unusually large pile of "loot" this year as Mart would call it. Amongst her many presents were a pile of CDs that Corey had given her, and a copy of the latest Lucy Radcliffe from Jones. Unlike just about every other copy of this novel, hers was fully annotated by Jones himself on how spies really get things done. Also under the tree for her was a copy of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, that Mart said he had been unable to finish. That one would be saved for later.

She yawned, stretched and smiled. It was always fun to have a lazy winter break now and then. She intended to do more reading from the books that her father gave her. After the incident at the store, however, her father stated that in addition to the reading, she was going to get gun safety and shooting lessons from Tom Delanoy sometime in the near future. This wasn’t a Belden tradition for females, but things change. He wouldn’t be able to teach her anything about grenade launchers, but the idea that her father insisted she learn about this made her laugh when she thought about it. With everything she had decided to learn about this fall like computers, and all the studying that her father decided she needed to do, she wondered what would be left to learn when she finally did get to become a detective.

She stretched one more time and started to gather up the strange assortment of presents including clothes, disks, and printer paper, and took them upstairs, all the while, wondering what the new year would bring.

 

 

Miss Trask was attempting to sneak out of the living room shortly before Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Tom, Celia and Regan were about to leave to the Belden’s party.

She was nearly at the door when she got busted.

"Marge!" Mr. Wheeler exclaimed. "Where on earth are you going? And why are you back in that outlandish outfit again."

Miss Trask cringed and slowly turned around, blushing to the roots of her hair. She was once again "biker woman".

"You’re not going to the Belden’s?" Mrs. Wheeler asked.

Miss Trask fidgeted nervously. "I was going to go later. But I have a date."

"A date for Christmas?"

"Yes."

"Who on earth would ask you out on Christmas?"

"Mr. Lytell."

"Mr. Lytell?"

"Yes. He doesn’t have any family in the area. I thought I would spend some time with him. He has been under a lot of stress lately. But now that his store is fully repaired and remodeled, he asked me to come see it."

"Dressed like that?"

"Well, he did hear about our trip to the bar. I told him about the case. That’s why he called us to tip us off when the two went their to cash the ticket."

"That’s great Marge, but why are you dressed like this for your date."

Miss Trask blushed again, "Well he was so upset after the raid. And I did say I would do anything . . ."

Mr. Wheeler laughed.

Mrs. Wheeler looked puzzled for a moment. "You mean he asked you to. . ."

A horn honked outside.

"That’s him! I have to go." Miss Trask hurried out without another word.

Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler gave each other a quick look, and then ran to the door to see. They got there just in time to see Miss Trask riding away on the back of a new Harley Davidson motorcycle, with her arms wrapped around a leather jacketed Mr. Lytell.

They both looked at each other and laughed till their eyes watered, and finished getting ready to go to the Beldens.

The End

End Note: All right now. Let me have it. Good or bad, tell me what you think. I’m at sped@sdc.org. Or you can thrash me on any of the boards. Whatever floats your boat. Next time I suggest elements for a GWP though, please kick me in the head. I didn’t realize what a deep grave I had dug. But it’s no ones fault but my own <g>.

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