Chapter 5: Curiosity Forms a Plan

There’s no more surefire way to interest someone in something than by saying that someone could get killed and deliberately not mentioning who.  If Brittany had wanted Auburn to forget what had happened, she should have just pretended to not know what Auburn was talking about.  She’d tried, but she hadn’t been able to act her way out of this situation.  Hence, all she’d done with her little speech on Wednesday was to get Auburn as interested in the club as possible.

Walking back from the Conoco, sipping her Big Peach (more delicious than she remembered from last time), Auburn thought about what she would do next.  She was sure she was correct about Brittany driving the getaway car.  That had been a guess, but Brittany’s reaction had been more than enough to confirm it.  The chance of three midgets showing up to rob a bank was very slim, and Auburn had guessed it might be children.

However, she couldn’t prove any of it.  Even if she could, she decided, she wouldn’t go to the police.  Not until she found out who it was that might get killed if Brittany got arrested.

This, she was sure, was true.  Brittany looked like a nice person.  Of course, looks can be deceptive, but Auburn was sure Brittany hadn’t been lying about not wanting to rob the bank.  She was convinced that Brittany would go to jail if only it would break the hold Richards had over her.  But why couldn’t she?  What was the hold?  Who was going to get killed?

Auburn was determined to find out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We’ll leave the horses here.  Come on!”

“Heh.  Why do we go to mine?”

“That girl—I never heard of her father, or why he was killed.  It must have some connection with the deputy marshal’s murder.  This is as good a place as any to start looking.”

Well, something was about to happen in The Lone Ranger show, but Auburn wasn’t paying attention.  Not anymore, that is.  It was her habit in the afternoons to listen to one of her favorite radio shows and stare out her window.  This wasn’t as much fun in Blackwell as it had been in Kansas City, but there was a little bit of entertainment.  Today, for instance, a UPS truck had pulled up across the street, and the deliveryman had started for the front door—only to come tearing back to the truck pursued by a sniveling, growling dog that obviously intended to attack the man.  Now, the dog was just a poodle, so Auburn doubted it was vicious enough to do any damage, but the deliveryman wasn’t sticking around to find out.

About a half hour later, the dog’s owner took it for a walk, only have the bad luck of passing by a house just as the sprinklers came on.  The poodle tried to run in all directions at once as it attempted to get away from the spraying water.  It was a soggy mess by the time it escaped the torrent.

However, what really caught Auburn’s attention was when that kid from up the street rode by on his bike.  He pedaled slowly but deliberately, just as he had the other day, when he’d thought Auburn was in the club.

Five to one it’s another meeting, thought Auburn, but I’d better make sure.  She sprinted out of her room and down the hall to the garage.  Running inside, she quickly yanked two boxes out of the way and pulled her bike off a rack on the wall.  It hadn’t been used in a long time, but the tires looked okay—good enough, at least, for her purposes.

Auburn pushed the button for the door, but she didn’t bother to wait for it to open all the way.  She slid the bike under it, then rolled out herself.  Picking herself up off the hot pavement, she glanced down the street, in time to see the boy turning left.

Alright, here goes!  She hopped on her bike and took off down the thoroughfare.  At first, she wobbled a bit, but the skill quickly came back to her.  When she turned left onto the side of the highway, she had no trouble steering.

However, there was no sign of the boy.

Phooey! thought Auburn.  Unless… She pedaled ahead, then glanced down the side street to her left.  Ah, there was the boy, just walking back to his bike from the front door of a house—not his house.

So there is a meeting!  I wonder what time.

The boy wasn’t worried about being followed, and he didn’t notice Auburn’s squeaky white Schwinn bike with the blue handlebars (Auburn’s dad had tried to customize it) catching up to him.  Auburn didn’t make up all the difference, but enough so when the boy saw another boy out in a yard, she could hear exactly what he said.

“Meeting at six tonight.”

“Meeting at six,” the other boy repeated, flatly, as he knew the full significance of the words.

No further words were exchanged, and the boy on the bike kept pedaling.  Now that Auburn knew there was a meeting, there was no reason for her to keep following, so she whirled the bike around to head for home.

Suddenly, she realized something.  Where was the meeting?

If the news articles had given the club’s location, Auburn had missed it.  She really needed to know, though.  How else could she go spy on the meeting if she didn’t know where it was?

She thought about asking Brittany, then realized this was a stupid idea.  Brittany knew, but there was no way she was going to tell Auburn.  She’d have to find out from someone else…like that kid down the street.

Trying to keep a neutral expression, Auburn rode up to his house.  The boy was still outside, picking nerf bullets out of a hedge.  He didn’t seem to notice Auburn ride up, until she started speaking:

“Excuse me.  Is the meeting tonight at…at…”  Suddenly, Auburn realized that she knew hardly anything about the buildings in town.  Which one should she suggest?

“Is the meeting at City Hall?”  Whew.  I’m sure there’s one of those.

The boy didn’t bother to look away from the hedge, as he withdrew another foam pellet.  “No, it’s at the movie theater again.”

Perfect! thought Auburn.  That was easy!

Then, the boy continued.  “He needs the screen again.”

Ah, more information!  “Yes, of course,” said Auburn, even though she had no idea what Richards needed a screen for.  She decided to play for some more.  “Maybe we’ll get to watch The Incredibles.”

The boy turned to her, and Auburn saw the same expression she’d seen in Brittany’s face the day Richards had short-changed her at the gas station.  That hurt, hopeless look of someone who’s caught in something they can’t get out of.  “How can you make a joke about…about that?”

He let that roll of his tongue as if he was mentioning a lynching, or a corpse…or a concentration camp.  Auburn felt chills running up her spine at his reaction; steeling herself, she tried to keep calm.

“You’re right,” she said, even though she had no idea what the boy was right about.  “It wasn’t very funny, was it?  Nothing’s funny anymore.”

The boy nodded, in perfect agreement, and went back to picking through the hedge. Auburn watched him for a moment, then got on her bike and pedaled home, still in the dark as to Richards’s horrible secret.