Brownie and the Dame (9 page)

“Mortimer
isn’t
a real penguin,” Brownie said as knowledge finally came into his head.

“Well, duh!” Lissa snapped. “He’s a plush p-p-penguin.”

“Stop being stupid,” Janie said to Brownie, patting Lissa’s back as Lissa rubbed her soaking face into Janie’s t-shirt.

“So something scared the goats,” Brownie surmised, “and while Lissa was seeing about that, the perpetrator stole the p-p-penguin.”

“M-m-mortimer,” Lissa confirmed sadly.

Brownie frowned at his notepad. “A spatula. Two bras. A penguin plush. Maybe the tree Miz Holmgreen talked about, too. What do all of these have in common?”

Janie continued to pat Lissa as her face twisted in concentration. “Good question. If we knew the answer to that, we could solve the inexplicable mystery.”

“There’s other stuff missing?” Lissa asked.

“Yes, something from Miz Adelia Cedarbloom and something from Miz McGee and possibly a tree from the Ford building.” Brownie frowned harder.

“Did you notice anyone suspicious?” Janie asked Lissa.

“Spicious?” Lissa repeated. “I don’t know no one named Spicious. Is that foreign?”

“Well, Mortimer comes from the South Pole,” Brownie said.

“M-m-mortimer!” Lissa howled in response.

“Brownie!” Janie snarled.

“Sorry,” he said. “Maybe we should have a look at the scene of the crime.”
Maybe the skirt will finally stop crying. Are those boogers yellow or is that yellowish-green?

* * *

The crime scene was a picnic table with an array of plush animals. An entire zoo was represented and all seemed to get along very well. Lions, tigers, and bears cavorted with squirrels, Monster High dolls, and a baby doll that Lissa said actually pooped and peed.

Brownie grimaced.
Who wants a doll that poops and pees? Wait, how do they make it poop? Is it real poop? Cool, I mean, gross.
 

The picnic table sat in the front yard of a large house. It also sat in the shade of a very large oak tree that took up a significant portion of the yard. Clearly, Lissa had been playing with all the toys she could drag out in a Red Flyer wagon, which was left nearby. Once the crime had been committed, Lissa had likely been too upset to clean up.

And most importantly, there was a conspicuously empty spot in the middle of all the toys where Mortimer the p-p-penguin had reigned supreme.

“I c-c-couldn’t sleep very well last night because I dint have M-m-mortimer,” Lissa wailed.

Brownie had to admire the time and effort that went into Lissa’s wailing.

“Where were the goats that were all riled up?” Janie asked.

Lissa pointed to the nearby field. The grasses were tall there, and the goats were systematically working at getting the grass to a manageable level. “Daddy just moved that herd into the field.”

“You went and looked and then went to find your daddy,” Janie ascertained.

Brownie sighed. He wasn’t on top of his game. Janie was getting to ask all the important detective-like questions. “Whereupon the flim-flammer took the toy, jumped in a flivver, and faded fast,” he drawled.

Janie and Lissa stared at him.

“Mortimer got stolen,” Brownie explained flatly, “and the guy took off.”

Lissa nodded. Tears welled ominously in her large blue eyes.

Brownie stared at the field. “The punk snuck in through the field, waited for Lissa to make like a tree and leave, and then bunked the plush penguin. We should take a glom at the field.”

Lissa said, “You really are going to find Mortimer?”

“We’re going to try,” Janie vowed. “Protect and serve, that’s our motto.”

It is?

Lissa watched them as they investigated the field. The goats were curious, too. Janie couldn’t resist saying, “Shoo!” to one. It made a sad noise, stiffened up, and fell over. It resembled a brown and white board. Janie said, “That’s just wrongity-wrong.”

“Ifin one came straight from the woods to where the picnic table is, then this is the quickest way,” Brownie said, ignoring the goat. The goats acted as if they had been stunned, but there wasn’t a stun gun about.
That’s no fun.

There was a trail of sorts that led into the woods.

“Is this trail from the goats?” Brownie asked Lissa, who dawdled behind them.

“No, they ain’t been in this field for a spell. Maybe it’s a game trail.” She sighed. “But then there’s all kinds of kids who come to see the goats and the Christ tree, so it could be from them, too.”

Brownie followed the trail into the woods while Janie stayed with Lissa. He found a patch where there were animal prints and then something had been dragged over the animal prints. He took a digital photo.
M-m-mortimer came through here after the animals made the print.
But he looked further and found one section where the animal track stepped on top of the drag mark.
Hmm.

He came out to a road that he recognized as the D-named road that Lloyd Goshorn had mentioned. To his left was the entrance to the Boomer farm. To his right was one way back toward town. It was also the way that Brownie and Janie would take to go back to the Snoddy Estate.

An old green Chevy truck pulled up to Brownie with a disturbing clunking sound and a blast of grayish smoke. Brownie said to the man who leaned out of the window, “Hey, Bubba.” He looked behind Bubba for the police and saw that his cousin was unencumbered by a legal presence.

Then he registered that Bubba had a black eye. It was a fresh black eye. In fact, it was so fresh that it wasn’t yet black. It was swollen and red and quite the doozy if Brownie was any type of judge. (And Brownie was; he’d had nine black eyes and the photos to prove it.) Bubba reached down and brought up a package of frozen Brussels sprouts, with which he applied to his blossoming black eye, although the Brussels sprouts were quickly becoming unfrozen.

“Ma sent me to find the pair of you,” Bubba said. Precious crawled over Bubba’s lap to rest her front legs on the open window of the truck door, pushing Bubba aside as she did. She barked once.

“I go back and get Janie,” Brownie said. “We got bikes.”

“I’ll drive around the way and meet you at the Boomer’s house,” Bubba said, and even Brownie was aware that there was a definite air of “Thou-shall-not-ask-questions.”

A few minutes later, the two children sat on the bench seat of the Chevy with a happy Basset hound between them. They waved at Lissa as Bubba turned the truck around. The bicycles had been placed in the back.

“Ma said to remind you not to run off without telling her,” Bubba rumbled.

“Dint we leave a note?” Brownie asked Janie. He glanced back at the forlorn Lissa, who was standing where they’d left her, lost and alone without her beloved p-p-penguin.

Brownie’s gaze stuck on Lissa for a moment. Abruptly, the youngest Boomer didn’t look lost or alone. Instead she was staring at them with an expression on her face akin to having a memory tinkling the edge of her brain. Her mouth moved, and Brownie could even read the word she said. It was, “Hey,” as if something had occurred to her. Brownie would have asked Bubba to stop, but the expression on Bubba’s face was intimidating. With the package of Brussels sprouts held awkwardly over his eye, he was switching hands back and forth to change the gears on the truck, all the while holding the steering wheel with his knees. Brownie decided that he would get back to the little skirt later and ask what was bothering Lissa.

“Oh, yes,” Janie agreed. “A note. Besides which good investigators must get to the crime scene early. The earlier the better. It’s a rule, and crimes have been committed.”

Brownie nodded.
Janie is a stand-up dollface
. “A penguin is missing. It could be a life or death situation.”

Precious barked again. Brownie scratched the hound behind one of her phenomenal ears. One of her legs twitched in time with the scratching. The leg thumped the bench seat like she was hitting a drum.

“A penguin,” Bubba repeated thoughtfully. “Well, ain’t that a shame.”

“It’s Lissa Boomer’s plush penguin,” Janie said as if Bubba’s statement made her angry. “It’s important to her.”

“You kids got to be careful when you go off,” Bubba said. “Folks would be upset ifin something were to happen to ya’ll.”

“You could give me back my stun gun,” Brownie suggested. “Then I could protect the two of us.”

“I know jujitsu,” Janie said. Her chin rose upward in a dogged fashion. “I don’t need a stinking stun gun.”

* * *

Supper came and went. Everyone was relatively quiet. Willodean joined them and cast frequent irate glares at Bubba. There were numerous phone calls for Miz Demetrice who went out of the dining room with pained sighs. Then she came back in, muttering, “Dang women cain’t do nothing by themselves. Makes me want to tie myself to an anthill and smear my ears with blackberry jam.”

“The Pegramville Women’s Club doing all right, Ma?” Bubba asked as he helped himself to his third piece of leftover chicken.
 

“Get your straw out of my Kool-Aid, Bubba Nathanial Snoddy,” Miz Demetrice said immediately.

Bubba glanced at his glass. Brownie knew it was iced tea. Brownie had milk, as did Janie, who was pushing her glass away from her with a mulish look.
Who’s got Kool-Aid?

Willodean sighed and then gave Bubba another one of those long-suffering glances. If it had been a look from Brownie’s mother to his father, then his father would be sleeping in the doghouse without a blanket in a thunderstorm.

“We found some more missing things today,” Brownie said. He had an urgent need to interject something into the gloomy atmosphere of the house. “A plush penguin and a tree.”

Willodean frowned. “Missing things?”

“A spatula, two bras, a penguin, and a tree,” Janie ascertained. “We haven’t investigated the missing tree yet. It may be unrelated. Everything needs to be documented and correlated. What does correlated mean?”

“Bras?” Willodean repeated. Bubba covered his mouth with his hand and coughed.

“Double D’s,” Brownie said. “Lift and support. That’s what Ma says. I think she thinks hers are drooping.” He demonstrated with his hands, and Willodean had a distinctly blank look come over her face.

Finally, Willodean turned to Miz Demetrice. “Janie isn’t causing any issues, is she?”

“I’m sitting right here,” Janie said. “You could ask me that.”

Brownie would have adjusted his fedora in order to garner attention for the detective-like hat, but Miz Demetrice had made him remove it for supper.

“They’re detectives,” Miz Demetrice said. Her lips had gone curiously flat as if she was trying to keep something inside. “You’ll notice the pinstriped suit Brownie is adorned with.”

Willodean cast her green eyes upon Brownie, and her eyes took in the rumpled suit. “I was too busy making sure there wasn’t a stun gun in his hands. Or a Sharpie.”

“I promised I wouldn’t do that while I was here,” Brownie muttered. “Ain’t no one complained about it when I did it to the evil perpetrator.” He hesitated and added, “And we’re gumshoes, sleuths, private dicks.”

“Okay,” Willodean said slowly. “That explains what Sheriff John was talking about.”

* * *

An hour later, Brownie and Janie sat on the veranda, watching Bubba speaking with Willodean about a hundred feet away. Bubba waved his hands about. Willodean waved her hands about. Then Willodean stabbed Bubba in the chest with an index finger. Bubba winced.

“She mad?” Brownie asked Janie.

“Not sure.”

“I don’t reckon she’ll use her gun on him,” Brownie said.

“Naw. Auntie Wills never shoots anyone in the family.” Janie considered. “Hardly ever, anyway.”

“Bubba ain’t her family.”

Janie pursed her lips in evident concentration. “Some lady told me yesterday that Bubba and Auntie Wills got married, and they had thirty-nine bridesmaids and groomsmen. Told me they had an elephant carry the bride into the church. The elephant was dragging crumpled-up cans attached with white ribbons behind it. Also the elephant had the words ‘Got hitched!’ painted on its rump.” Janie looked confused for a moment. “Auntie Wills wouldn’t have gotten married without telling Grandma. Grandma
would
have shot them both.”

“Naw, they ain’t married. Just a lot of gossip around these parts.” Brownie eyed the pair penetratingly. “But he still ain’t her family.”

“He’s her boyfriend.” Janie’s face revealed distaste. “He loves her. Ugg.
Grown-ups
.”

“Yeah, well that don’t mean they’re getting married.” A thought occurred to Brownie. “Ifin Bubba marries your aunt, that would make her my second cousin by marriage, and you would be my third cousin by marriage or would it be cousin, twice removed by marriage? I think I’m getting a headache.”

Precious came up to the two children and maneuvered her way in-between the pair. Brownie appreciated the hound’s ingenuity as that meant she would get twice the petting. She rested her dogly head on Brownie’s leg while her tail thumped Janie. Both of the kids briefly focused on petting the animal.

“I don’t think it would make us anything.”