The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery Page 19

  Uncle Jeff came home first and gave me aspirin and ice cubes wrapped in a towel to bring down the swelling. I told him I had hit my head in the hayloft, without saying exactly how. I implied that it had happened while I was practicing basketball. Apparently I didn’t have a concussion, although I did have one lollapalooza of a headache.

  By the time Aunt Dorothy arrived home, I was feeling better, and we decided that I didn’t need to go to the doctor. I tried to do some homework, but I couldn’t concentrate and went to bed early.

  ***

  In school on Friday, my head was still tender, and I wasn’t speaking in a loud voice. I was looking for an opportunity to tell Ed that I hadn’t found the necklace. He never showed up at lunchtime, so I went looking for him during the activities period. I went into the room containing the duplicating equipment, because that also served as the headquarters for the school paper.

  Ed wasn’t there, but Ruth Allen was. She was wearing a straight skirt down to her calves and long socks that disappeared somewhere up into the skirt.

  I said hello to her and then said, “How far up do those socks go?”

  “Too far for you to look,” she said with the hint of a smile.

  Those were almost the first human words she had spoken to me. I asked her if she knew where Ed was. She said he was sick today. That explained his nonappearance at lunch.

  Ruth seemed friendlier than she had before, so I decided to chat with her for a while and admire her figure. After we had talked for a couple of minutes, I said, “You know that I’ve been interested in finding exactly how Ralph died and whether anybody was with him. I admit that I talked to Ed about you, and he verified that you were in the class you had after the assembly, so that you couldn’t have been in the auditorium.”

  Ruth looked at me strangely. She said, “I was in that class, but Ed wasn’t.”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Somebody brought a message about Ralph to the classroom, and the teacher announced what had happened to him. I completely fell apart. I remember looking for Ed, because I knew that he was Ralph’s cousin, and because I thought we could comfort each other. But he wasn’t there.”

  “Have you ever told anybody that?”

  “No. I never thought it was relevant. I thought Ralph’s death was an accident. I had seen Ralph do a handstand on the auditorium balcony. It scared the life out of me, and I made him promise never to do it again. But obviously he didn’t keep that promise.”

  We looked at each other for a minute. Then Ruth said, “Do you think…do you think…that Ed might have had something to do with Ralph’s death?”

  “I’m not sure. But I have reason to be suspicious. Don’t say anything to anybody. I’m going to see Ed tomorrow—that is if he’s well by then. I’ve got some questions to ask him.”

  The room contained at least a dozen typewriters. Typing classes were taught here.

  “Do you and Ed use these typewriters?” I asked Ruth.

  “Sure. All the time. The teacher trusts us. We can use any equipment here.”

  My thought was that if Ed had typed the mysterious limerick that had appeared in my locker, he might have done it on one of these typewriters. It had become clear to me that he had learned a lot about me before we met. He certainly could have known about my limerick writing from Aunt Dorothy, even before I wrote a limerick for him. I wasn’t going to go to the trouble of getting a sample from each of these typewriters now. But it was an option for later.

  CHAPTER 25

  Saturday morning, I drove to the Drucquers’ house to pick up Ed. The sun was shining, but the air was cool. When I had called him last night, he said he had an upset stomach, which is why he stayed home from school. But he was feeling better. I didn’t question him about whether his stomach ache was real or a ploy to skip school. I pulled into the driveway of the ramshackle house, and before I could open the door to get out, Kate came running out of the house, dressed in blue jeans and a heavy sweater.

  I rolled down the window and said, “Is Ed still sick?”

  “Eddie’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to say hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  We laughed. She poked her head through the car window and kissed me. I felt like I was two-timing Sylvia. But it wasn’t as if I had initiated the kiss. The door opened, and Ed came out. Kate quickly pulled her head out of the car, and we strove to look innocent.

  Kate and I said good-bye as Ed climbed into the car. If he saw what happened, he didn’t let on. I backed the car out of the driveway, shifted into first gear, and drove away. We were going to a picnic of the Western New York High School Mathematical Society. The group met periodically, and members from various schools gave presentations on mathematical fallacies and stuff like that.

  I had just been invited to join, and in fact, the picnic was the first function I was attending. Ed had been a member since the beginning of the school year. It was interesting that mathematical ability ran in both of our families, even though we had been separated for several generations. Barney also belonged, but he was driving separately with Dr. Graves and another member from the Carter High junior class.

  After I asked Ed how he was feeling and he answered that he was feeling all right, I said, “I have something to tell you about the necklace.”

  Ed looked wary and said, “What’s that?”

  “It’s not in the hayloft.”

  “What did you do, dig out the bales all the way down to the floor? We agreed to wait until spring.”

  “No, but I did manage to climb down to the floor and look for it.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Ed’s voice was heated but not passionate. I knew why. I mentally braced myself and said, “I know you lied about the location of the necklace. I know that Ralph said it was in the southwest corner of the hayloft.”

  “Have you been going through my things?” Ed was almost yelling now, his English accent very pronounced. “So that’s what you were doing the day you were there with Kate. You bloody bastard. Asking Kate to the dance was a cover. Or maybe a bribe. She helped you find it.”

  “Leave Kate out of it. I did it myself. Yes, I went through your stuff, and I found Ralph’s map. But that’s no worse than you lying about it.”

  Ed wasn’t through yelling. He kept going on and on about what a terrible person I was. I was afraid he was going to attack me, and I would wreck the car. Maybe I should pull over.

  “Not only did you go through my private possessions, you took one of my magazines,” he ranted.

  “Do you have them catalogued or something? Yes, I took your bloody magazine. Your mother came home early, and it was either take it or have her find it. Look, we both are at fault. You lied to me, and I went through your stuff. But the point is, there is no necklace. I searched the hole thoroughly, and it just ain’t there. So either there never was a necklace, or somebody removed it.”

  Ed was silent for a few seconds while he contemplated that statement. Then he said, “How do I know that you didn’t find it and keep it for yourself?”

  “Do you think I would be telling you about doing this if I had found it and didn’t want to share it? I would have hidden it someplace else. Then come spring when the bales were cleared, we would look for the necklace together, and it wouldn’t be there, and I would put on an innocent pose.”

  “Since you say you didn’t remove all the bales, maybe you’re making up the story of looking for it to get me off the track. Maybe you didn’t look for it at all. But with me out of the way, now it’s all yours.”

  I was about to say that Sylvia had seen me look for the necklace, but I didn’t want to drag her into it, especially since the fact that we had been together might get to Aunt Dorothy. Nothing I said was going to persuade Ed.

  “If you like, you can come up to the hayloft. I’ll show you how I got down to the floor. You can go down there yourself. Then maybe you’
ll believe that I actually did it.”

  Ed had an apprehensive look on his face. Maybe he was claustrophobic, like Natalie. In any case, that shut him up for a few minutes. When he spoke again, he was a lot calmer.

  “Sorry I spouted off about the necklace, old man,” he said. “I guess I hoped it was true. Now I realize that it was a figment of Ralph’s imagination.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said. “Why did Ralph create the map in the first place? If he actually hid the necklace, he wouldn’t need the map to find it again because it was a simple location to remember. I don’t think Ralph was into drawing treasure maps just for the fun of it. And if there were no necklace, that makes it even more unlikely. Unless he was fantasizing that there was one.”

  “Maybe Ralph was a little bit bonkers. I think it runs in our family.”

  “You know what I think? I think Ralph was needling you. He had been listening to your stories about equality and how unfair life was, and he created the map to get to you. The promise of riches. Maybe you two were fighting about the map on the balcony of the auditorium. It was creased and worn, which means somebody had been carrying it around. Another thing I know is that you weren’t attending class when Ralph was killed. That means you could have been with him.”

  I stopped. I had said more than I intended to, trying to get a reaction out of Ed. He was silent. I glanced at him, apprehensively He was looking out the window. I knew he had heard me. I turned on the car radio, and we listened to top 40 songs on WKBW while I pondered Ralph’s thought process. And Ed’s. Why did teenagers act like idiots sometimes? I should be an expert on that subject, but I didn’t know the answer.

  ***

  The picnic was held at the home of one of the girls who was a member of the mathematical society. She was from another school district some miles from ours, and her home was more of an estate than a home. It featured a three-story white house with gables and turrets and acres of green lawn that somebody had to mow. I was glad it wasn’t me. I had mowed the extensive lawn at the farm with a power mower that I had to walk behind and push. It took a lot of time and effort. The farm’s lawn was a fraction of the size of this one.

  Barney and Dr. Graves were already there, and Tabitha, a girl from Carter who I hadn’t met before. When I had a chance, I asked Barney how the car ride with Dr. Graves had gone.

  “Do you mean, did he get fresh with me? No, I’m afraid not. I guess I’m a little too old for him. And Tabitha is the wrong sex. So I have nothing new to report.”

  About thirty of us ate a lunch outside on picnic tables arranged on the lawn, in spite of the coolness of the weather. We were tough Western New Yorkers, able to survive freezing winters. This was nothing to us. However, I was glad that I was wearing a warm jacket. But as the sun got stronger, the day grew warmer, and eventually, I was able to take off my jacket.

  Veronica, the daughter of the owners of the estate, sat at the same table we did at lunch. When I asked her who mowed the lawn, she laughed and said, “Oh, we have a gardener who comes and does that.”

  I felt foolish to have asked the question, but I looked to see whether Ed was listening. He thought my family and Aunt Dorothy were rich, but Veronica’s parents must really be rich.

  Veronica was telling us about her property. In addition to a pond that froze in winter and was used for skating, and an aboveground swimming pool that was emptied in winter so it wouldn’t freeze, she mentioned that her family had built a bomb shelter.

  Bomb shelters were talked about in the newspaper all the time, because of the cold war with the USSR. What would we do if a nuclear attack was launched against us? Where would we hide? These scare tactics had us picturing helmeted soldiers sitting in underground silos, with their fingers on the launch buttons of ICBM’s, waiting for the signal from on high. Bomb shelters were the answer. Some employers offered loans to their employees who wanted to build them.

  Ed, who had been uncharacteristically silent since we arrived, perked up at the mention of the bomb shelter and said, “Is it underground?”

  “Yes.” Veronica pointed to a grass-covered slope that went up from where we were sitting to the house, and said, “It’s buried under the lawn. I’ll show it to you after lunch.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Actually, the first event after lunch was a talk by a student from another school. We were invited into the house by Veronica’s parents. The living room was large enough to hold the whole ground floor of our house in Atherton. It was covered with various area rugs with exotic designs. A large fish tank dominated one corner and was filled with all kinds of colorful fish. The teens flopped on the overstuffed couches and chairs, and the excess sat cross-legged on the floor while a boy told us about the wonders of topology.

  One of the more interesting demonstrations he gave was to take off a vest he was wearing while keeping his jacket on. Then he said, “The same principle can be used by a girl who wants to take off her bra without taking off her sweater.”

  That sounded like something I might have said—once. I looked around to see whether Dr. Graves or another adult would shut him up, but he talked so casually that he was getting away with it. He looked as if he expected one of the girls to volunteer to demonstrate, but of course none did. The idea was to slip a strap off one arm and then to shove the whole bra through the other sleeve. I wondered whether there was a practical application.

  I asked Veronica about that after the talk was over. She laughed and said that the information might be useful next year when she was in college. I felt a strong urge to get out of high school and into college.

  Ten of us wanted to go on the tour, including Ed and me. Veronica went to the house and procured the key to the padlock that secured the sturdy wooden door at the entrance to the shelter. The door was set into the side of a small hill, and as Veronica opened it, she started her lecture. From the confident sound of her voice, she had given the lecture before and was probably qualified to act as a docent for bomb shelter tours.

  “You’ll notice that the shelter is built of concrete a foot thick,” she said, indicating the doorframe. “Perhaps not thick enough to withstand a direct hit, but certainly thick enough to keep out the harmful fallout. In any case, if we get a direct hit out here, somebody’s aim is seriously off.”

  This statement produced nervous giggles. We were beginning to wonder whether we all needed bomb shelters.

  Veronica turned on a large flashlight that she had brought from the house and said, “If you’re going to be in a shelter for several days, what do you need to survive?”

  Was this a pop quiz? She stepped through the doorway while we contemplated that question. We followed her. The room we entered was high enough for me to stand and perhaps six feet wide. It was too dark for me to see exactly how long it was, but it appeared to extend for at least twenty feet. Cans of food and other items were stacked along one of the walls.

  “You’ll notice that when the door is shut, the space around it is sealed airtight to prevent anything radioactive from getting inside.”

  Veronica closed the door and turned off her flashlight. It was suddenly pitch black. Several people gasped. I felt disoriented.

  “If everything is sealed, how do you breathe?” somebody asked. “Won’t the air run out?”

  “Good question,” Veronica said, opening the door again, to the relief of all of us. “So the first thing you need to survive is breathable air. There is a hole in the roof of the shelter to provide ventilation.”

  She shone the flashlight along the ceiling. I saw a hole in the concrete that presumably led to the outside world above. Ed walked over and looked directly up through the hole. I was curious as to what he saw, but not curious enough to go over to it.

  “But if you bring in air from outside, won’t the fallout come in with it?” I asked.

  “The gamma rays produce the most dangerous kind of radiation. They are emitted from dirt and dust sucked up into the nuclear cloud. Once they reach the earth, they shou
ldn’t penetrate the concrete and the dirt surrounding the shelter. The hole is covered to prevent radioactive rain and other debris from falling into the shelter. Fresh air comes in from under the cap.”

  She certainly spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. I wondered how much of what she was saying made scientific sense and how much was the result of wishful thinking.

  “Now, what else do we need to survive?” Veronica asked.

  “Food.”

  “Water.”

  “Protection against the cold.”

  “Human waste disposal. Where do you pee?”

  The last statement produced some giggles.

  “We have all of that, including enough food and water for six people to survive for two weeks. And a chemical toilet.”

  Veronica shone her flashlight along the floor of the shelter. There were large bottles of water and stacked cans of food. I saw blankets and what looked like folded up army cots that my family had used when we went camping.

  “In addition, there is a first aid kit and a tool kit.”

  “How do you light the place when the door is closed?” a girl asked. “I assume there’s no electricity in here.”

  “In case of atomic attack, electricity will not be functioning,” Veronica said. “We are relying on battery-powered lights. Because of the limited ventilation, we can’t use lanterns that burn fuel. They give off noxious fumes.”

  “So you need a lot of batteries,” someone said.

  Veronica shone her light on a box that was labeled “BATTERIES” in black crayon on the side. It was an impressive setup. She had answers for everything. Well, there were a few unanswered questions, such as how six people could get along together for two weeks in this cramped space without killing one another, especially since the lights would have to be turned off most of the time to save batteries. And how you would know when it was safe to venture outside. And what would you do if you were the only survivors in this part of the world?