The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery Read online

  I came to the cross street and headed toward Carter. Now it was safe to hitchhike again. I still had a few miles to go, and time was flying. I could tell by the sun that it was approaching noon. I suspected that whatever Ed had planned was going to take place soon.

  Traffic was sparse on this two-lane country road. I walked as fast as I could. I was limping, and I felt as if I weren’t making any progress. Moving my legs but staying in one place. The first two cars passed me by. Then one slowed as it passed. I could see that there were two girls inside. They wouldn’t stop. I turned and continued walking.

  The car moved slowly for a hundred yards and then stopped. I approached as fast as I could, expecting the driver to take off, but it just sat there with the engine running. It was a two-door Dodge. A girl got out of the passenger side as I approached and looked me over. I slowed down, not wanting to look aggressive. I was afraid she would jump in the car, and they would drive off.

  She must not have been alarmed by what she saw, because she waited until I came up to the car and then said, “You can get in the backseat.”

  I pulled the seatback forward and climbed into the back, wincing. On top of everything else, I had apparently hurt my back. A sharp pain went through it when I bent over to get into the car. I sat down in the cramped space and pulled the seatback into position. The girl got in and closed the door. It wouldn’t be as easy to get out of this one, but I would rather be trapped by two girls than two guys.

  As the car started up, I realized that they must be on their way to church. The girls were wearing their good dresses, white gloves, and little white caps. Their hair was pulled up in buns. They also wore glasses.

  I said, “Thank-you for stopping.”

  The passenger turned around to look at me and asked, compassionately, “Were you in a fight?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “I’m trying to get to my aunt’s farm on Sugar Road.”

  “We’re going to the Mennonite Church.”

  That confirmed what I was thinking. The caps had given them away. Aunt Dorothy had told me that two large Mennonite families lived in Carter and the children went to Carter High. I had seen a couple of them in the halls. I didn’t recognize these girls. But the church was very close to the Drucquers’ house.

  “Great. My cousin lives near there. I can get a ride from his house.”

  I asked them what school they went to. They said Braden, which was in a town south of Carter. But they often went to the Mennonite Church in Carter and spent the afternoon with their relatives. At last it looked as if I were going to make it to the farm.

  I asked them what time it was. They weren’t wearing watches, but the girl in the passenger seat said she thought it was about quarter to twelve. I was glad we were approaching the Drucquers’ house. Maybe Ed would still be there. Maybe this was all a false alarm. But being locked in the bomb shelter was real, even if it seemed like a bad dream. No, he definitely was planning something.

  They said they would take me right to my cousin’s house. This would save me a few minutes and every minute counted, so I didn’t try to talk them out of it. They stopped in front of the Drucquers’ house, and the girl on the passenger side got out of the car again. I pushed the seatback forward and exited painfully, trying not to show how much I hurt. Then I thanked both of them.

  As the girl got back into the car, I turned and looked for my car. It was not in evidence. The door to the single garage was closed. That’s where the Drucquers kept their old clunker. I limped up to the house, trying to think of what to say. I couldn’t come up with anything brilliant. The place looked deserted. Perhaps they were all at church.

  I remembered that the doorbell didn’t work and knocked on the door. There was no response for thirty seconds. I knocked again, wondering how easy it would be to break into the house and use the phone. Fairly easy, I would imagine. Then I heard footsteps inside, and Kate opened the door. She was dressed in blue jeans and the old sweater with a tear in it that I had seen her wear before.

  “What happened to you?” were the first words out of her mouth as she stared at me in wide-eyed surprise?

  “Where’s Ed?” I asked.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gary, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No, he drove off in your car a while ago. I think he said he was going to return it to you. What’s going on?”

  My brusque manner was scaring her. I toned my voice down a notch or two and said, “May I use your phone? I need to call Aunt Dorothy.”

  Kate opened the door wider and let me in. She led me to the telephone sitting on a small stand in the combination dining room and kitchen. I was too absorbed in making sure my relatives were all right to give any word of explanation to her. I dialed the number and listened to the phone ring. And ring. I hung up. There was no sense calling my parents. They would be at the farm by now. Everybody must be outside. I hoped.

  “I’ve got to get to the farm,” I said to Kate. “Where are your parents?”

  “They’re at church. I didn’t want to go, so I told them I had homework. What…”

  “Did they drive their car?”

  “No, our neighbors picked them up.”

  “Can I borrow their car? Kate, this is important.”

  “Where are you going to take it?”

  “To the farm.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No.” Whatever happened, it was no place for her.

  “If you want to use the car, you have to take me.”

  No time to argue. “All right. Get the keys. Hurry.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “Now tell me what’s going on,” Kate said as I sped away from the house. “And try not to wreck the car. You’re driving like a maniac.”

  “Ed locked me in a bomb shelter last night,” I said, skidding around a turn and downshifting into second gear. “He’s up to something, but I’m not sure what.”

  “He said you lent him your car.”

  “That was a lie.”

  “So what’s he doing? Is it something to do with the necklace?”

  “No, because there isn’t any necklace.”

  “Then what—”

  “I’m not sure what he’s up to, but whatever it is, we’ve got to stop him.”

  “Gary, you’re not making any sense.”

  “I know. I can’t tell you anything more right now. All I know is that we’ve got to get to the farm.”

  At the speed I was driving, we were going to be there in about four minutes, in spite of the fact that the old crate could barely hit fifty. And it was vibrating something awful. I was glad we didn’t have very far to go. I was also glad about the scarcity of policemen as I skidded around another turn onto Sugar Road, without honoring the stop sign.

  Half a mile to go on a straightaway. I slowed down for the railroad tracks, fearing that the car would fall to pieces if it got too much of a jolt. The driveway of the farm was just ahead. I pulled into the driveway between two big old maple trees and stopped behind my father’s car. My car was nowhere in sight. Maybe Ed wasn’t here, after all.

  I jumped out and ran to the front door. It was unlocked. I opened it and went inside. I could see into the kitchen. Although I smelled the fetching aroma of Sunday dinner cooking, I couldn’t see anybody.

  “Aunt Dorothy,” I called. No answer. “Uncle Jeff. Dad. Mother.”

  Something was bubbling in the oven, but I didn’t hear any human sounds. I glanced out the dining room window that looked straight down the lane. Nobody was in the lane. I turned and almost knocked down Kate, who had come into the house behind me.

  “Maybe they’re in the barn,” I said.

  I ran out of the house and toward the barn. Kate was right on my heels. Twenty steps later I opened the barn door and went inside. Another few steps, and I was at the ladder to the hayloft. The trapdoor was open, and the loft light was on; I cl
imbed up and onto the floor of the loft. The first thing I saw was my mother and Aunt Dorothy on the other side of the loft, attempting to peer between the bales and the wall of the barn. They were both wearing dresses. It seemed very odd that they would be wearing dresses in the hayloft.

  Then I saw a group on top of the bales—my dad, Uncle Jeff, Tom, and Archie—also apparently looking for something. Kate quickly climbed up the bales and joined them. I went over to the women, whose backs were toward me, and said, “What are you doing?”

  They jumped and turned around. Both stared at me wide-eyed, as if they had seen a ghost.

  “Gary,” my mother said, wrapping me in her arms. “How did you…?” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “How did you get out?” Aunt Dorothy asked.

  How did she know about the bomb shelter? I started to give a confused reply when out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody run to the ladder from behind the haystack and quickly climb down, closing the trapdoor behind him with a bang.

  It was Ed. What was he up to? I broke free of my mother and ran over to the trapdoor. By the time I reached it, I heard hammering noises coming from just beneath it. When it was closed, we opened the door from above by pulling up a bolt that acted as a handle, because the closed door was flush with the floor. I tried to get a grip on the bolt to pull it, but it had slid down almost flush with the door and I couldn’t get my fingers under it. Ed had apparently secured it from below. And it was practically impossible to open the door any other way. The hammering continued.

  “Ed,” I called. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The hammering stopped for a few seconds. “Gary?” Ed said through the door. “How did you get out?”

  “Open the door, Ed,” I said. “The time for games is over.”

  “This will work out just as well,” Ed said. “Better. I don’t have to go back to the bomb shelter to take care of you.” He continued hammering.

  I sniffed the air. Something smelled funny. I glanced toward the haystack and saw smoke drifting up from between the hay and the wall. Ed had set the hay on fire.

  “Fire!” I yelled. The others, who had started coming down from the bales when they heard my voice, now ran over. My father, Uncle Jeff, and the boys made their way along the wall toward the fire and started trying to stamp it out.

  “This isn’t a joke, Ed,” I yelled, panic in my voice. “Everybody is up here.”

  Ed briefly stopped hammering and said, “It worked out beautifully, didn’t it? They all hurried out here when I told them you had gotten stuck searching for the necklace. You would be amazed how much they all love you, Gary. I’ve got your whole family right where I want them. Only the Drucquers will be left to inherit the farm.”

  Ed continued hammering. The volume of smoke was increasing rapidly. Ed had obviously started the fire in a number of places, and the dry hay was catching fast. I could tell from the yelling that we weren’t going to be able to put it out.

  There was one thing Ed didn’t know. “Ed, Kate is up here,” I yelled over the hammering and the shouting. “Kate is up here,” I called again when the hammering stopped.

  “Nice, try, Gary. But pulling my leg won’t work.”

  “Kate,” I yelled. She had tried to get to the fire, but had been driven back by what was now thick smoke. “Come here.” I motioned frantically to her. “Tell Ed you’re here.”

  Kate ran over to the trapdoor, heard the hammering, and called, “Eddie?” as if she didn’t believe what was happening. “What are you doing?”

  “Katie? Katie? You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Kate clawed frantically and ineffectually at the door. “Eddie, the barn is on fire. We’re all going to die.”

  “I can’t pull the nails out,” Ed called. Now the panic was in his voice. “I put them in too tight.”

  “Release the bolt,” I said.

  I heard some more hammering and the bolt popped up. But when I pulled up on it, the door didn’t move. Ed had nailed the wooden crosspieces of the door to the boards surrounding it. I pulled harder and lost my grip on the bolt. This was as bad as trying to open the door at the bomb shelter by pulling on the hasp.

  Archie and Tom stumbled out of the space between the wall and the haystack, coughing, driven out by the smoke. The men followed them. I heard screaming and confusion. We didn’t have much time.

  “Ed, knock the slats out of the door with the hammer,” I called.

  The wooden slats were nailed in from above, and he should be able to knock the nails out. I heard pounding, and the door jumped a little. The nails were in tight, and it would take forceful blows. More pounding, then a yelled curse from Ed and a muffled plop that sounded like something hitting the concrete floor down below. Then silence.

  “Ed,” I called. I repeatedly called his name, but there was no answer.

  “What’s the matter with the door?” Uncle Jeff asked.

  He grabbed the bolt and tried to pull the door up, but he couldn’t get a good enough grip. The door didn’t move.

  “Ed nailed it shut,” I said. “He wants us to die. He knows Kate’s here, and he was trying to knock the slats out, but I think he fell off the ladder.”

  Uncle Jeff shouted Ed’s name several times. Still no answer.

  “He must have hit his head,” Uncle Jeff said.

  The smoke was now swirling around us. It would get us before the fire would. The women and my brothers and Kate were huddled together, coughing and crying. I thought of Uncle Jeff’s words about looking for the weakest link. The trapdoor was no longer the weakest link.

  What other possibilities were there? There was the door at one end of the barn. It opened at the top of the barn to let the conveyor belt bring hay into the loft. It was on the wall behind the haystack. The door was also well above the ground and below it was a hard gravel driveway. But the worst problem was that the smoke was too thick to allow us to climb the haystack and the whole pile of hay would burst into flames at any moment.

  CHAPTER 31

  There was one other possibility. That was the window above the hay bales at the other end of the barn. We could get to the window, but how could we get down from there? It must be at least twenty-five feet to the ground. But maybe it was better to jump than face certain death from smoke and fire.

  I looked up at the window and saw the rope hanging from the rafters near it. That had to be the answer.

  “We’ll go through the window and down the rope,” I said to Uncle Jeff and my dad, who were both trying to lift the trapdoor, in vain.

  “Is there enough rope to reach the ground?” my dad asked.

  “I don’t know but it’s our only chance. Bring everybody up on the bales.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I ran to the bales and climbed them as fast as I could. The smoke wasn’t heavy here yet, although it was starting to drift over from the haystack to this end of the barn. The window was a little above the top of the bales, but the wooden slats nailed to the side of the barn acted as rungs of a ladder that gave access to it.

  I quickly climbed the ladder until my head was even with the window. The bottom half of the window slid up to open. I released my grip on the top rung with one hand and tried to push the window up. It was stuck. I hit the crosspiece of the window with the heel of my hand in an upward direction, trying to unstick it. The window didn’t move, but my hand hit one of the dirty panes and broke the glass.

  A quick look at my hand revealed that I had suffered only a minor cut. The broken glass was no help, because the panes were much too small for us to go through. But if I could break the six panes of glass on the bottom half of the window and the wooden crosspieces that held the panes in place, we could get through the opening.

  I looked down and saw that my brothers and Kate were now standing on the bales below me. The women were hampered by their tight skirts, but the men were helping them climb up the bales.

  “I need to break the window,” I said to Tom, Archie, and K
ate. “Has anybody seen the pitchfork?”

  The pitchfork was used to move the hay in the haystack. Hopefully, it was in the hayloft.

  “I saw it the last time we were up here,” Kate said. “It was between the haystack and the north wall.”

  Before I could say anything, she made her way quickly through the jumble of bales to the edge and slid down them to the floor. She disappeared from my view. That side of the hayloft was not yet on fire, thankfully, but the smoke had reached it. I hoped the pitchfork was still there. I prayed she would find it and make it back all right. Tom went to the edge of the bales, probably wondering whether he should follow her. And perhaps wondering what she meant by talking about the last time we were in the hayloft.

  For several seconds, I held my breath and wondered whether I should send Tom down into the smoke with her, or go myself. No, I couldn’t take the time to get down from the ladder. Maybe I should try to break the window with a hay hook instead of the pitchfork. I was about to ask Archie to hand up a hay hook when I saw Tom grab the handle of the pitchfork as it was lifted up to him. Kate had found it.

  Tom made his way among the bales, which were piled helter-skelter from when I had been searching for the necklace, trying not to trip and stick himself with the pitchfork. While I cringed as the pitchfork swung wildly with his movements, he made it to a spot below me and handed the pitchfork up, handle first. The other end consisted of three sharp metal tines.

  I gripped the handle like a javelin, with the tines facing the window, pulled my arm back as far as I could, and made a sharp thrust at the window. The force of my thrust threw me against the wall of the barn, and I almost dropped the pitchfork and fell off the ladder. I clung to the top rung of the ladder with one hand and renewed my grip on the pitchfork with the other.

  I checked for damage. I had broken two more panes of glass, but more important, I saw a crack in the wooden frame that held the glass in place. I thought I could knock it out and clear a hole large enough for us to crawl through.