said, “we’d have to heat the water on the woodstove first, then do all this by hand. And they didn’t have dishwashing liquid then, either.”
“I would’ve just had a dog,” Ziggy said. “Put the dishes on the floor, and let him do the work.”
“Eww. Remind me not to come to your house for dinner when you’re a grown-up,” said Josée.
When they were ready, they sat around the coffee table in the living room (Ziggy brought a third slice of pie with him, in case he got hungry), and Alan opened up the new notebook.
Picasso, the family cat, was very interested in Ziggy’s pie, and was winding herself around and around his legs.
“Sorry, Picasso,” Ziggy said. “You don’t get to do the dishes yet. Maybe when I’m finished.”
Alan had written “The Alan Nearing Detective Agency: Case Notes” on the front cover, and Josée, who was good at art, drew a magnifying glass to go along with it.
On the opening page, he wrote “Case #2”. It was satisfying to be at number two already. Below that, he wrote Investigating officers: Alan Nearing, Ziggy Breuer and Josée Lejeune and they all signed their names to make it official. Below that was written Location: Kuskawa Pioneer Village Park and the date.
“Now, what are the weird things? Let’s write them down first,” Alan said. They agreed that at the top of the list was the handgun they’d found.
1. Gun found in a manure pile by Alan and Ziggy. Police called in.
“What kind of gun was it?” Josée asked. “Did anybody hear them say?”
“No, but I bet we could look it up on the net and find out. We all got a pretty good look at it, right?”
He wrote, in a column opposite the first entry, Questions, then Find out what kind of gun? and Who left it there?
“Remember that Constable Mills said the police would be asking those kind of questions, though, right?” Ziggy said, and Alan reluctantly wrote Police business in brackets.
“I know what else,” he said, and wrote Search animal pen for clues.
“Aren’t the police doing that tonight?” Josée said.
“Sure, but maybe they’ll miss something. And when they’re done there, it won’t be locked any more, so we’ll be able to get in there and check it out.”
For Number 2, they wrote Ziggy’s poltergeist—face or something seen in attic window of inn. Attic is locked—nobody goes there.
“Shouldn’t we tell Constable Mills about that right away?” Josée said.
“I’d rather not,” Ziggy said. “I mean, it was weird, and I’m sure I didn’t imagine it, but I guess it could have been a flash of lightning reflected in the window or something. I’d feel like an idiot telling her about it until we were sure.”
“I agree,” Alan said. In the questions column, he put Keep an eye on the attic window, then told the others about finding the dust below the trapdoor.
“That could have been anything,” Ziggy said. “But still, put down . . . ummm, debris found. Inconclusive.”
“Good one,” Alan said, and wrote it in.
“I found out some things about people, when you guys were picking apples,” Josée said. “Remember you asked me to because Madame Creasor liked talking? Well, she does.”
“What did she tell you?” Alan said. “Wait—let me start a ‘suspects’ column.”
“How can we have suspects when we don’t even know what the crime is?” Ziggy said.
“In my ‘How to be an Effective Operative’ handbook, they say that absolutely everybody is a suspect until you’ve ruled them out,” he said. “Anyway, it’s useful to have a list of people.”
They listed everybody they’d met that day, starting with Mrs. Tench. “Surely she can’t be a suspect—she runs the place,” Ziggy said.
“Well, actually, she’s the staff supervisor. The directors run the place, and we haven’t met them yet. Anyway, in books and movies, it’s often people in power who end up being the criminal mastermind,” Alan said.
“Just don’t let her get hold of the notebook by mistake, then,” Josée said. “We’d be fired for sure.”
Next to Mrs. Tench, they wrote her job title, and Ziggy suggested they include the fact that she was giving out coupons for free ice cream. “Maybe she’s not supposed to do that,” he said.
“I’m hoping she does it all the time,” Alan said, but wrote it down.
Next to Sheldon (they didn’t know his last name), they had a lot of information. He was the maintenance guy, he had keys to everything (“Mrs. Tench probably does, too,” Josée pointed out), he was jealous of anyone touching his MiniCat or trespassing in his shed, and he kept trying to get rid of them. The boys agreed that Sheldon was the most suspicious person they’d met so far. But Josée thought Ivor Smith’s assistant, Ellen, had more potential as a suspect.
“Remember how rude she was to Ziggy,” she said, “and she has her nose and eyebrow pierced, and all those earrings in her ears. Madame Creasor said that that was totally against the rules. People didn’t have pierced anything in pioneer days. She’s not supposed to wear that stuff on-site, but she does anyway. She’s très difficile, and not friendly to anybody except Ivor.”
“How come she doesn’t get fired, then?” Ziggy asked.
“Madame Creasor said that Ellen is Ivor’s niece or something, and that if she was fired, he’d leave. He’s really popular with the tourists, she said. And he doesn’t hear very well, so Ellen sort of translates for him.” Alan wrote all this down.
Ivor Smith was next, but none of them could think of anything suspicious about him. They’d all liked him a lot.
“Maybe we should just hang around the blacksmith shop a bit and see. If he’s deaf, maybe stuff goes on that he doesn’t notice,” Alan said. In the questions column, next to Ivor, he wrote Further investigation needed.
They added Mrs. Creasor to the list as well. “She says she believes in ghosts, that’s one thing,” Alan said.
“Yes, but that doesn’t make her suspicious, does it?” said Josée.
“Well, she did say no to us going up into the attic to check things out. Maybe she knows there’s something weird up there but was faking the ghost thing to scare us off. Like on purpose.”
“She didn’t seem that sneaky to me,” Ziggy said, but they wrote Possibly knows something about the attic and isn’t telling. Find out more.
Just to fill out the list, they added Greta, the costume lady (“she was strict about the costumes, but I think she spends all her time in the basement, so she’s probably not very suspicious,” Ziggy said) and Joan, the candle-lady,
