Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway (26 page)

“Arg!” Billy cries, pulling his eye patch back over his eye. “
Pirates
, take your marks!”

The other two pull their eye patches out of their pockets and put them on, too.

“Get set …,” Marissa says, then whisks the flag down as she cries, “GO!”

So the guys push off, stick their legs out, and slide down the hill. And it sure doesn't
look
like they're going very fast, but they're all shouting “Arg!” and stupid pirate stuff, and Billy's heading for Danny, trying to kick him off his block. So they're laughing and yelping, and then Casey's block catches on something, and he winds up going down sideways. And then Danny falls
off
his block, leaving Billy to slide in first.

“Shiver me timbers!” Billy says. “I've won the first round!”

So they push the blocks back up the hill, and now it's Marissa's and my turn to slide. But since there are three blocks, Billy decides to go again, and he positions himself right between the two of us.

A little too
close
to the two of us.

I eye Marissa and she eyes me. We've seen how Billy operates, and knowing him, he'll show no mercy on us because it's our first ride. So I give her a little signal and she gives me a little nod, and when Danny drops the flag and calls, “GO!” we push off and immediately start kicking Billy off his block as we slide.

“Wenches!” he cries as he spins sideways and falls. “Black-hearted wenches!”

Marissa and I laugh, and boy! Even though I know we're not going that fast, it sure feels like it. I mean, there you are, on a fat block of frozen water, twisting and turning out of control, slipping downhill with nothing to hold on to.

It was
way
more fun than it looked.

And I think Marissa would've beat me, only she tried to pump the ground with her legs to get some speed and wound up catapulting instead.

“Shiver me tush!” I cried at the bottom of the hill. “I won me first round!”

The guys all laughed, then came down the hill to help us push the blocks back up to the top.

“Who goes now?” Billy asked.

“Sammy, Casey, and me!” Danny said.

The three of us saddled up our ice ponies, and I could tell from the way they'd positioned themselves on either
side of me that I was on the menu. So when Marissa dropped the flag, I acted like I was pushing forward but didn't. Instead, I waited for them to get some speed and look back at me like, What happened?
Then
I pushed forward hard and tried to knock them both off at once—one with each foot.

Too bad for me,
I
fell off and my block slid down without me. Danny claimed victory, and when we had the blocks back up, Casey, Billy, and Marissa went, then Danny, Marissa, and me, and then the three guys again.

After that Danny said, “Do you want to double up?”

“We won't fit!” Marissa laughed.

“Sure we will.” So Danny and Marissa wedged onto one block, Billy and his parrot got one all to themselves, and Casey and I scrunched onto the third. By the time Billy tossed the flag into the air and started the race, we were laughing so hard from just trying to fit on the blocks that it was a miracle we went anywhere at all.

Doubles is definitely not the way to ice-block. Billy beat us by a mile. But since Casey and I beat Marissa and Danny, we declared a doubles victory, which of course made Danny and Marissa demand a reslide. So we tried it once more, but it was just as slow, so we went back to riding solo.

Now, it finally got to a point where the ice blocks had melted so much that the towels were soaked and dragging,
we
were soaked and dragging, and basically, we just couldn't ride anymore.

And that's when Billy says, “Hey! Where's me bucket o' bones?”

I look around, then remember. “Oh, yeah! I left it by the fence.” I point toward the Stones' house. “Up there.”

So he Billy-goats up the hill to get his bucket o' bones, but when he returns, not only does he have his bones, he has the Stones' shovel. “Mateys, it's time for a proper burial!”

“Uh …,” we all say, sort of eyeing each other.

“The Hummer turns into a pumpkin in about ten minutes,” Danny says, checking his watch. “Can you do it quick?”

“Aye, aye, Cap'n!” he says. “Follow me!”

But when he starts down the hill, Marissa asks, “Where are you going?” because it looks like he's heading straight for the baseball diamond.

“Home base!” Billy laughs, pointing.

“No way!” Marissa and I cry, because we both play softball, and digging up home base to bury a bunch of
chicken
bones seems really sacrilegious.

Casey shakes his head. “Besides, we'll be too visible.” He points to the trees on the back side of the sports complex. “How about over there?”

So we wring out Marissa's soggy towels, stuff them in a plastic bag she's brought along, take one last look at the shrinking ice blocks, and cut over to the spot Casey had pointed out.

Danny makes Billy hurry up and pick a spot, and as he starts digging, Marissa whispers, “You want to change pants?” because our soggy jeans and the lack of activity are making us cold.

“You brought extras?”

“I told you I would.”

“Yes!”

“Let's go over here,” she says, heading behind a group of trees. Then she calls to the guys, “Don't come back here!”

So there we are, hiding in the trees, peeling down our jeans, when all of a sudden a fierce growl comes out of the darkness behind us.

Marissa screams and yanks her pants up, and believe me, I choke on a scream of my own.

“Are you okay?” we hear Casey call.

I grab Marissa's flashlight and shine it toward the sound, then about collapse from relief. “We're okay!” I call back, then tell Marissa, “It's just Captain Patch!”

Marissa's hyperventilating, and her eyes are enormous. “That's Patch? He looks like a
wolf
.”

He did look pretty spooky with the light glassing up his eyes like it was. But I knew it was him, so I wasn't scared at all anymore. I took a few steps toward him. “Hey, boy! You got out again?”

Trouble is, Patch doesn't seem to recognize me. He growls again, this time louder.

“Get the light out of his eyes!” Marissa says. “You're blinding him.”

So I lower the beam, but now it's shining on something between his paws. Something he's been gnawing on. Something long and white. Like a thick, bleached stick.

And then I hear Danny say, “Forget it, Billy, we don't have time for you to dig down six feet.”

“Ye can't be rushin' a proper burial, matey! Else sea dogs'll sniff 'em out and dig 'em up! We'll be haunted forevermore by the souls of crispy chickens!”

My heart landed with a thunk in the pit of my stomach, then tried to lurch out my throat. My knees were suddenly shaky, and I started shivering so hard I could barely stand.

“Oh my God,” I panted. Suddenly my lips felt like they were going to crack off of my face. I licked them. Licked them again. Tried to catch my breath. Tried not to shake into a puddle of fear.
“Oh my God!”
It came out strangled. Quivery. Like I was about to cry.

“What?” Marissa asked. “What's wrong?”

The flashlight shook like crazy as I shone it between Patch's paws. And like a time-lapse scene in a movie where clouds morph across the sky, turning black and heavy before erupting with rain and thunder and bolts of ripping lightning, the odd little events of the past few weeks tore through my brain, then zapped my soul with the truth.

Everything suddenly made sense.

Horrible, bone-chilling sense.

I wanted to explain everything all at once, but it's like I couldn't quite believe it myself. So what came chattering out of my mouth was, “Did you bring gloves?”

Marissa cocks her head a little. “Shouldn't we first—”

“I need gloves. Or one of those towels …” Patch was ignoring the light now, gnawing on his prize.

Marissa digs through her duffel bag and hands over a pair of mittens, whispering, “Sammy, why are you being so intense? Are you afraid he's going to get away?” And while I'm pulling on the mittens, she adds, “He's not going anywhere—he likes that stick!”

“It's not a stick, Marissa,” I say, moving in closer to Patch.

“So… so what
is
it?”

Patch lets out a low growl as I get within grabbing distance. “It's a bone.”

She takes a few tentative steps closer. “A …
bone
?”

There's no way Patch is letting me get any nearer. Even when I tell him, “Hey, boy, it's me! How are you? Come here … thata boy, come here!” the only thing that budges is the tip of his tail, slapping the ground like a little part of him wants to, but not enough to give up his prize.

Then I get an idea. “Hey, Billy! I need a couple of those chicken bones!”

“Arg!” he calls back at me. “Ye can't have 'em!”

“It's an emergency!”

“That
is
a bone, huh?” Marissa says.

Crunch-crunch-crunch.
Patch keeps a watchful eye on us as he works his jaws over the end of it.

“Billy!” I call down the hill. “We need those bones! NOW!”

Casey and Danny come running toward us with the bucket o' bones, Billy in hot pursuit, shaking the shovel at them.

“What's the deal?” Casey asks, all out of breath. Then he sees Patch, chomping away. “Whose dog is that? What's he got?”

“It's Captain Patch. Mrs. Willawago's dog.” I grab a chicken bone out of the bucket and offer it to Patch, going, “Here, boy—check this out. Mmm, mmm, chicken!”

“Chicken bones aren't good for dogs,” Marissa says. “They splinter and can get stuck in their throats and—”

“Shhh,” I tell her as I wiggle the chicken bone a few inches from Patch's nose. “Come on, fella. Yum-yum. Much tastier than human.”

“Than
human
?” Casey asks.

“Did she say human?” Danny whispers.

“Arg!” Billy cries. “Now that'd be booty worth sacrificing me bucket o' bones fer!”

Danny says, “Aw, c'mon. How can you tell? It's probably just a deer bone or a soup bone or a—”

“It's a human bone,” I tell him. “I'm sure of it.”

Just then Patch takes the bait. He stretches forward and
stands, letting go of his hard-earned prize. And while he reaches for leftover morsels of Crispy Chicken, I reach forward and grab the bone.

And as I pick it up, Marissa screams and jumps into Danny's arms, because on the end of the bone is something dangling and dirty.

Something creepy and gross.

Something Patch hadn't gotten around to picking clean.

A
hand
.

“Ohmygod,” Marissa squeals. “Oh my
God
.”

“Put it down, Sammy,” Casey says.

Patch is in hound heaven now—there are bones, bones everywhere! He's yip-yap-yowling, spinning around and tossing chicken parts around like he's hit the crunchy-munchy lottery.

And between me shouting for diversionary bones, Marissa squealing to God, and Patch's yippy-yappy happiness, we gave away our location, because as I turn to tell them that I can't just leave this arm here—that I know whose it is and where it came from—through the misty darkness I see a figure moving toward us.

A figure in blue coveralls.

Work boots.

A safari-cloth ball cap.

Glasses and a moustache.

Carrying a hoe.

Coming
at
us with the hoe. “Stop!” I shout, holding the arm up. “We know what you've done!”

But the hoe comes whacking through the air, hitting the ground.
Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

Marissa screams. Danny pulls her away to safety while Billy abandons piratese and yells, “Everyone meet back at the Hummer!” and takes off running.

But I can't leave. Not yet.

Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

I keep my distance from the hoe and shout, “Stop! It's over! Don't make it any worse than it already is!”

Swish, whack! Swish, whack!

“Sammy!” Casey's pleading, staying with me as I get chased across the grass. “He wants the arm. Put it down!”

Just then we run by the shovel. So I toss aside the arm and snatch the shovel off the ground, and instead of retreating, I hold the shovel like a samurai pole weapon and charge forward, deflecting the hoe as it comes slicing through the air.

Then I lunge forward, tear off the cap, and shout, “It's over, Mrs. Stone! I know your husband's buried in the compost heap!”

And just like that, she drops the hoe and wilts into a blubbering heap of denim, sobbing, “I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry.”

“That's a
woman
?” Casey gasps.

I nod, and after she cries for a minute, Mrs. Stone peels off her glasses and moustache and looks at me, whimpering, “I wouldn't have hurt you, Sammy. Honest, I wouldn't have. I was just tryin' to scare you away.”

I crouch beside her. “I guess I don't need to ask why you killed him.”

“He was a beast!” she wails. “A cruel, heartless beast!” She wipes tears from her face, saying, “How many times did he almost kill
me
in one of his drunken rages? How many times should
I
have been put in the hospital?”

I watch her cry for a minute, then ask, “But why didn't you just
leave
him?”

“I was afraid to! Over and over he told me I was worthless, and I don't know…after a while I
believed
it. ‘Who'd want to hire you, Teri—you're stupid. You're homely. You've got hands like a man.’ He got between me and my friends, between me and my family. A few years with him and I had no one. No one! Just him and his terrifyin' mood swings.”

“But … why'd you cover for him? Mrs. Willawago told me you always denied he'd hurt you.”

She gave me a pathetic shrug and shook her head. “He was always sorry after. Always beggin' me not to leave him. And I thought if I could just be a better person somehow, he'd quit gettin' so mad. But then one night I was fixin' supper and he came at me with a chair.” She snorted. “Why? Because I'd made him toast instead of biscuits. Before I knew what I'd done, I'd run him through with a knife.”

“So you panicked and buried him in the backyard.”