The Case of the Missing Deed (13 page)

Bearing the tin of cookies, the cousins made their way to Hugh’s place along a trail that skirted the beach. At first the only sounds were the hush of the waves, the squawks of gulls, and the hoot of a far-off ferry horn. But as they drew closer, they began to hear voices. Angry voices. They looked at one another and hurried on. Coming around the bend of the driveway, they saw Hugh and his son Ted standing nose to nose – two tall, thin, scarecrow-like men, one bald and one with bristly blond hair. Hugh was waving a newspaper around.

“Good for the island?” he sputtered. “How can you believe such rubbish, let alone print it?”

“It’s not rubbish, Dad! You just–” He cut off abruptly as the cousins came into view.

Hugh’s gaunt face brightened for a moment. “Hi, kids.” Then it drooped again. “Did you see the snow job my son published in the local rag?”

“It’s not a snow job!” Ted said. “I keep telling you–”

“And I keep telling you, you’re wrong!” Hugh thundered. He turned to the cousins. “Listen to this headline:
MINE WILL BE A BOON TO ISLAND
. What a crock!”

“What’s a boon?” Claire asked.

“It means something good,” Sébastien explained. “Like a big benefit.”

Rattling the paper, Hugh read aloud, “ ‘At a recent open house held at Otter Island Community Hall, Tantalus Mining president Mark Saxby said the proposed tantalum mine will make Otter Island an important player in the worldwide telecommunications industry. Saxby said the mine will bring jobs, economic development, and better roads to Otter Island.’ Sure – jobs for Tantalus and their cronies, wrecking the island!”

“That’s not true,” Ted began, but Hugh cut him off and continued reading.

“ ‘We’re delighted to partner with Tantalus Mining in this exciting new venture,’ said Stan Wilensky, owner of Wilensky Air and a community leader. “ ‘ Islanders will benefit from economic development and investment opportunities.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Olivia asked.

“It means Wilensky’s going to make a pile of money from the mine,” Hugh said.

“Dad, I keep telling you, Stan’s a good man. He’s trying to move the island forward–”

Hugh waved his hand and continued, “ ‘Company scientist Dr. Wayne Cheng outlined the stringent environmental
precautions Tantalus Mining is taking to protect the pristine environment around the mine site.’ ” Hugh slammed his fist against the paper. “Stringent, my foot! You think salmon are going to swim up those poisoned streams?”

“They’re not going to be poisoned,” Ted said. “The environmental report showed that. And so does this.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Hugh.

Hugh read aloud, “ ‘The Otter Island tantalum mine is green! It will be great for the environment! Full speed ahead on this exciting mine project that promises fantastic profits while protecting fish, birds, and wildlife!’ ” He looked at Ted. “Where did this come from?”

Ted shrugged. “Someone mailed it to me at the
Observer
office. I don’t know who. But obviously they agree with Tantalus.”

“No doubt some crony they paid to spout this poppycock.”

Hugh handed the paper back to Ted, but Ted shook his head. “I don’t need it.”

“Can I have it?” Sébastien asked.

“Sure,” Ted said, giving it to him. “Look, Dad,” he went on, “you may not like my position on the mine, but I’ve done my research–”

“Spoon-fed by that London woman,” Hugh shot back.

Ted blushed, and Sébastien remembered seeing him in conversation with Valerie London, eagerly writing down whatever she was telling him.

“Yes, I got information from Tantalus,” Ted admitted. “But I’ve read the reports, seen the studies. They’re sound.”

Hugh threw the newspaper on the ground. “If you believe those so-called reports, then you haven’t got the brains I gave
you credit for.”

“That’s it, Dad!” Ted said. Scooping up the newspaper, he stalked off to his car. “I’ll talk to you when you’re through insulting me.” He slammed the car door and drove away.

Watching the dust from Ted’s wheels rise and swirl, Hugh’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry, kids. Didn’t mean to put you through that. I just–” He sighed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Hugh,” Alex told him.

They stood in silence.

Finally, Geneviève said, “We made you some cookies, Hugh.”

“You did?” A smile lit his gaunt face. “A man can’t think gloomy thoughts when he’s eating cookies. Come in and share them with me.”

“We will. But first, is it okay if we poke around the Perch a bit?”

Hugh looked perplexed. “Sure. You don’t have to ask, you know that. But whatever for?”

“Well …,” Gen said, “we don’t know. We think Grandpa hid something up there for us.”

“On the Perch?”

Alex showed Hugh the clue and explained about the deed and the objects they’d found so far. “So we’re pretty sure he means the Perch,” Alex concluded.

“Must do,” Hugh said thoughtfully. “You know, I seem to remember Sam messing around up there before he – well, before he got real bad. Didn’t tell me what he was doing, but he said if his grandkids came by, tell ’em to look up at the stars.”

“Look up at the stars?” Olivia repeated.

Hugh nodded. “To be honest, I thought he’d gone a little
soft in the head, from the cancer and all, and didn’t pay it any mind. But maybe he did put something up there for you.”

The trail up to the Perch crossed behind Hugh’s garden, switched back beneath the crest of the cliff, and circled through a grassy meadow, rising steadily until it ended on a high bluff. It commanded a spectacular view westward, overlooking Hugh’s place below, Grandma’s cottage and dock to the left, a rocky beach to the right, and the sparkling sea in all directions. On a clear day, like today, you could see neighboring Heron Island, crowned by the tall cedars where the birds loved to nest.

Huffing, Geneviève put her hands on her hips and looked around. The top of the Perch was slate, spotted with bunches of wispy, seed-topped grass in places where soil had managed to gain a toehold. There were some boulders that made excellent seats for stargazing, and the odd windswept snowberry bush, its branches curving away from the sea. That was it. “Now what?” she wailed. “There’s nothing up here.”

“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Maybe Sam didn’t mean right here. After all, he said to look up at the stars, didn’t he?”

He started walking down the Perch in the opposite direction from which they’d come. The cousins shot each other confused looks, but after a moment Geneviève knew where Hugh was headed. On the east side of the cliff, away from the wind, Hugh had built a shed. It was where he kept his telescope.

Can you see the sparkle tonight?
the clue said.

“Tell them to look up at the stars,” Grandpa had told Hugh.

Geneviève quickened her pace, and the others must have clued in, too, because they nearly tumbled in on her heels
when Hugh opened the door.

The shed was small and dark. Hugh lifted the cloth that covered the telescope and peered underneath, but nothing was hidden there. The cousins crawled around on the floor and poked into corners, bumping into one another and getting dusty.

Claire sighed. “Another dead end–”

“Wait!” Geneviève said. “What’s that?”

She was pointing to a wooden post that framed one corner of the shed. There was a gap of a few inches between the top of the post and the roof, and there seemed to be a small package wedged into the gap.

Hugh managed to reach the package and handed it to Geneviève. It was a plastic box, similar to the one that had held the key buried under the keystone. She opened it, unwrapped the layers of tape, smaller boxes, more tape, and cotton.

She held up a glass object that was suspended from a loop of fishing line. The glass was the size of a small plum and shaped like a teardrop. Its sides were chiseled so that they broke the surface into many planes. Even in the dim light of the shed, the glass cast moving rainbows of light on the floor and walls as it turned.

“What is it?” Claire asked.

“A prism,” Geneviève replied.

“It’s beautiful,” Olivia said, her gaze following the splashes of light.

Geneviève held up the tag dangling from the fishing line. “Number 5,” she said.

“A flashlight, a paintbrush, a knitting needle, a prism, and a key. What on earth was Grandpa trying to tell us?” Alex said.

No one had an answer. In silence, they watched the beam of light flash and turn, flash and turn.

randma got dressed. She ate a whole muffin and drank a whole pot of tea – at the kitchen table. The next day, she put on her apron and made French toast for breakfast – her famous French toast with a dash of nutmeg, a dusting of icing sugar, and fresh sliced strawberries. The day after that, she went into the studio.

When she came out with blue spots in her hair, the rest of the family high-fived each other. “Grandma’s back!” they cheered.

A couple of days after the visit to Hugh, Sébastien sat at Grandpa’s desk, looking at the two reports he’d stolen from the Tantalus Mining office. Both were full of fancy looking graphs, glossy photos of scenic island spots, and phrases printed in large letters that said things like
CUTTING-EDGE SCIENCE!
and
PRESERVING PRISTINE ISLAND BEAUTY
.

He flipped through the economic report first, but found only the same information that Valerie London had presented at the open house: the graph showing all the money that would flow to the island, the list of jobs that would be created, the chart showing how valuable tantalum was.

He turned to the environmental report. Again, he saw
exactly what had been in Wayne Cheng’s slides: the same reassuring information about the “temporary, sustainable, state-of-the-art containment system,” the same message about “how little impact the mine would have” on the island’s fish and wildlife. There didn’t seem to be anything new or controversial. So why had he, Sébastien, gotten the idea that the Tantalus folks hadn’t wanted people to see the report?

He remembered the slip of paper Ted had given him, and pulled it out of his pocket. It was a computer printout. It said:

That was all. Why, he wondered, would these sentences be written on a slip of paper? Could they have been from an early draft of the report? He flipped back through the booklet. He didn’t find that exact passage anywhere, though bits of it – “great for the environment,” “exciting mine project,” “fantastic profits,” “protecting fish, birds, and wildlife” – appeared on different pages.

Sébastien looked at the paper more carefully and noticed that it was printed in a mix of regular and bold letters. That was odd. Why would it be like that?

He went downstairs to find Olivia. She was sitting on the deck floor, sketchpad resting on her knees, drawing Claire’s bike, which lay on its side on the sand. Seb stood silently and watched as her eyes flicked up, down, up, down, her pencil constantly moving. It was as if her eye and hand were
connected, two parts of the same limb. He peered over her shoulder. Olivia was shadowing the edge of the bike tire, making it look as though the bike had just been thrown down and the tire was still spinning. Amazing.