The Case of the Missing Deed (14 page)

“Liv?”

“Yeah?” Eyes still on the bike.

“Would you look at something?” When she nodded, he handed her the slip of paper. “Why is some of this text plain and some in bold?”

Olivia pushed her glasses up on her nose and examined the paper. She shrugged. “Sloppy design job, I guess.” She snorted. “I could do better than this.”

“Why would they print it like that? What’s the point?”

Olivia shook her head. “In a rush, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Sébastien echoed. But something told him there was more to it than that.

He went back upstairs and stared at the paragraph. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the bold and plain letters: Sometimes the bold letter appeared at the beginning of a word, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. There would be a stretch of several plain letters, then two or three bold letters in a row. Some of the bold letters were capitals, but most were lowercase.

What possible reason could there be for writing the sentences so that some letters jumped out at you and other letters didn’t?

Could it be, he wondered, that the differently written letters, when put together, spelled out a secret, some kind of message that only some people were supposed to know? Like a secret code?

Sébastien grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the bold letters in order.

He looked at the list. Written like that, the letters sure didn’t spell out anything that made sense. He could pull out a few smaller words from the string of letters: ad, fee, hit, jet, sip. But they didn’t say anything.

What if he rearranged the letters? Maybe that was the trick. He started scrambling letters and jotting down words. He came up with
age, feet, steal, hope, fill, heat, reason, head, hide, neat, road, foal, dish, jeep, read, ape, prison
.

He sighed. None of those conveyed a message.

So maybe the secret was in the plain, unbolded letters. He started copying these into a much longer list.

Taken together, they were gobbledygook. Reading in order, he could form smaller words:
The, tan, ant, ill, men, on, sex, that, hat, rot, tin, and, life
.

He could form words by mixing up the letters:
heart, thin, nest, vine, full, excite, path, fantastic, file, hard, tone, demand, remain, flog, reap, sleet, grow, sandy, minced, poor, mention, spell, while, newsreel
.

So what? None of those said anything. If they spelled out a secret message, he sure couldn’t see it. He threw down his pencil. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was no secret message and he was just imagining things. So why was he so bothered by it?

Just then, a loud rumble from outside broke his thoughts.

Kicking a soccer ball back to Claire, Alex heard a loud noise. A Tantalus Mining truck was coming up the driveway.

Shouting for the others to come, he ran to the studio to fetch Grandma. Red-tipped paintbrush in hand, she hurried outside with him just as Sébastien barreled down from upstairs.

Four workers, two men and two women, all wearing baseball caps bearing the familiar lake-and-mountain logo, were setting up tripods. One pair set their tripod up on the shoulder of the driveway beside the cottage, while the other moved into the beach grass on the seaward side. They started looking through viewfinders.

Grandma waved her paintbrush. “Excuse me. Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Whew
, Alex thought. He hadn’t been sure if the “real” Grandma was back, or if the sad, weak one was still around.

A fifth person climbed out of the truck with a clipboard under his arm. He strolled over with a pleasant smile. “Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re the Tantalus Mining survey crew, and we’re here to survey for the access road to the mine.”

“I never gave anyone permission to tramp around my property,” Grandma said.

“With respect, ma’am, we don’t need permission. Tantalus has an agreement with the Otter Island road commission to do the survey.”

“You can’t do that!” Grandma said, but no sooner were the words out of her mouth than one of the surveyors pulled a wooden stake out of a pouch on his work belt and started pounding it into the ground about twenty feet to the seaward side of the driveway.

“Get off my land!” Grandma said, pointing with the paintbrush.

Way to go, Grandma
, Alex thought.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have a job to do. We’ll be out of your way just as soon as we can.”

With a tip of his cap, he strode off to join his colleagues. Meanwhile, two more stakes, each one some distance from the road, were pounded in. Their red plastic ribbons fluttered in the breeze.

Grandma walked over to the man with the clipboard. “I’m not going to sell. You’re wasting your time.”

“Our orders are to survey for the entire road, just in case, ma’am.”

Grandma squared her shoulders. “I’m going to call the police if you’re not out of here in two minutes.”

The young man smiled. “Good thing we’re just finishing up, then.” And in fact, Alex saw, the crew members were folding up their tripods. As they filed back to the truck, they kept their eyes straight ahead. The man raised a hand. “Good afternoon, ma’am, kids. Have a nice day.”

As the truck disappeared around the bend, Grandma’s shoulders sagged. “What am I going to do?” She sounded weak
and scared now, not at all like the warrior who’d just yelled at the surveyors.

“Don’t worry, Grandma, it’ll be okay,” Alex said. But even he wasn’t sure his words were true. What could they do – what could anyone do – when the company just marched in like that?

“I can’t lose this place,” Grandma said, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. “Oh, if only I could remember what Sam said. It’s on the tip of my tongue – but every time I try to remember, it’s gone.”

“Don’t cry, Grandma,” Olivia said, squeezing her hand. “We’ll find the deed.”

“I have to prove this place is mine. I have to!” Grandma wiped her face with her shirt hem. She took a deep breath. A steely look passed over her face. “Come on,” she said, “it’s time to search the recipes.”

randma cleaned her paintbrush, and they all sat down at the kitchen table with the recipes. Looking through them seemed to lift her spirits. She chuckled, pointing to
Homemade Whole Wheat Noodles with Peanut Butter Sauce
. “What a disaster that was! Grandpa loved pasta and he loved peanut butter, so I decided to make up a recipe putting the two of them together. The noodles were thick and heavy. The sauce was gloppy and lumpy. Grandpa took a bite, and he chewed … and chewed … and chewed … Later I tried feeding the mess to Mrs. Hedberg’s sheep, and even they wouldn’t eat it!”

Everybody laughed.

They paged through the recipes. Geneviève got excited when she found a note in Grandpa’s writing in the recipe for
Quince Paste
that said
Sourpuss!
, but Grandma explained that that was just a reference to Hilda Schultz, from whom they’d bought the quinces. “Eve was just a little baby then. So adorable, with her sticking-up black hair and big round eyes. I asked Mrs. Schultz to hold her for a minute while I got out the money, and Eve threw up on her.” The grandchildren hooted. “She charged us extra for dry cleaning – and she was only wearing a ratty old shirt anyway.”

They continued turning the pages.

The sound of car tires approached the cottage. Everyone looked up.

“Not them again!” Grandma said, alarmed.

But it wasn’t the Tantalus truck. It was a small blue car that no one recognized. Everyone went outside in time to see Rachel and Chad climb out.

They’ve come to tell Grandma they’re selling
, Sébastien thought, his heart sinking.

“Oh, Lily, look at your garden,” Rachel said, walking across the deck. “What a marvelous green thumb you have.”

Sucking up isn’t going to soften the blow
, Sébastien thought.

“I’m afraid it’s been rather neglected lately,” Grandma said. “But nothing can stop zucchini! Please, take some home.” She picked them a bag full and then invited them into the living room. The cousins trailed behind curiously.

“Here, let me make tea,” Grandma began, but Chad waved his hand.

“No, Lily, please don’t bother. We just came over to borrow a recipe.”

There was a pause. “A recipe?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “We’ve got a big crowd coming over this weekend – it’s Chad’s birthday in two days–”

“Happy birthday, Chad,” Grandma said.

“Thanks.”

“I was trying to think what to make, and I remembered that
Brown Sugar Spice Cake
of yours,” Rachel continued. “It’s so delicious, and I know it would go over great. So I wondered if we could copy down the recipe.”

Silence.

“Lily?” Chad said. “If you’d rather not give it out, we’ll understand–”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Grandma said. “It just took me by surprise, that’s all. Recipes have been … well, in our thoughts lately, shall we say. Come into the kitchen.”

Sébastien’s mind started racing. Did Rachel and Chad really just want the recipe? Or was that just a ploy to get to see all of Grandma’s recipes? They had said they were thinking about selling out to Tantalus. Could they secretly be on the mining company’s side? Could they have somehow found out what the key recipe was – the one that would lead to the deed?

Grandma, Rachel, and Chad sat down at the table, and the others clustered around. Sébastien decided to watch Rachel and Chad closely.

“Oh my, would you look at this collection!” Rachel said, picking up the worn black binder. “Isn’t it amazing, Chad?”

Chad nodded. “Very impressive.”

While Grandma flipped through the file box, trying to remember where she kept the spice cake recipe, Rachel started turning the pages. “Just think – you’ve made every one of these!”

Chad looked intently over her shoulder.

They’re checking them out
, Sébastien thought,
looking for the secret recipe
.

“Not in here,” Grandma said, puzzled. “Maybe it’s in one of these envelopes.”

While she continued looking, Rachel flipped through the recipes in the manila folder. “Look, Chad,
Grilled Tomatoes with Feta and Basil
. We could do that with our basil … Oh,
Scallop Stew –
that sounds yummy.”

“Hey, not so fast,” Chad said, putting his hand on Rachel’s to stop her from turning the page. “What’s that one?
Chocolate-Ginger Cupcakes
. Now, that’s unusual, isn’t it? You don’t often hear those two flavors going together.”

They’re stalling
, Sébastien thought.
Searching
.

Or, what if this is just a decoy? What if
Brown Sugar Spice Cake
really
is
the recipe they want, and they’re just pointing out these other ones to throw us off?

“I invented those cupcakes,” Grandma said proudly. “Sam always said I could make money if I baked them commercially, but I wasn’t interested. I’d rather have time to paint … and garden.”

“With a beautiful spot like this to live in, who wouldn’t?” Chad said, looking out the kitchen window.

Finally, Grandma pulled a sheet of paper out of the folder. “Here it is! Gee, I haven’t made this in a long time. Maybe I will.”

“Good idea, Grandma,” Claire said, licking her lips.

Rachel copied out the recipe. “We really must be running. Got to get ready for the big crowd. Thanks a million, Lily.”

“Not at all,” Grandma said. “Any time.”