The Law of Finders Keepers Page 2

  Attila shook the snow out of her perfect blond hair. “I just mean somebody’s lost and so is Mo—ripped from her lost mother’s arms, as you people tell it, washed into town during a hurricane. On the cul-de-sac we say you’re an angel for taking her in, Miss Lana.”

  “Mo’s not lost,” Miss Lana said, her voice icy enough to frost a mug. “She’s where she belongs. At home, with the Colonel and me.”

  “If you say so,” Attila said, claiming a window table. “By the by, the mayor’s asked certain families to select music for our new Sunrise Serenade Series. As a first family of Tupelo Landing, we Simpsons are leading the way. Our choice plays from the Episcopal church’s steeple tomorrow morning. Miss Lana, are your people involved, I hope?”

  We ain’t and she knows it.

  Attila’s family is a first family. So are Harm’s and Dale’s, but they’re still a shoo-in for Not Invited. Like I said, Mr. Red’s an ex-moonshiner. Dale’s people are mostly awaiting trial. Our family is a last family of Tupelo Landing. I washed into town, the Colonel wrecked his car and stayed, and Miss Lana showed up on the Greyhound a few days later, looking for him.

  “No?” Attila said, giving Miss Lana a smile. “Pity.”

  Attila’s a weasel. She’ll bite your head off just to watch you bleed.

  The door slammed against the wall and tall, thin, borderline-Gothic Skeeter MacMillan and sweet Sally Amanda Jones blasted in. Sal’s the second-shortest kid in sixth. Though shaped like a tube of lipstick, she’s mastered the art of strategic ruffles and curls. Dale blushed to his roots. “Hey, Salamander.”

  “Hello, Dale,” Sal said, her eyes glowing.

  Dale’s blushing? Odd. Usually Sal does the blushing.

  Harm opened another letter. “Here’s a case in Milwaukee. Also too far.”

  Dale frowned. “Are you sure? Isn’t that near Tarboro?”

  Sal shrugged out of her plush lavender jacket. “Dale, Milwaukee’s in Wisconsin—nine hundred eighty-three miles from here. You’d never make it on your bicycle,” she said as Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton eased in.

  “Good morning, dears,” she said, snow glistening in her blue hair. Her usual greeting, only flat. I turned her coffee cup up as she took her place at the counter.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, a salesman of sorts is trying to hunt me down and he’s getting on my nerves. He knows who my friends are, but he won’t say how. He knows where I go and what I do. And I don’t know who he is, beyond what he told me over the phone.”

  Dale frowned. “You got a stalker.”

  My legendary senses went on red alert. “He called here a little while ago, looking for you. As the richest nice person in town, you got to be careful. I’ll pro bono you the Desperado Bodyguard Division until we catch him,” I said. “We’ll watch you twenty-four/seven.”

  “We have a bodyguard division?” Dale said, his face lighting up.

  “Us,” Harm told him. “I’ll start tonight.”

  “Dale and me will check the rest of our correspondence at headquarters,” I said as he shoved our mail beneath the counter.

  “Headquarters? Oh. The closed-in side porch you call a flat,” Attila snipped from behind her menu. “I’ll have a water to start, Mo.”

  “Sorry, we’re out,” I told her as Dale sloshed by with waters for Sal and Skeeter.

  The snow drifted down as the regulars drifted in, excited as kindergartners watching their first snow. The Uptown Garden Club, aka the Azalea Women, tumbled from their van and rumbled in like a chatty avalanche.

  “Welcome, I’m Mo LoBeau, a possible orphan, and I’ll be taking care of you today,” I said as they bumped two red Formica tables together.

  I glanced at the Specials Board. “Today, we’re offering our Avalanche Delight—a landslide of French toast beneath a blizzard of powdered sugar. This comes with bacon and coffee for six ninety-nine.”

  “We’ll take it,” they chorused. Outside, as the snow went bigger and stronger, a restored 1955 GMC pickup truck eased into the parking lot.

  Lavender!

  “Specials for the Azalea Women,” I shouted as Dale’s big brother sauntered in like a big golden cat, snowflakes kissing his eyelashes and hair.

  I shot to his side. Lavender, a race car driver on NASCAR Sabbatical while he opens his own garage, unbuttoned his denim jacket. “Hey, Mo,” he said. “Snow agrees with you.”

  Everything about Lavender agrees with me, and he knows it. I’ve been asking him to marry me since first grade. “Bacon and egg sandwich for Lavender,” I shouted. Lavender, who I will go out with in just seven more years, doesn’t have to order out loud; I know him by heart.

  “Mo!” an Azalea Woman called. “We need silverware and water!”

  The first rule of being a waitress is never lose control of your table. “In a minute,” I bellowed, polishing Lavender’s napkin holder.

  The phone rang and I grabbed it. “Café. Eat in or take out, no deliveries. This is Mo LoBeau, a possible orphan poised to earn your tip. Please tell me how.”

  “Mo? Gabriel Archer the Tenth. Give me Lacy Thornton. It’s urgent.”

  The stalker. The hair on my arms stood up.

  “This is her bodyguard,” I said, and the café looked up. “You may speak with me.”

  “Tell her I have the clue of a lifetime. And Mo, I know you’re only ten years old, like your friends Harm and Dale. So drop the bodyguard act.”

  Ten years old? Is he mad?

  “For your information, Dale and I are twelve-ish,” I said, very cold. “And Harm just had a birthday, making him thirteen.”

  “The clue’s worth millions. Ask her to take my call.”

  I covered the mouthpiece. “Grandmother Miss Lacy, it’s the stalker, Gabriel Archer the Tenth. He says he has the clue of a lifetime and it’s worth millions.”

  The café went so quiet, I could hear the snow fall.

  Grandmother Miss Lacy clattered her cup to her saucer. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s that blasted treasure hunter again.”

  Treasure hunter?

  She headed for the phone, her gray galoshes squeaking. “Mr. Archer? Who told you I was here? And what clue do you have?” she demanded as Mayor Little bustled in, stomped the snow from his tasseled loafers, and smoothed his ice-blue tie over his plump belly.

  “Good morning, citizens,” he said. “Tomorrow’s our first Sunrise Serenade.”

  “Shhhhh,” the Azalea Women said.

  “You found what?” Grandmother Miss Lacy said into the phone. “Remarkable. And in Boston, of all places.” She drummed her fingers on the cash register. “Very well, Mr. Archer, I’ll meet with you. But not today. We’re snowed in. I’ll be in touch,” she said, and hung up.

  “What treasure?” I demanded as she slipped back on her stool.

  “Blackbeard’s treasure, dear,” she said, her old eyes sparkling.

  “Turkey feathers,” the mayor snapped. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Oh, but there is,” she said. “Blackbeard lived in Bath, just fifty miles away. For a brief time, anyway. Terrifying man, rich as sin. Buried his treasure three hundred years ago, and no one’s found it—yet. Apparently Gabriel Archer has a new clue.”

  Mayor Little scowled. “Mother won’t be pleased.”

  Myrt Little, the mayor’s mother, is the oldest, richest, meanest person in Tupelo Landing.

  “If you ask me, she’s never pleased,” Sal said, very soft. People hardly ever ask Sal, but she’s usually right.

  Grandmother Miss Lacy picked up her fork. “Well, I’m curious and Myrt won’t keep me from investigating. You Desperados will meet with Gabriel and me, of course. If you have time. Blackbeard’s treasure is one of history’s greatest mysteries. I’d love for you to solve it.”

  If we have time? I looked at Harm, w
ho was nodding like a yo-yo.

  “We’ll try to work you in,” I said as Miss Lana ferried breakfast plates to Sal’s table. The crowd went into full Treasure Talk as we settled in with our friends.

  “That makes two things found today,” Dale said, handing the blueberry syrup to Sal. “Mo’s mystery box, and a clue to a treasure we didn’t even know we had.” He smiled at Sal. “I hope you’ll still like me when I’m rich.”

  “Me too,” she said, and he blushed again.

  I looked at Grandmother Miss Lacy’s dreamy little-girl smile. “She knows something she ain’t telling,” I whispered to Harm.

  He looked over, into Mayor Little’s flashing gray eyes. “And whatever it is,” Harm whispered back, “the mayor doesn’t like it. Not one little bit.”

  Chapter Three

  We Open the Mystery Box

  Thes nailed the forecast. That afternoon, with five inches of snow on the ground, we hit the slight slope at the ancient inn Miss Lana and Grandmother Miss Lacy own, just outside town. The hill meanders across the inn’s grassy lawn, funnels through the woods, and spreads onto the vacant field next to Mr. Red and Harm’s place.

  Attila inched along on Tupelo Landing’s only snow skis. The rest of us spun down on hubcaps and cookie sheets. During the trudge up the hill, we found Blackbeard’s treasure a hundred times, and spent it a thousand ways.

  Tinks roared over on his tractor around four, and Sal hitched a ride to town. A little later, the rest of us piled into Lavender’s truck—the Desperados and Queen Elizabeth in the front. “Sorry, we’re full,” I told Attila. “Hop in the back with the rest of the sixth grade.”

  Lavender, who smelled like Ivory soap, muscled his old pickup along the lane as the sun slid toward the horizon. I smiled at him. “I have a once-in-a-lifetime mystery box at home. As my Intended, you’re welcome to the Opening.”

  “Thanks, Mo,” he said. “But I have a date.”

  Lavender spends time with the big-haired twins. A lesser person might feel threatened, but like Miss Lana says, you don’t compete for love. It’s either yours or it ain’t.

  “You’re invited too, Desperados,” I said.

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” Dale said as Lavender swerved into the café parking lot.

  “Me either,” Harm echoed as we all tumbled out.

  Attila slid out of the back of the truck. Her perfect blond hair had blown up like an angry porcupine. She pushed past us, to the truck’s passenger door. “I want a ride to my home on the cul de sac, Lavender,” she said, climbing in. “I hope you enjoy the Sunrise Serenade tomorrow.”

  “Sunrise?” Lavender said. “I love music, but isn’t that a little early?”

  “I chose the Hallelujah Chorus.” She glanced at Harm, and lowered her voice. “It’s so sad about Mr. Red going broke. Of course somebody has to be poor, and Harm’s mother did abandon him, so . . . well, mothers know best,” she said, like that made sense.

  My temper jumped. “Hey!” I shouted, grabbing the door as she tried to close it. “You can’t talk about Harm like that.”

  “Mo’s right,” Lavender said. “Apologize to my friend or walk.”

  “I’m sorry if I misspoke, Harm,” she said, and slammed the door.

  A faux apology. I hate Anna Celeste Simpson.

  “Ignore her, Harm,” Dale said as Lavender chugged away.

  Harm nodded and ambled off, but not before I saw the hurt in his eyes.

  Dale looked at me. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Mo, but Mama says always take the high road.”

  “I try to, Dale,” I said. “But there’s a reason they invented off-ramps. And I’ll get even with Attila for hurting Harm if it kills you and me both.”

  * * *

  After supper, Miss Lana flipped the café’s sign to CLOSED and we trooped around the café and up the graceful wooden steps to the back half of our building—our home place. “Thanks for the box, whatever it is,” I said, very subtle.

  The Colonel sank into his chair and kicked off his boots. “Let me read Harm in on some background before we open it.” He pulled a paper from his pocket. “Mo was three when I wrote this for her,” he told Harm.

  “Your baby letter,” Dale murmured, settling in with Queen Elizabeth at his feet.

  “Mo was such a cute thing,” Miss Lana said, her eyes misting. “Chubby little wrists . . .”

  “I wasn’t chubby,” I said as Harm made a note on his clue pad.

  “Well,” Dale said, “there was that time in third grade. Your tall did sort of go sideways.”

  The Colonel cleared his throat. By now I know the letter by heart, but I love to hear him read it more than I love to breathe.

  Dear Soldier,

  I know you wonder how we came to be here, in Tupelo Landing.

  You were born during a hurricane. I imagine your mother did what people do on hurricane days: She bought food, tied the porch furniture down, fell asleep listening to the wind. No one expected a flood.

  Like others, she awakened in darkness, startled by the bump of furniture against her walls. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and screamed. The floodwater lapped against her knees. She splashed across the porch and scaled the trellis as bits of other people’s lives drifted by: an easy chair, an oil drum, a chicken coop with a drenched rooster perched on one side. You were born as the water crept up the roof and her world shrank smaller and smaller.

  In the distance, I believe, she caught a glimmer of hope: a broken billboard spinning crazily on the tide. She wrapped you in her gown as the sign skidded across the roof. Gently, she placed you there, then cried out as the makeshift raft slipped from her hands. You spun away, my dear. And you were not afraid.

  I, on the other hand, was scared out of my mind.

  I awakened in a wrecked car, in a raging storm, my head howling. Winds roared. Trees fell. Worlds drowned.

  Who was I? I couldn’t remember. Where had I come from? I didn’t know.

  I slid down the bluff by the creek, grabbing great handfuls of kudzu to break my fall, and crouched by the water. My leather shoes sank into the mud. I locked my arms around my knees and rocked to keep from screaming.

  I didn’t know there was a dike upstream. I didn’t know it would break.

  “Why God?” I cried. “What do you want from me? Give me a sign.”

  In that instant, your billboard crashed ashore on a wall of water, cracking the back of my head. I reached for balance and touched what I thought was a puppy. Then you grabbed my finger. My God, I thought. It’s a baby. I fainted dead away. That’s how Macon found us the next day—me unconscious on half a billboard, you nestled in my arms, nursing on the pocket of my uniform.

  “Macon. My daddy,” Dale said, like Harm didn’t know.

  The half billboard said: “. . . Café . . . Proprietor.” Our path seemed clear.

  I will always love your mother for letting you go, Soldier. And I will always love you for holding on.

  Love, the Colonel

  PS: I apologize for naming you Moses. I didn’t know you were a girl until it was too late.

  I’d read that letter a thousand times, but the Colonel’s gravelly voice sent the words straight through me. “So,” the Colonel said, folding it. “Questions?”

  Dale and me shook our heads. Not Harm. “Yes, sir,” he said, careful as walking barefoot through sandspurs. “Just . . . Well, the hurricane’s fact. But you don’t know Mo’s mother climbed on a roof. Do you?”

  Good question. One I’d never asked before.

  “Informed supposition.” The Colonel glanced into Dale’s baffled eyes. “A good guess based on facts. The rivers flooded, the countryside flooded, and people climbed to their roofs for safety. Most were rescued. Some weren’t.”

  “And the wall of water?” Harm asked.

  “F
act,” the Colonel said. “The dams broke, or were opened by cities upstream.”

  Harm pushed his hair back. I used to think he needed a haircut. Now I know he keeps it long so he can think without looking like he’s thinking. “You said Mo’s mother couldn’t swim.”

  “Because a mother would have swum beside her baby. And she . . . didn’t,” Miss Lana said, her voice sad.

  Harm nodded. “Did you keep the sign?”

  Rookie questions, but sweet. “Of course not,” I said. “I’d know.”

  “It’s under the porch,” the Colonel said.

  Under the porch? My heart dropped like a truckload of bricks. I grabbed my jacket. “Let’s check it out.”

  “Tomorrow, Soldier,” the Colonel said. “It’s dark, and the sign’s become . . . a staging platform.” Dale looked at him, frowning. “I piled stuff on it,” the Colonel admitted.

  Harm tapped his pencil. “A baby on a billboard. Why didn’t Mo slide off?”

  “Good question,” Dale said. “I love Mo, but she’s clumsy.”

  Miss Lana placed the box the long way on my lap. “We decided we’d give this to you when you were ready, sugar. That day has come. Open it.”

  I lifted the lid and pushed aside brittle tissue paper. “A sweater?”

  “You were wrapped in the scrap of a gown, with this over top,” she said as I gently lifted out an indigo sweater. “She . . . or someone tied you in place with its arms. You can see how they’re stretched.”

  My heart hammered as I lifted the sweater to my face. It smelled like a lost river and forgotten rain.

  It’s small, I thought. She was thin, like me. This is how big my mother was, this is how wide. She fit in this space. Her arms went here. This collar touched her neck.

  My breath felt far away. Harm’s voice brought me back. “Did you check it for DNA?”

  The Colonel sighed. “DNA tests were too expensive back then.”

  “They’re not now,” Harm said. “And they could prove whether Mo’s biological mother wore it. And if she had a police record, DNA could identify her,” he added, his voice quick.