MOUSE HOLE
by
Neil Larkins
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY
Neil Larkins on Smashwords
Copyright 2011 by Neil Larkins
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Thank you for purchasing this Smashwords book. This book is copyrighted by the Publisher, Neil Larkins and the edition downloaded is not available for sharing or reproduction in any form or in any part by any means or method without the express written permission of the Publisher. Additional copies are available from Smashwords for purchase.
Cover art insert by Richard M.
Cover Copyright 2011 by Neil Larkins
MOUSE HOLE
Chapter One
The big house on Sycamore Street scared Richard. Nine years-old ("Going on t-ten," he'd remind anyone who asked), the place gave him the creeps and he could tell you why. It was exactly like the spooky mansions he saw in old black and white movies on Saturday afternoon TV, places where crazy Dr. Frankenstein and his crazier assistant built monsters. Dracula slept in a coffin in a house like this one and those were populated with ghosts that moaned and skeletons that rattled the chains that took them to their grisly deaths in dank cellar torture rooms.
Despite all that, Richard had his doubts. Certainly the imposing structure looked frightful enough but…well, he wasn't sure this one contained monsters with bolts in their necks or dead people who weren't really dead. After all, he'd never been inside. In fact he'd not as much as stepped onto the property. Never had he been witness to a bloody hand opening a door; neither had he heard creepy organ music emanating from a spider web-draped parlor lit by hundreds of candles dripping wax.
As well, Richard had never seen anything outside the house to hint of possible ghoulish inhabitants within. No black, brooding storm clouds hung over the building's four towers. He'd not seen a single blinding electrical discharge strike even one of the many lightning rods on the roof. (How, though, could he observe any of that? He was always safely at home during storms.)
And in those old movies there were bats, always swarms of the eerie creatures. None of those were seen at this house, though he'd once spotted a jet-black crow wing its croaking way through the massive trees that surrounded the house. But crows could be seen anywhere in town; nothing to be frightened of there.
Richard tried to figure this out, the way most nine year-olds try to answer the questions in life. Perhaps his fears, he reasoned, were not due to the house but rather were generated by the estate's massive concrete wall that encircled the house and its huge estate. He was very familiar with that wall: he walked along it nearly every day on his way to school. The drab, gray enclosure was huge. It towered over Richard at easily twice his height – and it was ugly. Slimy moss slithered down its flanks alongside crooked vines that crept up. It was cracked and split in hundreds of places. Chips of concrete that had flaked off the wall littered the sidewalk and once a chunk even fell on his head. It was a small piece and didn't hurt, but it sure made him jump.
Or maybe it was the great iron gate that spooked Richard. The ornate, rusting portal was as ugly as the wall on which it hung – rusted, bent and also interlaced with vines that resembled bony fingers. He'd peeked through that gate many times as he passed by, though he dared not touch it for fear that it was electrically charged and fry him to a crisp on the spot. He'd seen that in a movie. One thing sure: he never saw it open. That in itself gave rise to all sorts of notions in his young and fertile mind.
Still, all that was not what frightened Richard. The scariest part of the big house on Sycamore Street was not the building itself or the wall or what resided therein. No, he finally decided, it was not ghost, monster or the undead, that Richard truly feared. After all was said and done, it was the mansion owner Richard feared: Old Man Hawkins.
And the reason Old Man Hawkins was to be feared was simple: He hated kids.
And who should know that better than a kid, in this case Richard's best friend, Skuddle. (Perhaps it would be better said that Skuddle was Richard's only friend. But having one friend, even one like Skuddle was better than having none at all.)
"Yeah, dude, Old Man Hawkins hates kids, he really does," Skuddle said one day on the playground when the subject had come up. "He hates kids so much he eats'em!" The boy made the declaration with a smirk and since a smirk was always on his freckled face, it looked to Richard more smirkish than ever.
"H-how do you know that, that he eats k-kids?" Richard had made the reply while he attempted to control his stutter, the one that everyone made fun of, including his best friend Skuddle. But controlling his tongue wasn't easy, especially when replying to news like that. It was the first time he'd heard the awful thing.
"Everybody knows he eats k-k-k-kids," Skuddle had replied in a mock stutter and with a pompous sneer added to his perpetual smirk. The word "stupid" had not been added to the end of Skuddle's statement, but it was there nonetheless. The look on the boy's face and the emphasis on the words told Richard he couldn't be very smart because he didn't know this plain fact.
"Yeah, uh…s-sure, I know it," Richard had declared with uplifted chin and a shrug of his thin shoulders. "L-like you s-said, everybody knows it." But Richard hadn't known it at all – and he knew Skuddle knew he didn't.
And now this morning, for more times than he dared to recall, Richard had to once more walk past the scary house on Sycamore Street on his way to school. It was what he'd had to do for the entire year at this new school and couldn't be avoided. Well, it could be if he took Eucalyptus Street instead…but he didn't want to do that. Eucalyptus Street was a longer route, much longer. Since he hadn't planned ahead this morning, taking a route that much longer meant he would be late for school. He'd best not be late today, oh no, not this last day before school was out for the summer.
If only Mama could have driven him this one final time.
She couldn't. His father still had not returned home and these days his mother worked longer hours at her job waiting tables at Joe's Cup O'Mud Café. No time to drive him to school like she'd once done, like before they'd moved to this town.
He would just have to handle the situation as best as possible. He shifted his backpack over to his left shoulder to put it between him and the scary house Old Man Hawkins lived in. As many times as Richard had taken such defensive action he didn't know how the backpack shift would help or if it would help at all. But to him it felt a little better doing it.
The backpack would give him some protection – maybe – just in case Hawkins' big old, nasty dog got loose and came at Richard. Such a dog – which he didn't know for sure but suspected Hawkins must have – would be an evil, ugly and muscular cur. It would be named Beelzebub or something like that and have massive paws with shiny black claws like talons and a giant head with an even more giant jaw lined with dozens of long, yellowed fangs. Richard envisioned ropy slobber dripping from the dog's cavernous mouth as it anticipated the meal it would make of him. It waited every day at an open window for its chance to attack. Then the time would come.
Spying Richard as he walked past the gate the dog begins to growl and snarl fiercely. Suddenly it attacks! Off the window sill Beelzebub bounds, sprints across the expansive lawn and in one mighty leap clears that ten-foot concrete wall like it wasn't even there. He lunges at Richard's soft throat with a heart-stopping roar – just like it happened in those old black and white movies on TV.
How Richard wished he had more protection than a flimsy backpack. He wished he had a gun or a knife or a…yeah, that's it: a magic ring on his finger to zap the bad guys and monsters and nasty dogs. A cartoon hero on Saturday morning TV had one of those. Oh, that would be great! Or maybe he'd have a super-cool laser gun to blast those zombies rushing at him. Pow! Zzzzt! Man, he'd vaporize them all.
But Richard had neither magic ring nor cool laser gun. And so since he didn't, he walked faster and faster as he passed the house. Past the gate at a full run he sped and reached the end of the wall then ran with even greater vigor, as fast as he could go. His backpack slipped off his shoulder and slowed him. No, not now! That demon dog was already at the back of his neck; he could feel its fire-hot breath. Go, Richard go! Run! Get away!
Harder and harder he ran. Closer and closer the dog's massive jaws came. Louder and louder could he hear its wicked snarls and evil growls. The beast didn't stop its deadly pursuit until Richard's foot stepped upon the school grounds sidewalk. It disappeared in a flash. Gone, and all because Mr. Lenny, the head school custodian didn't allow any dogs on the property. That was the rule. Mr. Lenny ran them all off – and Old Man Hawkins' big, bad dog was no exception. Of that Richard was certain. Yet one day, Richard was also certain, the beast would be real and would catch him.
* * * * *
To a nine year-old one day seems a lifetime. This last day of school seemed exactly that. Richard wanted to get home, tell his mother how glad he was that school had ended at long last and how excited he was for the summer. Maybe his daddy would come home now, he hoped, now that he was home all the time too.
It would be lonely if his daddy didn't come home again this summer. Skuddle – whose real name was Harvey, Harvey Skuddle, though he preferred to be called only by his last name – would visit his grandparents this year and be gone until autumn when the next school session took up. "They live in Kansas City," Skuddle had said. "I'll get to do lots of rad stuff you can't do in this nothin' little town."
"Like w-what?" Richard had asked.
"Oh, you know...stuff. I got a cousin in Big KC. He's fourteen. Real cool, real down – you know what I mean? We'll be hangin' with the homies."
Big KC. Homies. Richard didn't know what any of that meant. Whatever it meant, he wished he had a cousin in the city to visit and rad homies to get down with. It was tough having no brothers or sisters, even if he didn't really want a sister. "Sisters…phooey," Skuddle had said about his older sister, Janet. "They're girls and stupid and got cooties." Still, somebody, anybody older would be nice – or so Richard had fantasized.
He'd also fantasized that it would be nice to have a friend or two other than Skuddle. But no other boys, whether they were his age or not, seemed to want him around. No, if his father didn't return it was indeed going to be a lonely summer...and boring.
* * * * *
His mother's car, the old, faded blue sedan she bought because she'd had to sell their bright and shiny SUV a year ago, was in the driveway. She was home from work. Richard walked up the cracked and crumbling concrete slab driveway the car sat upon and he patted it on its top. It's not such a bad car, he thought. Why did Mama get upset when she had to let the other one go?
He opened the front door of 1313 Poplar Street. The hinges creaked and several small flecks of paint fell onto the top of his hand. The knob seemed looser than it had felt that morning when he'd closed it on his way to school. But it was only a rental home, Mama had said. We shouldn't expect much from a rental home. We'll get a nice, new house any day now, she had also said.
"I'm home, Mama!"
"In here, honey," came the reply from the kitchen. His mother's voice sounded different than it usually did, rough like when she had a cold. He hoped she wasn't getting a cold. He knew how he felt when he got a cold. It was not fun. It couldn't be fun for Mama.
His mother was sitting at the table in the kitchen. A cup of coffee was in her hand and in her lap was a magazine, one Richard had seen her read many times before. He went up and kissed her on the left cheek, that soft, pink cushion with a little mole he so loved. She returned his kiss on his forehead and smiled. When she did her hazel eyes also smiled; they seemed to be lighted from inside, Richard often thought. She closed the magazine and laid it on the table. "So," she began then coughed. She wiped her nose with a tissue from her apron pocket and started again. "Did you get your report card?"
"Uh-huh. Oops." He ran back into the entry hallway where he had dropped his backpack and rummaged through it. There was a lot of stuff he'd had to bring home this last day. Papers and spiral notebooks and short pencil stubs and shorter crayons and once pink black erasers: it all had to be taken home. He found the document but not with joy. It was incriminating. He knew its contents would bring no better news than the previous report card had…or the one before that. How he so did not want to disappoint his mother again.
She pulled the piece of paper from its envelope. Another smile graced her face, though it seemed to Richard as a bit less inviting than the one that greeted him upon his arrival. "Well," she chirped as her face brightened. "You did much better in Social Interaction this time."
"Yeah," he grinned back. "I guess I'm not s-so, uh, so shy anymore." He then added, "B-but I still ain't no good at math."
"You're not any good at math," she corrected then added, "That's okay, that's just fine." She took his hand and pulled him onto her lap. He was nearly too big for her to do that anymore. "I've already talked to your teacher," she began, "and she said that you will be going on to the next year, if…"
"Oh, boy, I gradiated!" Richard shouted and jumped to his feet.
His mother still had hold of his hand and pulled him back to her side. "That's 'graduated,' and you didn't let me finish," she chided gently. "I said, 'if.' You will go on to next year if you do some studies this summer and if you make good enough grades. That includes math."
"Huh?"
"Mrs. Waverly is confident that this will help you. Friday I'll pick up the lessons that she's prepared for you."
"Aw, Mom." Richard began to kick one leg of the chair his mother sat on. "I wanted to play, m-mess around this summer."
"Well, I'm sorry, sweetheart -- and don't kick the chair -- but you know you don't do as well as most of the other kids your age. You know you have to work harder just to pass at the lowest level. I'm proud of you, but with the progress you've made you can't let up now. Besides, didn't you tell me that your friend Harvey will not be here this summer?"
"Skuddle? Yeah, I d-did, and we only been here a year; not long 'nuff for me to m-make any other friends, but…"
"Then you won't have anyone to 'mess around' with. You won't be missing anything."
"I'll watch TV then."
"That's another thing, young man. You watch too much TV. You have trouble enough as it is telling the difference between reality and fantasy without that stimulous. Your studies will come first. Get those done and then you can play outside."
"All right."
But it wasn't all right. What an awful, long and boring summer this was going to be. His only hope was that his daddy really would come home. His mother had said when his daddy left that he might never return, but how could that be? How could she know?
Richard could not forget the last time he had seen his father. It was almost three years ago now, the day he turned seven, the best and worst day of his life.
There had been a party. What fun he'd had. More cake and ice cream than he had ever seen – or eaten – before and more presents. The best of it all: what his father had said to him, just before he put on his Marine uniform and walked to the bus station. "Remember this well, my little man," the big man had said to Richard as he knelt on one knee and held both the boy's hands. His hands had seemed so big, rough and so soft at the same time. "You can do anything you set your heart on, anything. It'll be tough for you without me here, I know, but you can do it. Listen to your mother. Do everything she tells you to do. But don't ever let anyone say you can't achieve whatever you set your heart on." He chucked Richard under his chin with his thumb and drew the boy to his chest. In his soft mid-Western drawl he added: "I'll be back as soon as I can." Powerful arms closed around Richard and nearly pushed all the air out of his lungs. He felt the hug every time he thought of his daddy and heard his final words. "I promise you, buddy, I'll be back. Before you know it, I'll be standin' right here."
Richard's last image of his father was of a tall, boot-shod figure with a draw-string duffle thrown over his shoulder disappearing down the road.
* * * * *
Richard awakened the next morning to the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. Both voices were familiar, though only one was welcomed. His bedroom was just off the kitchen and he couldn't help realizing that Miss Eva Whitehead, their elderly next-door neighbor was in the house. To Richard her voice sounded like that mangy feral cat that had gotten caught in the back fence once. It yowled for an hour until it finally freed itself. No one dared go near it.
Richard didn't care for that woman – all right, it would be better said he intensely disliked her. She constantly criticized and corrected his mother and him. She wasn't Mama's mother or his grandmother; where did she get the permission to do that?
Even though he knew who it was in the kitchen, still he had to look. With all the caution he could muster Richard poked his head around the door to have a peek. Miss Whitehead was seated at the little round table with her back to his bedroom door. He watched and listened to see what her mission was this morning. Was there a mission? There was always a mission.
"Good lord, Ramona," Miss Whitehead's shrill voice resounded, "isn't that boy of yours ever going to get out of bed? Why, it's already seven o'clock in the morning."
Richard's mother looked past the old maiden woman and saw her son looking at them. He shook his head in an unspoken plea. Oh, please don't let her know I'm spying.
"He doesn't have school today," his mother replied as she fixed her eyes back on the white-haired woman. "Yesterday was the last day. There's no reason to…"
"Well, that's no excuse," Eva interjected. "You know what they say about idleness: Devil's workshop. When I was his age I was up at the crack of dawn every day, month in, month out, which reminds me. What are you going to do about him the days you work, especially with those double shifts you pull? He'll be alone for hours. Who's going to watch that boy?"
"He does quite well on his own, Eva," replied his mother with an even tone.
"And his mind wanders. A perfect opportunity to get into trouble, I'd say." Eva leaned towards Richard's mother. "However, he could come over to my house…"
Oh, no! thought Richard. Please, please, please don't make me go over there. He shook his head ever so vigorously at his mother.
She saw his head as it jerked from side to side. "As I said, Eva, he'll do just fine. He always behaves and of course knows how to dial the phone. He has my work number as well as that of the police and the fire department"
"Still…"
"I'll consider it."
"Well, I hope so. You just never know about things these days. And what with you living alone now and your son being that way…" Richard waited for his mother to comment on the "that way" statement. She didn't, though Richard could tell she wanted to say something; she had in the past. Miss Whitehead continued. "On the subject of being alone, Ramona, you need to read this article from today's Smithtown Journal." She'd had a folded newspaper under her hand which she opened and pushed across the table. "Read that headline," she said while she tapped the paper at the top with her sharp, bony index finger. "This will prove my point about the dangers of being alone." Richard's mother looked at the newspaper and began reading it to herself. "Read it aloud," goaded Eva.
"Smithtown police report that sometime on the night of May 28 the home of Rhyland Emerson Hawkins, at 621 Sycamore St. here in Smithtown was burglarized…"
Richard nearly gasped out loud. That's Old Man Hawkins' scary house! A shudder passed through him.
His mother continued reading: "Upon having returned around eleven p.m. from a trip to Topeka, Mr. Hawkins discovered the theft and called 911. Lieutenant Daniel J. Columbine, chief inspector for the Smithtown Police Department, was the first on the scene. In a statement to the press, Inspector Columbine said, 'Mr. Hawkins reported several items of great personal worth missing from a secure room in his home. We have little to go on at this time, but will release information as we get it. Hopefully what information we can release will aid the public in helping us apprehend the perpetrator of this crime.' When asked by this reporter if he had any suspects in the burglary, Inspector Columbine had this to say, 'It's a puzzling crime scene, but things are not always as they appear. We have no suspects at this time but believe it might have been an inside job, someone who knew Mr. Hawkins.'" Richards's mother stopped reading but continued to stare at the page.
"There, you see?" declared the old woman. "You just never know who you can trust. If we've got a scoundrel and a thief lurking about in this town you'd best not let your boy stay at home by himself."
Richard's mother sighed. "As I said, Eva, I'll consider it. And now if you will excuse me, I have to get Richard dressed. He's already up and, as you said, should be." She folded the newspaper and began to hand it to the neighbor. "Thanks for bringing it over, as you do every morning."
"No, Ramona, that's quite all right. You keep it." She pushed her chair back and Richard ducked behind his bedroom door. "There might be a good job in the classifieds for you, dear. Heaven knows you could use a better one than you have now."
Ramona glared at her neighbor. "And you mean what by that statement?"
Eva stood up and turned towards the back door. "Nothing; not a thing. But…" She stopped, looked about herself and then at Richard's mother still in her robe. "You might could do with a little help on this house. Now don't get offended. I know how spread thin you are these days. Cleanliness is next to godliness, the Good Book says, and since I haven't seen you in church much lately…"
"Yes, yes. You made your point. But I'll take care of my own housework, if you think you can stand to live next door to a slob like me."
"I'm only offering to help, Ramona. Didn't mean a thing by what I said other than to extend a friendly hand of…"
"Okay, okay! Please! I've got to get Richard dressed. He sees the doctor today for his regular checkup. Can I have some privacy now?"
"As you wish. Have a nice day." Richard was happy to see the old busybody leave.
* * * * **
That afternoon found Richard in the living room. An antique clock on a little table next to a big, overstuffed chair was about to strike three. Richard had known that clock for as long as he could remember. It had belonged to his Great Aunt Agnes who had passed away years ago from some ailment he never understood. Some kind of disease old people get, he had assumed. She had never married and left the clock to Richard's mother. He especially liked its chime, its tinkling bells, and made it a point to be in the room on every hour if he could. As he watched, the clock sounded its merry little tune as and when finished it chimed three times with another bell. Tink, tink, tink. He smiled at it.
"Richard!" his mother's voice called from the back porch where she was doing the laundry. "If you're in the house, come back here." He ran to where she was. "I'm out of washing soap," she announced with her purse in hand. She reached in and produced several bills. "You need to go to the store for me. We should have gone when I took you to the doctor this morning but I forgot. I'd go myself but it's getting late. I have to get this first load of clothes hung on the line before I leave for work this evening." She handed him two one-dollar bills and picked up a small, empty detergent box. "Run over to Billinger's Pay-n-Go over on Sycamore and get me this same detergent in the same size." She held out the box for him to see. He of course recognized the brand. It was the same soap his mother had been using for two years. She once used a detergent that came out of a plastic bottle but said something about it costing too much. He took the money.
"Put that in your pocket," his mother instructed. He did while she added, "You can do this, huh? You won't lose…Sure, you can do it." She bent down and kissed him. A curl of her red-brown hair brushed his ear. It tickled. "Hurry now!"
He was out the back door and halfway down the steps before the words had left her mouth. "Watch out for cars," she called after him as he rounded the corner of the rear of the house. He unlatched the gate to the front yard then began to run. "And don't daydream," came another instruction, though fainter. "You know how you always let your fantasies take control…" He barely heard that one.
At first he ran with all his might. The run turned into a lope and then slowed to a walk. He puffed to catch his breath and looked down at the sidewalk the more he slowed his pace. It was a very familiar sidewalk and he thought things about it that he had thought many times before.
It must be a very old sidewalk, to look the way it does. And somebody must not have been paying attention when they planted these huge trees so close to it. The trees' roots had broken the concrete into sections and then the sections into chunks with it all having been pushed this way and that.
The reason he'd had this notion about the sidewalk was because this was his usual route to school. He was so familiar with it all that he'd even given names to the various stretches of it. This part he was now on had become Rough Rider's Pass. He'd come across that name in school, in his History class textbook. Where the walk curved to follow the street as it wound around a small hill he'd given the name Windery Road – the word "windery" being one he'd made up on his own…or so he hoped he was the inventor. He'd never heard anyone else use that word and had never found it in a dictionary – and he had looked. He'd given the name Pine Tree Trail to the section of walk covered with a mat of dropped needles where it ran under a row of stately Ponderosas.
He imagined himself the Lone Ranger seated upon his big, white stallion and began a loping gait. He became so caught up with the fun of once more skipping along his own personal walk that he forgot something, something very important: he would have to pass right by Old Man Hawkins' house! And just as that fact hit Richard, he came to the southeastern end of the estate's great concrete wall where the corner was held solidly in place by a tall, square pillar topped by a huge concrete ball.
It couldn't be avoided now. Billinger's Pay-n-Go was here on Sycamore at the opposite end of the block, just where it intersected Main Street. A backtrack to Elm Street wouldn't work. Elm didn't connect to Main. It connected with Second Avenue, which ran into Main two blocks from Sycamore. If he took that route, Mama would be furious for his having taken too long.
He would just have to do it and do it fast. If he ran past the gate with enough speed neither Old Man Hawkins nor his demon dog would see him. He also had to run fast because that crook who'd robbed Hawkins might still be hanging around somewhere. He might catch him and take his money.
Wait a minute. That crook! thought Richard. What if Old Man Hawkins decided he was the crook? He'd walked by the house so many times that the rich old geezer must have the notion that he had stolen…whatever it was that was stolen. The newspaper story his mom had read out loud that morning had not said what had been taken.
This wouldn't do, it just would not do at all. Richard may have been a lot of things, or even very few, but he was no thief. Of that he was most certain. What to do about it? Well, he thought, Daddy always told me to be a man and be honest. So, rather than running past the gate, which he noticed was open, he would have to confront his worst fear. We would go to the house, go tell Old Man Hawkins – to his face! – that he, Richard Moberly, Jr. was not the thief. And he would do it right now!
Chapter Two
Now just why Richard would have had such a thought, that he needed to clear his good name when it had never been held in question, may never be known. The reasonings of nine year-olds going on ten are hard to determine. Nevertheless, Richard gave no further consideration to what he was about to do…and had all but forgotten why he was now standing at the gate of Old Man Hawkins' stately mansion in the first place.
The open gate was just the invitation Richard needed, though he wouldn't race to the house. This duty he was about to perform required caution. After all, if Mr. Hawkins believed he was the thief, he might get scared when he saw Richard. Maybe pull a gun on him. Richard wasn't sure what he would do if the old fellow pointed a gun at him.
Or maybe he wouldn't wait to use a gun. Hawkins had that nasty dog after all, probably a whole pack of them – in the basement or somewhere – and would not hesitate to release them when he saw Richard approaching. He put his hand into his left pocket. He felt the little folding knife that he'd dropped in there that morning, the one given to him by Grandpa Walter Riley, his mother's daddy. He fingered the knife for security. It would be his only protection should those dogs come at him.
As Richard snuck carefully up the drive towards the house, a line of stately trees gave way to a better view. He'd never been this close to the old mansion and it loomed far larger than he'd ever imagined. His pounding heart began to pound even harder. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
Then he saw them: three Smithtown Police cruisers parked just past the great portico that arched over the front entry.
Oh, no, thought Richard. Someone, maybe Old Man Hawkins himself must have seen him coming down the street and called the police. He couldn't talk to Hawkins after all.
Then in a flash the reason for his being away from home and in this place came to him. Oh, oh! He nearly panicked. If he was arrested his mother would be furious. She didn't get her detergent on time and the laundry didn't get done.
He reached a corner of the house and then froze in place crouched next to a bush he'd stepped behind. A sudden fear of discovery kept him unable to move in any direction.
Just then he heard a voice, a man's voice and from directly behind him. "Well, what have we here?"
Richard's head spun around to see a man in a long, gray and wrinkled raincoat walking towards him. He wanted to run but was unable to. His legs suddenly seemed like rubber. Before the man could say more, Richard attempted a defense. But the only thing that came out was "I…I d-didn't…I didn't!"
The approaching man stopped and held up a hand. "Whoa, take it easy, little guy." He then grinned, an action that Richard found puzzling. Wasn't he going to be arrested…or something?
The man went on. "No one has accused you of anything. What's all this 'I didn't' business?"
"All th-that stuff, that stolen stuff," Richard stammered. "I didn't t-take anything!"
The man knelt beside the frightened boy. The bush that Richard had been crouching behind made a rustling sound. "Well, no one thinks you did, son," the man said softly. Then he chuckled. "What? Did you come here to confess?"
"Uh…n-not really. No! I came to, uh, clear my name. Daddy said I g-got my rep…repootashun to protect."
"Your daddy sent you? Why would he..?"
"No. He didn't send m-me. He's in the m-military. I came b-by myself. B-but you're not gonna b'lieve me anyway. Old Man Hawkins sees me every day when I walk to school. He th-thinks I took all his stupid junk and called you."
"Hawkins told you that?"
Richard turned his face away and looked at the stone wall of the house. "Well, uh, no," he mumbled. "But he hates kids a-and wants to see me go to p-prison."
"So you've never even met Mr. Hawkins, is that it?"
"Y-yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I've never m-met him. But I still know it's t-true."
The man in the wrinkled coat straightened. "You're pretty confused son," he said. "I think it's time we get this mystery resolved…that is, the mystery about who and what 'Old Man Hawkins' is or is not. The mystery of who took those valuables of his will wait." He reached down and grasped Richard's hand. "Come on, stand up. We'll go in to see the old fellow right now." The man's big hand encircled Richard's small one. It felt to the boy like his father's large and strong but still soft and warm hand. He stood up.
"I don't think I want to m-meet Mr. Hawkins. What if he...?"
"Oh, don't worry about him…uh. What's your name, anyway, son?"
"R-Richard. Richard Moberly."
The policeman thought for a second. "Moberly…I know a Ramona Moberly. Is that your mother who waits tables over at Joe's Cup O' Mud?"
"Uh-huh."
"What a nice looking…I mean, yeah, I know who your mom is. She's a good waitress. Always pleasant, always attentive." He thought again for a second. "And I guess you need to know who I am, Richard." He nodded. The man stood straighter. "Lieutenant Daniel J. Columbine, Chief Inspector of the Smithtown Police Department, at your service."
"You're a p-policeman? A real policeman?"
"That's right."
"Shouldn't you have a b-badge or wear a policeman's hat or something?"
"Oh, I'm not a cop that walks a beat. I'm an inspector, a detective, and as chief inspector get to wear this old trench coat instead of a uniform. But I do have a badge. Here…" He reached into his coat pocket to pull out a shiny object. "This is my badge. Want to hold it?"
Richard looked at the piece of metal resting in Lieutenant Columbine's hand. Hold a badge? Could he even dare touch it? That's the kind of thing that only someone the likes of Skuddle could do. "Go ahead," urged the inspector. "Take it." He did. It was hard and warm with a sheen Richard found pleasing. He grinned up at the policeman. "Nice, huh?" said the inspector.