The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [31]
“Are you Mrs. DiStefano?” asked Pete.
“Frank’s mother? No indeed. I’m his landlady. He rents a room from me.”
Pete put the groceries down on the kitchen table.
“Do you live in Citrus Grove?” said the woman. Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “Were you there yesterday when that spooky thing happened and everyone went to sleep? I’ll bet there’s something getting into our drinking water. The authorities ought to look into it.”
“They did,” said Pete. “They analysed the water at the crime lab. There wasn’t anything in it.”
The woman shook her head. “It’s scary. I could have shot Frank yesterday. Of all days to be sick, he had to pick yesterday and miss all the excitement. Of course, it’s a wonder he isn’t sick more often, up till all hours playing that stereo. Yesterday all he could do was lie in bed all morning snoring. If he’d gone to Citrus Grove, he could have told me all about it. I suppose he would have noticed a few things, even if he is so wrapped up in himself that he hardly knows that other people are alive. I would have gone to see the cave myself, but where would I have parked?”
“I don’t know,” said Pete. He began to back out of the kitchen.
“Should I tell Frank you are here?” asked the woman. “What name should I say?
Not that he gets interested enough to pay a lot of attention to names, but you never can tell.”
“Pete,” said Pete. “He may not remember me.”
“I’ll tell him anyway,” she promised.
Pete escaped and went back to the main street, where he caught the bus to Citrus Grove.
Pete found Jupiter sitting in an old swing in the McAfees’ backyard. Jupe listened to the report on Centerdale and sighed.
“So Frank DiStefano really was sick yesterday morning,” Jupe said. “I wondered if he might not have had something to do with the kidnapping, but I guess not. He was the only person we know who had no alibi, and now he has one.” He shrugged. “So it goes.”
Pete stretched out on the grass, and Jupe sat brooding and pulling at his lip in a way that signalled intense concentration. Bob found the two of them there when he returned at four o’clock.
“Well?” said Jupe as Bob came up the drive.
“Birkensteen had an appointment with Dr. Henry Childers the day he died,” Bob announced triumphantly. “Childers lives on Harbourview Lane. He’s an anaesthetist who practises at St. Brendan’s Hospital in Santa Monica. When I asked him whether Dr. Birkensteen had left his briefcase there in May, he jumped as if a wasp had stung him. He’d waited for Birkensteen all that day, and Birkensteen never showed. Of course, he later found out about Birkensteen’s death.”
“An anaesthetist?” said Jupe. “Was he a friend of Birkensteen’s?”
“No. A mutual friend at UCLA suggested that he and Birkensteen might meet. He didn’t know why Birkensteen wanted to see him, and neither did the UCLA friend.
Anyway, I thought it was super interesting that he was an anaesthetist, so I asked him whether there was an anaesthetic so powerful that it could put an entire town to sleep in seconds.”
“Ah!” said Jupe. “What did he say?”
“He said no. He’d heard about what happened here yesterday, but he still said no.”
“Urn!” said Jupe.
Just then Eleanor came out on the back porch, nodded to the boys, and headed for the barn. Her uncle followed her outside.
“Ellie, where you goin’?” called Newt.
“Doris Clayton asked me to supper,” said Eleanor.
“Well, mind you’re home early,” warned Newt.
The pickup truck roared and Eleanor backed out of the barn.
Her uncle stood watching her as she drove away.
Jupe came forward from the swing, clearing his throat so that McAfee turned and faced him.
“I was just wondering,” Jupe said, “have you heard anything more from the kidnapper?”
“No,” said McAfee, disgusted. “And I don’t know as I’ll tell you when I do.” And he stomped inside.
The boys spent part of the evening at the Lazy Daze Cafe wondering about anaesthetics, and part of the evening wandering through town.
Eleanor returned home after midnight. Up in the loft the boys heard her drive the truck into the barn. They also heard Newt McAfee