The Case of Dunc's Doll Read online

  He paused as a shadow appeared at the side of the gate. It moved into the open, and they could see that it was a dog.

  A Rottweiler.

  He stopped and stared at the boys across the road.

  “He’s looking at me like I was made of meat,” Amos said. “Raw meat.”

  “Well, that does it,” Dunc said.

  “Does what?”

  “I’ve got a feeling—this is it. Why would he keep a locked gate and a huge Rottweiler if he didn’t want to hide something?”

  • 5

  Amos was staring at him.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Well—it’s logical, isn’t it?”

  The dog still stared at them. It was silent, not even growling. Just staring.

  “Look at him,” Amos said. “You’re about to mess with somebody who keeps a dog that thinks I’m made out of meat.”

  Dunc nodded. “We’ll have to handle it right. This time we can’t just sneak in. He probably keeps the dog loose all night. We wouldn’t get fifty feet.”

  “Well, I’m glad we agree on something. So, we’ll just drop it all, right? I thought I’d like to live long enough to maybe go to high school.”

  But Dunc was already riding back the way they had come, lost in thought.

  They were in Dunc’s room.

  Amos looked around the walls. “You’ve got all new posters in here.”

  Dunc was looking at a map, and he shook his head. “Not new—they’re old. I brought them in here approximately 130 days ago.”

  Amos stared at him. “You recycled your old posters?”

  Dunc nodded. “Visual boredom can stifle the thinking processes. I keep a record on the computer and store the posters in the basement. There’s a regular cycle, and I bring in new ones as they come along.”

  “Why didn’t I know this?”

  Dunc shrugged. “I don’t know—there’s lots of things about you that I don’t know. It’s just one of those things.”

  “What?” Amos asked.

  “What, what?”

  “What don’t you know about me?”

  Dunc stood up from his desk and turned to his friend. “Amos, if I knew what I didn’t know about you then I would know about it, wouldn’t I?”

  “You’re just trying to confuse the issue.”

  “It’s already confused.” Dunc turned back to the map. “Now, look on this plat map.”

  “What’s a plat map?”

  “It’s a city map of the area we’re investigating. See here, there’s Wylendale’s place.”

  “Where do you get these things? These maps and things?”

  “I borrowed this one from my father. He needs these maps to sell real estate. He’s got one for every area in the city, even out into the country. Now look, quit messing around.”

  Amos leaned over the map.

  “See, here’s his property. I think it’s about six acres—a really big place. But look, look at this road going out the back and winding down along the railroad here. There’s a narrow road that runs all along the tracks—it must be for two or three miles—and comes out on the highway.”

  “So? What’s the matter with having a back road?”

  “It’s where he could ship all the stuff out.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Stolen things. Dolls.”

  “Oh man, you’re stretching now—that’s crazy. We see a padlock on the gate and a Rottweiler that thinks I’m meat, and you’ve got him stealing dolls.”

  Dunc sighed. “I know. We just don’t have enough information. That’s why we need to get in there and dig a little. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

  “You do?”

  Dunc nodded. “No problem. The thing we’re after is a doll, right? So all we have to do is pretend we’re interested in dolls for some reason.”

  Amos shook his head. “You’re nuts. Two boys come to the place and ask about dolls, and you don’t think they’ll figure it’s a little weird?”

  “Well, that’s just it,” Dunc said. “It won’t work if two boys come to the gate. You hit it right on the head.”

  Amos waited.

  “It has to be a girl. One of us has to dress up as a girl and fool them.”

  Amos was up and headed for the door. “Nope—you’re nuts. Not me. Not your old friend Amos. Not on your life. Not this time.”

  Dunc held up his hand. “Did I say it was you? Did I even hint that it was you? Nope—I figured to do it myself all along. Even though I’m kind of chunky and stocky and you’re built more for it, being thin and all. But no problem.”

  “Well, all right. Just so you understand.”

  Dunc shrugged. “I just figured you’d want to do it, is all.”

  “Me? Why would I want to dress up like a girl?”

  “Well, not that. But do the disguise. I was sure you’d want to be the one.”

  “Nope, not this time.”

  Amos waited, but Dunc didn’t say anything further. He waited some more, chewing on his bottom lip.

  “All right—why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would I want to be the one to dress up like a girl?”

  Dunc smiled. It was the same smile a cat might make just before it nailed a bird. “Well, the news and all. If we get the doll, whoever wears the disguise and goes in to get more information will be a hero. Television will want to talk to him more than the other one—the one who stays back.”

  Amos waited.

  “Well there you are on the news, saving this valuable doll, and who sees it?”

  Amos waited.

  “Melissa,” Dunc said, repeating, “and there you are.”

  Amos sighed. His shoulders slumped. He nodded. “Right—there I am.”

  • 6

  “Oh, man, this is awful.”

  Amos was standing in front of a mirror in the hallway of Dunc’s house. He was wearing girls’ jeans and a sweatshirt too big at the neck so it hung down on one shoulder.

  And a blond wig.

  Dunc shook his head. “No—it’s not too bad. I think we might need some makeup.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Amos said, his voice even, flat, “if you so much as try to put makeup on me.”

  “Well, there’s something wrong with it.”

  Amos studied himself in the mirror some more. “I know what it is.”

  “What?”

  “I’m ugly.” Amos frowned. “You’ve got me being ugly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, just look at me. I’m not a blonde, not at all. And you’ve got me being a blonde. It just isn’t my color.”

  “Amos …”

  “Well, really. If I’m going to be a girl, I don’t want to be an ugly one, do I? Doesn’t your sister have a brown or black-haired wig?”

  Dunc went back into his sister’s room and came out with a black-haired wig.

  “If she catches us doing this, she’s going to kill us,” Amos said.

  “She’s away for the weekend. Here, hold still while I put this on.”

  Dunc took the blond wig off and put the black-haired wig on.

  “How’s that?”

  Amos straightened it, settled it on his head. “Well, it’s better—can’t you see the difference? It goes much better with my eyes, don’t you think?”

  “You’re still ugly, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I am not—not as bad as before.” Amos turned left and right, looked at his reflection. “See, I look a lot better.”

  “I was just kidding. Now let’s get going.” Dunc ran the blond wig back into his sister’s room.

  As they were going out the front door, they ran into Dunc’s mother. She had her arms full of sacks of groceries.

  “Hi, Mom,” Dunc said.

  “Hi, Mrs. Culpepper,” Amos said, and was out the door before it closed, ducking under the sacks to get by.

  Dunc’s mother turned, looked at the closed door for a moment. She started to say som
ething, then changed her mind and walked away, shaking her head.

  “It’s better,” she said, “not to know.”

  • 7

  They looked at the gate.

  Dunc had hidden his bike out of sight in some bushes across the road from the gate.

  “You go over there and push the bell button next to the gate,” Dunc said. “I’ll go hide with my bike. When they come, you tell them you’re doing a paper on doll collections for a summer school project. You got that?”

  Amos nodded. “Of course. We’ve been over it a couple of hundred times.”

  They separated, and Dunc went to the brush across the road. Amos went to the gate. On the side of the gate was a plaque with a push button and Amos pushed the button.

  Nothing happened for what seemed a long time.

  Then the dog came to the gate. It stood on its back legs, its front feet up on the metal, and looked at Amos, down into Amos’s eyes.

  Amos turned and looked across the road at where Dunc was hiding, raised his arms, and shrugged. The movement wiggled his wig, and he straightened it. Dunc made a furious motion to Amos to turn around, and he did.

  And the dog still stood there, looking down on him.

  “He can drip spit on the top of my head,” Amos turned and yelled.

  “Don’t look at me,” Dunc yelled.

  Then the sound of an engine came from the driveway, and Dunc dropped out of sight.

  A dark car pulled up to the gate and a tall, thin man stepped from the car.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “My name is Sally Carstairs,” Amos said. “I’m doing a paper on doll collections for a summer school project. May I see your collection?” Amos had it memorized perfectly and said it all in one breath.

  The tall man looked around, up and down the street, then across the street almost directly at where Dunc was hiding.

  “Where are you from?”

  “In town,” Amos answered. “Some of us—some of the girls were talking about your collection, and I got the assignment. To do a paper. On your dolls. The collection, I mean.”

  “Just a minute. It’s not my collection. I just work here.”

  “Could you do something about the dog? He’s looking at me funny.”

  “No.”

  “Thanks, anyway.” Amos shot a look across the road at Dunc but could see nothing.

  Dunc was on his stomach by this time, peering through the grass.

  The thin man turned to the car and took out a small hand-held radio. He spoke low for a moment, then nodded and put the radio back in the seat.

  From across the road Dunc saw the tall man say something to the dog. The dog turned and walked away and sat down while the man opened the gate and motioned Amos inside.

  Amos took one last look in Dunc’s direction and disappeared into the car. The man closed the gate, stepped into the car, and drove away. Dunc sat watching the gate, wondering what he’d done and wondering what to do next.

  • 8

  Dunc did the only thing he could do.

  He waited.

  A half-hour passed, then another, then another hour.

  “Two hours,” he said. He was still down in the grass across the road, but he had moved several times, scratched himself, and every time he had looked over to the gate, the dog was there.

  Watching.

  The dog seemed to know right where Dunc was lying, and his gaze was so intent that he had forgotten to lick his chops and drool was dripping while he stared at Dunc.

  “I could call the police,” Dunc said, half aloud. The dog’s ears perked. It looked like two notebook covers flopping up.

  He’s really big, Dunc thought. Not just big, but big. Like a car. A car that eats living things. Amos was right—he’s looking at me like I was meat.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head, cleared it so he could think. He needed to come up with a plan if Amos didn’t come out.

  Call the police—he could do that. But that would blow the whole thing.

  He let his thinking free roll. Plans flew into his thoughts. Some of them were not very realistic—he thought of calling the Air Force and seeing if he could order an air strike on the dog, for instance. Or getting old really fast, getting a driver’s license, borrowing his father’s Buick, and aiming it at the dog.

  All of them, all the plans were worthless and he knew it, knew there was only one thing he could do, had to do.

  He had to go in.

  That’s it, he thought. It was late afternoon, and it would be dark in a few hours. He looked at the dog. There it is—I have to go in.

  He looked at his watch. Four o’clock. Fine. So if Amos didn’t come out, he had to go in.

  How long?

  Well, it had been two hours. He looked at the dog once more. It was Tuesday—how about if Amos didn’t come out by Friday, he would go in?

  He shook his head again. Stupid.

  Another hour.

  There. He’d thought it and knew it was right. If Amos didn’t come out in another hour, he would have to go in.

  One hour.

  Sixty minutes.

  He started counting them, watching them flick past on his digital watch.

  Time had always gone slow for him, always seemed to drag, but now it roared past. Twenty minutes were gone while he took a breath, it seemed, then another twenty and he was counting down, wondering what the dog would eat first. Probably a leg, he thought. He’d just take a leg and then come back later for anything else he wanted.

  Yeah. A leg. Look at him drool, just sitting watching me drooling. I’m too young to die.

  With exactly one minute to go, Dunc heard the sound of an engine and the car returned and stopped by the gate.

  The same thin man got out, said something to the dog who sat down, and Amos got out.

  The man opened the gate and Amos came out, stood looking up and down the street for a moment, then took his bike from next to the gate and started to ride away, the wig blowing in his face so he had trouble seeing.

  The man watched for a moment until he was sure Amos was on his way, then turned the car and drove away.

  As soon as he was out of sight Dunc jumped on his bike and pedaled to catch up.

  “Well?”

  Amos was all over the road. “My wig has moved and the hair is in my eyes—how do they ride with long hair?”

  “Take it off.”

  They stopped and Amos took the wig off and put it in his back bike bag.

  “Well?” Dunc asked.

  “Well, nothing,” Amos said. “I looked at so many dolls, I’m cross-eyed. You know what he’s got in there?”

  “No.” Dunc tried not to scream. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “Dolls,” Amos said.

  “Well, I figured that.”

  “No. I mean dolls. He’s got dolls from all over the world. He’s really a collector. He had a doll that came from some prehistoric cave in Europe. Maybe twenty thousand years old. He’s got another Chinese doll four thousand years old. And he’s got a painting of a little girl holding the doll from way back then. I mean, it’s incredible.”

  Amos pulled off to the side to let a car go past. “Unbelievable.”

  Dunc sighed. “Well, that’s too bad.”

  “What is?”

  “He sounds like a legitimate collector. I guess he isn’t our man.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What?” Dunc had dropped in back of Amos when the car went by, and now he pulled up close next to him. “What did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t say he wasn’t our man.” Amos shook his head. “Or something. You know what I mean.”

  “No. I don’t. Why isn’t he a legitimate collector?”

  Amos sat up. They were starting down a long hill, and he let his bike coast. “Oh, I think he’s a collector all right—I just don’t know if he’s a legitimate collector.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first you hav
e to decide on that word legitimate. Does that mean is he legal? Or is he just a real collector—”

  “Amos.”

  “Do you know when you get mad, it makes your lips thin and white, the way they pinch like that?”

  “Amos.”

  “Oh, all right. He took me all over his house, and I pretended to be interested— well, actually I guess I was interested. I mean that old doll, the prehistoric one, was something. He had it in a glass case, and you could just imagine a cave man sitting carving it for his kid all those years ago.”

  “Why is he our man?”

  Amos sighed. “You should let someone tell a story when they want to tell a story. You can back these stories up, and they’ll build up pressure and you’ll just explode.”

  “All right, all right. I’m sorry. Tell it your way.”

  “So we’re going all over the house and he’s showing me all these dolls, and we come to this one big glass case in a special room and it’s covered with a curtain.”

  “The whole case?”

  Amos nodded. “All around the inside. I asked him what was in the case, and he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “It could be anything.”

  Amos nodded. “That’s what I thought. So we’ll just skip it, right?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Amos nodded again. “We’re going back, aren’t we?”

  “You bet.”

  “I wonder how hard it is to learn how to speak Rottweilerese?”

  • 9

  “Do you know the plan—in case we get separated?” Dunc asked.

  They were in Dunc’s room. It was eleven at night. They were wearing black turtle-necks and jeans and had black ski masks.

  “I’m wondering about this,” Amos said. Dunc was rubbing camo-salve on his cheeks to knock out the light, and then he handed the tube to Amos.

  “It’s simple,” Dunc said. “We take the back roads on our bikes. At the gate we go into Plan 1A.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Repeat Plan 1A.”

  “Dunc.”

  “Repeat it,” Dunc ordered. “It’s important.”

  “We throw the meat to the dog.”

  “The whole thing,” Dunc said. “Do the whole poem.”