“And did he?” I asked.
“Sure did. Didn't take him long, either, so his mother made him go back to middle school for the afternoon.”
“So what did this sixth- or seventh-grade genius determine?” I'd get the story out of him even if I had to pull it out word by word.
“This.” Luscious handed me a black-and-white laser printout. “$10,000 REWARD,” I read, “for information leading to the return of this carousel.” Below the message was a photo of Darious's carousel, only it had been taken many years ago, for it was out-of-doors, under a pavilion. Happy-looking children straddled most of the animals.
“It looked like the same merry-go-round to me,” Luscious said.
“It is, I'm sure of it. I recognize my favorite animal, the hippocampus.”
“So I called the number. Turned out to be this gentleman, Mr. Strainge.”
Mr. Strainge took up the narrative. “When I got Chief Miller's call, I told the wife I was going straight up to Lickin Creek to check it out for myself. It's my carousel. No doubt about it.”
“Yo u ’re sure of that?” I wanted to doubt him, but in my heart I knew he was right.
“It was made by the Dentzel factory in 1920 for my pap-pap's amusement park down in Boiling Springs. It ran there until my father closed the park in 1950. He had the carousel took apart and stored it in the barn on his farm in Dillsburg. It's my farm now, since he passed.”
“So how do you think it got to Lickin Creek?” Cas-sie asked.
“I'm getting to that,” Mr. Strainge said, frowning slightly. “Three summers ago a young guy came by, driving an old pickup truck, and offered to do farm work for nothing if we'd give him a place to stay. I told him he could sleep in the barn if he liked, and he said that would suit him just fine. He'd been injured during Desert Storm, he said, and all that Agent Orange Juice he drank there gave him Gulf War syndrome. Said the docs at the veterans’ hospital told him fresh air was the only cure.”
Cassie threw an amused look my way. I pretended I didn't notice.
“Me and the wife both got jobs down in Harrisburg because farming don't pay enough to leave us stay home, so we was glad to have the help. Especially when it didn't cost us nothing except for his meals. Round about the end of that September, he just up and disappeared one day. I didn't mind too much because most of the hard work was done.
“In fact, I never gave him another thought till a few months later. That's when a couple of men showed up at the door with a magazine-I think it was called American Carousel-something like that. They showed me an article about collecting carousel horses, and I'll be darned if there wasn't a picture of my pap-pap's carousel right there in the magazine.
“I told them it was stored in my barn, and they got all excited and said they'd be willing to pay me a million dollars if the animals was in restorable condition. A million dollars! The wife near burst with excitement. We went right down to the barn, and guess what…”
“The carousel was gone,” I said.
“Yep. Every last bit of it. All I could think of was that young guy spent all summer hauling it away while me and the wife was at work. He must have seen the article about it, too, and tracked it down just like the collectors, only he got to me before they did. The buyers was real disappointed, and they suggested I offer a reward. I thought ten thou was too much, but they reminded me I'd get a million from them when I got it back. They took care of putting ads in the carousel magazine and on the computer. It's been so long without any word that I darn near forgot about it. That is, till Chief Miller called this morning.”
“The young man you think took it-do you remember his name?”
“Oh yeah, it was Darren Detweiler. I thought he was related to the Detweilers over in Littlestown. He never said he weren't. Good-looking man the wife said often enough. If you like that type.”
Yes, I wanted to say, I liked that type.
“I got a picture of him.” He pulled an envelope out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to me. “I was snapping a picture of the wife with my new John Deere, and it turned out he was in the background painting the house.”
I had to force myself to look at the photo. Behind the large yellow tractor and the dumpy little woman was a golden-haired, bare-chested man, so busy with his paintbrush that he never knew his picture was being taken. Darious hadn't changed at all in three years. My eyes misted over, and I passed it over to Luscious.
“So I guess the reward's yours, little lady. I'll see you get a check as soon as I get my million bucks.”
“I don't want it,” I told him. “Why don't you give it to Luscious's nephew Sam? He's really the one who did all the work in finding you.”
Luscious beamed with pride. “That'll take care of Sam's college.”
One semester of college is more like it, I thought, but I didn't disillusion Luscious.
Mr. Strainge shook hands all around and left. Now we were five, Cassie, Luscious, Chief Yoder, Henry
Hoopengartner, and me. I wished they'd all go and leave me alone to process what had happened, but they all seemed firmly ensconced in their places.
“Now that he's gone, I've got some bad news for you,” Chief Yoder said with a cheerful smile that seemed out of place. “I had the contents of your teapot analyzed, and it was loaded with Ambien, a prescription sleeping medicine.”
“I knew there was something in it,” I said.
“Worse news,” Luscious added. “We found a half-empty prescription bottle among Darious's personal effects.”
“I'm not surprised. I'd already decided he was the one who tried to kill me. I just don't know why… I thought he liked me.”
Cassie patted my hand reassuringly. She seemed to sense something had gone on between Darious and me. “I'm sure he did, Tori. But when he discovered you were a reporter, he probably thought you were tracking down the antiques he'd stolen. Remember I told you P. J. has received several threats to her life. It comes with the job, Tori.”
“I wonder if he's also the one who shot Professor Nakamura… while aiming at me?”
Luscious and Chief Yoder exchanged glances. Luscious cleared his throat and said, “We found some guns in the barn. I've sent them out for a ballistics check, to compare them to the bullet that was in Nakamura's chest. I have a feeling we'll find out Darious was the guy what shot at you. There's something else you should know, Tori. I hate to tell you this because I know you and he was kinda… friends.”
“Not friends. Acquaintances. Tell me.”
“There's a good chance one of them guns killed Dr. Washabaugh. We'll know for sure in a day or two.”
“But why would he have done that?”
“Probably looking for drugs.” Luscious opened his eyes wide trying to look wise, but the result was merely that he looked pop-eyed.
“The kind of man who'd steal from a fire department would do anything.” Chief Yoder was full of righteous indignation.
“One more thing,” Luscious began.
“What else?” I groaned.
“His name wasn't Darious DeShong or even Darren Detweiler. Fingerprints identify him as Douglas Digby from Pittsburgh, a felon with a record as long as my arm: DUIs, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon…”
“Please don't tell me.” I couldn't bear to listen to any more evidence against Darious. Evidence that proved to me all too well that my atrocious taste in men was still alive and well. With the exception of Garnet, all my life I'd been attracted to the wrong kind of men, ones who were good-looking and charming on the outside, but inside were rotten to the core. Did it have something to do with my father being that kind of man? Maybe the time had come for me to join a therapy group and look into this major character defect.