But when she held it in front of her to read the address once more, the late afternoon spring sunlight glinted off a puddle on the sidewalk. Against the light, through the envelope, she could see writing. Almost without looking, she could clearly see the word "poison."
When she entered her building, Caroline guiltily passed the front hall table without putting the letter there. J.P. was home; she could see his jacket and books on the living room couch and could hear him puttering in his room, behind the closed door.
"It's only me," she called so that he wouldn't think a burglar had entered the apartment. He grunted something in reply.
She took the letter into her room and turned on the lamp beside her bed. Carefully she held the unopened letter in front of the bright bulb. And there it was: a short note, typed, and all of it in one place so that it wasn't folded on top of itself. It was the easiest thing in the world to read. It was also the most horrible. Horrible horrible horrible.
Fred:
When this goes through and you get paid, would you install a phone, please?
Have you figured out how to eliminate the children? I know it's tough, but you have to be brutal—and thorough—and quick. The May 1st deadline is inflexible.
About the poisons: I'll leave that to you. But best not to use cyanide, not after the Tylenol thing. Find something obscure.
Carl
Caroline read it twice. Then she read it a third time, slowly, and copied it onto a page of notebook paper. After she was certain she had copied it word for word, with no mistakes, she took the letter back downstairs and deposited it on the table next to the vase of dried flowers.
Trudging back upstairs, she thought again about her dream. It had been, after all, the Coelophysis, ratty-looking though he was, who had come to her rescue, who had said, "I'll help you."
She knocked on her brother's bedroom door and called, "J.P.? Would you come out?"
"Why should I?" he called back.
"Because," said Caroline in despair, "I need your help."
"I have to think, I have to think, I have to think," muttered J.P. nervously, after Caroline had described her suspicions to him and shown him the first note and the copy of the second. "Shut up and let me think."
"How can I shut up when I'm not even saying anything?" asked Caroline. She went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of orange juice. "Here," she said, handing one to her brother. He was sitting on the living room couch, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands.
"I'm thinking. I'm thinking," J.P. repeated, taking the glass of juice absent-mindedly. The telephone rang. "Shut the phone up, would you? I'm thinking."
"KID CALLS PAL," announced Stacy over the telephone.
"Hi, Stace," said Caroline. She took the phone into the bathroom so that she wouldn't disrupt J.P.'s thinking process.
"Anything going on? You dashed away after school, and I've been calling and calling, but you weren't home until now."
"Stacy," said Caroline in an ominous voice, "things are getting much more complicated. There was another letter to Frederick Fiske from the secret agent. The murder's got to be before May first because there's a deadline. I've asked J.P. to help. I had to."
"SIBS FOIL CRIME," said Stacy. "Sibs means siblings," she explained. "Siblings means brothers and sisters."
"I know that," Caroline said patiently. "And right now my sib is figuring out our next move."
"Caroline, this is going to be a big story. I mean a truly big story."
"I know that, Stacy. But I won't be around to read it, not if I've been poisoned."
"No way. You're going to foil it; you and J.P. You foil, I write. This is my big break, Caroline. Promise me you won't give it to another journalist."
"Stacy, I don't even know another journalist."
"And I'll never divulge my sources, Caroline. If they put me in jail, I won't divulge my sources. That's part of journalistic ethics."
"Stacy," said Caroline, becoming less patient, "you seem to be more interested in your truly big story than you are in your best friend. Don't you realize that I'm the victim here?"
"That's it!" exclaimed Stacy. "That's my lead! I'm going to write it New Journalism style, and maybe I can sell it to New York magazine. Here's the lead, Caroline; listen to this: 'I met Caroline MacKenzie Tate for the first time when she was eight years old. She beat me in the election for third-grade class secretary, and I called her several names. Smartass. Teacher's pet. I didn't know then what I know now, on this gray, anguished April morning: that Caroline MacKenzie Tate was, when all was said and done, a victim.' "
"Stacy Baurichter," said Caroline angrily, "don't you dare use my middle name, not ever. And this is not a gray, anguished April morning. This is a 65-degree sunny April afternoon, and it is almost over, and my mother will be home from work in a few minutes, and I am hanging up this phone if you—"
Stacy interrupted her. "Do you think they'll let me say 'smartass'? Censorship is becoming such a problem for us journalists."
Caroline slammed down the telephone receiver be fore Stacy could do one of her usual headline goodbyes.
Back in the living room, J.P. looked up and stopped muttering. "I've got it," he announced. "I'm going to hot-wire his telephone so that next time he makes a phone call, ZAP!"
"J.P.!" said Caroline. "Would you pay attention, please? I showed you what that letter said. He doesn't even have a telephone. He's going to get one after he gets paid for killing us. Too late then!"
J.P. frowned. "His toilet seat, then. A few craftily placed wires, and ZAP! Hot-cross buns!"
"Shhh," said Caroline suddenly. They heard the jingling of keys. "Mom's home."
The door opened and Joanna Tate appeared, pulling off her earrings with one hand. "Hi!" she said, cheerfully. "Boy, am I bushed. What are you guys up to? It's the first time in ages that I haven't heard you fighting as I came up the stairs."
Caroline laughed nervously. "Maybe we're finally developing some interests in common," she said.
10
"Peel the tinfoil back after half an hour so the chicken will get brown, okay?" said Caroline's mother. "And don't forget to lock the door after I leave."
"We always lock the door, Mom," Caroline pointed out.
"How do I look?" Joanna Tate twirled around. "I haven't worn this dress in ages. Does it still fit all right?"
"You look fine," said Caroline glumly. "Doesn't she, J.P.?"
J.P. looked up from his new issue of Scientific American and grunted.
"Mom, if you want to stay home, you can have my TV dinner. I'm not very hungry," Caroline said.
"Why would I want to stay home? Did I tell you he's taking me to an Italian restaurant? Spaghetti and Chianti. Yum." She went to the mirror near the front door and combed her hair again.
"I don't like that guy," muttered Caroline.
"Fred Fiske? You don't even know him."
"Neither do you," Caroline said meaningfully.
"I don't know him well. But I've been walking to the corner with him lots of mornings. He goes down to get a newspaper at the drugstore by my bus stop."
"You don't even know what he does for a living."