Oh, brother.
I have no idea what my suddenly-gone-old-timey-on-me sister is trying to pull, but she couldn’t have thought of inspecting McGinty’s neck to see if his medal was around it in a million years. Pyewacket the cat could think of doing that before she could.
From years of experience, I know that I shouldn’t get into a sparring match with her when she’s hungry, but between my frustration at getting the watch and the medal free from one another and my worrying about what’s gonna happen next if I don’t get some food into her and that smooth, superior tone she’s using on me that sounds a lot like the one Louise uses when she thinks she’s got the upper hand, I can’t help myself.
“You didn’t inspect Mister McGinty’s neck,” I tell her, snippy. “You’re making that up.”
“Well, I never.” She crosses her arms across her chest and stomps her little foot. “For you to suggest that I’m prevaricating is nothing short of an outrage!”
PreWHATacating?
Talking gibberish is a very bad sign that I should put on the LOONY list when I get the chance, but . . . geez, I don’t know. Long shots do come in every once in a while. I guess Birdie’s attention might’ve been pulled in the direction of Mr. McGinty’s neck. Not because she’s smart enough to think of looking to see if his medal was missing on purpose, but because she got a whiff of what he was picking out of the bush. She could’ve whipped her head toward the leftover smell of chocolate and caramel that’d been wrapped in the gold Rolo wrapper and accidentally got a look at his neck.
“So you’re tellin’ me that something like this”—I hold up the free-at-last St. Christopher medal—“wasn’t hanging around Mister McGinty’s neck when he—?”
“Would you please kindly lower your voice?” Birdie says with a scowl. “I have abnormally sensitive hearing and you’re aggravating my condition.”
I know this is no laughing matter, but honestly, even when I’m as ticked off as I am, my sister just slays me. “Oh, ya got a condition that I’m aggravating, huh?” I say with a chuckle. “Well, I got a condition that you’re aggravating, too, missy, and it’s that you better be tellin’ me the truth about what you saw, or didn’t see, around Mister McGinty’s neck.”
She squares her shoulders, lifts her chin, and places her right hand on her heart. “I can unequivocally state that the caretaker’s neck was completely . . . oh, my, dare I say . . . bare?” she does dare to say with cheeks the color of her freshly pinched heinie.
What the heck?
The kid who will pull her pants down and moon not only me, but just about anybody in the neighborhood, including Father Ted if the spirit moves her, is suddenly too prim and proper to say the word bare?
“And before you can question the quality of my eyesight again, young lady,” Birdie says, Sunday school teacher snooty, “let me also assure you that my verification of the identity of the person that I observed in the vicinity of the willow tree a few moments ago is absolutely accurate as well.”
The identity of somebody? At the willow tree? Is she . . . is she talking about my Charlie?
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
I think I might’ve caught my sister telling me a coupla bald-faced, old-timey fibs.
“But when I asked you a few minutes ago to check for Charlie,” I say nice and slowly, so there can be no confusion on her part or mine, “you told me that you didn’t see him down there. And just now you told me that your verification was absolutely accurate.” I hitch up my shorts and do my Sheriff of Dodge impression that she loves. “Sounds to me like you’re changin’ yer stories, little lady.”
“I most certainly am not!” Birdie says, not charmed, I’m sure. “After you asked me to check for your betrothed beneath the weeping willow, I stated quite clearly that I didn’t see anyone bald in the vicinity. Not that I didn’t see anyone at all.”
Well, that empties all the bullets outta my six-shooter right quick, because that’s exactly what she did state, quite clearly.
Could she be telling the truth after all? On both counts?
I don’t care so much about the Charlie situation anymore because I’m pretty sure I know where we’ll find him, but I do care about the Mr. McGinty situation. If Birdie is right and this is for sure his medal I’m holding in my hand, then I’m almost positive that he’s the kidnapping murderer.
FACT: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” is a very true famous saying.
PROOF: This is not at all what I wanted to happen when I thought it was a great-good-luck moneymaking idea to show up in the cemetery this morning to investigate what I heard and saw last night.
“I’m really, really, really, really hungry. I’m really . . .” drones my sister, who has suddenly returned back from her trip to the Wild West hungrier than she was before she left.