Chapter VI: Vanished!

Joe

Frank, Chet, Iola, and I piled out of the car and stretched. As it turned out, Mykay Road seemed like it was about a bazillion miles long and was probably one of the last dirt roads left in the entire county. Plus, whatever highway district was in charge of keeping it up was obviously shirking their duty.

As I had suggested, we stopped at the Websters' house to ask which place was the Mykay place, but Callie's cousins hadn't been home. So we'd just winged it. We were at the very end of the road before we found a sagging overhead arch with letter across it. Given the circumstances and the big space between the M and the K, it was no leap of imagination to decide that it must have once said "Mykay."

The place fit right in with the road and the archway. There was a dilapidated old house that looked like it would fall over in a stiff breeze. It was probably being propped up by all the out-of-control bushes and ivies that were practically hiding it. There wasn't much grass left in the yard – it was mostly weeds. All around the house, spindly trees and leafless bushes were growing in a sort of eerie forest.

"You think this is the place?" Chet asked.

"I'm sure it's the Mykay place," Frank told him. "Whether or not it's the old Clancey place is going to be a lot harder to prove. We can't count on any descriptions of buildings or trees and other vegetation, since those things are most likely gone. That just leaves us with hills and streams, but even those could have changed in several hundred years."

Frank was right. We didn't have a lot to go on.

"Let's see those journal pages," I said.

Frank handed some to each of us and we began looking around for anything that might match.

"It's so weird that Nancy is working on such a similar case," Iola commented. "Do you think it could be a coincidence?"

"No way," I replied. "That would be even weirder than if Sinclair and Nancy's Miller guy were connected somehow. It's bad enough that one of the pages just happens to be in Bayport and another just happens to be in River Heights."

"If it's not a coincidence, then what is the explanation?" Iola asked.

"Good question," I said. Frank and I were going to have to put some serious thought into this one. If Evan Sinclair and Craig Miller were working together, why wouldn't Sinclair have mentioned Nancy or Miller have mentioned us? And if they weren't working together, why were they both working on the same thing at the same time?

"Hey, I might have something here." Frank broke into my thoughts. "It says here that there's a hot springs on the south side of a hill that is in the northeast corner of what used to be Clancey's farm. Let's look for that."

"We should split up," I suggested. "There're a lot of hills around here. Even split up, we could spend all day trying to find one hot springs."

The others agreed, and each of us fanned out in different directions. For hours, we looked over all the hills in sight, gradually getting farther and farther away from each other. We stopped for lunch at around noon, and then continued our hunt for another couple of hours. By then, I was just about done in, so I flopped down to rest for a minute.

That's when I noticed something that sent a shiver up and down my spine. As I already said, this place was eerie, so it didn't take much to make me shiver. In this case, it was an old headstone covered up with a wild rose bush that had more thorns that leaves.

After my initial shiver, I crawled closer to take a look at it. Sure, Sinclair hadn't said anything about any graves, but you can never tell where you're going to find a clue. Getting a good enough look to tell whether the headstone was a clue or not was no easy business, though. To begin with, the rose bush that was covering it was really thick, which is why I didn't see the stone until I sat down. I pulled my pocketknife out and had to do quite a bit of hacking before I could get to it.

After that, I realized that a lot of the words had been weathered off over the years. It also was tipping forward because the grave was sinking. When I was probably seven or eight, Frank told me once that graves sink because the bodies in them have rotted away. Whether he had been telling the truth or not, the thought wasn't helping the eeriness of the situation.

I read what I could of the inscription on the stone. All that was legible was:

-be- C-cey

1-4 to 17-

-IP

Besides the words, there was also a cross carved into the top of the headstone. I looked at it for another minute or so, and then I noticed something near the bottom of the stone. It was a very small circle with a line pointing out of it to the right and up. I didn't know what to make of it, but I decided I should take a picture of the whole thing anyway.

I was about to take my phone out of my pocket when I thought I heard a faint yell. I thought it might be one of the others saying that they had found something, so I paused to listen. The yell was repeated, but now I realized that it wasn't a "Hey, guys, come look what I found" type of yell – it was a shout for help. I jumped to my feet and started running in the direction that the shout had come from.

I hadn't gone terribly far when I ran into Iola. I mean, I literally almost ran into her.

"Did you hear it, too?" she asked, panting a little.

"Yeah, it sounds like it's coming from over there." I pointed and we started running in that direction.

The shouting was getting louder now, and we could recognize it as Chet's voice. The weird thing was that we knew we were getting close, but neither of us could see him anywhere.

"Heeeeelp!" The drawn-out shout came from practically at my feet.

I looked down and saw a round hole a yard or so away from where I was standing and a pair of hands desperately clinging to the side.

"Over here, Iola," I told my friend.

We looked over the edge and saw Chet dangling over a hole that we deep enough we couldn't see the bottom.

"Well, well, what have you gotten yourself into, Chet?" I teased him.

"Just get me out of here," he snapped.

"Okay, okay," I said.

Iola and I each grabbed one of his hands. A split-second later, Frank arrived on the scene, and he grabbed one of Chet's wrists. The three of us pulled him up with little trouble.

With his feet on terra firma, Chet sprawled on the ground and sighed in relief. "Whew! I didn't think I was going to get out of that one alive."

"What I'm more curious about is how you got into that one," I said. "Didn't you see the hole?"

Chet lay back with his eyes closed. "Nope. One minute, I was walking along minding my own business, the next minute the earth was swallowing me up."

Frank peered down into the hole. "It looks like a well. There was probably a cover on it, but it was so rotted it couldn't support the weight of someone standing on it."

"You don't suppose there are any more wells around, do you?" Iola asked, looking around at the ground suspiciously.

"Probably not in this exact area," Frank assured her. "There must have been a house nearby at some point. I doubt they would have had more than one well."

"Maybe this is Walter Clancey's well," I suggested.

Frank looked at the journal pages. After a few minutes, he said, "I think you're right, Joe. Clancey says that his well was behind his house. If his house was facing west, that hill right there could be the one he says was in front of his house. That would put this well in just the right spot."

"Okay, so we found Clancey's place," Chet said. "How do we find the page that he hid now?"

"That's a little tougher," Frank admitted. "I don't see how we can until we get a new copy of the entire journal from Mr. Sinclair. Our main goal today was to find out whether Clancey lived on the Mykay place or not, and I think we've accomplished that."

"Then I'm ready to head for home," Chet said. "Falling into one well is enough for today."

"Okay," Frank agreed. "Besides, it's getting late and it's a long drive out of here. If we don't go now, I'll be late to meet with Callie."

"We wouldn't want that," I teased Frank. At least, I sounded like I was teasing him, but I was actually fairly serious. Callie had seemed kinda put out with Frank lately, and the last thing Frank needed was for a case to make him late.

As we walked back to the car, I told the others about the headstone I'd found and how the last name on it could be Clancey. I also described the circle with the line.

"If you're right, and the name on the headstone is Clancey, then this has to be Walter's old farm," Frank commented.

Somehow, the drive back to town seemed to take longer than the drive out. By the time I had turned onto the street that had both the Crème and Sugar and Tyler's Pizza, it was five thirty-four.

"Say, Joe, I don't have time to go all the way home," Frank said. "Just drop me off at the Crème and Sugar."

"Why don't I leave the car with you?" I suggested. "If Chet and Iola are willing, they can give me a ride home."

"Sure," Iola agreed. "We wouldn't mind."

"At least, they can give me a ride home if the Queen can hold together for the extra mileage," I added. Chet gave me a mock-reproachful look.

After leaving Frank and the car off in front of the coffee shop, Chet, Iola, and I started walking toward Tyler's Pizza, where the Queen was parked. We hadn't even gotten to the corner when we heard Frank calling to us.

Instinctively, I felt in my pockets for the keys, but, no, I had already handed them over. That wasn't what the problem was. I turned around and went back.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Callie isn't here," Frank told me.

"So she's late." I shrugged.

"But her purse and phone are here," Frank said, "and the barista says that Callie left about ten minutes ago with some guy."

"Okay, that is a little weird," I admitted. "Did the barista know the guy?"

"I didn't take time to ask," Frank replied.

"C'mon," I said, and the two of us went into the café.

We asked the barista about Callie's unknown companion. Chet and Iola came trailing in after us, asking what was going on. I would have liked to know the same thing.

"I'd seen the guy before," the barista told us. "I think he's come in a time or two before this. All I know is that Callie asked me to keep an eye on her stuff and she'd be back in a second."

Frank and I exchanged glances. I could tell we were thinking the same thing: Callie hadn't gone on her own volition.