Free The Pea Soup Poisonings by Nancy Means Wright

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    Yours,
    Walter S. Bayre
     
    Spence opened up another letter. This time it was a wild boar and two twenty-year-old black bears. All being offered to the Wildlife Park. A third zoo would send along a seventy-year-old elephant and two elderly zebras.
    Why did the kidnappers want old animals, Spence wondered. Because they were cheaper to buy? He couldn’t imagine. Where was this wildlife park located? And was Wolfadder Cedric’s surname? Well, it figured.
    Just then he heard a car in the driveway, the back door clang. Quickly he rubbed off the new HELP message he’d chalked on the window, closed up the box and smoothed out the top so it wouldn’t look like he had broken into it.
    Footsteps were click-clacking up the attic steps. They were Chloe’s, he knew the sharp heels. He stretched out on his mattress and shut his eyes. When she stood over him, he opened them a crack, and rubbed them as though he’d been sleeping the whole time.
    “Here, kid. I brought you some soup and a hot dog for lunch.”
    He sat up, blinked at her. She looked like a genie that had just stretched up out of a bottle of red ink. He narrowed his eyes at the soup. It was a dull green.
    “Pea soup?” he said.
    “Kid, this ain’t a restaurant. You eat what you get. You don’t want it, you can go hungry.” She click-clacked out on her red heels. Spence heard the door snap shut behind her.
    He ate the hot dog, he had to keep up his strength. But he left the pea soup in the bowl.
    Just looking at it made him want to throw up.
     
     
    Chapter Eighteen
     
    A Message at the Mobil Station
     
    Three police cars surrounded the Mobil gas station, but there was no sign of the two-tone blue car. It had obviously gotten away before the police arrived. One by one the police cars rumbled off, and Miss Gertie started to follow. Zoe said, “Wait, please.” She wanted to ask the gas attendant a few questions.
    The attendant was a teen-aged boy with a pimply face and hair the color of hay. He looked suspiciously at Zoe when she inquired about the car.
    “It was here. I told the fuzz.”
    “The who?” she asked.
    “The cops,” he said, glaring at her as if she were stupid. “But it took off before they got here. I heard a beeper go off.”
    “Oh! Did he answer the beeper? What did he say?” Zoe’s chest was doing a drum roll. Cedric, she figured, would have a cell phone.
    “Who are you anyway?” The boy’s eyes narrowed. He stuck dirty hands on his hips, leaned forward to look in her face. He smelled of gas and garlic.
    Zoe wished she had her Spy badge, but she hadn’t earned it yet. So she put her hands on her own skinny hips and said, “They abducted my best friend. Why do you think the police were here, anyway? If you don’t help, they’ll throw you in jail.”
    The boy blinked his eyes, and scowled. “Yeah, he called back on his cell. I heard him when he paid for the gas. But I can’t remember what he said. I was counting the money. He paid in ones.”
    “Try. Try to remember,” Zoe urged. “You want a boy’s death on your conscience?”
    The boy furrowed his brow. He thrust out his lips like a goldfish. “Okay, he said something about ‘Meet me at the old lady’s at noon.’ Yeah, that’s what he said. Then he said he’d ditch that car. Somebody was on to him.”
    “The police. That’s who was on to him.”
    “Maybe.” The boy shrugged, and went out to gas up a red Blazer.
    The old lady’s, Zoe thought. It could mean Thelma’s house. The kidnappers would search again for that key. If she hid in the house while they were searching, they might reveal Spence’s hiding place. And she could go to save Spence!
    “Home, James,” she ordered Miss Gertie, and Gertie smiled and turned the car around. Then Gertie recalled that she really did need gas, and started to turn back. But it was already ten-thirty and Zoe was in a hurry to get home.