Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

Her name was America Joyce Brumbeck, but everybody called her Merry, like Merry Christmas. And she had just turned eight years old. Other than that she didn’t say a word the rest of the way back except to tell me Ed’s Dairy Cheer had color-change popsicles in Neon Lime, Tutti Frutti, and something I understood to be Mega Melon Fizz. I watched while she slurped and dripped a Neon Lime all over the seat of my truck, then with her sticky fingers tucked strands of light brown hair behind her ears.

I followed her up my office steps noticing the popsicle smudges on her backside where she’d wiped her hands. She plopped down behind Jeb’s desk, pried a folded-up drawing and a key from her denim shorts pockets, and unwrinkled the drawing, leaving her lime fingerprints around the border. Another dragon, this time with sneakers and an umbrella. She found a pen and started to draw, adding ears and claws. Her ponytail moved from side to side as she concentrated, another claw, another scale. The light brown strands fell around her face.

I leaned an arm on the desk. “Nell was your aunt, right?” She nodded, barely. “Where do your parents live?”

“In Ohio. But they’re in Guatemala right now. They do missionary stuff out there. I was stayin’ with Aunt Nell for the summer.” Her nose crinkled.

I began watering the droopy plants on the windowsill. “The sheriff found your mom and dad’s phone number in Nell’s house. He’s gonna let them know you’re safe,” I said. “They’ll be here as soon as possible.”

She sat up straight, tapping the pen. “Ed’s also has Cherry Bomb-bomb,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me with the most soulful eyes I’d ever seen. They were the color of topaz, large, familiar eyes that made me forget about the step-back and the popsicle and my date with Clint. The ponytail bobbed around, and she drew a long snaky tail without looking up. “Aunt Nell’s dead, isn’t she?”

I spilled water on my shoes. “I’m afraid so, Merry. I’m sorry.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. She was drawing again. The dragon would wear a baseball cap. “I’ve only known her sometimes. My mom and dad are doctors, they go to India, Bolivia, Chicargo, places like that where poor people need shots. You know, vaccinations. When they can’t take me along, I stay with Aunt Nell at her antique shop. It’s always in the summertime.” She printed her name at the bottom of the drawing, adding a star to the end of the y.

I pulled up a stool and sat beside her. “Nell was pretty nice, huh?”

She nodded. “She let me sit by the cash register and draw. She loved all that stuff in there. I did, too. It smelled like the olden days. We played hide-and-seek in there sometimes. She’s got an ugly boyfriend who brings in all that stuff by the truckload. She made him and a bunch of other men put that big old thing at the top of the stairs, you know that big black thing that fell on top of her. She was trying to get it into her house, the back part, where she lives. When that didn’t work, she told ’em to set it at the top of the stairs for now so we could all see how big and beautiful it was. She talked about furniture like it was people. Her boyfriend wanted that big chest for free, but she wouldn’t let him have it. She said she wanted it for herself. Must’ve been worth a gazillion dollars.” Her grin was subdued, fake.

She tapped the pen slowly, thinking. “My mom and dad might let me stay here all summer. I could sleep on that couch.” She pointed with the pen to a sofa in the loft area of my office. This time, her smile went all the way up to her gums. My scowl was minor. She crossed her legs, pink from the sun, found a clean legal pad on the desk, and sketched. Baby dragons followed a big dragon across the page. “What kinda office is this, anyhow? P.I. What’s that?”

“I help—”

“Is it like a detective?” She lifted the pen and frowned at me. I sort of nodded. “Wow. You have a magnifier glass and stuff like that?” Her eyes were two melting caramels.

“Not really—”

“You spy on bad people?” She’d stopped drawing altogether.

“It’s a little different—”

“You gonna find out who killed Aunt Nell?” She swiveled the chair around.

“I thought it was an accident,” I said, cautiously.

“Somebody pushed that thing over.” She swiveled about, unnerving me.

I tried to shrug. “Aunt Nell was probably tugging on a drawer and—” She spun around, one full turn. I stopped the chair with my arm. “What happened, Merry?”

“You’ll let me stay here?”

No, no, no, no, no. The sheriff is coming to get you, he’ll make arrangements for you to stay in some other strange place until your parents can get here. I couldn’t say it. What I said was ten times worse. “Merry, honey, I have to go to the movies with somebody, a man somebody. It’s a date, and, well—” I sounded so foolish I couldn’t finish. Besides that her mouth was starting to pucker. “Okay, Merry, okay. You won’t have to leave here until your parents come. Tell me, what happened?” Now my voice was too intense.