27
That night, Truman couldn’t sleep. He kept Sook awake all hours, telling her of his adventures earlier that evening. The story grew into an epic tale of wrestling snakes and fighting off a mob of Klansmen, which Sook happily listened to. Naturally, he had saved Nelle and Little Bit from certain doom. But there was one detail he couldn’t quite explain to her: why he had no pants on when he came home.
When he finally got to sleep, he had frightful dreams and tossed and turned until somebody shook him awake.
He was standing in the backyard in his pajamas.
“Buddy, you been sleepwalking again. Where were you going?” It was Arch.
“Daddy?” It took a minute for his brain to grasp that he wasn’t in bed. “Where am I?”
“You’re outside, son. You seemed awfully determined to get somewhere. Something about a rubber-band gun?”
“What are you doing here, Daddy?”
Arch smiled. “I came to see my favorite son, of course. I got this great idea that’s gonna make us a fortune. I bought one of those steamboats we used to work on, but this one is gonna be like a floating theater. We’ll have all the top entertainers, like that Louis Armstrong fella, and of course you’ll tap-dance to his music, and we’ll get Nelle’s mother to play her piano—she’s a fine player. But best of all, your mother has agreed to be our headliner—she’ll sing!”
“We’ll be together again?” asked Truman.
“It’ll be just like old times. Won’t that be swell?” said Arch, beaming.
Truman couldn’t believe it. “What made you change your mind?”
Arch took off his hat and scratched his head. “Sometimes the answer is sitting right in front of you.”
“What?” said Truman, puzzled.
Arch knelt in front of him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Don’t worry about it, son, everything will work itself out. You’ll see.” Suddenly, he started shaking him and, even stranger, barking like a dog—
“Wake up!”
Truman’s eyes shot open and there was Nelle staring his straight in the face with Queenie barking and jumping all over his bed.
“Where am I?” he asked, confused.
“You’re in bed, you loony bird, where else?”
He sat up. It was late morning. “Where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy?” said Nelle. “He ain’t here, I’ll tell you that much.”
“But he was just . . .” He realized he’d been dreaming.
“Last night musta shook a nut loose in your head. Look at this.”
She shoved the slingshot into his face. “It’s not a snake, it’s an S,” she said.
“What?” he said, still confused.
“On the handle. The carving. It’s an S. What do you think it means?” she asked.
Truman pushed Queenie off him and examined the slingshot more closely. The rough carving had seemed like a snake earlier when he saw it in the dark but he had to agree, it looked more like an S now.
“Who do we know whose name starts with S?” she asked. “Sammy Zuckerman? Sally Randell? Um . . . Sidney Rae Mollet?”
None of the people she named were remotely suspicious.
Just then, someone knocked on his bedroom door. Big Boy popped his head in. “You still in bed? Sheez, some of us have been up since dawn. So what’s going on?”
“Where have you been? You missed everything!” said Nelle.
“I been working on the farm like real people do!” said Big Boy.
“You catch him up,” Truman said to Nelle. “I’m getting dressed.”
Nelle filled Big Boy in on everything that had transpired in the past two days—red-haired Ralph, the sheriff and his son, the slingshot, the snake pit, and being chased by the Klan. Big Boy sat transfixed like he was at the picture show. He even took out a snack from his pocket and started chewing away as the story kept getting better and better.
When he spotted the slingshot on the bed, he got excited and shouted, “Smimphfrlop!”
“What on earth are you eating, Big Boy?” said Nelle, annoyed. “I’m trying to tell you we been working on solving the case, and you’re chomping away like a squirrel.”
Big Boy laughed and almost choked. He spat the contents of his mouth into his hands. “Nuts,” he finally said, pointing to the slingshot. “Oh, is that a clue?”
“Gross,” said Nelle. “Yes, it’s a clue, maybe the clue. Didn’t your mama teach you any manners?”
Big Boy grinned. “She did. But I kind of stole these, so I have to eat ’em quick!” he added, full of worry.
Truman walked in from the bathroom, refreshed and back to normal. “Is he all caught up?”
Nelle scowled at Big Boy. “We’re trying to solve a crime and you’re stealing?”
Big Boy shrugged. “Is it a crime if you find ’em on the ground?”
“No . . . so why’d you say you stole ’em?” asked Nelle.
Big Boy looked around and came in close. “I snuck into ol’ man Boular’s yard and that’s where I ‘found’ ’em.”
Nelle’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? That man would skin you alive if he ever caught you taking his nuts!”
“But they were on the ground where I found ’em! What does he care?”
They went back and forth until Truman stopped them. “Let me see something.” He unfolded Big Boy’s hands, examined the half-chewed nuts. “These are pecans,” he said.
“Yeah, so?” said Big Boy.
Truman stared at his hands. “Hello . . .”
“What is it?” asked Nelle.
Truman was lost in his head, something the real Sherlock did whenever he was about to break the case open. “Now it makes sense.”
He grabbed the slingshot off the desk and studied the hand-carved S. “Now it all fits!” Truman continued. “The boogeyman . . . the pecans . . . and the slingshot—it was there all the time, right in front of us! We have our S.”
“Truman! What in the heck are you going on about? What do pecans have to do with any—” Nelle froze in midsentence with the look of someone who’d just found a gold coin in the street. “Ooohhh.” She nodded at Truman.
Big Boy threw his hands up. “Well, for gosh sakes, will someone please tell me before I lose my mind?”
Truman placed both of his hands on Big Boy’s shoulders. “Congratulations, Inspector. You may have just solved the crime!”