Who Is the Map Thief?
An hour later, Max leaned against the iron gate to the cemetery and listened while Dorie read from the tour guidebook.
When she finished, Carly pointed to a tall, narrow, weather-beaten, white building perched off to the right of the cemetery. “Is that a church? It looks like it’s about a thousand years old.” The empty belfry stood stark against the mountains like a soldier standing guard over the cemetery.
“This doesn’t say.” Dorie scanned the section about the cemetery again.
“One of the pamphlets I read said the original Catholic church is still out here. I guess that’s it,” said Brandon.
Max sighed heavily. “That doesn’t tell us anything helpful. Neither does the part Dorie read about whether they were buried north to south, or east to west.”
“It is interesting, though,” Brandon said. “It kind of makes sense to me that the people who were ‘crossways to the world,’ or as we would say, ‘the outlaws,’ would be buried sideways. Let’s see if we can find any of them. Besides, I think we should read all of the headstones and see if any of them are helpful.”
“You can learn a lot by reading,” said Molly. “And you never know when something you read will help.”
Dorie reached into her tote bag and pulled out the notebook from Aunt Maggie. “I’ll write down any that seem important.”
“Let’s go this way,” Brandon said to Carly and Max. He pointed to the right. “This looks the oldest.”
“We’ll go this way then,” said Slim. Chad hung onto his arm.
“Come with Dorie and me, Grandma,” urged Molly. She turned to Dorie. “We’ll have you with us to write down all of the important clues we find.”
“I’ll stay with Grandpa at the van,” said Grandma. “I’m kind of tired.”
A discouraged group gathered back at the van a few minutes later.
“We didn’t find anything important,” said Max. “Nothing. There’s nothing here but a bunch of old tombstones.” He stared out across the valley from the cemetery, hands on his hips. What if we can’t solve this mystery? It’s not as easy as it seems in a book. Be observant and think logically. That’s what Dad had said.
“I didn’t write down a single thing.” Dorie dropped her notebook into her bag.“We read every one in the entire cemetery too,” said Brandon. “It doesn’t seem like we have anything to go on.”
“Let’s look at the map again,” said Carly. “Maybe something will jump out at us.”
Grandpa and Slim pulled the maps out of their shirt pockets and the group huddled around the two men.
“Those bumps sure look like they could be tombstones.” Grandma pointed to the map.
“And the old men at the museum said the cemetery is the right direction from town.” Chad shifted from one foot to another. “I have to go to the bathroom. Can we leave now?”
“Now that you mention it, I sure could use a bathroom too,” Grandma said.
Grandpa climbed into the van. “Okay. Where to? The campground?”
“I think we should go back to the museum,” Max said. “Those guys said they would check with that Helen lady to see if she had any record of Zach and Matthew.” He climbed up into the van and scooted over so Brandon and Carly could get in. “Besides, I want to ask them if they think the Y in the map could be the east and west forks of the creek. I still think we should go down the east road.”
“They have bathrooms at the museum too.” Chad bounced in his seat.
“All-righty then,” Grandpa said. “The museum it is.”
When they got back to the museum, Chad and Grandma detoured to the restrooms while the others rushed through the front door and gathered once again around the desk.“Did you find any clues?” said Ike.
“Not really,” said Max. “It was interesting and all, but we are still just as confused as when we came in this morning. Maybe more.”
“Did that lady, Helen, get to look for Zach and Matthew?” asked Molly.
Ike shook his head. “Not today.” He smiled at Molly. “But don’t be too disappointed. She said she’d come in special tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and she wants you all to come help her look. Usually we are only open over there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she knew you couldn’t wait until Tuesday. She’ll be over at that building over there.” He pointed to the log building by the old jail cell. “She said she would get there at nine in the morning.”
“We looked and looked at the cemetery,” said Carly, “but we didn’t see a single thing that helped.”
Max nodded. “You mentioned that you thought the Y on the map might be the creek.”
“You didn’t go down there, did you?” Ike stared at Grandpa, a frown on his face.
“No siree,” said Grandpa. He put his arm around Dorie. “This young lady here read the booklet and told us we were not allowed. She makes a pretty good tour guide.”
“Good,” said Ike. “That road would have been a bit of trouble for your van. Oh, yeah.” Ike leaned forward and dropped his voice. He looked straight into Grandpa’s eyes. “Someone else was here asking questions.”
“Are you sure?” said Grandpa. “No one but our family knows about this story.”
“He sure was,” said Earl. “He was mighty interested in Zach.”
“Did you see his car?” asked Molly.
“No, little lady. We didn’t,” Earl said. “But we tried, that’s for sure. We watched out the window as he left but he walked off down Main Street. We never saw his car.”
“Don’t worry too much about him,” said Ike. “We didn’t tell him anything. We felt like something wasn’t quite right when he whipped out that map so we—”
“Map!” Max gasped then shot a look at Carly.
“What map?” Carly asked.
Earl blinked. “Why, the map just like yours. Didn’t we say that? He had a map like yours and he was asking all about it.”
“My map,” Carly said. “He must have taken the copy from my Bible.”
“Who is he?” asked Dorie.
Max’s mind whirled in circles. “I don’t know, but I do know this. We better solve this mystery before he does.”