Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway by Wendelin Van Draanen Read Free Book Online

against the leash. Coralee's head snaps toward the fence, mine snaps toward Captain Patch, and Patch is snapping at a man with biker written all over him—long scraggly hair, long scraggly beard, tattoos, and a gut the size of Milwaukee. “Hey!” he shouts at me. “Whatcha doin' back there?” But before I can come up with an answer, he says, “Oh, Patch! Hey, dude, mellow out,” and produces a dog biscuit from the pocket of his faded black sweatpants.
    In an instant, Captain Patch turns from guard dog to glutton. And while he inhales the biscuit, Coralee's car zooms away and the biker dude says, “He had to take a dump, huh?” He gives me a bushy grin. “Don't sweat it. Dogs are like that. When they gotta go, they gotta go. Just kick some dirt on it, would ya?”
    So I turn around and kick some dirt on a pretend doo-doowhile he gives Captain Patch another biscuit and says, “Sorry if I scared ya, boy. I thought you was some poachers messin' with my stuff.”
    I almost choked out, Poachers? I mean, that'd be like calling gulls at the landfill thieves. But whatever. I just smiled at him and said, “Thanks for not being mad.”
    “Like I said, don't sweat it.” Then he adds, “So, uh … you're friends with Annie, huh?”
    Now, I could tell there was a reason he was asking me this and that he had more questions lining up in his head, depending on what my answer turned out to be. But before I could figure out what to say, a beer-bellied
woman
with long scraggly hair and tattoos comes out the front door, calling, “Andy? Your loser son's on the phone. You want me to tell him to go to hell?” Then she notices me and says, “Who the hell are you?”
    Andy gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry 'bout that. My old lady gets kinda possessive.” Then he calls over, “She's walking Patch. He had to take a dump.”
    “Ah,” she says, like, Well, okay then. “So are you hanging up on PeeWee, or am I?” she says to Andy.
    He lets out a heavy sigh. “I'll do it.”
    So I left Andy the Appliance Guy and his Old Lady and hurried back to Mrs. Willawago's. And after I let Captain Patch loose in the backyard, I went inside through the French door, saying, “Guess what!”
    Mrs. Stone was still there, and she and Mrs. Willawago both turned to look at me but didn't say, What?
    Did that stop me?
    No way!
    I blurted out, “That lawyer on the corner is in cahoots with Coralee Lyon!”
    Mrs. Willawago blinked at me. “In cahoots? What are you talking about?”
    “They had a secret meeting! I spotted Coralee's car parked behind the house, and when I peeked in the window, there they were, having a little chitchat about how nobody will be able to stop these properties from being taken over and how you guys fighting them is a good thing.”
    They both squinted at me.
“What?”
    “I know. It doesn't really make any sense to me, either, but for some reason Coralee wants him to be more—what did she say? Oh yeah,
forceful
. She told him to be more
forceful
tonight.” I cocked my head a little. “What's tonight, anyway? Is there a hearing or a meeting or something?”
    “Wait a minute,” Mrs. Stone said. “You're talking about Leland Hawking? The lawyer on the corner?”
    I nodded. “That's right.”
    She looked at Mrs. Willawago. “I thought you said he was
against
the project.”
    “That's what he told me!”
    “When?” I asked.
    “A month ago! Right before my surgery, when they sent around that appraiser! He told me not to worry— that he was a lawyer and knew just what to do.” Mrs. Willawago shook her head. “Surely you're mistaken. Surely you misunderstood.”
    “I don't think so.” So I told them the whole thing, right from the personalized license plate straight through seeing Coralee sneak out the back door. And when I wasall done, Mrs. Willawago's eyes were wide, but Mrs. Stone's were hard and narrow. “You went right up and looked in the window?” she asked.
    I shrugged and kind of pulled a face, and