Read Online The Dead Man in Indian Creek by Mary Downing Hahn - Free Book Online Page B

were locked, of course. Then Parker found a small window.
    "Boost me up," he said.
    "What if somebody comes along?" I glanced behind me at the empty parking lot. On the street, a car cruised past, but its headlights didn't reach us.
    Parker grabbed the windowsill and tried unsuccessfully to pull himself up without my help. "Come on, Armentrout," he said. "Don't chicken out now."
    "There might be a burglar alarm." I tried to see if there was any tape on the window or one of those little sensors.
    "In a town like Woodcroft?" Parker asked. "Most people don't even lock their back doors."
    Out of arguments but still scared, I gave him a boost, and he managed to shove the window open and then wiggle inside.
    "Go to the back door," he told me. "I'll let you in."
    While I waited for him to open the door, I heard another car coming. I crouched down, my heart thumping, but the car went on past.
    "What are you doing?" Parker stood in the doorway looking down at me.
    "Nothing," I muttered and edged around him into the silent shop.
    It was really dark inside. Evans had the place jammed with big bureaus and trunks, china closets, huge wardrobes, umbrella stands with grotesque faces carved on them, tables, and glass-fronted cabinets full of dolls and toys.
    In the narrow beam from Parker's pocket flashlight, all these things crowded around us, casting weird shadows. Our reflections jumped out at us from tilted mirrors, scaring me more than once, and the sagging floor creaked under our feet. It was like being in a fun house; you never knew what you'd see next-a lion from a carousel, a cigar-store Indian, or a life-size cutout of Elvis.
    "What are we looking for?" I whispered.
    Parker didn't answer. He was trying to open the door to the back room where Evans and Pam repaired things.
    "Damn," he muttered, jiggling the knob, "it's locked."
    Putting my shoulder against the door like they do in movies, I shoved hard, but nothing happened except I got a pain in my arm.
    Parker pushed me aside. "I can get it with my library card," he said.
    I watched him stick the plastic card in the crack between the door and the frame and jiggle it around. In a couple of seconds, he had the door open.
    "Where did you learn to do that?" I asked him.
    "I'm always losing my house key and locking myself out," Parker said. "This gets me in every time."
    He shone his light around the room and zeroed in on Pam's worktable. The box of dolls she'd taken out of the kitchen was lying there, and he opened it. Carefully he lifted out a doll and examined her. In his flashlight's beam, the doll stared at him, her eyes wide open. Although Pam had carefully repainted her face and repaired her clothing, she hadn't given her a new wig. In fact, all the dolls in the box were still bald.
    "Quit breathing on me, Armentrout," Parker said as he put the doll back into the box. "You smell like anchovies."
    I stepped back, embarrassed. "No worse than you do," I muttered, but Parker was too busy opening another box of dolls to pay any attention to me.
    These dolls were finished. Wearing wigs, clothes, and shoes, they lay as still as sleeping children. When Parker picked one up, her eyes didn't open.
    "That's weird," he said, tilting the doll back and forth. "She's all fixed, except her eyes."
    Putting her down, he tried another doll, but her eyes wouldn't open either. In fact, not one of the six dolls would wake up no matter how hard we rocked them back and forth.
    Parker looked at me. "This is really strange." He grabbed one of the bald dolls and looked into the hole on top of her head. Then he tilted her back and forth. "Her eyes work," he said. "Why would the others be all packed up, ready to go, if they're broken?"
    I shook my head. "We better get out of here, Parker," I said. The darkness was getting to me, and the shop made lots of funny sounds, creakings and squeakings like mice or maybe rats burrowing through all the old junk.
    "I'm going to take one with me." Parker lifted a doll