Forgotten But Not Gone

 

 

 

 

©2005 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)

Daria and associated characters are ©2005 MTV Networks

 

 

Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com

 

Synopsis: The statue of a bearded man stands in Lawndale’s Village Green, but no one in town knows who he is. When Daria is reluctantly goaded into discovering the bearded man’s his identity, she and Jane uncover a bizarre ninety-year-old mystery leading them into extraordinary danger. This (slightly AU) Daria fanfic is set in the “lost summer” between Daria’s sophomore and junior year at Lawndale High School.

 

Author’s Notes: This story appeared in serial form on SFMB and PPMB in April-May 2005, though some of the tale was lost on PPMB during the Great PPMB Crash in April (but recovered later from my own files). Readers are assumed to be familiar with the characters of the Daria show, so introductions are not given. To avoid spoiling the story, further details are given at the end.

            And “Schloß” (schloss) is German for “castle,” as in “Schloß Morgendorffer.” Thanks to atimnie for that correction from SFMB, in an unrelated thread.

 

Acknowledgements: My thanks go out to Brandon League, Renfield1969, E. A. Smith, Scissors MacGillicutty, Steven Galloway, Richard Lobinske, Brother Grimace, Gregor Samsa, Roentgen, and Lawndale Stalker for catching assorted misspellings and story glitches and little buried fun things. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Chapter One: Summer Lucky, Summer Not

Chapter Two: “Elementary, My Dear Morgendorffer”

Chapter Three: Mission Preposterous

Chapter Four: Books, Art, Guns, and Women

Chapter Five: Down to the Core

Chapter Six: Chasing Nancy Drew

Chapter Seven: “You’re No Fun Anymore”

Chapter Eight: The Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter Nine: Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter Ten: Why Did It Have To Be—?

Chapter Eleven: A Pause to Reflect

Chapter Twelve: The Earth and the Moon in the Palm of Your Hand

Chapter Thirteen: Like a Bullet from a Gun

Chapter Fourteen: All’s Well That Ends? Well . . .

Epilogue

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Chapter One: Summer Lucky, Summer Not

 

 

            The last day of public school in Lawndale that year was on the first Wednesday in June. At eleven in the morning on the first Thursday in June, sixteen-year-old Daria Morgendorffer knocked on the door of the last house on the right on Howard Drive: a run-down, canary-yellow two-story with an overgrown lawn and a rusted metal sculpture of a tree—or possibly a model of the solar system—in the yard near the front door. It was a beautiful day, but Daria’s heart was heavy for one who had a whole summer ahead of her to waste in idleness, for she knew she wouldn’t be to be allowed to waste it.

            Footsteps heralded the opening of the door. “Hey, amiga!” said her best and only friend, Jane Lane. “Good thing I woke up and showered before you got here. Or woke up, anyway. So tell me, how does it feel to graduate tenth grade?”

            “It would feel a lot better if I didn’t have eleventh and twelfth grade left to work through,” said Daria in a tired monotone. “Um, are you doing anything today?”

            “Thought about picking up a box of doughnuts at the gas station. Are you available to help me eat them?”

            “Let me check my schedule. Mmm, that would be a yes.”

            “Good.” Lanky Jane stepped out of the house and pulled the door to without locking it. “I wouldn’t mind the company. You’ll be glad to know that Trent’s not in. He and his band are off on a tour of Baltimore’s trendiest bars for the weekend, so you don’t have to worry about acquiring that deep rosy blush you get when he’s around. You can relax and act naturally, unless the band runs out of cash and has to come home early.”

            Daria’s cheeks began to color. “Thanks loads,” she growled, looking away. “Your concern touches me. Maybe ‘touch’ is too strong a word, though.”

            They started down the sidewalk together for the street, with Daria’s face burning all the way. Jane’s twenty-something brother Trent, a guitar player and song writer, had a weird effect on Daria, making her knees grow weak and wobbly whenever he was near. Jane seemed to telepathically know this and enjoyed tweaking Daria about her crush when the opportunity arose.

            “How shall we schedule the day after the doughnuts?” said Jane, her jet-black bangs swishing around her head. “Take in a movie? Visit the park? Or go watch television and eat junk food until we fall asleep sometime after four in the morning?”

            Daria gave the world a sour look. “None of the above, at least for now.”

            “I was thinking you seemed a little down when you showed up at the door,” said Jane, “but then I figured, hey, it’s Daria! She’s always like that! C’mon, you can open up to me. Why the long face, amiga?”

            Once over the street, they made their way through an overgrown woodlot along a well-worn dirt path. A locomotive horn sounded in the distance behind them. “Oh, my mom’s making me do a summer project.” Daria exhaled heavily as she walked through the tall weeds. “We have an argument every year about my doing something useful with the only free time I ever get, and I always lose. This year, after a marathon bargaining session at the kitchen table after dinner last night, we finally agreed that in lieu of volunteer work or violating any child-labor laws, I would further my education by finding something noteworthy about Lawndale and writing up a five-page report about it for her.” She sighed again. “I have to turn it in to her by Sunday night.”

            “Something noteworthy about Lawndale,” said Jane. “That’s a bit of a stretch.” They left the woodlot and crossed the back lot of a gas station, heading around the side. “So, how much did she say she’d pay you to do it?”

            “Nothing,” said Daria glumly. “Instead, she agreed to pay for my food and shelter for the rest of the week, instead of making me pay for it. We have to negotiate our contract Sunday after the report is turned over, to determine what I have to do next week to keep from paying for my upkeep then.”

            “The nerve!” Jane exclaimed. “I’m going to call child welfare about this. How can anyone possibly expect anything educational to happen while school is out, much less while it’s still in session?”

            “Especially in this intellectual wasteland of a county.”

            They pushed open the doors to the convenience store attached to the gas station and went inside, migrating immediately to the pastry display. “Given the argument between you and your mom,” said Jane, grabbing a box of a dozen assorted doughnuts, “I’m kind of glad now I had to help Trent get packed and couldn’t come over last night.”

            “I’m kind of sorry you weren’t there. Mom might have put off our traditional argument for another few days.” Daria picked two cold Ultra-Colas from a refrigerated shelf. “So, you’re a lifelong native of this quaint foreign land. Do you know of any noteworthy things about Lawndale worth writing five pages about?”

            “You’re kidding me, right?” Jane shook her head as they got in line for the cashier. “Unless you’re talking about the big strawberry by Cranberry Commons.”

            “My pulse is pounding in my ears. However, I’m not sure I can fill five pages of type about that particular attraction, even if I triple spaced the lines.”

            They paid for their food and wandered out, digging into the doughnuts. A freight train thundered past two blocks behind them on the town’s southwest side. Jane turned to watch it for a moment. “There’s that abandoned rock quarry on the other side of the tracks,” she said after she swallowed. “That might be interesting. Eh, no, it wouldn’t. Forget it. There’s ‘Lovers Lane’ overlooking the quarry, and . . . nah, forget that, too, unless you want to detail the sexual activities of your peer group to your mom.”

            “I’ll keep it in mind, though I have the feeling a report like that might backfire. My mom is a little paranoid about my sex life.”

            At that, Jane snorted, spitting out part of the doughnut she’d just bitten into. She then began laughing so hard that she stopped dead on the sidewalk, almost doubled over.

            “I don’t see what’s so funny about that,” Daria said with a frosty glare.

            Helpless to answer, Jane could only point to Daria before dissolving into laughter again and sinking to her knees on the sidewalk. She bent over, one arm clutched around her abdomen as part of her Ultra-Cola spilled over her shaking hand.

            “Fine,” said Daria darkly. “The doughnuts and I are going somewhere in this lousy little ‘burb where we’re wanted.” Thoroughly toasted, she turned on her boot heels and headed off, the doughnut box under one arm.

            Jane caught up with her fifteen seconds later. “Hey, Daria!” she cried, falling in step beside her friend. “What are you doing here? Ooo, are those doughnuts? Can I have one, please? Pleeease?”

            Daria handed the box over. “Don’t ever speak to me again,” she grumbled.

            “Okay. Hey, what about Pizza Place? You could get five pages of single-spaced type just talking about the extra ingredients. Ten kinds of cheese, twelve different meats, fourteen different vegetables—”

            “Won’t work. Mom said whatever I write about can’t be fun.”

            “Aaah!” Jane cried in alarm. “I am going to call child welfare about this! Or I would if I didn’t think they might take me away instead of you.”

            “Don’t your parents make you do stuff like this over the summer?”

            Jane finished off a double-chocolate doughnut and sucked on her fingers. “Daria, I’m lucky if I see my parents over the summer. Mom’s off learning about native pottery glazes in Arizona, and Dad’s in the Rockies somewhere taking pictures of goats or things that look like goats. It’s amazing they’re even on the same continent at the same time.”

            “I wish I had your problems.”

            “Hmmm.” Jane gave Daria a sidelong glance. “Careful what you wish for. Remember all the fun we had trying to keep the bank from foreclosing on the house because my folks forgot to pay the mortgage, right after you got here?”

            “Yeah.” Daria nodded. She almost smiled. “Good times.”

            “Good times,” Jane agreed. “H’okay, you can’t write about restaurants, then. What about the Zon? Or maybe it’s the Zone this week, or the Zen. I don’t know. Alternative music hangout. Trent’s band plays there sometimes.”

            “Is it fun?”

            “Yeah, it’s . . . oh. No fun places.”

            “If I write about something that’s really fun, she might not let me go there at all.”

            By this point in their travels, the two girls had walked past the cathedral-like city hall building on their right and a light factory on their left. Daria pointed with her half-empty soft-drink bottle at the small park in front of city hall, across the street and ahead on the right. “I was curious,” she said. “We keep passing that statue when we drive around town, and I have no idea who it’s of. I could write that guy up in no time, if I could find a webpage about him on the Internet that I could cut and paste.”

            “The beard guy?” said Jane. They stopped, waited for traffic to pass, then crossed to the other side. Ahead was an open park with scattered trees, surrounded by roads on three sides. In the middle of the park was a tall, freestanding statue on a circular, stone-step pedestal. “There’s a story about him,” Jane went on, “and it’s not a pretty one.”

            “Oh?” Daria felt a stir of genuine interest. “Infamous crime lord? Crooked politician? Incompetent Civil War general? All of the above?”

            “Nope,” said Jane. They crossed a huge circular sidewalk that ran around the park’s perimeter, walked through manicured grass, then came up to the round base on which the stone statue stood. They continued around the base until they could see the statue’s face. Daria guessed the bearded gentleman in old-fashioned clothing was about twelve feet high. The workmanship was impressive despite the stains left by roosting birds. The man held what looked like a fountain pen in one hand and a pill in the palm of the other, his chin raised so he looked above the trees into the clear blue sky.

            “So?” prompted Daria. “Who was he?”

            “Don’t know,” said Jane, and she drank down the last of her Ultra-Cola.

            Daria turned. “Say what?”

            “I don’t know who it is,” said Jane, tossing the empty bottle into a nearby garbage can. “And that’s the problem. No one else in town knows who this guy is, either.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two: “Elementary, My Dear Morgendorffer”

 

 

            “You’re kidding me,” said Daria.

            “Not at all.” Jane pointed to the statue’s circular, stair-step base. “No name, no date, no inscription, no nothing. Someone had this statue put up a long time ago and didn’t tell anyone who it was. On purpose, I think.”

            Daria was incredulous. “You dragged me all the way out here to look at a statue of someone that no one knows and no one remembers anything about?”

            “Mmm, yep.” Jane took a bite out of another doughnut and got powdered sugar all over the front of her ash-gray T-shirt.

            Daria turned to look the statue over once more. After careful consideration, she nodded and said, “It’ll do.” She turned to Jane, who now had powdered sugar sprinkled from her nose to her boots. “What’s this park called?”

            “Village Green.”

            “‘The Statue at Village Green,’” said Daria. “It’s a little lame as a title.”

            “You should call it: ‘Daria Enslaved, The True Story of a Suburban Teen Forced to Do Something Educational on Her Summer Vacation.’” Jane shrugged and dusted the sugar from her clothing. “Better you than me, though.”

            “Thank you for your concern, Mother Theresa.” Daria turned back to the statue. “What can I say about it? Hmmm. It appears to be made of white marble and stands, um, ten or twelve feet tall—”

            “Heroic proportions,” said Jane. She was examining the statue with her left arm extended, thumb raised, right eye shut. “Eight heads high, maybe a little more.”

            Daria glanced at her friend with one eyebrow raised. “What does that mean?”

            “It’s kind of standard for statues, but whoever this guy was, the sculptor liked him and probably thought he was a great man. Or maybe the guy who commissioned it thought so.” Jane lowered her arm. “Anyway, this guy was a hero to someone.”

            Daria blinked. “Um, okay, heroic proportions. What else do your artistic sensibilities tell you about it?”

            “Whoever did this was really good.” Jane began walking around the statue’s base. “It wasn’t anyone from this dump. His face is soft and real, and the clothing looks like the wind should blow it around. Look at his pants, how they hang, and up under his arm where the jacket wrinkles. See?” She paused and squinted. “White marble isn’t cheap, either, especially this type. It’s unveined and has a kind of translucent quality to it, almost pure white. I’m certain this is Italian marble. I looked it up a long time ago.”

            Daria followed Jane as she walked, straining to catch her words.

            “His suit is a standard mid- to late-nineteenth century style: frock coat, button-down vest, collared shirt, hand-tied bow tie, trousers . . .” Jane’s gaze drifted downward. “Nice shoes, too. He was well-to-do, probably upper class. Could be American, could be Canadian, could be European. All the styles from that time were semi-British. He might have been a businessman, though he doesn’t . . . I don’t know, there’s something else about him, and I can’t put my finger on it. He’s dignified, but there’s something else . . .”

            Jane looked behind her, then stepped back and stared at the face, shielding her eyes from the sun. “You can almost pick out the strands of hair in his beard. Look at the way his hair gets wavy and almost tangled, where it’s brushed back on his head. And even though he’s standing, there’s a sense of motion in his arms and legs, like he’s about to step forward.” She lowered her hand. “This guy was important. My secret theory is that this statue is a major work and not a copy. I used to come over here after school and try to figure out who did it. I had some theories, but they were just too bizarre.”

            “By Jove,” said Daria with a touch of awe. “Good show, Lane.”

            “Elementary, my dear Morgendorffer. Ticks me off that I never could make anyone believe this thing was special. People think he was just the founder of Lawndale or the first mayor or some nonsense like that, even if they don’t know his name.” She shook her head and said in a scathing tone, “Lawndale.”

            “You said there was an un-pretty story about this guy.”

            “The main un-pretty part is that this damn town is too cheap to clean this statue on a regular basis, which is probably why no one recognizes it as special. It’s got dirt and bird crap all over it, and the acid rain’s not helped it any, either. Look at the stains. I bet it used to be beautiful.” Jane grimaced. “And over there, someone’s stuck chewing gum to the boot on that side. Philistines. They’re going to have to refinish it, top to bottom, and that’ll cost even more than it would have cost to wipe it off now and then.”

            “I . . .” Daria hesitated.

            “What?”

            “I, um . . . this will sound stupid, but he looks like Rutherford B. Hayes. I think.”

            “He was a president, right?”

            “After Lincoln. We should get a book of presidents and compare them to this.”

            Jane nodded, though she seemed dubious. “There are some other stories about this statue. I was really into it once, long ago. Someone at the library might know about it. I think there was a contest once to figure out who this was. I don’t remember how it came out, but I don’t think anyone won it.”

            “When was that?”

            “Dunno. Kept meaning to go over to the library and look it up, but when I’m there I keep forgetting, and . . . well, we can go do it now.”

             “I’m good, if you’re up for the walk.”

            “Want the last doughnut?” Jane held out the box.

            “Sure,” said Daria, taking it. The box felt unusually light in her hand.

            “Too bad,” said Jane. “I just ate it. Let’s go.”

            Daria muttered something under her breath as she threw out the box.

            “Did you say you had an itch?” asked Jane as they set off

            The Alfred Joyce Kilmer Public Library was a few blocks farther away than the high school, down the same highway through town. Daria guessed it would be a good half-hour walk. Jane’s company made the exercise welcome, though Daria had never minded a walk to the library, which was a particularly good one in her experience.

            “What I don’t get,” said Jane, “is why you don’t blow this paper off until the last minute and then pull an all-nighter to finish it, like I would.”

            “My mom set up project milestones. She has a page full of them. Today’s milestone is to find something worth writing about, then report back to her during dinner tonight for approval.”

            “So, technically, you’ve already reached your milestone for the day.”

            “Correct, but it won’t hurt to get a leg up on the milestones for the next few days. All the more time I’ll have with you to do more important things.”

            “I wasn’t planning on doing anything important.”

            “Exactly.”

            “Is there a penalty for missing a milestone?”

            “The phrase ‘do it or else’ is understood to be part of the agreement, but we haven’t discussed the consequences in detail. I think it’s best if I don’t find out, judging from the smoldering look Mom gave me when I asked the same question about penalties and the way she said, ‘What do you think?’”

            “I feel for you,” said Jane.

            “I feel for me, too,” said Daria. “And that and a quarter will get me a gumball.”

            The talk drifted to a discussion of things they each wanted to do over the summer. Their plans mostly centered around sleepovers, watching TV together in their rooms, eating out, and avoiding Daria’s family and everyone else they knew, except—predictably—Jane’s brother, Trent. Once Lawndale High School came into view on the left, detailed analyses of the school’s staff and classmates took over the conversation.

            “You think any of the teachers would be of help?” Daria asked abruptly in the middle of Jane’s theorizing on what animal, vegetable, or mineral forms their fellow students would take if they were all reincarnated.

            “You mean, would they be any help teaching us anything?” said Jane. “I dunno. I never paid any attention in class.”

            “No, I meant, any help in identifying the statue. Would any of them know anything about it?”

            “Mmm, doubtful.”

            “What about Ms. Defoe, the art teacher? Wouldn’t she know?”

            Jane sighed. “This is kind of cruel to say, but if that statue was a wind chime, Ms. Defoe could tell you everything about it. If I asked anyone else, they’d pat me on the head and tell me how sweet it was I was finally taking an interest in the community, and why the hell didn’t I do that two years ago when I was a freshman.”

            “You said you had a big interest in the statue when you were younger. Did you ever talk with anyone about it?”

            “Well, I told Trent, but he told me it was just a statue of someone who probably didn’t understand art, and trying to understand his statue wasn’t going to balance out cosmic karma, so I should go back to watching television. I didn’t bother asking anyone else after that, except my art teacher in middle school.”

            “What did that teacher say?”

            “He patted me on the head and said it was nice I was finally getting interested in the community, so why the hell didn’t I get interested in it when I was in sixth grade.”

            The conversation stayed on various teachers they had known until the ultramodern library was in view at the end of a short drive, sitting on a grassy knoll at the north end of High Hills Park. They pushed through the glass doors and walked into the bright, open, air-conditioned lobby, at which point Jane followed Daria’s lead to the reference section. Minutes later, they had several volumes of an encyclopedia open on a table and were poring over illustrations of the presidents of the United States.

            “I was wrong,” said Daria. “The statue guy’s beard is kind of broad and squarish at the bottom, but Rutherford’s beard is narrow and pointed. Wrong outfit, too.”

            “Statue guy didn’t look like a president,” said Jane.

            “Not enough special-interest money sticking out of his pockets?”

            “I dunno, he just . . . didn’t look like a president. He looked smarter than that.”

            Daria looked over the low shelves of the reference area and turned in place. Her gaze skimmed over the computer carrels, the children’s section, the fiction stacks, the—

            “Bingo,” she said. She put away the encyclopedia volumes and led the way to the glassed-in section with the words “Special Collections” written on the doorway.

            At a desk on the other side of the door was a twenty-something woman chewing gum, staring hard at a computer monitor and clicking on her mouse. She looked up, saw the two girls, and shook her head no. She pointed to a sign on the desk: YOU MUST BE 18 OR OLDER, OR ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT, TO ENTER SPECIAL COLLECTIONS.

            Daria muttered a very rude word and leaned close to the door. “We have a question,” she said loudly.

            The young woman shook her head, then studiously ignored the girls as she stared at her monitor.

            “I’d like to take that solitaire game she’s playing,” said Daria under her breath, “plus the computer she’s playing it on, and jam it right up—”

            “May I help you?” came a voice from behind them.

            Daria and Jane jumped and turned around. A small, white-haired old woman with glasses and a friendly smile looked at them expectantly.

            “Um, yes, ma’am,” said Daria, recovering. “My friend and I were interested in that statue in Village Green, downtown, and—”

            “You were trying to figure out who it is?” the little old lady interjected.

            “Uh, yeah,” said Daria, taken aback.

            “We think it’s someone important,” said Jane. “We’re doing a little detective work to find out.”

            “Oh!” said the old woman brightly. “Are you after the reward, then?”

 

 

 

 

Chapter Three: Mission Preposterous

 

 

            There was a stunned silence as the girls digested this news with large, round eyes.

            “Reward?” said Daria at last.

            “Why, yes. There was a reward offered to anyone who could identify the statue and prove who it was. The reward is still being offered, but I don’t believe anyone’s been interested in going after it in some years.”

            “How much was it?” Jane asked.

            “Oh, mercy. I’d have to go look. It’s been so long. Are you interested?”

            “Yes!” said Daria and Jane at the same moment. They looked guiltily at each other before Daria added, “Sorry for shouting in the library.”

            “Quite all right this time. My, that’s wonderful. It’s so good these days to see young people who are motivated. So many young folks your age would rather sit around all summer and rot their brains watching television until the wee hours of the morning, can you believe that?”

            “They’re nuts,” said Jane in a heartfelt voice. “Thank heaven Daria and I aren’t like that.”

            Daria stared at Jane in disbelief, but she held her tongue. Jane ignored her and gave the old lady a cheerful, innocent smile.

            “Well, then,” said the lady, “did you need help getting started on your research?”

            “We’ll take anything you’ve got,” said Daria.

            “Make that everything you’ve got,” Jane put in.

            The lady nodded. “Mmm-hmm,” she said. “We don’t have much, but what we have is back here.” She went to the Special Collections door, fished a key from a pocket in her long skirt, and unlocked and opened the door, waving the girls in ahead of her. The young woman at the desk looked up, shrugged, and went back to her computer game.

            “Just follow me,” said the old woman, and she set off with remarkable speed to a second glass door, which she unlocked and held open. The door led into a room filled with the musty smell of ancient paper, its shelves were piled high with ragged old books, rolled maps, file boxes, oversized tomes, and rows and rows of binders. After closing and locking the door behind her, the woman set off with Daria and Jane in tow.

            In moments, the old woman stopped at the end of one long shelf and said, “Ah! Here we go!” Picking up two oversized pages from a short stack, she handed them to the girls, who took them eagerly. Each page was an 11-inch-by-18-inch photocopy of an old, long newspaper article running over several columns, with a pen sketch of the statue on its pedestal, looking exactly as it did at present. “This is all we have to give you,” she said. “It’s from the Sun-Herald in its early days. This article talks about the unveiling of the statue and some of its background, though a lot of it was kept secret. We don’t even know who the sculptor was. We actually had a bit more about the statue at one time, but the old library building suffered a fire in nineteen fifty-seven and we lost most of the archive of older newspapers and magazines. The newspaper offices in town don’t have any old issues in storage, as they gave those to us for safekeeping.” She shook her head with a sad expression. “Such an awful shame.”

            “I agree,” said Daria with feeling. Her gaze went to the bottom of the page. “Wow,” she said. “I wasn’t even aware the Sun-Herald had been in business that long.”

            “Nineteen ten?” said Jane, looking at the same spot on her page. “The statue went up in nineteen ten?”

            The old lady nodded. “Mmm-hmmm, shortly before the First World War began. Quite a while ago, wasn’t it?”

            Jane blinked and lowered her photocopy, looking stunned. Daria could tell at once that the news had made a great impact on her friend. She made a mental note to interrogate Jane about it later. First things first, though. “Does this article mention the reward?” Daria asked, hoping she sounded interested but not too mercenary.

            “Oh, yes,” the woman chuckled, and she carefully pointed to a spot on the photocopy.

            Daria moved her face close to the paper, blinked, then raised her glasses with her fingers and brought the page within inches of her eyes, the focal distance for her myopia. “A thousand dollars?” she exclaimed, squinting at the tiny type. “Who’s paying a thousand dollars to find out who that statue’s of, almost ninety years after it went up?”

            “Oh,” said the old woman, still laughing. “Why, I am.”

            Daria and Jane jerked their heads up, eyes wide.

            “Oh, yes,” the old woman said, “it’s me. And the offer is authentic, I assure you.” She tapped the photocopy Daria held in her hands. “The gentleman who commissioned the statue, Mister Edwin Barrington, was my father. He made the original offer when he donated the statue to the city, but I’m afraid no one at the time was up to the task. It was all the rage for a while, the contest he started to guess the name of the man for whom the statue was made, but then the war came and people lost interest. And after the war was the Depression, and then that awful second war, and that was the end of the contest’s hold on the public mind. Too much else to worry about.”

            She looked reflectively at the photocopied story. “We still get people who are interested in the search, though. They eventually find their way here to the library and find me, and I give them the same information you have received.” She shook her head. “It’s been a while since the last person asked about it here. No one is that curious anymore. I think it’s all the moving around people do these days, you know? All the hustle and bustle, coming and going, and no one cares anymore where they are or what’s special about that place. Oh, well. At least there are two more today.” She tilted her head in the direction of the cynical duo.

            “A thousand dollars?” repeated Jane. “Each, or split between us?”

            “Split between you, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t bring anyone else into your search if I were you, though that’s your choice, of course.”

            “We’re a team,” said Daria solemnly. “We don’t need anyone else.”

            “We share everything except underwear,” Jane added.

            Daria closed her eyes and groaned. “Forgive my friend,” she said to the old woman. “She hasn’t taken her medication today.”

            “What?” Jane said in an injured tone. “Was I supposed to say we did share our underwear?”

            “Hmmm,” said the old woman. Her eyes twinkled. “As long as you’re not sharing boyfriends. Young people do the strangest things these days.”

            Daria and Jane looked at each other and simultaneously rolled their eyes.

            “Never happen,” said Daria with finality.

            “We’d share the flu before we’d do that,” Jane agreed. “And a really bad flu, too.”

            “Very well,” said the old woman. “If you get to a point where you believe you know the identity of the statue’s subject, please come back and let me know. You must have evidence to back up your claims, however, and it must be good evidence, the kind that will stand up under close examination. If it passes muster, as they say, then I will pay you your reward, however you wish it. Oh—” She stopped and reached into her pocket again, pulling out two small cards “—here is my address and phone number, when I’m not here. That gentleman at the bottom is my attorney, who can vouch for me and everything I’ve said, including the reward money, which is held in trust.”

            Daria looked at the card. “Mrs. Olivia Barrington?”

            “That’s me!”

            Daria nodded and glanced at the card again. “This street is in Crewe Neck, right?”

            “Yes. A lovely neighborhood. I wish the kids weren’t so loud, but what can you do.” The old woman gave Daria and Jane a warm smile. “So proud to have met the both of you, young people who are bright and not afraid of a little hard work.”

            “Mrs. Barrington,” said Daria, lowering her card, “can I ask you a question?”

            “Of course, dear! What is it?”

            A look of perplexity filled Daria’s face. “If you already know who the statue guy is, why are you still running the contest?”

            “Oh, but I don’t, dear.” Mrs. Barrington appeared both sad and irritated. “I have no idea at all who it’s of. My father was very closed-mouthed about the contest. He let nothing slip to the family. I’m afraid he died during the influenza epidemic in nineteen eighteen, when I was younger than you are. I was quite sick myself. No one thought I would make it. The family business passed to my uncles, but they looked after us quite well, and I even went to work for them in time, before I took an interest in library science and came to work here. I used to be the head librarian until I retired a few years ago, but I didn’t really have to work. I just liked staying busy, and I volunteer now just to get out of the house. I’ve lacked for nothing all these years . . . except an answer to this one question. That’s why I keep the contest going.”

            “Why don’t you put it in the papers or on TV?” said Jane, who rethought her words and hurriedly added, “I mean, don’t do it right now, of course, while we’re looking, but maybe a few years from now or something, you might—”

            “Ah, no.” Mrs. Barrington waved the question off. “We tried having a big public contest the first time, and it didn’t work at all. It was complete chaos, just a nightmare to deal with, to hear my mother talk about it. I’d rather work with people who come upon this quest on their own, and I suppose it is a quest at that. At any rate, I don’t have any other answers. I once had my suspicions, but those never panned out, as they say. So, you have a clean slate to start with, and my best wishes. Any further questions?”

            Daria and Jane shook their heads, and Mrs. Barrington escorted them from the Special Collections office. They shook hands, waved goodbye, and walked in a daze toward the lobby and front doors.

            “Emergency conference outside,” whispered Daria.

            “Sure,” said Jane, who still had a stunned expression on her face.

            They pushed through the doors and into the sunlight. At Daria’s suggestion, they turned left and walked down a sidewalk along the huge glass wall outside the lobby. Their goal was a set of park benches under a lone spreading maple tree at the center of a small courtyard. Here they sat together on one bench, their backs to the library wall, able to watch for signs of anyone approaching them from any direction.

            “Holy cow,” said Daria, though “cow” was not the word she used.

            “Oh, man,” said Jane. “Oh, man. I can’t believe it.”

            Daria looked at the card Mrs. Barrington had given her. “She lives on Deer View Court,” said Daria. “She has that giant mansion next to Brittany Taylor’s place, the one that makes the Taylors’ look like an outhouse.”

            “Figures,” said Jane in a low voice. “It makes sense, now that I think of it.”

            “What makes sense?”

            Jane turned to her friend, her face blank. “How she can afford to throw away a thousand bucks like this, even to high-school kids, and she doesn’t even blink. It makes sense.” She looked away again, her gaze passing over the great grassy lawn that surrounded the library on its hilltop. “It also makes sense why she’d want to do it. Hell, if I was her, I’d want to know who that statue was of, too. And I’d have an army of lawyers all over the place, trying to find a way to get that damn thing back from the city, even if I had to steal it back.”

            Daria frowned. “What are you raving about now?”

            By way of an answer, Jane got to her feet. “Wait here,” she said, and headed back into the library. Daria almost got up, but Jane had hurried off and was gone in moments. She seemed quite focused in a way she usually wasn’t. To pass the time, Daria began to read the copy of the old newspaper article. It was easy to tell that it was actually a photocopy of a photocopy, the original photocopy carefully trimmed to eliminate all trace of adjacent articles. The printing was not very good. Daria had made up her mind to go back inside the library and have enlarged copies made when she looked up and saw Jane coming back out of the library with a heavy, oversized book under one arm.

            Jane walked over and sat down beside Daria, handing the book to her friend with both hands as she did. Daria crossed her legs and set the book in her lap, just as her gaze fell on the book’s cover: a large, sepia-tint photograph of a bearded man in nineteenth-century clothing. She gasped aloud. “Is this him?” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “Is this the guy who posed for the statue?”

            “No!” hissed Jane. She pointed to the book’s title: RODIN.

            After a second, Daria’s eyes became impossibly large.

            “This is the guy who made that statue,” Jane finished.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four: Books, Art, Guns, and Women

 

 

            The emergency conference was moved to Daria’s house, where the two girls flipped through Jane’s book in the kitchen while awaiting delivery of the giant Cheese-Wiz Special they ordered from Pizza Express.

            “Damn.” Daria shook her head as she examined a page in the book showing various photos taken of a statue called “John the Baptist Preaching.”

            “Same style as the statue in Village Green, isn’t it?” said Jane. “Just like all the other statues we’ve been looking at.”

            “Looks kinda like it.”

            “Kinda, nothing.” Jane pointed to a close-up of the figure’s head. “See how the hair curls around in his beard in that lifelike way, same as with the park statue? Not all the detail is in there, but you think you can see it anyway, it’s so realistic.” She flipped a couple of pages, then stopped and pointed again. “Here, in ‘The Eternal Idol,’ look at the back of the head of the man. You have that fine detail, the curls and everything, and the man’s pose, so natural, caught in the midst of a movement, just like the statue.” Jane paused, admiring the sculpture, then looked at Daria. “Wow,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you blush that much since the last time Trent was around.”

            “I’m not blushing,” growled Daria, who was beet-red from her forehead down to her neck and taking quick, shallow breaths through her nose.

            “Is it the statue?” Jane looked at “The Eternal Idol” again. “Oh, yeah, there are two naked people there, and the guy’s kissing the woman right below her—”

            “Okay!” said Daria as she slammed the book shut. “You’ve convinced me that there’s adequate evidence that the statue is a Rodin handmade original.”

            “Actually,” said Jane, affecting an aristocratic tone, “François Auguste René Rodin did not sculpt marble himself. He preferred bronze. The marble statues credited to him were designed by him, and he oversaw the work, but he had his assistants and protégés do the actual marble sculpting.”

            Daria looked incredulous. “You’re kidding.”

            “No, it’s true. He’d make a little clay or bronze model of the figure he wanted to do, give it to the real sculptor, then drop by now and then to see how things were progressing, tweaking the direction of the work. I’d like a job like that. The little models were called maquettes. The art museum in town has some on display, but none by Rodin or any other big names. The sculptors had to follow Rodin’s general style, but they had their own styles, too.”

            “But how can they still call them Rodin’s, then?”

            “Beats me. See, what tipped me off to this was the date of the statue’s unveiling. Rodin died in nineteen seventeen. He could still have overseeing sculpting work a few years before then. I always thought Lawndale’s statue was newer than that, maybe about the twenties or thirties. That lady in the library almost shocked my boots off.”

            “You sure know a lot about this Rodin guy. You know almost as much about him as you do about Rodan, the Flying Monster.”

            “Hey, like I told you, I was really into this statue mystery for a while when I was a kid. I’ve forgotten a lot that I read about him, Rodin I mean, but I did come away with a deeper appreciation for his work.” She sighed. “I can’t believe that a plastic-moron town like this has a real Rodin statue. It just . . . I dunno, it’s just too much to believe.”

            “Too much to believe that the guy who sculpted ‘The Thinker’ would have anything to do with this place, especially ‘way back in nineteen ten.”

            “Yeah.” Jane’s face fell. “The sheer unreality of it sort of blows holes in my Rodin theory, but—”

            “Not necessarily,” said Daria. “Remember, the guy who commissioned it was responsible for bringing it here, not Rodin himself. And we’re talking about the Barrington family, who could buy this whole subdivision with the spare change in their pockets.”

            “I think Olivia Barrington’s the last of the line around here,” said Jane. “I used to hear about her when I was a kid, but I’d never met her before. And I knew she had a big place, but I never connected it to the one next to Brittany’s house. My sister Penny used to call the Barringtons ‘the plutocratic puppet masters of warmongering capitalism run amok,’ or words to that effect.”

            “Huh.” Daria was in deep thought, but her reverie was broken up by the sound of the doorbell. The pizza had arrived. When all but two slices of it had been consumed and the girls were feeling too sluggish to walk back to the statue, they took the Rodin book, the photocopies from Mrs. Barrington, and the pizza box to Daria’s room.

            “I’d like to check something,” Daria said, turning her computer on and taking a seat at her desk.

            “There’s nothing much about the statue online,” said Jane, lying on her back on Daria’s bed. “I’ve checked a dozen times. Because it doesn’t have a real name, it isn’t referenced anywhere. It’s not even shown on the city map on the Lawndale Chamber of Commerce website. Sucks.”

            “I wasn’t looking up the statue,” said Daria. She went to a search engine when the system was ready, typed in a name, and waited. “Ah.”

            “Ah?” Jane repeated.

            “Ah. The Barringtons are a Baltimore family, actually, which sort of figures, Lawndale being a suburb and all. Old money, from the Civil War.” She read a little further. “They made their fortune in munitions.”

            Jane turned her head. “Guns?”

            “Big guns. Gunpowder, shells, explosives, and big cannons like on ships and forts. They must have believed in doing things in a big way. Seems to have paid off. They did a lot of government work in both World Wars, especially making naval guns. It was the Civil War that made them rich, and all the other wars just made them richer.”

            “Every tornado has a silver lining.”

            “You could say that. Ah.”

            “What’s with the ah’s?”

            “The Barringtons’ munitions company was bought out after the Second World War by an even bigger company. Wow, an undisclosed amount in the hundreds of millions. All the family members who owned stock in the company or ran things were paid off hugely. Probably invested it afterward. Now I see how Mrs. Barrington can afford to live in that shack of hers in the Crewe Neck trailer park. A thousand bucks to her is chicken feed.”

            “That’s what I said earlier.”

            “Yes, but it was my turn to say it.”

            “Okay, so, what can we deduce from this, Morgendorffer? You know my methods.”

            “Your methods involve sleeping twenty hours a day and eating for the other four.”

            “That’s so unfair a thing to say.” Jane reached down and handed the pizza box to Daria. “Want the last slice?”

            “Sure.” Daria took the box, which seemed rather light. She opened it, then jammed it in a wastebasket. “I can’t believe I fell for that a second time,” she growled.

            “I can. So, do your logic thing. I’ve told you about everything I know on the subject. My brain’s tired.”

            “The logic thing . . . Mrs. Barrington’s doing this because she’s really curious about that statue. She wants this last stray thread in her life puzzled out, her dad’s big secret. She isn’t lacking for money, so I don’t think she’s expecting this will make her any richer than she is. I think she can be trusted, given all the charities she’s supporting, according to the websites I’ve been looking at. She paid almost half the cost of the Lawndale Art Museum.”

            Jane rolled on her side to see Daria better. “She what? The art museum?”

            “Yup.”

            “Damn. We’ve got to help this rich, rich nice lady.”

            “For altruistic reasons only, of course.”

            “Exactly. Five hundred dollars each, pffft! What’s that, anyway? One hundred pizzas? Art supplies for a whole summer?”

            “Photos,” said Daria. She became thoughtful again. “We could use some photos of the statue to help us out. Maybe there’s something about it that—”

            “You have a camera with a telephoto, right? I vaguely remember you taking pictures of me one Monday morning at school when I wasn’t ready for it.”

            “I had a camera, but Quinn borrowed it for a Fashion Club event and dropped it.”

            “Ah. There are plenty of cameras at my house, castoffs from my dad’s freelance assignments. Some of them still work.”

            “I used to do photography for the school paper back in Highland, Texas, before we moved here.”

            “Really? What’d you shoot?”

            “Um, we could also use a little more research on the—”

            “Hey, whoa. What did you used to shoot when you were with the paper?”

            “Nothing.” Daria turned around and began typing at her computer keyboard.

            Jane rolled off the bed and sauntered up behind Daria’s chair. “Daria? Oh, Daaa-ria! Spill it! What did you use your camera for back in Highland?”

            “You can’t make me talk,” said Daria, clicking the mouse.

            “Mmm,” said Jane, moving up to bump the back of Daria’s chair. “I feel a burp coming on. Only it’s not really a burp. It’s going in the opposite direction, and—”

            “I was the fashion photographer for the school newspaper, and get out of my room before you stink it up.”

            Jane made no response. Daria waited, then turned around and looked up. The radiant, speechless delight on Jane’s face could have illuminated a planet.

            “Breathe a word of that to anyone,” Daria said with a red face and a killing glare, “and you’ll be a shark yummy.”

            “You were a fashion photographer?” Jane’s manic grin was wide enough to rival the Grand Canyon. “Our little Daria was a fashion—”

            “My mother made me do it, okay? It wasn’t like I actually wanted to do it!”

            “No wonder you worked out so well taking pictures for the yearbook staff, for the week that it lasted.” Though she still smiled, Jane shook her head in true sympathy. “Don’t be offended if I say this, but your mom is a real piece of work.”

            Daria exhaled heavily, turning to stare at her monitor again. “She is at that. She is at that. Please don’t tell anyone about that. I couldn’t stand it if—”

            “Your secret is safe with me and Trent,” said Jane, heading back to Daria’s bed.

            “Jane!”

            “Oh, fine, be that way. It stays with me alone.” Jane got comfortable on the bed while Daria ran through another search engine’s results.

            “Well,” Daria said after a minute of silent reading, “Mister Edwin Barrington did die during the Spanish flu epidemic, like she said. He was an interesting guy. He donated money to libraries in the Baltimore area, collected books and art, read a lot. Studied abroad in Europe. Kind of a progressive thinker, for a warmonger. He was into women’s suffrage as much as he was into blowing things up.”

            “I could go for a guy like that.”

            “This website says he almost coined the phrase, ‘arsenal of democracy’ when he talked about making Baltimore the ‘arsenal of freedom.’ He collected guns as well as books, historical ones like from the Revolutionary War. Apparently he didn’t like to hunt, though, just liked collecting weapons. Huh. Says that he was fond of big guns, too, which sort of figures. He had a howitzer in his front yard once.”

            “Boys and their toys. He’s the guy who commissioned the statue, right?”

            Daria picked up the enlarged photocopy she’d made of Mrs. Barrington’s copy, three sheets of large paper taped together and carefully folded. The printing was barely legible, but adequate. “Yeah. It was rumored he’d been trying to get some kind of statue made for years. Very secretive about it, wouldn’t say what he wanted to do.” She read the article through again.

            “We’re getting a time frame here for the statue’s subject,” said Jane. “The cutoff is before nineteen ten, when the statue was finished. The fastest time possible to make it would be maybe two years, if everything was in place, so the subject could have been alive as late as nineteen oh eight, and—”

            “Earlier,” said Daria. “Just found something in the news story. I think Edwin had some kind of complex about the statue guy. He actually designed the Village Green, that circular sidewalk and everything, even how the statue was positioned so it faces east. The trees have probably changed since then, but from the description, the rest of the park is the same. City hall was a Catholic church at the time, too. Lawndale bought it later and converted it. Still looks like a church. Oh, and here’s a quote here from Edwin, something he said to the reporter who did the story about the statue’s unveiling: ‘I’ve waited for this day since I was a boy.’ Edwin was, um, forty-one in nineteen ten, so . . . eighteen sixty-nine, that was about when he was born. If he thought of himself as a man after age sixteen, then, um, eighteen eighty-five or before, that was when he knew the statue guy.”

            “That style of dress the statue’s wearing, I’d say that came into effect about, oh, Civil War or after. After, I think. Frock coats were generally longer before the war. I had a summer class in historical costuming once. Thought it’d help my art. Eh.”

            “So, eighteen sixty-five to eighteen eighty-five—that’s a twenty-year window for statue guy.”

            “And Edwin liked books, art, guns, and women. Damn it, I can’t believe I missed him by over a century.”

            “You and your hormones.”

            “Mmm, they do moan.”

            “I don’t want to hear about it.” Daria picked up the enlarged article, frowning. “Let me think for a little. Something’s bothering me.”

            She shook her head, still frowning, as she read the article one more time. When she finished, she put aside the papers and stared at the screen saver on her computer monitor.

            “This is weird,” she finally said, watching animated monsters walk across the screen. “I keep wondering if there’s something else about this search that we don’t know. Mrs. Barrington’s a sweet person, but she could be using her diplomatic side, showing us only what she felt we needed to know. Some people are like that, pleasant but with an extra agenda and the social graces to keep everyone moving toward that goal. I’m not very trusting, I guess, but I know people too well.

            “I keep thinking, too, about what she said about running a low-key contest to avoid a lot of public exposure. She’s placed herself in a public library as a volunteer, shepherding the quest, keeping tabs on the people following that line of interest as best she could in the one place that questing people would start first: a library. Everyone needs a hobby, but she’s really glued to this one. And that was an interesting word she chose, calling this a quest. Maybe it’s been a lifelong quest for her, too. The name of a statue, what good is that? Is she after something more? She’s been messing around with this project for a long time, leaving it to amateurs . . . maybe because anyone more skilled and determined would be less naïve, more likely to take advantage somewhere along the line. So, maybe the name of the statue isn’t the end of the line. Maybe there’s another stop there, somewhere beyond . . . but what? And the most disturbing thing is, I can’t help but wonder if someone hasn’t already discovered—”

            Daria broke off, hearing a snore. She turned. Jane lay on her back, arms out, sound asleep on the bed.

            “I like to keep my audience riveted,” she said. She turned back to her computer with a sigh, lost in thought again. Could someone have already discovered the statue guy’s name? It hardly seems likely that someone hasn’t by now. Why is the quest still going on, if someone by chance did find out who the statue was?

            And if someone did . . . where is that person now?

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five: Down to the Core

 

 

            The following morning, a Friday, the girls met at the Village Green statue at ten o’clock, per the previous evening’s agreement. Jane brought two cameras from her home. “You’ve used one of these before?” she asked, handing over a black camera with a telephoto lens and neck strap.

            “Highland High had one like it, but they gave me the dorky camera,” said Daria, putting the strap over her head before examining the camera closely. She was startled to realize it was an advanced and expensive model, only a couple of years old at most. The camera even had autofocus. “You’re kidding me. This is a castoff from your dad?”

            “Yeah, nothing but the best garbage at our house, where art is concerned.” Jane thumbed a few controls on her camera, took an experimental sighting on the statue, then let it dangle against her T-shirt on its neck strap. “I hope I was a help last night.”

            “You were, thanks. Things are a lot more settled with you over for dinner, and Quinn leaves the table faster. I’m glad we didn’t say anything more to Mom than telling her I was going to write about the statue, though.” Daria examined the camera in more detail. “In hindsight, I shouldn’t even have reminded Mom about the paper. I think she forgot about it when that power-line lawsuit came up at her office.”

            “There’s always a chance she’ll forget about it tonight and the rest of the week, too.” Jane rubbed her chin and looked around the central plaza of the little park. “Here’s my thought: we shoot the statue separately, looking for anything at all that we think might help identify it. We’ve each got a fresh roll of thirty-six, and I’ve got two more rolls if we need them. We can drop the film off at Foto Freak downtown when we’re through. My dad said they do good work, and they’re pretty fast. We can get the pix back in less than an hour if they aren’t too busy.” She eyed the monument. “Look for any odd marks or engravings, weird symbols, codes, pictograms, secret hand gestures, UFO-carved crop signs, the White House’s hot line phone number, instructions for how to break into Fort Knox, that kind of stuff. But don’t be afraid to just shoot. Something might turn up.”

            “Got it.” They split up, with Daria walking around to the statue’s front as Jane went to the back. Daria took a minute to get a good overall first shot of the statue, then began clicking away as she walked in a large clockwise circle around the pedestal. At first, nothing in particular jumped out at her about the figure. Jane was right, though: the statue guy really did seem to be in the act of stepping forward, caught at the start of the movement in an amazingly lifelike way. She took five full-figure shots at various angles, then found herself back at the statue’s front again as Jane took telephoto close-ups of the man’s face and profile.

            Daria raised her camera and sighted on the figure, narrowing the field. She had positioned herself directly in front of the statue’s face, in the line of sight from its eyes. Though the statue faced more-or-less eastward, the sun’s rays came at it from the southeast. The resulting glare wiped out the details on the white marble figure, which Daria found irritating. She let the camera dangle for a moment, thinking, then reached into a pocket of her jacket and took out a Swiss army knife with a tiny compass on it, checking the compass for a reading.

            “East-northeast,” she said, often in the habit of talking to herself. “The statue’s facing east-northeast, not really to the east.” She put the knife away and looked the figure over again. Her attention was drawn to the man’s hands, his right one loosely clutching what seemed to be a fountain pen, his left one held open, palm up but tilted down toward the viewer. A small pill-like object rested in the open hand. She tried unsuccessfully to recall when fountain pens were invented, then shrugged, raised the camera, and sighted on the right hand. The upper half of the “pen” was all that was visible, the rest hidden in the figure’s fist. The object was held in a level, horizontal position, not tilted upward at an angle like pens usually were. Oddly, the “pen” was shaped like a straight rod, with parallel sides and a flat, circular end. It wasn’t like most pens she remembered seeing.

            Daria then turned slightly to get the open hand in the viewfinder. The glare from the sun against the man’s suit made seeing difficult, so she lowered the camera and moved in closer and to one side, out of the glare. When she raised the camera again for a new sighting, the view was much improved. The actual outline of the pill was clear, too.

            “Weird,” she said, squinting through the viewfinder. “That pill looks like a bullet.” It reminded her of the copper head of a .22-caliber bullet, flat on the bottom and pointed on the end. Puzzled, she took a shot, changed her position to get a slightly better view, and shot again. On impulse, she looked over at the “pen” and snapped off a quick shot. She was looking at the cylinder’s flat end, which had a shallow, circular hole in the middle, making the rod look like a—

            “Gun barrel,” said Daria in surprise. She looked back at the bullet. It had the same diameter as the hole in the end of the rod. “Damn,” she exclaimed softly, “that’s a gun.” She snapped a picture and moved around to get another view of the hand holding the cylinder. Strangely, the hand was not positioned as if holding a pistol grip, and no trigger was visible. The wrist was tilted down, and the fingers were curled up in an even row, exactly as if holding a long, straight rod. Is that the upper end of a rifle barrel, sawed off? Mister Barrington was into munitions, after all. Kind of phallic, but what the hell. She shot a few more times, getting the best close-ups she could of the hands and their contents before lowering the camera and backing off a step. What else? What else is there to find? The camera came up, and she focused on the statue’s face.

            “You a tourist?” asked a voice behind her. She gasped and jumped, turning around. A middle-aged man in a business suit was ten feet behind her. He was balding, wore thick glasses, and had a round, mild, clean-shaven face that reminded Daria of a pumpkin. “Sorry to startle you,” he said. “I work in town. Running an errand for the boss.” He gestured at the statue, looking up at the bearded face. “That’s the man with no name,” he said cheerfully. “Statue’s got no name. That’s the truth.”

            “Uh,” said Daria, lowering the camera and eyeing him warily. He did not look like anyone she knew, but she had lived in Lawndale less than a year and did not get out much. “I . . . just thought it was interesting,” she finished. Saying anything more struck her as a bad idea, though he appeared harmless.

            “It is,” he said, still smiling up at the statue and not at her. “It was made a long time ago. People say it’s supposed to lead to a treasure. I can’t see how. I think it’s a joke, but . . . eh, you never know. Nobody ever figured it out, who the man was or what he’s doing here.” He shrugged and waved, drifting off toward one of the sidewalks leading away from the central plaza around the statue. “Sorry to bother you!”

            She nodded and smiled gamely, but she didn’t wave. People who walked up behind her gave her the creeps. She wondered if he’d been attracted to the camera; it was probably worth many hundreds of dollars, even used. The thought went through her head to take a picture of him, but she shook it off and went back to photographing the sculpture—throwing nervous looks over her shoulder more often than she did before.

            Jane wandered over a couple of minutes later, looking off in the direction the man had gone. “Who was that guy?” she asked without preamble.

            “I don’t know. He was out running errands.” Daria looked around, but there was no sign of him now. “He talked about the statue and left.”

            “He say anything of interest?”

            “Uh, sort of. He said it was supposed to lead to a treasure, but he sounded like he thought it was an urban legend or something.”

            “Hmmm. I got a few shots of him anyway, just in case. I saw him coming, but I didn’t think he was going to bother you.”

            “He didn’t, really.” Daria looked up at the statue’s bearded face, then raised her camera again and sighted on him. “Looks like a nice guy. The statue, I mean, not that other guy. Makes me think he was kind of like a favorite uncle, the fun kind who takes you places just for the heck of it. Wish I had one of those.”

            “I’ve got uncles,” said Jane, “but they don’t come around, and they’re no fun anyway.” She looked around the plaza. “Are we about done here?”

            The sun went behind a cloud. The glare on the white marble statue faded. On impulse, Daria raised the camera again and centered the statue’s face in the viewfinder.

            Something inside her head clicked. She hesitated, looking at the bearded man’s face. Had she seen him before? He almost looked familiar. She looked behind her, then stepped back and shot off a few more pictures, moving left and right. Jane’s camera was running, too.

            When the sun came out again, Daria gave up. “That was weird,” she said, relaxing again. “I thought for a moment I’d seen this guy before.”

            “Maybe you did.” Jane popped off a last shot, then let the camera dangle and ran both hands through her hair. “I’ve got three shots left on this roll.”

            Daria checked. “I’ve got ten.” She looked around the plaza, then spotted the city hall building and the high steeple in the front. Large clock faces, each one story high, looked out from the northwest, northeast, and southeast faces of the tower, under the dome on the top. On either side of the northeast clock, facing Village Green, was a small window near the bottom. Daria pointed. “Hey, that’s about six or seven stories up. Can we get up there and shoot pictures of the whole park?”

            Jane looked up at the steeple. “Don’t see why not. Our tax dollars paid for it.”

            “We don’t pay taxes yet, and that used to be a church.”

            “You just love to quibble, don’t you?”

            They entered city hall through the main door and quickly found the elevator for the old steeple. The elevator was shared by several office workers who asked if the girls were tourists. Jane began speaking rapidly in Spanish, pointing to her camera as if asking a question about it. This caused the office workers to hastily shake their heads and wave their hands, saying, “¡No hablo español!” All of them fled down a hall when the elevator doors opened on the second floor.

            “Good speech, Evita,” said Daria blandly. “The revolution lives.”

            “I asked them if they knew where I could take a picture of a group of pathetic-looking American wage slaves,” said Jane with a deadpan look. “Guess they didn’t.”

            The girls rode the elevator the rest of the way to the top, exiting the elevator into a small room just under the tower’s giant clockworks. Ignoring the informative posters and decorative photos on the walls, Daria and Jane walked to the northeast windows, Daria on the left and Jane on the right. After a struggle, they each opened their respective windows and took their last few camera shots down at the park.

            “It’s funny,” said Daria, pulling back as her camera rewound its film. “I just realized that the sidewalks in the park make a symbol.”

            “What kind of symbol?” Jane looked out her window again, frowning downward. “Is it dirty?”

            “Alas, no, it’s the astrological symbol for the earth,” said Daria, walking over to her friend. She pointed out the window. “See, there’s a big circle around the perimeter of the park, with the cross on the inside and the statue in the center. Earth.”

            “The center of the earth,” said Jane. She snorted. “We took a journey to the center of the earth.”

            “Kind of disappointing, wasn’t it?” said Daria.

            “Yeah. Not as much lava around as I’d been led to believe. Damn those eggheads, anyway.”

            They walked back to the elevator and were waiting for it to arrive at their floor when Daria turned back to the windows with a stunned look on her face. She walked away from Jane and looked out the right window again.

            “Cute guy alert?” Jane called. The elevator door opened, but after a moment Jane walked away from it, coming up to Daria’s side. “What’s up? Trying to get vertigo?”

            “It can’t be,” Daria whispered. She was staring wide-eyed down at the statue. “It just can’t be.”

            “Do you see Trent?” Jane shaded her eyes, peering down at the people wandering through the park. “Want me to yell at him?”

            “It’s not that,” said Daria. She pulled back from the window and stared at Jane in amazement. “A journey to the center of the earth,” she said. “Don’t you get it?”

            “What?”

            “A journey to the center of the earth!” Daria cried, pointing downward.

            Thoroughly confused, Jane looked out again. “That was a movie, wasn’t it? The one based on that old novel by . . . bloody hell!”

            The elevator was summoned a second time, and the girls punched the first floor button repeatedly in near hysteria. They raced out of the building, almost knocking down five people, and reached the statue with cameras banging and bouncing around everywhere. There they stopped at the statue’s feet, fighting for breath.

            “It is,” gasped Daria, looking up at the bearded face. “Oh, my God, it is. It’s him. I remember now. I saw an old photo of him in—”

            “Don’t say it!” hissed Jane, clamping a hand over her friend’s mouth. After a whispered conference, they hurried from the park at a trot, looking back a dozen times on their way to Foto Freak. They drew curious stares all the way out.

            And a long, solemn stare from a bald, clean-shaven businessman wearing thick glasses, who got into a car and quietly pulled out into traffic to follow them.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six: Chasing Nancy Drew

 

 

            Film turnaround was normally an hour minimum, explained the store clerk, but everyone in Foto Freak knew Jane’s photographer father and would do whatever they could to speed things along for her—especially when she paid for express service up front. With nerves frayed and nothing else to do, Daria and Jane wandered aimlessly out of the shop and down the block, planning to return in a half hour. Within minutes, they found themselves in front of Lawndale’s former family grocery-turn-cybercafé-turn-teenage coffeehouse-turn-Seattle Coffee mega-store, which was essentially all the store’s previous incarnations rolled into one. The lunch rush was just starting.

            “I’m broke after paying for the photo order,” said Jane, peering through the windows. “I couldn’t eat anything anyway ‘cause I’m so nervous, but a large cup of java might calm me down. That and a doughnut, one of those big chocolate—”

            “Fine, okay, my treat.” Daria dragged Jane into the shop, which took little effort. She handed her friend a twenty to get something for them both, then headed for the computer terminals lined up on a countertop against a wall, for the use of the store’s patrons. After she found a computer that didn’t have coffee stains all over the keyboard, she called up a search engine and pecked in two words. Her suspicions were confirmed in seconds when the picture of a pleasant-faced bearded man with wavy hair, a bow tie, and twinkling eyes appeared on the monitor.

            Jules Verne. The statue guy.

            “What in the hell are you doing in this dump?” Daria whispered. It made no sense at all, so she began reading the webpage with Verne’s biography and thumbnail sketches of his major works, then tracked down a few other bits of information. By the time Jane came over with two cups of coffee and an extra-large chocolate-covered doughnut stuck in her mouth, however, it all made perfect sense . . . almost.

            “We can’t talk in here,” Daria said, shutting down the computer and taking one of the coffees. “We have to go somewhere we can be alone.”

            “Urr?” said Jane. She took the doughnut out of her mouth. “Urr?” she repeated.

            “I know, I know, we can’t go too far. We have to find a spot where no one else will bother us, someplace no one would ever—wait a minute.”

            Two minutes later, they were sitting in a booth in the back of Tofu Hut, the restaurant next to the Seattle Coffee shop. The diminutive proprietor did not awaken when they walked in, sound asleep on a stool behind the cash register with his head tilted forward, a red fez perched on his shiny bald crown. Aside from the three of them, no one else was around.

            “I suppose it’s a little late in the game for me to mention that Rodin’s sculptures often revolved around subjects that related to France,” Jane murmured. “Balzac, sex, the Burghers of Calais, sex, Victor Hugo, sex, Claude Lorrain—”

            “Only a wee bit late,” Daria interrupted, looking into her coffee cup. She took a sip. “There were clues all over the place, but they weren’t the kind that would make you yell, ‘Eureka’ and jump out of your bathtub. That ‘center of the earth’ thing, getting that was a total fluke. I never thought about the way the park’s sidewalks were laid out like that, as an earth symbol, but that was only the start of the clues.

            “I thought the statue had a pen and a pill in its hands at first, but when I was taking pictures I noticed the pill looked like a bullet head, and the pen looked like a gun barrel. I didn’t even think about Verne’s novel, From the Earth to the Moon, which he wrote right after the Civil War. In it, the Americans decide to build a gigantic cannon and launch a huge bullet-shaped spacecraft with several men aboard to the Moon. That ‘pen’ the statue’s holding is the cannon, and the pill is the spaceship, in exactly the same shape as it was in the illustrations in the original version of the book. Those illustrations get reprinted a lot in later editions, like the one I read a few years ago.

            “And there’s more. Edwin Barrington was a gun collector from Baltimore who liked really big guns, like his pet howitzer. In Verne’s book about the Moon trip, the men who build the giant cannon are from—get this—the Baltimore Gun Club. Verne made up the group, but Barrington couldn’t possibly miss the connection with his own interests and family business. And he was a progressive guy and liked forward-thinking things. He read science fiction, for Pete’s sake! He was a closet Verne nut! I bet he read everything Jules Verne ever did, all that stuff about underground cities and castaways and Atlantis and submarines and racing around the world and balloon voyages and flying machines and sea monsters and people exploring Antarctica and people exploring the solar system while riding on a comet, every crazy thing there is. He was as out there as you can get.

            “So Edwin’s got this mountain of money and wants to honor his all-time favorite author and inspiration, so he goes back to France, one of the countries he studied in when he was younger, and he looks up Rodin and makes him an offer. And what’s Rodin going to do, turn down millions of dollars to build a statue to honor the most popular writer in the world, another Frenchman, which will be placed in the suburb of a city that’s key to one of Verne’s most popular books ever? Of course he does it! That statue’s priceless, on a par with any of Rodin’s greatest works—and no one knows it but us!”

            Jane’s hands were shaking so much she was about to spill her coffee. Daria’s coffee sat forgotten, growing cold. Neither girl noticed.

            “Jules Verne’s stuff always had the element of discovery in it,” Daria went on. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Mysterious Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon—so Edwin wants to duplicate that, too. He swears Rodin to secrecy and dreams up this contest for people to discover the name of the person that this statue honors. He won’t even tell his own daughter the secret, the bastard, but I guess I can forgive him for that.

            “So he adds in all these clues, stuff I would never have thought of in a million years if I didn’t have access to computers and you. Jules Verne was a Catholic, and Edwin admired him so much that even though he was a Protestant, he put up Verne’s statue next to a Catholic church, never imagining Lawndale’s government would take over the building a few decades later when the congregation built a bigger cathedral. And the year the statue was unveiled, nineteen ten? Edwin set the unveiling date for May eighteenth, a Wednesday. What’s so special about a Wednesday? It didn’t look important enough to me on the original article to mention, but I just looked up the date on a search engine, and that was the day astronomers predicted Earth would pass through the tail of Halley’s Comet, which came by that year and made a really big show. That was Edwin’s clever nod to Verne’s novel, Off on a Comet. And the statue faces east-northeast, the direction of France from Lawndale! He thought of everything! There are—”

            Daria stopped, peering closely at her friend. “Jane? What’s wrong?”

            Tears ran in twin streams down Jane’s cheeks. She was on the verge of sobbing. Daria reached for her hands, taking the coffee cup away and calming the shaking in her friend’s fingers.

            Jane struggled for words. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, lower lip trembling, “but I keep thinking of that poor statue. All my life I knew it was something important, I knew it was a masterwork and I thought it might be Rodin’s, but I’ve watched it decay and get dirty and stained and painted on and chipped and spit on, every day I watched it sink into nothingness and ruin, and I can’t believe . . . I just can’t believe it’s really—” She bowed her head and wept, her shoulders shaking.

            Daria fought her own emotions as she held Jane’s hands in her own. “We’re going to save it,” she said urgently. “We’re going to save that statue, Jane. We’ll get the photos, write this up, go see Mrs. Barrington tomorrow, and she can kick the mayor’s butt and the town council’s collective butts and make them do something about it. You and I don’t have the power or the pull that Mrs. Barrington does, and once she drops this little asteroid on Lawndale, the town government will move heaven and earth to get that statue fixed up again. Trust me on this. Everything will come out all right.”

            Jane nodded, looking down and still sobbing. Daria felt her own tears surface. Think of something else, damn it! Don’t you start crying! Oh, for heaven’s sake, now you’re doing it, too! Cut it out, Daria! Think of anything! Um, um, we’re not done with the quest yet! That’s right, we’re not, we have a lot of stuff to do, get photos and type out a report and give it to Mrs. Barrington and . . . and why do I keep thinking there’s something else to the quest? What else could there be? Why has Mrs. Barrington hung on to this quest for so long? What’s her cut? The statue belongs to the city, not her. Her dad gave it to Lawndale, the idiot, instead of putting it in a museum where it belongs, so what’s she getting out of this? What’s she really going to do when we march in and tell her what we know? Why hasn’t anyone come forward before now with an answer? This quest isn’t anywhere near over! What’s the key? What’s the key? What’s—

            The scene replayed in Daria’s mind: She and Jane were talking to Mrs. Barrington in the library’s special collections room, the door closed, no one else around. If you get to a point where you believe you know the identity of the statue’s subject, said Mrs. Barrington, please come back and let me know. You must have evidence to back up your claims, however, and it must be good evidence, the kind that will stand up under close examination. If it passes muster, as they say, then I will pay you your reward, however you wish it.

            Daria blinked. All they had so far was circumstantial proof—pretty good on the surface, but lacking in depth. Mrs. Barrington wanted hard-core proof, the kind a lawyer like Daria’s mother would want, the kind that a doubtful public would have to see in order to believe in the miracle of having a statue worth uncounted millions of dollars sitting right out in front of them after all these years.

            That geek who talked to me in the park this morning said the statue was supposed to lead people to a treasure. What if the treasure is really there? So much else fantastic has happened, why not that, too? Could the treasure have the proof that Mrs. Barrington needs? Assuming for a moment there is a treasure, how would we find it? Where do we start? Where is Nancy Drew when you really need her?

            Jane had recovered by this time. With a last squeeze, Daria released Jane’s hands to let her friend wipe her eyes on her red jacket sleeves. Jane smiled, and Daria smiled back. “Sorry, amiga. It kind of got to me all at once.”

            “I won’t tell anyone.”

            “What? Oh, I don’t care. If you did, it would probably add to my legend: world-famous artist Jane Lane, who wept for a Rodin sculpture. That could go over big in the art community. I might get a French boyfriend or three over it. We should put it on the Internet when we get home and get things started.”

            “Speaking of getting started,” Daria said, glancing at her wristwatch, “we’d better go get our pictures.” Jane nodded, wiped her eyes a last time, and they left the restaurant, again without disturbing the store’s snoozing owner. On the way to Foto Freak, Daria explained her conclusions in low tones.

            “So, we need to dig up more proof than we already have?” Jane snorted as she shook her head. “Man, it never ends.”

            “We just need to figure out where to start looking for any other evidence. It would probably have been just like Edwin to have stuck some kind of clue into the sculpture if he was the actual artist, but he wasn’t. I just don’t know where to begin.”

            “Beats me, too.” Jane scanned the street just before she followed Daria into the photo shop. The grinning clerk waved two packages in the air, then handed them over.

            “Can we look at these here, somewhere private?” Daria asked. “We’re kind of desperate to check on something.”

            “Uh, wait a minute.” The clerk disappeared into the back of the store, then returned. “We have a little room down the hall. If you won’t be long, you can use it.”

            “Do you have a couple of loupe magnifiers, too?” Jane asked. The clerk said they did, and shortly the duo was seated in folding chairs around a cloth-draped card table, pouring over their photos. Almost all the shots came out exceptionally well, though glare on the marble spoiled a few. Daria pointed out what she thought were the cannon and spaceship in the statue’s hands. Jane studied the bullet-shaped object with her magnifier.

            “There’s a little square etched into it, right here,” she said, pointing with a finger. “It’s just barely visible.” She pushed the photo over for Daria to see with her own loupe.

            “That’s one of the doors on Verne’s moon ship!” Daria exclaimed. “It’s exactly where it was in the original illustrations, high up near the point! It really is Jules Verne!”

            “This is too weird,” said Jane, starting to look exhausted. “Way too weird.” She pulled over a photo Daria had taken of the cannon barrel and peered at it. “Huh,” she said after a moment. “That’s weird, too.”

            “What?”

            “The cannon doesn’t look right. It’s like it isn’t made of the same kind of stone as the rest of the statue. Here, check it out. See how it’s not the same shade? And it’s got veining in it, there and there, which the rest of the statue doesn’t. It isn’t Luna marble.”

            Daria paused, then slowly raised her head from the magnifier to stare at Jane. “What did you say?” she whispered.

            “What?”

            Daria tried to swallow, but her throat was bone dry. “About Luna marble.”

            “Oh.” Jane tapped the photo on which Daria was resting her loupe. “The statue’s made of Luna marble. It’s a really fine unveined white marble from northern Italy. The place is called Carrara, now, and they export some of the best—”

            “‘Luna’ is Latin for ‘moon,’” Daria interrupted.

            Jane nodded but looked puzzled. “So? You’ve already figured out the moon thing with the little spaceship, right?”

            “You’re positive the cannon isn’t of the same marble as the rest of the statue?” The words poured out of Daria in a torrent. “Could it have been added later? Could the statue have been made without the cannon in Verne’s hand, and someone stuck it in his hand later on? Could—”

            “Waitwaitwaitwait wait! I can’t keep up with you!” Jane took back the photo of the statue’s right hand, then found a few other shots of it and examined them quickly. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, leaning over the photo and examining it with the loupe, one eye closed. “The cannon thing could have been added later. I wonder why they did that. The hand isn’t fully closed around the barrel, and the fingers are kind of open. It’s almost like the right hand is in the process of gesturing to the other hand, to show everyone what’s in it, that little spaceship. Too too weird.”

            Daria put a hand over her mouth, staring off at a wall. Jane set the photos aside and skimmed a few others, content to wait for Daria to say what was on her mind. After a moment, she picked up one photo and held it close to her eyes, then checked it again with her magnifier. She checked the negatives, then looked at the picture once more.

            “Daria,” said Jane in a flat voice. When her friend didn’t answer, Jane leaned forward and waved the photo in Daria’s face. “Hey, amiga, did you ever see the movie, Blow-up?”

            “What?” Daria came out of her trance, looking wildly at Jane. “Do I what?”

            “You took this picture this morning,” said Jane, waving the photo a last time before handing it over. “You were standing behind the statue and it was your third shot. Look down at the bottom, over here.”

            Her thoughts in a jumble, Daria did as she was asked. She squinted at the tiny human figure standing in the background to one side of the statue, then picked up the loupe and took a closer look.

            It was the balding, glasses-wearing businessman, standing by a tree and looking directly at the camera, ten or fifteen minutes before he walked over to Daria and mentioned the treasure. He did not appear to be on an errand for his boss at all.

            “I saw him again across the street as we were coming in,” said Jane. “He was window shopping, watching us in the glass.” She leaned closer, her voice a whisper. “Our way-too-curious friend is following us.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven: “You’re No Fun Anymore”

 

 

            Foto Freak had a back door that led to a narrow alley, which in turn led to a parking lot that filled the center of the block. The lot was surrounded by stores on almost every side, forming the core of downtown Lawndale’s shopping district. Once they hit the alley, Jane and Daria bolted across the lot to the street entrance, crossing streets between traffic as they gripped their cameras and photo sets. Daria kept looking back for signs that they were being pursued by the creepy businessman who had accosted her earlier in the park.

            They hurried past city hall minutes later, running through a small park behind the ex-cathedral. By the time Daria staggered past the Greek-style columned pavilion in the park’s center, she was perspiring rivers and panting for air, her legs gone to rubber. Jane, who had barely worked up a sweat, slowed down to stay with her.

            Daria soon stopped looking back. She gamely kept up a slow, clumsy jog until they reached the gas station near the Lane home. By this time, she was so winded she could only point to the station to indicate her need to stop. Jane guided her by the arm around to the back, where Daria leaned against the wall beside a pile of old tires, her lungs full of needles and her brain incapable of rational thought. Large wet spots showed through her green jacket under her armpits, down the front of her T-shirt, and across her back. Her thick brown hair was plastered to her face and neck, her glasses were steamed up, and she thought she was moments away from dropping dead.

            “That was great!” said Jane, looking excited. “Wanna go do it again?”

            Daria raised her head and gave Jane a look that could have maimed a rhinoceros.

            “Running’s good for you, amiga,” Jane continued, bending down to stretch her legs. “It builds character. You could use more character