The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

couldn’t breathe. This was a first for me. I felt a long dreamed-of softness with an unexpected hard tip under my touch. I couldn’t do anything for several seconds. As I was trying to get up enough backbone to remove my hand, I heard a noise below.
    I jerked my hand away from Natalie’s sweatshirt and said, “Somebody’s coming up here.”
    “Who do you think it is?” She sounded scared.
    “Stay here. I’ll find out.”
    I rotated forward on my knees and wiggled out through the space between the bales that served as an entrance to the fort. I stood up and looked down toward the hole in the floor of the hayloft where the trapdoor had just been raised. There, transitioning from the ladder to the hardwood floor was Ed Drucquer. He was facing the other way and didn’t see me. Yet.
    I half climbed and half slid down the bales as quickly as possible, scratching my hands on the prickly stalks of hay in the process. I landed on the floor just as Ed turned around and saw me.
    “Gary,” he said, obviously surprised. “I didn’t know you were up here. I didn’t see your car.”
    I had parked the car in an outbuilding between the barn and the railroad tracks, anticipating rain during the night.
    “What’s shakin’?” I said, feeling flustered. I had to get rid of Ed as quickly as possible.
    Ed didn’t look like his usual unflappable self either. He said, “I…just came up here to look around and see if I could get a better idea of where the necklace might be.” He glanced up to the top of the bales where I had just come from and said, “What were you doing up there?”
    That was none of his business, but I felt too guilty to tell him that. He started climbing up the bales.
    “Wait,” I said and then stopped, unable to think of what to say next.
    He continued to climb. I could grab him by the leg and pull him down, but that would start a fight and make him very suspicious. I followed him up, staying right on his heels to make sure he didn’t go into the fort. At the top, I stood in front of the entrance to the fort, as Ed looked at all the bales I had moved.
    “What the hell have you been doing?” he exclaimed. “You’re trying to get the necklace for yourself. You bastard.”
    I wanted to shush him. Natalie shouldn’t be hearing about the necklace. At that moment, Natalie burst out of the fort between my legs, knocking me over in the process. I landed in a heap, partially on top of her. Ed stared at Natalie, looking as if he had seen a vampire. Natalie lay panting, hay in her hair.
    “I got claustrophobia in there,” she said, sitting up as we untangled. “And then you blocked off the light, and it was pitch black. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
    “Well, what have we here?” Ed said, recovering his poise. “Head cheerleader Natalie Porter and my cousin caught in flagrante delicto . How delicious. Perhaps a gossip item for the Carter Bulldog.”
    “If you print or say one word about this, I’ll kill you,” Natalie said, standing up and approaching Ed in a menacing manner.
    “My, my, the beautiful Natalie has a temper. I quake at her approach.”
    “It’s okay, Nat,” I said taking her arm. “Let me handle it. You’d better go.”
    “With this idiot on the loose? And why does he say he’s your cousin? How many cousins do you have? He doesn’t even look like you.”
    “I’ll explain later. Go ahead. Everything’s going to be all right.”
    Natalie looked at me and then at Ed. She said to him, “Remember what I said. I’ll make mincemeat out of you.”
    She climbed down the bales. She reached the floor and went over to the opening. She climbed down the ladder and disappeared without looking at us again. A few seconds later, I heard the outside door to the barn slam. Now I had to calm Ed down.
    “I wasn’t trying to cut anybody out of anything,” I said. “I was just trying to speed up the process of finding the necklace.” Or prove that there wasn’t a necklace. “But if you say anything about Nat and me, I will cut you out.”
    “Don’t get a burr in your britches,” Ed said. “You know I can keep a secret. And we’ll work together on the necklace. But you’re going about it all wrong.”
    “What do you mean, all wrong?”
    Ed considered. “Well, maybe not all wrong. But you can’t move all those bales by yourself.”
    “Do you want to help me?”
    “No, it would still take us too long. I think the best thing to do is to wait until spring, when the hay is