The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

I’m going to leave you right here. I’ll give you one word of advice: Don't. Don’t try to run. By the time you open a door, I’ll be back. I’ll have my friend here ready for you, too,” he said, gesturing with the gun.
    He crawled out of the van and ran toward the trash can.
    His final words of warning had given Trixie the idea she had been looking for. She leaned over the front seat and punched down the button on the door lock.
    “Quick, Honey!” she said. “Lock the other side. Then hit the deck!”
    Honey reacted instantly.
    “He could put a bullet through the side of the van,” Honey whispered.
    “He could,” Trixie said aloud, feeling bold now that she had taken some action on her own behalf. “But it wouldn’t do him any good. All he’d do would be to bring the police down on himself.”
    “Hey!” Andy Kowalski had discovered the locked doors. He pounded on them with his fists. “Let me in!”
    Stretched out on the cold metal floor of the van, Trixie barely stifled a hysterical giggle. “What was that he said about pounding sand in a rathole?” she said to Honey.
    Honey’s pent-up breath escaped in a quavering echo of Trixie’s giggle. “I had a feeling Mr. Kowalski wasn’t as smart as he kept telling us he was,” she said.
    The girls fell silent as they heard him pounding against the glass with the butt of his gun.
    “Oh, Trixie, if he breaks through that glass he’ll be able to unlock the door and get inside. What will we do then?” Honey asked, terrified.
    Trixie didn’t have to answer that question—the sound of police sirens screaming toward them answered it for her.
    “Freeze, Kowalski!” the familiar voice of Sergeant Molinson shouted. “You’re under arrest!”
    Trixie sat up to look through the window. “Honey, there must be five squad cars out there! They’re all around us! And Henry Meiser is standing right on the sidewalk, watching everything!”

Meiser’s Miser ● 12

    TRIXIE HAD NO TIME TO REST the next two days. There were statements to give to the police, explanations to make to her worried brothers and parents, hours of door-to-door rounds asking for donations for the rummage sale, a flurry of last-minute phone calls to remind donors to deliver their merchandise, and pricing and arranging the donations in the school gymnasium.
    The final piece of merchandise for the sale was tagged and put in place just half an hour before the sale was scheduled to begin. Trixie and Honey sank wearily into chairs at the table next to the gymnasium door, where customers would be paying for the rummage they had selected.
    “If we only sell half of what’s here in the gym, we’ll be at our original goal,” Jim said as he walked up to the table. He had taken responsibility for totaling the donations. He looked down at the figures he’d written in the notebook he was carrying and added, “And that doesn’t count the Model A or the food booth.”
    “Yippee!” Trixie shouted, her fatigue completely forgotten.
    “That’s not all,” Jim said. “The sale of the Model A has turned into an auction. Three buyers turned up early this morning, all ready to write a check. So Mr. Burnside told them to write down how much they’re willing to pay. We’ll look at those offers— and at any others we get—this afternoon and sell to whoever has offered the most. We might get a lot more than we’d hoped for.”
    “That’s the good news,” Honey said. “Is there any bad news we should know about?”
    Jim grinned at his sister, knowing that she was referring to their Bob-Whites’ contest, which Mr. Burnside had agreed to judge. “Well, there is bad news, of course. We knew there would be. The question is this: Whom is it bad for?”
    “Oh, Jim, don’t tease!” Trixie protested. “Who won the contest—and who lost?”
    “Well, unless someone demands a recount, it looks as though Mart and Di are about to become the unwilling slaves of—” Jim paused for effect and looked at Trixie and Honey—“Dan and me!”
    Trixie felt curiously disappointed. “We didn’t win or lose.”
    “Nope. You came in a close second, and Brian and the Model A were third,” Jim said.
    “Just don’t be too easy on Mart,” Trixie said sternly. “If you need help thinking of things for him to do, I’ll be happy to give you the list I’d worked out in my mind.”
    “I’m sure I’ll think of a few dirty and disgusting chores,” Jim said with a grin. “I’m going out to the