The Case of the Poisoned Pig Read online

  Frowning, Jazz handed it back to Gordy. “She shouldn’t be eating all those marshmallows.”

  “They’re only mini marshmallows.”

  “Well, she’s a mini pig,” Jazz said. “Six of those for her is like sixty for us.”

  Milo wondered how he’d feel if he ate sixty marshmallows. Probably not so good.

  Wait a minute. . . .

  “You were here before,” he said to Gordy. “When you buzzed my hand.”

  Gordy looked nervous. “Yeah. So?”

  Milo turned to Jazz. “Remember? He was in the yard when we came out of the garage. He had the shooter then, too. What if she ate some marshmallows and—”

  Jazz broke in. “And then got sick!” She pointed at Gordy. “You! You did it! You poisoned Eugenia!”

  “What?” Gordy backed away.

  “Pig poisoner!”

  “You’re crazy! I didn’t do anything!” Gordy shot a marshmallow at Jazz. It fell short. He turned and ran.

  She hollered after him, “And you’re a bad shot, too!”

  Milo stared at her. Was this Jazz? Logical, calm, let’s-not-jump-to-conclusions Jazz?

  “We don’t know if Gordy gave her marshmallows before,” he pointed out. “When we came out of the garage, it looked like he had just shown up.”

  Jazz shook her head stubbornly. “Didn’t you see how scared he looked?”

  “I’d look scared, too, if someone screamed ‘pig poisoner’ at me,” he said. “Anyway, marshmallows aren’t even on the list of poisons. Maybe they’re not bad for pigs.”

  “Of course they’re bad for pigs,” Jazz said. “They’re bad for everybody. You know what’s in them?”

  “Sugar?”

  “Worse than that. Vanessa told me Dylan told her they make them with ground-up hooves and bones from cows and pigs.”

  Pigs? “You mean—”

  Jazz nodded. “Eugenia’s a cannibal.”

  Yuck. No wonder she threw up. He sure wouldn’t want to eat anything made from people feet.

  He glanced over at the piglet. Ethan had let her off her leash, and they were chasing each other around. Mrs. Budge looked on sourly from the yard next door.

  “Ethan,” Milo called. “Did you see Gordy shooting marshmallows before?”

  Ethan stopped and stared at him. “Sure. Then Jazz took his blaster away.”

  Milo shook his head. “I mean, before. The last time he was here.”

  “That was the last time he was here,” Ethan insisted.

  “No, I mean—” Oh, forget it. Little kids were hopeless.

  “Maybe Mrs. Budge saw something,” Jazz suggested. “You could ask her.”

  “You ask her. She’s your neighbor.”

  “But she’s mad at me about Eugenia.”

  Milo shot a glance at Mrs. Budge. She didn’t look like she was in the mood to chat. Especially not about a pig. But there was no one else to ask.

  He crossed the driveway.

  “Excuse me—”

  Mrs. Budge’s head snapped up.

  He gulped.

  “Yes? What is it?” she said.

  “Um . . . nice flowers!” he blurted out.

  She looked at her wrecked flower bed, then stared at him.

  “I mean—they must have been nice.”

  Grimly, she said, “They were.”

  Jazz came over. “Mrs. Budge, I’m really sorry about what Eugenia did. She doesn’t know any better. It won’t happen again.” She smiled hopefully.

  Mrs. Budge didn’t smile back. “No,” she said firmly. “It won’t.”

  As they walked away, she mumbled something else. Milo couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like, “I’m going to make good and sure of that.”

  Saturday morning Milo was polishing off his third stack of pancakes when the mail arrived.

  “Something for you,” his dad said. He was holding out a plain brown envelope with DM in the upper left-hand corner.

  Dash Marlowe! A new detective lesson! Milo tore the envelope open, getting it sticky with syrup, and unfolded the letter inside.

  Look for a Pattern

  Ever wonder why detectives are called private eyes? Because they see things other people don’t: patterns. Find the pattern in the clues you gather, and you’ll solve your case.

  One day, the owner of the ritziest department store in Paris called. He was beside himself with worry. Three days earlier, a woman had walked out of his store carrying a suitcase. Suspicious, the guards stopped her. After all, who brings a suitcase to go shopping?

  She must be stealing something big, they figured—a dozen pairs of designer shoes, or their entire stock of silver spoons. But when they opened the suitcase, it was empty.

  The next day, the guards spotted the same woman walking out with an even bigger suitcase. They stopped her again and opened up the suitcase. Empty.

  The third day, the suitcase was so big the woman could hardly carry it. This time, the guards were determined to find out what she was stealing. They examined the suitcase from top to bottom, searching for a secret hiding place, but they found nothing. Finally, they had to let her go.

  That was when they sent for me, world-famous private eye, Dash Marlowe. I listened as the owner, nearly weeping, told me the whole story. Then I told him what the woman was stealing.

  Suitcases.

  There was more, but Milo wanted to share it with his partner. Carrying his plate to the sink, he said, “I’m going over to Jazz’s, okay?”

  “I want to go too!” Ethan said.

  Milo sighed. “Can’t you play with your own friends for once?”

  “Huge is my friend. I love her more than Gran—”

  “Okay, fine, you can come,” Milo said quickly. He didn’t think his mom would be too pleased to hear Ethan compare their grandma to a pig. Especially since he preferred the pig.

  When they got to Jazz’s house, they found Eugenia-Queenie-Spike-Pigasus tied to the front porch. She seemed pretty perky for a cannibal.

  Ethan ran to her and scooped her up, cooing, “Who’s the nicest piggy in the whole wide world? Do you want some kisses? Mmm?” He rubbed his nose against her little snout. Yuck.

  “Milo!”

  It was Jazz’s voice. Milo turned, but he didn’t see anyone.

  An arm waved from behind a shrub in Mrs. Budge’s yard. “Over here!”

  Milo ran over. “How come you’re hiding? Are you spying on someone?” Maybe Jazz had spotted Mrs. Budge doing something suspicious!

  “I’m not hiding,” Jazz said. “I’m pruning.” She stood up. “Remember? I have to pay back Mrs. Budge for what Eugenia did to her garden.”

  He made a face. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “It’s not so bad, actually. Mrs. Budge has been telling me all kinds of neat stuff about plants. She really knows a lot.”

  While Jazz worked, Milo read the new lesson from Dash Marlowe out loud. After the story about patterns, Dash wrote about how to gather evidence by talking to people who might know something about the case—suspects, witnesses, or experts:

  Of course, people might not tell you the whole story. They might leave something out, not realizing it’s important. They might forget. They might even lie.

  Your task is to fill in the blanks—to figure out what really happened without having to be told.

  Milo stopped reading. Mrs. Budge was coming toward them. She was carrying a tray of lemonade and cookies. And she was smiling!

  While they ate, she inspected the shrub that Jazz had pruned. “You did a lovely job on this oleander bush, Jasmyne. You have a real green thumb.”

  Oleander. Why did that sound so familiar?

  “I really am sorry about your flowers,” Jazz told her again. “I’ll keep working as long as you want me to. And I won’t let Eugenia—”

  “Oh, you’ve done enough,” Mrs. Budge said. “As for your pig—well, I don’t think that will be a problem very much longer.” Her smile grew wider.

  Milo stared at Mrs. Budge.
What did she mean? He tried to catch Jazz’s eye, but she was looking in a different direction.

  “Oh, no. Not him again,” Jazz said.

  Gordy Fletcher stood on the sidewalk watching Ethan try to teach the piglet to roll over.

  When he saw Jazz headed toward him, Gordy backed away. “I didn’t touch old Bacon Bits, okay?”

  “Stop calling her that!” Jazz yelled.

  “Why? You called me a pig poisoner!”

  Gordy had a point there.

  Milo glanced at the pig, then at Jazz. “Did she get sick at all again last night? After the marshmallows?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But—”

  “See?” Gordy said. “So take it back!”

  Hands on hips, Jazz stared at him. Finally she said, “Okay. You’re not the one who poisoned her . . . maybe.”

  For a second, Gordy looked annoyed. Then he grinned. “Good enough for me. No hard feelings.” Reaching in his jacket, he pulled out a can. “I’ll even let you have some of my jelly beans.”

  Jazz rolled her eyes. “What’s inside? A snake that jumps out at you?”

  “Geez! I was only trying to be nice.” Gordy peeled the lid open. “See?”

  Milo peeked inside. Jelly beans. Wow. Gordy really was just being nice!

  He grabbed a handful and tossed them into his mouth.

  Yecch!

  Choking and sputtering, he spit them out. “What is that?”

  Gordy was laughing too hard to answer. Finally, he wheezed, “I painted them with the bad-tasting stuff my sister puts on her nails to keep from biting them. Pretty nasty, huh?”

  Just then Ethan ran up holding the piglet. “Huge is acting funny!”

  Eh-eh-eh.

  Milo and Jazz stared at each other in alarm. Not again!

  Gordy’s grin vanished. “Is she okay?”

  Eh-eh-eh.

  “Hey, I think she’s choking.” Taking the pig from Ethan, Gordy peered into her open mouth.

  Milo said, “I wouldn’t—”

  Blehhhh.

  “Look on the bright side,” Milo said. “Your pig threw up on Gordy Fletcher.”

  Jazz frowned. “It’s not funny. How did Eugenia get sick again? We pig-proofed the entire house.”

  Milo thought. “Has she been anywhere else this morning?”

  “Outside. But she was with Ethan.”

  “Maybe he fed her something,” Milo said. “We should talk to him.”

  They found his brother curled up on the living room couch with the piglet.

  “Shh.” Ethan put his finger to his lips. “She’s sleeping.”

  “Ethan,” Jazz said. “You didn’t give Eugenia anything today, did you? Anything that isn’t good for her?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Just kisses.”

  Milo sighed. “That isn’t what we mean.” He wished Ethan would go back to dinosaurs. Ethan’s dinosaur thing was annoying, but at least it didn’t make him want to gag.

  “Did you see anybody else feeding her anything?” Jazz asked.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Not Gordy Fletcher?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  She looked at Milo. He shrugged.

  As they went back to the kitchen, he thought about what Dr. Soo had said. What if it wasn’t an accident after all? What if it was foul play?

  “Does Eugenia have any enemies?”

  Jazz looked at him. “Milo, she’s a pig.”

  “What about Mrs. Budge?” he asked. “Didn’t you hear her? She said the pig wouldn’t be a problem much longer. Maybe she’s the one who’s trying to—” He lowered his voice. “Do her in.”

  Jazz frowned, then shook her head. “You saw how nice she was to us today. She even made us cookies.”

  Milo stared at her. Those cookies. Had they tasted funny? Suddenly he didn’t feel so good.

  “What’s wrong?” Jazz said. “You look like Glub the time his goldfish bowl tipped over.”

  “My stomach hurts . . . the cookies . . .”

  “Next time don’t eat so many. I feel fine.” She went on, “How about Gordy?”

  “Ethan said Gordy didn’t give her anything.”

  Jazz raised an eyebrow. “He said he didn’t see Gordy give her anything. That’s different.”

  Milo thought about it. Gordy was . . . well, he was Gordy. But he wouldn’t poison a pet pig. Would he?

  “Those jelly beans!” Jazz said.

  “They just tasted horrible. The nail stuff isn’t poisonous,” Milo told her.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s okay for Eugenia. There were things on that list of pig poisons that were fine for people.”

  Milo got out his detective notebook.

  He wrote:

  Milo looked at the list. Gordy, Mrs. Budge . . . Something was bugging him. Something Mrs. Budge had said—

  “Oleander!” he exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Budge has oleander in her yard. And it was on the list of poisons!”

  Jazz’s eyes widened. “You mean, Eugenia might have eaten some leaves?” She frowned. “But she only got into Mrs. Budge’s yard once. So the second time she got sick, she couldn’t have been eating oleander.”

  “Unless Mrs. Budge fed it to her.”

  Jazz frowned again. “Mrs. Budge might be a little grouchy sometimes. But a pig poisoner?” She shook her head. “I say it was Gordy and the jelly beans.”

  “Well, I say it was Mrs. Budge.”

  They stared at each other.

  Jazz sighed. “If only we’d caught him in the act.”

  “Or her,” Milo added.

  He tried to think. What would Dash do? Slowly, he said, “Maybe it’s not too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s happened twice. It could happen again.” He smiled. “But this time, we’ll be ready.”

  Hippety, hoppety. Hippety, hoppety.

  Behind the bushes, a chocolate bunny hopped onto Milo’s knee. He made a grab for it, but it hopped away.

  “Come on, Ethan,” he whispered. “Let me have a bite of that bunny. I’m starving.”

  Hippety. “I can’t. I’m saving it.”

  “One ear? The tail?”

  Hoppety. Ethan shook his head.

  Milo pulled his notebook from his pocket. Rule #1 for stakeouts, he wrote. BRING A SNACK!

  Jazz peeked out at the piglet, who was tied to the front porch. “I’m still not so sure this is a good idea, using Eugenia as bait.”

  “Nothing will happen to her,” Milo promised. “We’ve been right here watching the whole time.”

  And watching. And watching.

  Somewhere nearby, a door slammed. A minute later, Mrs. Budge came up the front walk.

  At last!

  She was carrying a paper bag with leaves sticking out the top. Milo sucked in his breath. Could it be . . . oleander?

  All he could see now were her legs.

  Suddenly the piglet dashed forward. Mrs. Budge shrieked. The bag dropped to the ground.

  The piglet happily dove at the leaves. Jazz gasped.

  Then, before they could move from their hiding spot, a hand reached down and snatched the bag away.

  “No, no,” said Mrs. Budge. “That’s not for you. You may be a pest, but I don’t want you getting sick.”

  Rap-rap-rap. Mrs. Budge was knocking on Jazz’s front door.

  A second later it opened.

  “I brought you some mint from my garden,” Mrs. Budge said.

  “Oh, thank you!” said Jazz’s mom. “I love mint in my iced tea. Come on inside.”

  The door clicked shut.

  “I knew it wasn’t her,” Jazz whispered.

  They settled in to wait some more. The minutes dragged. Milo’s stomach growled. He stared at Ethan’s chocolate bunny until Ethan got nervous and stuffed it in his shirt.

  Maybe Jazz was right. Maybe this stakeout wasn’t such a good idea.

  Then Gordy came down the street.

  When he got
to Jazz’s house, he stopped and glanced around nervously. Then he dashed up the walk, squatted down, and reached toward Eugenia.

  “What’s he doing?” Jazz hissed.

  Milo peered out. “He’s . . . petting her.”

  Then Gordy spoke.

  “Who’s a widdle Bacon Bits?” he said. “Who’s an itsy-bitsy piggy wiggy?”

  Milo and Jazz stared at each other. Gordy? Talking baby talk to a pig?

  Milo bit his cheek and clamped his hand over his mouth. He looked away from Jazz, who was doing the same thing. But it was no use. Their eyes met, and they exploded in laughter.

  As the two detectives fell out of the bushes, Gordy jumped to his feet. His face brick red, he turned and ran.

  “Itsy bitsy!” Milo choked out.

  Jazz gasped, “Widdle piggy wiggy!”

  When they finally stopped laughing, Milo’s stomach started growling again. They left Ethan and the piglet on the porch and went in for a snack.

  While Jazz raided the refrigerator, Milo opened his notebook and stared at their short list of suspects.

  Gordy. Mrs. Budge.

  Jazz glanced over his shoulder. “We know it wasn’t Mrs. Budge. We heard her say right out that she didn’t want Eugenia getting sick.”

  “And it couldn’t have been Gordy, either,” said Milo. “He’d never let widdle Bacon Bitsy eat anything icky.”

  He crossed off Gordy. He crossed off Mrs. Budge.

  “So much for our list,” Milo said.

  “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong,” said Jazz.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Dash said to look for a pattern. That means something that’s the same each time. Maybe what we need to do is write down everything we know about the two times Eugenia was poisoned.”

  She grabbed the notebook and wrote:

  “What’s BPP and APP?” Milo asked.

  “Before pig-proofing and after pig-proofing, of course.” Jazz tapped the pen. “What else?”

  He shrugged. “The puke looked pretty much the same both times. Kind of brown and—”

  “Got it. Thanks.” Jazz made a face. “How about people? Gordy was around, and Mrs. Budge—”