The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

making a sitting duck out of me, creeping down the road after him. But I can’t let him get too far ahead, in case he decides to make a break for it.”
    The van idled for a few more moments, until Meiser was a block down the street, then glided down the street once more.
    The stop-and-go pattern continued. The injured man walked stiffly, his arm still curved protectively around his ribs. He didn’t stop or look back or even glance around him. “That’s a good boy,” Andy Kowalski murmured. “You keep right on going like I told you to.”
    Trixie’s stomach flip-flopped at the driver’s words. He’d told him to go this way. That must mean the whole plan had been his.
    “Maybe not,” she whispered to herself. “It might have been a compromise he worked out when Mr. Meiser refused to come to the van.”
    “What did you say, Trixie?” Honey whispered, moving closer in the dim light in the back of the van.
    “I need to know whose idea it was for Mr. Meiser to get away from the house to drop off the bag,” Trixie whispered.
    “But why—” Honey broke off as she realized why that information was important. “You don’t think Mr. Meiser would try to trick Andy Kowalski, do you?”
    “Of course not,” Trixie said hastily, trying to keep Honey from getting more upset. “Not really,” she added less certainly.
    “Where are we going?” Honey blurted to their captor.
    Trixie felt a lump in her throat. She had tried to keep herself from knowing. Now she was going to know, once and for all.
    “We’re going where Meiser goes,” the driver said tauntingly. He pulled the van to the side of the street once again. He turned around and glanced at the girls. “But that doesn’t answer your question, does it? Well, we’re going to a couple of places. We’re going to a trash can at the edge of Memorial Park first. After we leave there, we’re going to the Sleepyside police station.”
    “To the police?” Trixie exclaimed.
    Andy Kowalski laughed his maddening laugh. “Does that surprise you? Well, I’ve got nothing against police stations. Some of them are really pretty, too, especially in little towns like this. Yessir, I kind of like to look at them—from the outside!” He snorted as he pulled out into the street again, then stepped on the brakes and muttered something under his breath as Meiser stopped suddenly, leaning against a fence in somebody’s front yard and bending over at the waist.
    “Why doesn’t the fool just put up a billboard, if he’s so anxious to attract attention?” Kowalski said.
    “He’s hurt!” Trixie said defensively.
    “He’s going to hurt a lot worse if he doesn’t keep going. And so will you, if you don’t keep quiet!” The van lurched a little—as if punctuating their captor’s angry threat—when it finally started down the street once more.
    Trixie bit her lips and sagged against the wall of the van. Memorial Park was still blocks away. It must be almost a mile to the park from where they’d started out. That was a long, painful walk for a man with broken ribs and a concussion. What if he didn’t make it? Or what if his labored walking did attract someone’s attention? Would Andy Kowalski give up his plan and let the girls go? Trixie stared at the back of their captor’s head. Somehow, she didn’t think so.
    “Mr. Kowalski,” Honey said softly, “would you please tell us where we’re going?”
    “I did tell you!” he shouted. The strain of waiting for Meiser was beginning to show on him. Even his twisted sense of humor was deserting him. “I told you what I came to Sleepyside for, and that’s what I’m going to get. Before too long, I’ll have the miser, and old Hank will be safely in the arms of the police.”
    The pieces finally fit together in Trixie’s mind. “Your plan is for Mr. Meiser to drop the invention off in the trash can at the park, then go to the police station and turn himself in. That’s what you told him he had to do before you’d let us go!”
    “Of course,” their captor said, as if it had been obvious all along. “You don’t think I want to get close to Meiser again, do you? Not after what happened back at the workshop!” He shook his head. “I just don’t trust him not to pull something funny. He defends that invention like a she-bear protects her cub.
    “When he makes the drop, I’ll have plenty of time to check that it really is the miser this time, while he walks on to the police station. And once