Mysteries in Our National Parks: Out of the Deep: A Mystery in Acadia National Park

“No. It’s me. I swear!” Flopping onto her stomach, Bindy crossed her ankles and propped her chin in her hand. Then, amazingly, she began to recite the lines at the same time the girl in the movie was saying them. Word for word, without hesitation, her lips moved in perfect sync with the dialogue on the screen. Even if she was faking it, Jack had to give her credit for a good memory.

When Bindy finished, she shot them a triumphant look. Ashley stared at her. “So that really was you!”

“Of course,” Bindy said matter-of-factly. “I don’t lie. OK, now it’s over. Here come the credits. There’s my name—Belinda Taylor—that’s me.”

“But your name’s Bindy Callister,” Jack broke in.

Rolling her eyes, Bindy sighed loudly. “Bindy is short for Belinda. And my name used to be Taylor until I was adopted. Before my real mother died.”

“Oh,” Ashley murmured. “I’m sorry….”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago, and I don’t like to talk about it.” Jerking her fingers through her thin hair, Bindy seemed to shift gears. “So anyway, I acted in seven TV commercials and one sitcom, and I had parts in two movies. The first movie was just a small part, but in Melissa’s Dream my role was a lot bigger.”

“Wow!” Ashley blurted. “That is way cool. Tell us about it. Tell us everything. Did you meet famous stars? What were they—”

Throwing up her hand like a traffic cop, Bindy demanded, “Wait! First things first. Is there anything to eat in this room? ’Cause I’m starved. If I’m going to do any talking, I need something to eat. And a can of something to drink—anything but diet. I hate diet soda.”

“There’s a candy machine at the end of the hall,” Jack told her. “I have some change.”

“So get me two Butterfingers and a can of orange soda,” Bindy ordered. “Thanks, Jack-o. You’re a real pal.”

CHAPTER TWO

Sheesh! She was so bossy! Jack hurried down the hall to the candy machine, halfway eager to hear Bindy’s story, but three-fourths of the way doubting that whatever she told them would be true. After all, Bindy was a known liar.

The evening Bindy had arrived at the Landon home, Jack had overheard his parents talking about the reason she’d been placed into temporary foster care. Olivia and Steven were at the kitchen table in terrycloth robes, sipping mugs of hot tea, their voices barely above whispers as they discussed Bindy’s situation. Jack had hung back in the hallway, just until they were finished talking. It wasn’t exactly eavesdropping, he’d told himself. He just didn’t want to interrupt.

“…Bindy’s brother Cole,” Olivia was telling Steven. “According to Ms. Lopez, the tension between Bindy and Cole goes way back. Apparently he’s some kind of a football star.”

“More like a superstar,” Steven countered. “Ms. Lopez told me Cole has already been offered full scholarships from colleges all around the country.”

“Did you know that after Bindy’s accusation, the football coach and his teachers all wrote letters of support for Cole, saying he was an honest and decent kid who couldn’t possibly do such a thing? Ms. Lopez said no one came forward to defend Bindy.”

When he craned his neck ever so slightly, Jack could catch a glimpse of his father. Steven shook his head and took another sip from his mug. “So, Bindy’s adoptive parents believe Cole is telling the truth and Bindy is flat out lying. How sad for Bindy.”

“I know. Still, it’s possible she invented the whole thing, Steven. Ms. Lopez says Bindy comes up with one fantastic story after another. Even Ms. Lopez isn’t sure how much of what Bindy says is true.”

Steven set down his mug. “Having said that, it’s still no excuse for what the parents are doing. I mean, how could anyone try to get rid of their own child, even if she’s adopted?” Suddenly, his head jerked up and he looked toward where Jack was standing. “Wait a minute—Jack! Why are you lurking out there in the hall?”

Shuffling his feet, Jack emerged from the shadows. For the next ten minutes, his parents gave him a verbal going-over. Jack should never listen in on their conversation. They respected Jack’s privacy, and he should do the same for them. They told him to keep everything he’d heard to himself because Bindy’s private affairs were just that—her own private affairs. Since the social workers and the therapists didn’t know what to make of Bindy’s story, Jack shouldn’t judge it, either. Instead he should give Bindy the benefit of the doubt.

He was not to tell any of this to Ashley. Finally, if Bindy wanted to share her own story with Jack, that was fine, but he should in no way ask Bindy about her court case. Let her come to you, was how his mom had put it.

Now, when Jack returned to the girls’ motel room, he found his sister working Bindy’s hair into stubby braids. Smiling brightly, Bindy held out her hand for the Butterfingers.

“Here,” Jack told her. “Catch!”

She caught one neatly and tore off the wrapper, then took a big bite. With her mouth full, she said, “Ashley’s been asking questions about my so-called career, but I told her to wait until you got back. That way I can double my audience, ha ha.” Pulling herself into a seated position, she proceeded to tell them about her life B.C.—before the Callisters.

She could hardly remember her father. He was killed in a speedboat accident off the coast of California when she was only three.

Back then, Bindy was cute—everyone said so—with nice round cheeks, big blue eyes, and curly blond hair. Her mother signed her with a casting agent who arranged for Bindy to make a few commercials, but the jobs were few and far between. Bindy and her mother lived in a tiny apartment over a garage two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. “Then I got my first movie,” she said.

“And after that you were rich and famous,” Ashley stated, believing it.

“Ha! I wish! I had about a dozen lines to say in that movie. Mostly I had to jump rope to ‘Down by the river, down by the sea, Johnny broke a milk bottle, blamed it on me….’ We must have shot that scene 20 times, and when I got so tired I started to cry, my mother took me on her lap and told me this was my big chance, and I had to be brave. So I kept doing it, over and over.”

“How old were you?” Ashley asked.

“Seven. I didn’t get the part in Melissa’s Dream till I was nine. By then, my mother already had cancer.”

Each day, Bindy said, her mother managed to take her to the studio where the movie was being filmed; each night they returned to the cramped apartment over the garage and rehearsed the script again and again until Bindy learned her lines. She had to be perfect; she couldn’t lose that job, because they had no other income and no hospital insurance.

“That must have been awful for you,” Ashley sympathized.

“No it wasn’t, because we were a team. My mother loved me!” Bindy said fiercely. “We were always together—she stayed with me on the set every minute. It was months before Melissa’s Dream was released in the theaters, and my mother kept getting sicker, but finally we went together to see the movie. Two days later, she died.”

Jack felt his throat tighten as he thought of what Bindy had been through. If Bindy Callister—or Belinda Taylor—wasn’t telling the truth, she was one fabulous actress. But she stayed dry eyed as she sat there telling them the rest of her story, which only got worse.

“So Aunt Marian came to Hollywood to take me home with her—she was my mother’s sister. She’d seen Melissa’s Dream, too, and she thought if she adopted me, she’d get a pretty, talented little girl to be part of her family, along with her handsome, smart, athletic son, Cole. A perfect Barbie to go with her perfect Ken doll. Hey, throw me that other Butterfinger, would you, Ashley?”

“So…so what happened?” Ashley whispered.

“Well, I didn’t want to be part of Aunt Marian’s perfect family. I hated Cole on sight, and he hated me, too. So…I ate. And the more I ate, the more upset Aunt Marian got. Twice she dragged me back to Hollywood to get me into another movie, but the casting director took one look at me and said no film needed a prepubescent girl with weight issues. That’s how they talk in Hollywood.” Bindy threw back her head and laughed a laugh so full of anger it made Jack feel creepy.

He wanted out of there. Reading his mother’s thick books on whales would be better than hearing Bindy talk about her awful life, even if it was all made up.

Someone was moving around in the room. Jack opened one eye to stare at the digital clock on the lamp table. 12:35. Barely past midnight. He’d been asleep for only one uncomfortable hour, because the cot he was on felt lumpy.

Hair stood up on his arms as he watched the deep shadow glide silently across the floor. He could make out the outline of his parents in their bed, so it wasn’t one of them who’d gotten up to go to the bathroom or anything. The shadowy shape, moving so soundlessly through the room, had to be an intruder. A thief! His fingers trembled as he watched the shape move closer. Should he call out and wake his parents or just keep quiet and let the thief take whatever he wanted?

His heart thumping so loudly the thief might hear it, Jack opened his other eye. Whoever the intruder was, he seemed awfully small. Then the shadowy figure bumped into Jack’s cot and muttered, “Ouch!”

That was Jack’s chance. He leaped up and grabbed the person, who wiggled and yelled, “Let go, you dork!”

“Ashley?”

“Who’d you think it was? Freddy Krueger?”

By then Jack was feeling pretty stupid—for the second time in the past six hours—so he grumbled, “What the heck are you doing sneaking around in the dark?”

“What’s going on?” Olivia asked, turning on the bedside lamp. Her dark hair sprang from her head in wild curls. Blinking hard, she asked, “Where’s Bindy?”

“That’s what I came to tell you,” Ashley answered calmly. “She’s gone.”

Steven sat upright. “Gone? Gone where?”

Plunking herself down on the end of Jack’s cot, Ashley replied, “I have no idea. I heard a door close, and at first I thought it was the bathroom door and Bindy had just gone in to…you know. I was kinda sleepy, so I don’t know how much time went by, but then I looked over at her bed and it was empty. I got up and looked into the bathroom, and that was empty, too.”