The Copycat Caper

by John V. Madormo

  Eugene began paging through the phone book. “Here it is,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s the phone number for WOAK. That’s the radio station running the Sam Solomon series. I’ve got a friend over there—Ned Stewart. He owns the station, actually. Maybe he can tell us what the next episode’s about.” He dialed from his landline phone—no cell phone for Eugene—and waited. Then, a moment later, “Yes, I’m trying to reach Ned Stewart. Tell him Eugene Patterson’s on the phone.” He paused momentarily. “Sure, I’ll hold.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “They’re trying to track him down.” Eugene waited a few more seconds. “Ned, old buddy. Eugene Patterson. How are you? Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask. You’re running an old-time radio program on Monday nights called The Sam Solomon Mystery Theater, and I was just wondering if you could tell me what next week’s episode is about.” He paused. “Oh, I see. No, don’t worry about it. You take care of yourself now. And say hi to Rose for me.”

  He hung up the phone and frowned. “No dice. The program is fed by satellite at the time it airs. So they don’t have a physical copy for anyone to look at or listen to.” He sighed. “Looks like all we can do is try to figure this thing out based on the previews that ran at the end of last night’s program. Do you remember what next week’s show is about?”

  I hadn’t really concentrated much on that. At the time there wasn’t a reason to. I thought hard for the next few seconds. It didn’t take long.

  “The announcer said something about baseball and blackmail.”

  “That was it?” Eugene said.

  I nodded.

  “Well, that’s not enough to go on. Looks like we’ll have to wait until it runs and then figure things out.” He made a face. “But how are we gonna do that? It ends at eleven thirty . . . on a school night.”

  He was right. There was no way I could get over here that late at night. And even if my grandmother was willing to shuttle me back and forth, my parents would never allow me to be up that late during the week. There had to be another way. If we had cell phones, we could text—that was out. If Eugene had a computer, we could use e-mail or instant message. It looked like the only way to pull this off was the telephone. Assuming my parents were asleep, I might be able to sneak down to the basement and use the extension.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll call you right after the program ends and we can discuss it then.”

  “That’s probably our best bet,” Eugene said. “That’s almost a week away, though. By then . . . who knows? Maybe we won’t even be needed. Maybe the police will nab this bird in the meantime.”

  “And if not?” I said.

  He smiled. “Since he usually strikes in the early morning, we’ll have to work fast. I’d suggest you take notes during the show. We need to come up with a quick analysis or we’ll have wasted another week.”

  I walked to the door. “I’m sure we can figure this out, Eugene. All we have to do is listen really closely and try to identify a word—a key word from the drama—one that has a double meaning—and we should be able to identify his next target.”

  I turned to leave. The plan was set.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Wading Game Caper

  On the way to school the next morning, I was dreading the moment when the bus pulled up at Henry’s stop. I knew he’d be upset about the fact that I had given up my part in the play and had left him hanging. I should have at least tried to communicate that to him before I left school yesterday. He still wouldn’t have been happy, but I was fairly certain that he might have handled it better. As the bus slowed down, I glanced out the window and saw him sitting on his backpack. I was preparing myself for an ugly exchange.

  He climbed up the front steps of the bus, and as if he hadn’t even seen me, he shot right past and plopped down in a seat in the back. I guess I had it coming. I could just let him stew for a while. That would usually work. But I was dying to tell him about my meeting yesterday with Eugene and to bring him up to speed on what was about to become our next caper. He wouldn’t be happy since there were no clients to charge, but he just might buy into it because it had the potential of being a really fascinating case and one that would require a fair amount of deductive-reasoning skills.

  I decided it was best to face the music. I waited for the bus to stop, and then I made my way back to where he was sitting. I noticed an open seat next to him and was just about to grab it when he picked up his backpack from the floor and set it down on the seat. Apparently he was going to make me earn this. I decided at that moment to take things into my own hands, literally, and attempted to remove his backpack. I suppose I should have expected his reaction. He would have none of it. For the next thirty seconds, without a word being spoken, we engaged in a heated tug-of-war. It got the attention of some of the other kids, who turned in their seats to witness the altercation. And it unfortunately also got the attention of our substitute bus driver, Mrs. Marjorie Montrose, who we were certain had been a prison warden in an earlier life. Why did Milton, our regular driver, have to be out sick that day?

  “What’s going on back there?” she yelled.

  “Charlie and Henry are fighting,” one of the girls said.

  “This bus isn’t moving until you two stop,” Mrs. Montrose announced. “And if you make me come back there—”

  That was all we had to hear. The war was over as quickly as it had started. Mrs. Montrose, better known as Shamu, had once before taken it upon herself to break up fisticuffs on the bus. It wasn’t pretty. She got a little carried away and managed to get herself suspended, as had the combatants. We weren’t interested in a repeat performance. Once the commotion had died down, I took advantage of the temporary truce to slip into the seat next to Henry, much to his chagrin. As the bus resumed its journey and the other passengers were convinced the show was over, Henry broke his silence.

  “You’re a rat. You quit the play and you didn’t even tell me? What’s up with that?”

  Well, at least we were speaking. It was better than nothing.

  “I just couldn’t turn my back on the agency. I had to.”

  “So you left me there with the nerd herd?” Henry said. “Nice guy.”

  I was feeling worse about my actions, if that were even possible.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I should have told you. You can hate me if you want to. I have it coming.”

  “I’m just wondering if I should stick it out now,” he said. “It’s not going to be the same without you.”

  I was so glad to hear him say that. It was the first step in resolving this conflict.

  “Well, I’m still gonna be there,” I said, “some of the time at least. Mr. Miles said that I can be an understudy for Nick Dakota.”

  “What’s that?” Henry asked.

  “I’m like a backup. I have to learn all the lines as if I had the lead role. And if something happens to the guy playing Nick Dakota, then I get to jump back in,” I said. “By the way, who got my old part?”

  Henry smiled. He was going to enjoy this apparently. “You’re not gonna like it. Would you believe that you’ve been replaced by . . . the slacker?”

  I couldn’t believe it. Patrick Walsh was like the laziest kid in the sixth grade—when he bothered to show up, that is. He was absent every other day, it seemed.

  “The old man got desperate,” Henry said. “There weren’t many choices.”

  There was nothing I could do about it now. I had my chance and I gave it up. I had chosen career over true love. No one to blame but myself. It was time to change the subject. Too painful to talk about missed opportunities.

  “Hey, you won’t believe what’s going on with this current crime spree,” I said. “I went over to Eugene’s yesterday. I wanted to bounce a theory off of him.”

  “Is this still
about how the Sam Solomon radio show is somehow connected to the recent string of burglaries?”

  “Exactly.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. I kind of expected that response. For the remainder of the trip, I explained to him, in a methodical fashion, everything that Eugene and I had discussed. I outlined the details of each Sam Solomon episode and the particulars of each crime that followed. I explained my theory that the same suspect had committed each of the crimes, based on the SS cards left at the scenes, and that he was playing some sort of word association game with us. As the bus pulled up in front of the school playground, I was certain that Henry was on board with this newest caper. He definitely wanted in.

  “That’s it,” he said. “I’m quitting the play. It’s obvious you’re gonna need my help. I’m not quite sure how to break the news to Mr. Miles, but the agency comes first. He’ll just have to understand.”

  We hopped down from the bus and into the playground.

  “You know, Henry, maybe you shouldn’t quit the play.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This production is a really big deal to Mr. Miles,” I said. “If we keep dropping out, it’ll mess everything up for him.”

  Henry looked at me skeptically. “You don’t want my help, do you? You want to go back to work for Eugene. Is that it?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing like that. I don’t want to see the play get screwed up. That’s all.”

  “If you were so concerned about it, then why did you quit in the first place?”

  “I just explained that. The agency comes first.”

  We stopped at the front door.

  “So it’s okay for you to walk out,” Henry said, “but not me. Is that it? Sounds kind of hypocritical, if you ask me.”

  He was absolutely correct. Where did I get off telling someone else not to do what I had done? He had every right to call me a hypocrite. It wasn’t pleasant to hear someone say that, especially your best friend, but it was accurate.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I have no business telling you not to quit. You do what you want to do.”

  And then right at that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Scarlett walking toward us. She stopped and folded her arms. She didn’t seem happy to see me.

  “You’re a quitter, Charlie Collier,” she said. “How could you do that to Mr. Miles after all the work he’s done with this play? He handpicked you out of everyone else at school for the lead role, and you turned your back on him.”

  There were times in the past when I would have been just fine with being chastised by Scarlett. Just to have her notice me—to have her speak to me—was everything. It didn’t matter that she was scolding me. But in the past couple of months, since helping her find her grandfather’s parrot and since she joined the agency and all, we had actually talked a lot. A few conversations were like this one. But most were actually quite pleasant—and I wanted more of the latter. So I knew that I needed to fix this thing right now. If our friendship was ever going to blossom into something more, then I needed to learn how to negotiate these speed bumps.

  “It’s not like that,” I said as I tried to defend myself. “Mr. Miles is okay with this.”

  “And what exactly is this?” she said.

  “He’s letting me miss a few practices so that I can continue to run the agency. But I’m still a member of the cast, kind of. I’m the understudy for the Nick Dakota character.”

  She glared at me. “Did you ever think how I might feel about this before you decided to quit? Because of your actions, I’m stuck reading lines with Patrick Walsh. Thanks a lot.”

  “I had no idea Patrick would get the part,” I said.

  “I don’t know why Mr. Miles ever gave it to him,” she said. “Or why Patrick even wanted it.”

  Henry leaned in. “I’ll tell you why he wanted it. He probably thought he could get out of class for play practice. That’s the only thing that would have motivated him. If he ever—”

  The school bell drowned out the rest of Henry’s comment.

  Scarlett turned to leave, then stopped and spun around. “I just want you to know that I’m disappointed in you, Charlie. You have real acting potential.” She glanced at Henry. “Not like some people.” And she was off. Hit-and-run.

  I grabbed Henry by the arm before he said or did something that he would later regret.

  “That changes everything,” he snapped. “Forget what I said before. There’s no way I’m quitting this play. And let me tell you something else. I plan on delivering such an amazing performance in this production that I just might be able to convince Mr. Miles to change the plot and leave the fair Rebecca in a cold, dingy cell—permanently. So there.” And then just like Scarlett, Henry blended into the crowd and disappeared.

  For the remainder of the day, Henry glared at Scarlett and Scarlett glared at me. I made a vain attempt to get the three of us together at recess. Yeah, right. That wasn’t going to happen. With the Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire Agency back in business, I figured that we might want to get together over the weekend to discuss the new case and maybe even entertain a few walk-ins. That idea would have to wait until tensions died down.

  We did all meet up at play practice, though. I sat in the front row and watched the others onstage. Seated on either side of me were the other understudies—the ones for Rebecca and the police lieutenant. They weren’t kids who I spent a lot of time with. I was kind of embarrassed to admit that they seemed a lot more committed to their roles than I was. With scripts in hand, they meticulously followed each scene as it was rehearsed onstage. I was just kind of going through the motions. I wanted Mr. Miles to see that I was there, but my mind kept drifting to other things.

  Today was the day that the actors were expected to have memorized their lines from the first act. Some, like Scarlett and Stephanie, had done so. But the hisser and the slacker stumbled through their lines and kept looking to Mr. Miles for assistance. I couldn’t help but notice Mr. Miles glance down in my direction a few times during rehearsal. He seemed to do so every time the slacker screwed up a line. It was almost as if he was upset with me for having bailed on him. Whenever I felt his gaze, I conveniently looked the other way.

  As I sat and watched everyone onstage, as well as the other understudies, I started to feel a little guilty. They were all taking it a lot more seriously than I was. I began to read through my copy of the script. Although my heart wasn’t in it, I decided that I owed it to Mr. Miles to memorize all of the Nick Dakota lines. I knew that it was a long shot that I would actually have a chance to play the character onstage, but I wanted to be ready in an emergency. Mr. Miles had done me a real favor by allowing me to remain involved in the production and to have the flexibility of occasionally missing practice to run the business. Learning my lines was the least I could do.

  Every time I heard the slacker speak, I cringed. I guess there’s a certain amount of truth to the old adage: you don’t miss something until you lose it. It was painful not only to hear him butcher his lines, but to watch Scarlett and Patrick share a scene—a scene that was intended for me. I was feeling sorry for myself and I didn’t like the feeling. I was convinced that I had made a well thought-out decision to give up the role of leading man in order to continue my P.I. business, but that didn’t make it any easier. I knew the consequences going in. I knew there was a chance that I might regret my decision, but I had done so with my eyes wide open.

  Henry, as promised, was on his game. Not only had he managed to remember all of his lines, but he delivered them flawlessly and with passion. I noticed a smile on Mr. Miles’s face each time Henry’s character lit into Rebecca. The tension even heightened Scarlett’s performance. At one point, she got so upset with something that Henry had said that she reached out and shoved him. All the other actors stopped to watch.

  “Hey, she can’t do that,” Henry yelled out loud
enough for Mr. Miles to hear.

  The aging director shuffled over. He appeared as though he was about to reprimand Scarlett, but instead he stopped and smiled.

  “Scarlett, I like the way you reacted there. I should have anticipated the anger building in Rebecca’s character. It makes perfect sense for her to lash out at the police detective. Good job.” He pulled a pencil from his pocket and began jotting something on the script. “Let’s make that a permanent part of the scene.”

  Henry looked at me and rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Scarlett, on the other hand, grinned, flicked her hair, and walked away. She was enjoying a rather decisive victory.

  The next several minutes of action paled in comparison to the Henry-Scarlett confrontation. Mr. Miles decided that the members of the cast needed to work on their enunciation, and so he had them begin a series of breathing and speaking exercises. I kept glancing at the clock on the far wall. I never realized just how boring play practice could be when you were a spectator instead of a participant. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could just sit there. My mind began wandering. I thought about—who else—Sam Solomon, and a time when he was forced to spend hours just waiting for something to happen.

  It was Episode #48—The Wading Game Caper. Sam had been hired by the Treasury Department to assist federal agents off the coast of a remote beach in Miami in December 1938. Even though it was five years after the repeal of Prohibition, smuggling was still alive and well. Prohibition, as I learned from the book, was the legal ban on the manufacture and sale of alcohol. It ran from 1920 until 1933. So, to avoid paying liquor taxes to the IRS, rumrunners, as they were called, would illegally transport alcohol from the Caribbean into the United States. At one juncture in the investigation, Sam found himself in waist-deep water for hours one night, hidden behind a buoy, just waiting for smugglers to show themselves. The veteran P.I. managed to avoid a shark attack and near hypothermia. But the worst part of the ordeal, according to Sam, was “the endless waiting.” And so if Sam could sit or, rather, wade, patiently for hours on end in dangerous waters, then I certainly had nothing to complain about.