The Copycat Caper

by John V. Madormo

  CHAPTER 13

  The Pier Pressure Caper

  At school on Thursday, I tried to play the role of peacemaker between Henry and Scarlett. It was no use. The two of them refused to meet up on the playground to hash this thing out before school. I did manage to corner them in the cafeteria during lunch, though. But that turned out to be fairly unproductive and downright painful. They spent the entire time lashing out at me. It was like two prizefighters pounding on the referee. Between periods that afternoon, I tried to change the subject and attempted to discuss the current crime wave with Henry. But he would have none of it. All he wanted to talk about was Scarlett and how we should unceremoniously boot her out of the agency. That would never happen as long as my name was on the door. I made that crystal clear to him. And, as you might guess, we didn’t speak for the remainder of the day. I didn’t have a chance to talk to either of them after school. I decided to take advantage of my deal with Mr. Miles and opt out of play practice to man the agency for a couple of hours.

  By the time Friday morning rolled around, we had made little progress. Before the bell rang, I was determined to get Henry and Scarlett to agree to a truce of some kind. We had work to do, and these petty arguments were getting in the way. On the bus ride to school, I made sure that the conversation centered around anything but the ongoing feud. I didn’t want Henry to get himself worked up again. It was best to keep his mind on non-controversial issues.

  When the bus pulled up in front of school, I hopped off as if everything was normal. I scanned the playground for any sign of Scarlett. I was determined to resolve this conflict if it killed me. A minute or so later, I spotted her mom’s car. I waited for her to make her way to a group of friends before taking action. I started up a conversation with Henry and then slowly began leading him in Scarlett’s direction. The combatants were now only a few feet away when I made my move.

  “Scarlett,” I called out. “Do you have a minute?”

  “This is my cue to leave,” Henry said.

  But before he could exit, I grabbed him by the arm. “You’re not going anywhere,” I said. “Not until we make peace.”

  Scarlett had reluctantly drifted over. “What do you want?”

  I wasn’t quite sure who she was talking to. I was hoping it was Henry. But then again, it could have been me. She was still upset with the fact that I had bowed out of the leading man role in the play and stuck her with the slacker.

  “We’re not going into that building,” I said, pointing to school, “until we resolve our differences. This is getting ridiculous. We’re a team, but we’re sure not acting like one.”

  “She hit me the other day at practice,” Henry said. “I’m supposed to ignore that?”

  “I barely touched you,” she said.

  I held up my arms. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a repeat of the alleged assault.

  “Henry, no offense,” I said, “but you had it coming. You’re taking the role of this police detective way too seriously. You’re making it personal.”

  Henry folded his arms. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “And I was just doing mine,” Scarlett replied. “You heard what Mr. Miles said. He liked it. And now I get to shove you at every practice. So get used to it.”

  “Listen to her, Charlie,” Henry said. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

  My goal was to settle this dispute before the bell rang. I knew that I had less than a minute. And by the way things were going, I wasn’t anticipating a successful conclusion. With tensions at an all-time high, we could easily spend the next couple of hours trading jabs and accomplishing nothing. I needed to exercise my authority. It was my agency. I was prepared to issue an edict. They could follow it or they could walk. It was risky, and I knew it. But I had no intentions of wasting valuable time having to break up these petty skirmishes.

  “Listen, guys, you are both bona fide members of the Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire Agency. You both make valuable contributions to the business. I can’t imagine walking into that garage and not having each of you by my side. But this bickering has to stop . . . now.” I waited for one of them to present a defense, but there was none, so I continued. “My parents are going out to dinner tomorrow night. They should be gone at least a couple of hours. The agency doors will be open from six to eight P.M. I want both of you in attendance. Make whatever excuses you need to in order to be there. If a few walk-ins show up, then fine. If not, we’ll lay out our strategy on how to solve this Sam Solomon radio drama caper.”

  “What Sam Solomon caper?” Scarlett asked.

  “And that’s precisely why you need to be there,” I said. “I’ll explain everything tomorrow night.” I stared at both of them. “Remember . . . this feud stops here. Period.”

  It was almost as if I had scripted it. A half second after the final word left my mouth, the bell rang. It provided the perfect exclamation point. I walked past my associates and into school with my head held high. I had no idea how they would react. I didn’t know if either would bother to show up tomorrow. I might discover that I was now a member of a one-man agency. If that was the way it had to be, then so be it. I had said my piece. I could only hope that I had knocked some sense into both Henry and Scarlett. It was now up to them.

  The remainder of the day was quiet. Although we bumped into each other a few times, no words were exchanged. Either I had gotten my point across and they were willing to comply with my wishes or they were giving me the silent treatment right before jumping ship. Since I planned to skip play practice for a second straight day, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t know where things stood for the better part of twenty-four hours. And that was fine. Whatever happened . . . happened. Now on to more pleasant things. It was at least nice to end the day with Mrs. Jansen’s science class.

  “Okay, quiet down, everyone,” she said. “You don’t want to be late for our trip, do you?”

  “What trip?” Sherman said.

  “Our trip to outer space,” she said.

  Heads turned, and smiles soon appeared on many faces in the room. Activities like this were what made this such a great class.

  “Let’s turn the clock ahead seventy-five years,” she said, “to a time when space exploration is as common as driving to the grocery store.”

  She immediately got our attention with that statement.

  “You’ve all booked passage for a trip to Neptune.”

  There were a few oohs and aahs in class.

  “Here’s the premise. All of you are really excited about the journey,” she continued, “because you’ll be the first group to visit a new colony that’s been established on the planet. You’re not quite sure what you’ll find when you get there. So . . . you load up, blast off, and after several days of travel, you land safely. When you look out the window, you’re amazed. You notice that the planet resembles Earth, but with a few differences.” Mrs. Jansen paused for effect. “Before you disembark, there’s something you should know—colors on Neptune are somewhat different than what you find on earth. For example—snow is red . . . grass is black . . . the sky is brown . . . soot is green . . . and blood is white.”

  We were all confused, but hooked.

  “Now based on that color scheme,” Mrs. Jansen said, “who can tell me what the color of dirt is on Neptune?”

  Patrick Walsh, the slacker, who just happened to be in class that day, raised his hand.

  “Yes, Patrick.”

  “How can you possibly tell what color it is without seeing it?” he said. “It could be any color.”

  Mrs. Jansen smiled. “You have all the information you need to figure it out. Think about what I just said: snow is red . . . grass is black . . . the sky is brown . . . soot is green . . . and blood is white.”

  Henry raised his hand.

  “Yes, Henry?”

  “Would you mind writing those d
own on the board?” he said. “It’s hard to remember them.”

  “Certainly.” Mrs. Jansen grabbed a piece of chalk and began writing.

  Snow = red

  Grass = black

  Sky = brown

  Soot = green

  Blood = white

  Dirt = ?

  Scarlett’s hand went up.

  Mrs. Jansen nodded in her direction.

  “Can you at least tell us if this is a science question or just some trick question?”

  “Then I’d be giving it away,” Mrs. Jansen said. She pointed to the board. “Look carefully at what I’ve written down. See if you can make any sense out of it. It may seem that colors appear in a random fashion, but there’s a pattern.”

  That was it. That was the giveaway. Within seconds I had the answer. I almost wished she hadn’t given us a hint. I always liked to tackle a brain buster in its purest form, without any help. For the next few minutes, a handful of kids made some wild guesses. None were correct.

  “Is there anyone else who wants to take a shot at this?” she said.

  There was no response.

  “Charlie,” Mrs. Jansen said, “any help here, or have we stumped you too?”

  I rose from my chair ever so slowly. I didn’t want to seem overanxious. I wanted it to look more like I had been drafted. I just stood there. I decided to wait for another nudge.

  “So, Charlie, what do you think?”

  “Well,” I said, “you kind of gave it away when you told us there was a pattern. I immediately began looking at the odd color scheme and then I started assigning the correct colors. I made it a point to notice what items were what colors, and then I saw the pattern. I started with snow is red. So I looked for the correct answer—white. And you had blood is white. I realized then that those two were a pair and that you had just switched their colors. I did the same thing with grass is black and soot is green. I simply swapped them to make the corrections. And so that meant that sky and dirt had to be the last pair. So if the sky is brown . . . then dirt has to be . . . blue.”

  Mrs. Jansen smiled. “Well done, as always,” she said.

  “I was going to say that,” Stephanie said.

  “Well, Stephanie, I’m afraid you’ll just have to be a little quicker in order to beat our resident brainteaser master,” Mrs. Jansen said.

  I appreciated the kudos, but I never liked it when a teacher singled me out. As much as I loved hearing the comments, I kind of wished teachers would just say those things when we were alone. I was fairly certain that other classmates accepted the fact that I was pretty smart. It was just that I wanted them to think of me as popular as well. I wasn’t sure if that would ever happen.

  • • •

  I did my best to kill time on Saturday just waiting for my parents to leave. I waved good-bye to them as they pulled out of the garage and left for their dinner engagement. Since it was the weekend, I knew that they wouldn’t be in a rush to get home. As the overhead door closed, I began setting up the card table and chairs for a night of mystery. I was looking forward to a couple of hours of prime agency time. Although Gram was still home, she rarely bothered us in the middle of a client session. She’d probably just watch TV or read or something. I finished setting things up and then slipped on my trench coat and fedora. I wanted to look the part if a client appeared.

  I glanced at my watch. It was 6:05. I wondered if Henry or Scarlett would bother showing up. I didn’t like the fact that I had lashed out at my associates. It wasn’t good for morale. It reminded me of a time when Sam Solomon had done the exact same thing. It was Episode #55—The Pier Pressure Caper.

  Sam had been hired by a wealthy businessman who operated a fleet of deep-sea fishing boats at the Clearwater Beach Marina on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Someone apparently had been sneaking onto the pier each evening and vandalizing the boats—so severely that they were no longer seaworthy. The company was forced to cancel a number of charters and was soon bleeding financially. The owner suspected a captain who had recently been fired for insubordination, but he had no proof. Sam knew that in order to keep an eye on more than twenty vessels, he needed to hire several freelance private investigators. A week later, with surveillance crews in place, four more boats had been damaged, and they were no closer to identifying a suspect. So Sam decided to check up on his new recruits one night. To his surprise and disappointment, he found most of them asleep. Sam, as you might guess, confronted his troops and read them the riot act. He never liked playing the bad cop, but this group was cheating the client. A day following his tirade, the recently fired captain was caught in the act and handed over to authorities. Laying down the law had worked for Sam. I could only hope it would work for me.

  By six fifteen I was fairly certain that I’d be running the agency solo for the rest of the night. That was fine. It was usually up to me to solve the clients’ problems anyway, so it really didn’t matter. If someone did walk through that door, however, there was something I wasn’t looking forward to—collecting a fee for services rendered. That was Henry’s territory, and he seemed to enjoy it. I would just have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

  Five or so minutes later, there was a soft knock at the door. When I opened it, I had to smile. It seemed that I hadn’t frightened them away after all. Henry and Scarlett stood in the doorway. I was kind of surprised to see them together.

  “Well, I’m glad you guys decided to show up,” I said. “Come on in.”

  Henry stepped back and let Scarlett enter first.

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. What the heck was going on here? Was I dreaming? The same two people who couldn’t stand to be in the same room together for more than a minute were actually being civil to each other.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Henry said.

  “You and Scarlett. You’re . . . you’re . . . you’re getting along. What happened?”

  Scarlett folded her arms. “Don’t get carried away. I wouldn’t call it getting along.”

  “Yeah, it’s more like . . .” Henry paused. “It’s more like we’re doing our best to tolerate each other.”

  I had to know what brought about this truce. “So, how’d this all happen?”

  Scarlett sat down on one of the lawn chairs. “We bumped into each other on the way over here, and we got to talking,” she said. “We were both thinking about what you said yesterday on the playground. You weren’t very nice to us, you know.”

  “I did it for a reason,” I said.

  “And you were right,” Henry said. “We’ve finally come to our senses. For the longest time, we’ve been acting like a couple of kids. We decided it was time to bury the hatchet.”

  “Really?” I said.

  Henry laughed. “Yeah, right. Get serious. That’s never gonna happen. This is a business decision, pure and simple.”

  “We just figured out that if we all worked together, we’d make a pretty awesome team,” Scarlett said. “But if we kept fighting, it would be counter-productive . . . and it wouldn’t be fair to a potential client.”

  “A potential paying client,” Henry added. “The better we got along . . . the more effective we’d be . . . the more clients we could take on . . . and the more money we’d make. Get it?”

  Scarlett frowned. “It has nothing to do with money. It has to do with being more efficient and helping out more people.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had actually gotten through to them. I had done it. Just like Sam had done in The Pier Pressure Caper. The feud was over—well, sort of. And to be perfectly honest, it really didn’t matter to me if it was for the good of humanity or pure greed. We were a team again, and that’s all that mattered.

  “So, now what?” I said.

  “Well, didn’t you w
ant to bring Scarlett up to speed on this Sam Solomon caper?” Henry said.

  “Oh yeah, right.” I spent the next ten minutes or so explaining everything about the case. I had just about finished when we heard a sound outside. Someone—perhaps our next client—was about to walk through the door. I’d have to finish updating Scarlett another time. This was far more important. We were about to help our fellow man. A moment later, however, our worst fears were realized.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Pitcher Frame Caper

  What followed was the familiar and painful sound of grinding gears. The overhead garage door was opening.

  “It’s my parents,” I yelled. “What are they doing here?”

  Scarlett froze. Henry immediately began folding up lawn chairs.

  “We’ll never make it,” I said. I had to think quickly. I somehow had to convince my parents that we were in the garage for anything but a client meeting. But what? What would the three of us possibly be doing here? And then just as I caught a glimpse of the headlights, I had it. I discretely tore off some pages from my notepad and handed one to each of the others.

  “What’s this for?” Henry said.

  “We’re rehearsing.”

  “For what?” he said.

  “The play, dummy,” Scarlett snapped.

  As soon as my dad spotted us, he hit the brakes. Through the windshield, I could see the looks on their faces. It was somewhere between surprise and disgust. I needed to douse this fire as quickly as possible. I jogged over to the passenger side of the van just as my mom’s window was sliding down.