The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 3

by Roy MacGregor

  “The blowfish wasn’t meant for the mayor,” said Data. “Whoever the murderer is, he wanted to kill Mr. Ikura.”

  They stared at the machine on “pause,” nothing moving on the screen, but images racing in their minds.

  Data was right. If it hadn’t been for the switching of places, the mayor would have been one seat over.

  Someone must have brought the blowfish out to a designated spot at the head table, the place where Mr. Ikura was supposed to be sitting.

  The waiter? Is that why he ran–because he’d realized the mistake too late?

  And is that why Eyebrows was up to no good at Mr. Ikura’s ski hill?

  “We better take this to Mr. Dillinger,” said Sarah. “He’ll want the police to see this.”

  The police arrived within five minutes of Mr. Dillinger’s call. They brought translators, and they even had a precision video player that could freeze a single frame of tape so that it looked like a sharp, crystal-clear photograph. Travis couldn’t believe how efficient they were.

  Nish was in his glory, bowing left and right to every Japanese person who looked like he or she might be even remotely connected to the investigation. He acted as if he alone had solved the crime–even if, so far, no crime at all had been solved.

  The police interviewed Muck about the switch in places at the head table. They brought in Sho Fujiwara and interviewed him separately, and then Sho and Muck together. They interviewed Data alone, Travis alone, Nish alone, Sarah alone, and then talked to them in a group. Nish was taken to a special investigative van that had pulled up outside the Olympic Village and was asked to look at possible suspects on a computer screen. He claimed he had found Eyebrows within a matter of minutes. The police packed up and left. They made no mention of what they were going to do. No hint of what might happen now. Nothing.

  Six hours later, they were back–with the full story.

  The man the Owls called Eyebrows–“I identified him,” bragged Nish–was a well-known yakuza, a Japanese gangster. “Yakuza means good for nothing,” explained Sho Fujiwara, who was also called back for the meeting with the police. “We have bad people here in Japan, too.”

  Eyebrows had been hired to do the murder. But the mayor of Nagano was never intended to be the victim. The man they wanted to kill was Mr. Ikura, the owner of the ski hill. The blowfish plot had, apparently, been Eyebrows’ idea, and he had botched it so badly–dressing up like a waiter and serving the poisonous dish to the wrong person at the head table–that he’d been scrambling to make up for it ever since.

  The avalanche was also Eyebrows’ idea. He was worried that the very thugs who had hired him might now want to kill him for botching the job, so he’d tried to frighten Mr. Ikura into selling off.

  That turned out to be a huge mistake, and a key break in the case for the police. Mr. Ikura had been under enormous pressure to sell to a corporation, but had refused to do so. This company had plans to turn the site of the Olympic skiing and snowboarding competitions into a major international tourist complex for the very rich, complete with a huge chalet development, that would have closed off the hill to the likes of the Owls and the people of Nagano. Mr. Ikura could have made millions by selling, but chose not to.

  He was saying no to the wrong people, apparently. When they couldn’t convince him to sell, they hired Eyebrows to kill him, believing that Mr. Ikura’s heirs would quickly agree to the sale.

  If the death looked accidental, no one would ever connect it with the sale. Eyebrows’ idea was that the blowfish poisoning would look like a heart attack. But when he accidentally killed the mayor of Nagano, he aroused the police’s suspicions. The sudden death of a well-known politician could not go uninvestigated, and the police had ordered an autopsy that discovered the blowfish.

  Even so, there was still nothing to throw suspicion on the big corporation and its plans for Mr. Ikura’s ski lodge. It wasn’t until the avalanche that the pieces of the puzzle finally started to fall into place. First, the avalanche was out of season, and while looking for the cause they had found the dynamite caps not far from where they figured the slide had started.

  The final, essential, clue was Data’s video. It not only placed Eyebrows at both the banquet and the ski hill–with no real proof of wrongdoing, the police pointed out–it also showed the switch of places at the head table.

  Once the police knew that the intended victim had been Mr. Ikura, and that the avalanche had been deliberate, they quickly came up with a pretty good idea of what had happened.

  Data’s tape had also helped the police track down Eyebrows’ accomplice. The man helping Eyebrows unload the snowmobile and sled from the Toyota 4x4 had cracked almost immediately. He hadn’t even known what Eyebrows had in the sled. And once he realized he was caught up in a murder, he told them everything he knew–including where to find Eyebrows.

  “He’s in jail right now,” Sho told the Owls. “And he’ll probably spend the rest of his life there.

  “The City of Nagano–all Japan, for that matter–is deeply indebted to you, Mr. Data. We thank you and your friends.”

  Data was a hero. The newspapers came to do stories on him. Television stations came to interview him.

  “I identified the guy,” Nish told each and every one of the reporters as they and their film crews arrived at the Olympic Village.

  But no one was interested in Nish. The hockey player in the wheelchair–the master sleuth, the Canadian Sherlock Holmes–was the biggest story in Japan. Next to Anne of Green Gables, he was, for a few days, the most-beloved young Canadian in all of Japan.

  “I identified the guy,” Nish kept saying.

  Sarah was first in the Big Hat dressing room. When Travis made his way in, he could tell at once that she was pumped for the championship game against the Lake Placid Olympians. Her eyes seemed on fire.

  “One for each of you,” she said as she handed each arriving player a small plastic package.

  “Hide them until I give the signal.”

  Nish, as always, was last into the room, dragging and pushing and half kicking his hockey bag. He dropped his sticks against the wall, letting them fall against the others that had been set there so carefully and sending them crashing to the floor like falling dominoes.

  No one said a word. Nish looked around at them, seemingly disappointed that no one had noticed him.

  He had an open can of Sweat and took a huge slug of it before he sat down, burping loudly as the gas backed up in his throat.

  Even with your eyes shut, Travis thought to himself, you would know when Nish had arrived in a hockey dressing room. The crashing sticks. The dragging bag on the floor. The burping. The long, lazy zip of the hockey bag, and the terrible sweaty odour that rose up from inside. The rest of the Owls had given up asking him to wash his equipment. “Sweat is my good-luck charm,” he said. “Smell bad, play good.”

  Nish took off his jacket and shirt, stood up, burped again, and walked to the end of the dressing room, where he slammed the washroom door: part of his hockey ritual, as certain as fresh tape on his stick, as sure as the drop of the puck.

  “Now!” Sarah hissed.

  Everyone dipped into the little packages she had handed out. Some began giggling when they saw what it was that Sarah had brought for them. They had to move quickly.

  The toilet flushed, and from behind the closed door Nish groaned with the exaggerated satisfaction he always displayed at this moment.

  The door banged open, Nish pumping a fist in the air–and then he saw the Owls.

  Sarah had issued each team member a face mask, the kind the Japanese wore to keep out pollution. They were all wearing them, all sitting in their stalls, staring at Nish over the white gauze that covered their noses and mouths.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nish said.

  “Think about it,” Sarah said, her voice muffled.

  Muck came in pushing Data. Data started giggling when he saw the masks, but Muck said nothing. Nothing ever se
emed to surprise Muck, thought Travis. Not even Nish.

  Mr. Dillinger came in and did a double take at the kids in their masks, but he, too, said nothing. He went about his business, filling the water bottles, getting the tape ready, making sure there were pucks for the warm-up.

  Sarah removed her mask and the others followed. Muck waited until everyone was ready, their minds back on the game.

  “The rink is full,” said Muck. “The whole town came out to cheer Data–that’s what I think–but they deserve to see some good North American hockey, too. If hockey’s going to take off in this country, they’re going to have to see what a great game it can be.

  “I want a clean game. I want a good game. I want these people to know how much we appreciate them coming out to watch.”

  The door opened again and Mr. Imoo popped his head in. He was grinning ear to ear, the gap in his teeth almost exactly the width of a puck.

  “Good show today, Owls,” he said.

  Mr. Imoo turned to his prize pupil, Nish, who was beaming.

  “Nish,” he said. “I think you’re ready.”

  Travis looked at Muck, who cocked an eyebrow. What did Muck think? Travis wondered. That Mr. Imoo thought Nish was “ready” to play goal? Not likely, not against the Lake Placid Olympians, that was for sure.

  Travis glanced over at Nish, who seemed to have assumed a new, calm look. It was no longer the Nish who was always desperate to be the centre of attention. It was a Nish filled with poise and confidence.

  Travis couldn’t help it: he wished Nish wasn’t playing goal. They would need him on defence, and even if Muck never put him in, Nish wouldn’t be much use to the Owls sitting at the end of the bench.

  But he also knew there was no choice. Tournament rules were rules: they had to have a second goalie. If only Jeremy had been able to come. He hoped Jenny was going to have a good game.

  “Okay?” Muck said. He was staring at Travis.

  Travis understood the signal. As captain, he was to lead them out onto the ice.

  “Let’s go!” Travis shouted, standing up and yanking on his helmet.

  “Screech Owls!” Sarah called as she stood.

  “Let’s do it!” called Lars.

  “Owls!”

  “Owls!”

  “Owls!”

  Travis had never been in such a game!

  He had played in front of large crowds before–larger even than this one, which filled Big Hat–but never in front of a crowd that cheered every single thing that happened.

  The biggest cheer, so far, had been when the crowd had first noticed Data coming out onto the ice, pushed by Mr. Dillinger. They had risen to their feet in a long standing ovation. Data had waved and smiled and probably wished it would be over with, but Travis knew how much this meant to his friend. The Japanese were all grateful for what he had done.

  He had heard crowds cheer and boo before, but never one that seemed to find no fault with anything. They played no favourites. They did not boo the referee or the linesmen. They cheered the goals and the saves equally. They were cheering, he supposed, for hockey.

  And the hockey was fantastic. The Screech Owls and the Lake Placid Olympians were evenly matched. Jenny was outstanding in the Owls’ goal, but so, too, was the little guy playing net for the Olympians. He had an unbelievable glove hand, and had twice robbed Dmitri on clean breakaways, the Screech Owls forward going both times to his special backhand move that almost always meant the goaltender’s water bottle flying off the top of the net and a Screech Owls goal.

  Muck was matching lines with the Lake Placid coach, and he seemed to be enjoying the game as much as anyone. Mr. Dillinger was handling the defence door and Data the forwards’, so every time Travis came off or went on, he felt Data pat him as he passed.

  Sarah’s line was on against the top Olympians’ line–Sarah the playmaker matched with Lake Placid’s top playmaker, a big, lanky kid with such a long reach no one seemed capable of checking him. The big playmaker had two good wingers, too, which meant that Travis had to pay far more attention to defence than offence.

  Muck wanted them to shut down the big Lake Placid line. It made sense. Sarah was the best checker on the team, by far, when she put her mind to it–and when Sarah was sent out in a checking role, she seemed to take as much pride in stopping goals as she did in making them happen.

  The Owls scored first when Andy’s line got a lucky bounce at the blueline. The puck hit some bad ice as it was sent back for a point shot and bounced over the defenceman’s stick and out to centre. Andy, with his long stride, got the jump on both defence and broke in alone. The Lake Placid goaltender made a wonderful stop on Andy, stacking his pads as Andy tried to pull him out and dump it into the far side, but the rebound went straight to little Simon Milliken, who found he had an empty net staring at him.

  Two minutes later, the game was tied up. The big Lake Placid playmaker went end to end, losing Sarah on a twisting play at his own blueline and faking Wilson brilliantly as he broke in. The big Olympian dumped the puck in a saucer pass to one side of Wilson and curled around him on the other side, picking up his own pass to come in alone on Jenny. Two big fakes, and Jenny was sprawled out of the position and the puck was in the back of the net.

  Between the first and second period, Muck told Sarah to step it up. “You’re taking your checking too seriously,” he told her. “If you have the puck, he can’t have it.”

  Sarah knew what Muck meant. Her line started the second period, and she snicked the puck out of the air as it fell, sending it back to Wilson.

  Dmitri broke hard for the far blueline, cutting toward centre.

  Wilson hit him perfectly. Dmitri took the pass and sent it back between his own legs to Travis, who stepped into it as he crossed the blueline.

  Sarah was slapping the ice with her stick. Travis didn’t even look. He flipped the puck into empty space, knowing she would be there in an instant–and she was.

  Sarah was in free. The goaltender began backing up, preparing for a fake, but she shot almost at once, completely fooling the goalie and finding the net just over his left shoulder.

  “That’s more like it,” Muck said when Sarah and Travis got back to the bench. He put a big hand on each player’s neck as they gathered their breath. Travis liked nothing better in the world than to feel Muck do that. The coach didn’t even think about it, probably, but it meant everything.

  Andy then scored on a pretty play, sent in by Simon on a neat pass when Simon was falling with the puck. Andy went to his backhand and slipped the shot low through the sharp little goalie’s pads.

  Into the third period, the Olympians began to press.

  The big playmaker came straight up centre and swept around Sarah, who dived after him, her stick accidentally sweeping away his skates.

  The referee’s whistle blew.

  Travis cringed. The Owls could hardly afford to lose their best player just now. But Sarah was going off. The referee signalled “tripping” to the timekeeper, the penalty door box swung open, and Sarah, slamming her stick once in anger at herself, headed for it.

  The crowd cheered politely. Travis giggled. He couldn’t help himself.

  The Olympians needed only one shot to score on the power play. It came in from the point, and Jenny had it all the way, but just at the last moment the big Lake Placid playmaker reached his stick blade out just enough to tick the puck, and it changed direction and flipped over her outstretched pad.

  Screech Owls 3, Olympians 2.

  The Lake Placid team started to press even harder. Travis wondered if they could hold them back. If only they had Nish on the ice. If only Nish wasn’t sitting there, on the end of the bench, in his goalie gear…

  The Olympians’ strategy was to crash the net, hoping to set up shots from the point like the one that had gone in on the power play. When the defence shot, the forwards tried to screen Jenny in front, attempting either to tip another shot or allow one to slip through without Jenny seeing it comi
ng.

  The game was getting rough, but the referee was calling nothing.

  The right defenceman had the puck, and Travis dived to block the shot, shutting his eyes instinctively as he hit the ice.

  He waited for the puck to crash into him–but nothing happened. When he opened his eyes, he saw the defenceman deftly step around him, closing in even tighter for the shot.

  The defenceman took a mighty slapshot. Jenny’s glove hand snaked out. She had it!

  But then the big playmaker crashed into her.

  They hit, and Jenny gave, flying toward the corner, the big playmaker going with her and crashing hard on top of her into the boards.

  The whistle blew.

  Mr. Dillinger was already over the boards, racing and slipping on the ice, a towel in one hand.

  Jenny was groaning. She was moving her legs but still flat on her back, the air knocked out of her.

  “No penalty?” Jenny was asking the referee.

  The referee was shaking his head. “Your own man hit him into her,” the referee said.

  The referee was pointing at Wilson. Wilson didn’t argue. It was true. He had been trying to clear the big playmaker out from in front of the net, and he had put his shoulder into him just when Jenny made her spectacular save.

  Travis glided in closer to Jenny. He was exhausted, his breath coming in huge gulps. He knew that this time, this game, he was covered in sweat.

  Mr. Dillinger was leaning over Jenny.

  He looked up, catching the referee’s eye.

  “Just the wind knocked out,” he said. “But she’s hurt her arm, too.”

  “You’ll have to replace her,” said the referee. “We have to get this game in.”

  Mr. Dillinger winced.

  Travis winced.

  If Jenny couldn’t play, that meant only one thing.

  Nish was going in!

  Jenny was up and holding her arm cautiously. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, but whether that was from the pain or the fact that she couldn’t go on, Travis couldn’t say.