The Camp Phoenix Caper

by John V. Madormo

  What a day. I was on top of the world. It felt so good to have figured things out. Whenever I managed to solve a case—even partially—it confirmed for me that I was destined to do this for the rest of my life. Running my own detective agency—for real—was a long way off, but I knew it was in my future. I wasn’t even in high school yet, but I already knew what I’d study in college. I’d major in criminal justice. And I’d double minor in sociology and psychology. It was best to know what made people tick.

  Eugene dropped us off about a block from my house. We thought it might be best. We didn’t want my parents wondering about where Eugene had taken us. They trusted him and all, but they still would have been curious as to where we had been. As we piled out of Eugene’s car, he stuck his head out the driver’s-side window.

  “Nice doing business with you today,” he said. “And if you need any more help, you know where to come.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver, Eugene.”

  We waved as he drove off.

  “It’s getting late,” Scarlett said. “I’d better get going.”

  “So what’s next?” Henry said.

  “How does your schedule look tomorrow?” I asked.

  Scarlett, with cell phone in hand, was busily texting. “Huh?”

  “Tomorrow? Are you free tomorrow?” I said.

  “Sorry, can’t do it,” she said.

  “I’m out too, Charlie,” Henry said. “My mom’s having people over for a big Sunday dinner. I can’t get out of it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll talk Monday at school, then. Good work, guys.”

  And with that, we each went our separate ways. As I walked home, I held my head up high. I was feeling pretty good right then. There was nothing in the world like it—when everything fell neatly into place. I recalled the moment that Sam Solomon finally put all of the puzzle pieces together in Episode #23—The Uncivil Marriage Caper.

  This was the story of a devious group of beautiful but greedy housewives—or rather gold diggers, to be more precise—who banded together to frame their wealthy husbands for crimes that the wives had actually committed. When each husband was tried, found guilty, and sent to prison, the wives divvied up his fortune. Sam had been baffled by this caper for weeks, but when he was finally able to secure one valuable piece of evidence, he was suddenly able to see the big picture. Things had clicked for Sam the same way they had clicked for me moments ago. As for Sam’s case—it wasn’t long before he helped police corral this den of dangerous dames.

  I spent the better part of Sunday in my room. Since it rained most of the day, I didn’t feel as though I was missing anything. It would provide some valuable time to plan out our strategy for the case. We knew one thing for sure—we would contact Camp Phoenix tomorrow and find out whether or not our hypothesis was correct. Everything pointed to Josh being at the camp. We would soon confirm it. I sat back in my chair with my feet up on the desk. If I had allowed myself to, I could easily have dozed off. But I fought it. I wanted to come away from this weekend with even more information than we had discovered yesterday. I knew that I was being greedy. I should have been thrilled with the fact that we had determined where Josh might be, but I kept telling myself that if I had figured out that much, then I might be able to uncover even more evidence before I met up with Henry and Scarlett at school the next day.

  I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and tried to make something pop into my head. No matter how hard I squeezed, nothing would happen. I even tried holding my breath. After a few minutes, just when I was about to surrender, I suddenly sat up. My feet fell to the floor with a thud. Something had popped into my head. I remembered how I had felt yesterday when I figured out that Josh was being held at Camp Phoenix. It was the teenager with the limp at the press conference that gave him away. But what about the other time I had seen a kid hobbling around? A couple of days ago—on the news—I saw security camera footage of a teenage boy limping out of the fur store. And Gram said that he looked like the same kid she had seen in the beauty parlor when it was robbed.

  Could it be a coincidence that there were two teenagers out there with bum legs? It had to be. Could the kid on the news and the one at the beauty parlor be one and the same? It was possible, but it couldn’t have been Josh. There was no evidence to support it. And on top of that, the timing was impossible. Josh was arrested three or so weeks ago, and the cops had lost him a few hours later. If we were right—and he had been taken to Camp Phoenix that same day—then how could he have gotten out to pull off those heists? And why would he possibly have done so? I didn’t know Josh particularly well, but from all accounts, he was basically an honest kid. He’d get a little carried away sometimes defending one of his causes, but he wasn’t a thief. I had to dismiss the fact that Josh could have had anything to do with those robberies and instead assume it was another kid with a leg injury. That had to be it. At least, I hoped so.

  But the more I thought about it, the more worried I was that my theory might be wrong. What if Josh had never been taken to the camp in the first place? What if he had simply wandered away from the Clifton City police station and was miles from here, fighting for another cause somewhere? What if the kid at the press conference just happened to be someone else…someone else with a limp? What then? A moment ago, I was on top of the world. But now my case seemed to be crumbling before my eyes. If my assumptions were wrong, then this entire investigation had been a huge waste of time, and we’d have nothing to show for it. I was beginning to seriously doubt my theory.

  I decided that I needed some fresh air to think things through. As I made my way downstairs and into the living room, I found my dad with a bowl of potato chips filled to the brim along with a container of dip from the refrigerator. He was headed to his favorite easy chair in the corner of the room when something strange but fairly predictable occurred. Hiding in the front hall closet just a few feet away from her prey was Grandma. The closet door was slightly ajar. I could see that she was dressed in a referee’s outfit—black-and-white-striped shirt, black pants and shoes—and she wore a whistle around her neck.

  My initial instincts were to sneak past both of them and slip out, but like those people who stare at a wreck on the highway, I couldn’t help myself. Just as my dad was about to plop down into the chair and devour his feast, Grandma sprang from the closet with the whistle held firmly between her teeth. A shrill, piercing sound followed. As you might guess, both my dad’s bowl of chips and the dip were now airborne.

  “Offensive foul,” Grandma screamed.

  My dad, chips and dip in his hair, dropped his arms to his sides and let out a long sigh.

  “Are you happy now, Mom?” he said. “Is this the reaction you were hoping for?”

  “Don’t give me any lip, son, or I’ll hit you with a technical,” Grandma snapped.

  I knew that a smile was beginning to form on my face. I did my best to fight it. I pressed my lips together and looked away. But it was no use.

  “You think this is funny, Charlie?” my dad said.

  “No. Not at all,” I said. “I wasn’t laughing.” And then the worst-possible thing happened. I started laughing. And I just couldn’t stop.

  But before my dad could pass sentence on me, Grandma came to the rescue. She slapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the floor.

  “Clean this mess up,” she said. “How do you expect anyone to play on this floor with your garbage all over it?” As she walked away, she was still firing. “That’s what you get for letting the fans sit courtside.”

  With Grandma running interference, I decided to make a hasty exit. I slipped by the combatants and into the kitchen, headed for the back door. I could only hope that my dad wouldn’t reappear for a refill. I was just about to make my escape when I heard a sound coming from the hallway.

  “Pssst, Charlie.” It was my grandmother. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

  I tiptoed out of the kitchen, careful not to let my dad s
ee me fraternizing with the enemy, and snuck into Grandma’s room.

  “So, how are things going with your case?” she said.

  “A minute ago, I thought I had everything figured out, but now I just don’t know.”

  “Charlie, it’s normal to doubt yourself,” she said. “But you always seem to figure things out in the end. I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”

  “But Gram, you don’t understand. If our missing person isn’t where we think he is, then we’re back to square one. It’s as if we’ve accomplished nothing.”

  She smiled and motioned for me to follow her. “I’ve got just the thing for you.” She slid open the top drawer of her dresser, dug in, and emerged with what looked like some kind of little safe. “This is my strongbox,” she said. “I keep all my really important stuff in it.” There was a combination lock on the front of it. Grandma rubbed her fingers together and blew on them. She smiled as she spun the tumbler. She turned it left, right, and then left again. She tugged gently at the top of the box until there was a click. “I still got it,” she said as she lifted the top. She reached in, pulled out what looked like a credit card, and handed it to me.

  I immediately realized that this was no credit card. I spotted the words Office of Naval Intelligence along with its logo—the one with the eagle standing on top of an anchor. Then I noticed the name—Constance Collier.

  “Gram, this is awesome. This is your official Naval Intelligence ID card?”

  “One and the same,” she said. “This little card got me out of a lot of tough scrapes.”

  I couldn’t help but stare at it. “This card did? I don’t understand.”

  She sat down on the bed and motioned for me to join her. “Charlie, there were times—plenty of ’em—when I was on a case, trying to crack a code, and just couldn’t figure things out. Sound familiar?”

  I nodded.

  “I wondered if I was losing my touch—if maybe I wasn’t cut out for this job. And then I would reach into my pocket or my purse, pull out this card, and just stare at it.”

  “Did it help?”

  “I should say. When I saw my name…and that logo…it just made me think that there were people in Washington who were counting on me—people who had confidence in me and in my abilities to succeed. And then suddenly, I knew that no matter how baffling a case might be, I wouldn’t be holding a card like this unless I was capable of solving that problem. And I always did.”

  “Wow, I can’t tell you how many times I could have used a card like this,” I said.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she said.

  Gram placed the ID card back into her strongbox and locked it up. She slid the strongbox back into its hiding place and closed the drawer. She then opened another drawer, reached in, and lifted out a small cardboard box. She pulled off the top. Inside were dozens of little business cards. She lifted one out and handed it to me.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was staring at a genuine Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire business card.

  “It’s sensational,” I said. “You had these made up for me?”

  She nodded and grinned.

  My own official business card. I couldn’t believe it. I loved the design. The magnifying glass was a nice touch. There was no doubt about it—these cards would impress a lot of people. Just wait till Scarlett got a look at this. Then I noticed something at the bottom of the card.

  “What’s with the e-mail address?” I asked.

  “Well, I thought you needed an official-sounding e-mail address, so I secured the charliecolliersnoopforhire.com domain and added an e-mail to it.”

  “This is unbelievable,” I said. “Hey, does this mean that we have our own website too?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Nothing on it yet, but you kids should have fun designing it.”

  “Henry is gonna love this. He makes fun of me all the time ’cause I like doing things the old-fashioned way—the way Sam Solomon did things. But maybe it’s time to modernize the agency a little bit.”

  Gram snapped her fingers. She had apparently just remembered something. “Speaking of Henry—and Scarlett—get a load of these.” She pulled out two more boxes and opened them. She not only had gotten me a box of official business cards, but she had done the same for Henry and Scarlett.

  “Oh, man, wait until they see these. They’re gonna flip.”

  “It wouldn’t be right for only one of you to have your own calling card,” she said. “You guys are a team.”

  I just kept staring at the new cards. They were so awesome.

  “You know,” Gram said, “I wanted to put a phone number on that card for you, but I knew your folks wouldn’t let you have a cell phone—and I didn’t think it would be a very good idea to put the home phone on there…if you know what I mean.”

  “Gram, this is perfect just the way it is. I’m going to put this card in my pocket, and when I doubt my abilities to solve a case, I’ll just pull it out, and I know that it’ll inspire me the same way your card inspired you.”

  “Not so fast,” she said. Gram lifted the new business cards out of the box, fished out one that was sitting on the bottom, and handed it to me. “Here’s the one to keep in your pocket.” It was the same card as the earlier one, but this one was sealed in plastic—hard plastic. “I got this one laminated so it’d hold up better.”

  Since Gram and I were the only ones in the room and I didn’t have to worry about damaging my reputation, I threw my arms around her.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” I said.

  “You just be the best detective you can be and help folks solve their problems. That’s all the thanks I need.”

  I grinned. “I promise I will.”

  “And remember, Charlie,” she said, “the next time you get into a jam, pull that card out of your pocket and take a gander. It just might open up a few doors for you someday.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The Fresh Heir Caper

  During our lunch period at school on Monday, Henry and I snuck off to the computer lab to find a contact number for Camp Phoenix. We planned to call them later to find out if Josh was there.

  “That’s it,” Henry said.

  Our search had taken us to the Camp Phoenix website. On the home page was a picture of Colonel Harvard Culpepper as well as photos of some of the campers. They were all smiling and seemed to be having a good time. We eventually found a tab marked contact us and clicked on it.

  “There it is,” I said as the number appeared on-screen. I jotted it down on a scrap of paper.

  “See how easy that was?” Henry said.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re always telling me about how Sam Solomon solved all his cases without the use of modern technology—and about how we should do that,” Henry said. “But you didn’t seem to have any problem with looking up that phone number on the Internet, I noticed.”

  I stuffed the paper into my pocket. “That’s different,” I said.

  “What’s different about it?”

  We slipped out of the computer lab before anyone had noticed us and headed back to the cafeteria.

  “Listen, I’m perfectly happy to use a phone book,” I said, “but where are we supposed to find one at school? We had no other choice.”

  “I don’t buy it, Charlie,” Henry said. “I think I’ve finally converted you.”

  “No way.”

  “Well, then tell me why we just didn’t wait until we got to your house after school and use one of the phone books there? Huh?”

  Ever since Gram had given me that business card with an official e-mail address and website for the agency, I guess I was softening up—but I couldn’t let Henry know that.

  “I was just trying to buy us a little more time,” I said. “And I wouldn’t want my parents to see what we were up to. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  When we entered the cafeteria, I noticed Scarlett w
aving to us from across the room. She was actually waving to me…in public. The idea of something like that happening a few weeks ago was unthinkable. I almost felt like announcing it to the entire room. “Hey, gang, did you happen to see that? The most popular girl in the sixth grade needs me.” But instead of rubbing it in, I strolled past everyone with my head held high and just hoped people might notice. I decided to slow down a little as we got closer. I didn’t want to seem too anxious.

  When we arrived, Scarlett was busily checking something on her cell phone. “I just wanted to find out if there’s anything going on this afternoon,” she said. “My schedule’s filling up fast.”

  I leaned in so that the others at her table couldn’t hear. “Don’t you remember? We’re calling that boot camp after school to see if Josh is there.”

  She frowned. “Do you absolutely need me for that?”

  Henry folded his arms and began tapping his foot. He was growing impatient with Scarlett. So what else was new?

  “Well, I guess we could handle it ourselves,” I said. “I just thought—you know, since you’re a member of the agency—that you’d want to be included in everything we do.”

  “Does it really take three people to make a phone call?” she said.

  I could tell that Henry was just about to give Scarlett a piece of his mind when her friend Sarah, sitting across from her, chimed in.

  “Why would you want to go with them anyway?” she said. “Come with us, Scarlett. My mom’s gonna drop us off at the mall later.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Henry said. “Why don’t you just go to the mall.”

  I could have predicted what was about to happen next. Once Henry had uninvited her, Scarlett would insist on joining us even though she had no interest in doing so.

  “That sounds like fun, Sarah,” she said, “but I’d better not. These guys need me.”

  “What?” Henry said. He was dumbfounded.

  “Actually, they’d be lost without me,” she said.