“I would take him in myself,” the Chief continued, “but I’m late for a haircut. When I get back, I want to see him in a cell!”
“But Chief —” Sam started.
“The only thing I want to hear from you is ‘Yes, sir!’” barked the Chief. “I don’t care if your grandfather was Samuel Hammer. If you don’t follow my orders, I’ll make sure you never work as a detective in Los Angeles again!”
Sam’s face went white. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.
“Good,” said the Chief. Then he turned to Fran. “Thank you again for your time.”
“It was my pleasure.” She smiled.
“I had been in a hurry to visit someone,” she said as she looked at Sam. Then she turned to me and added darkly: “Actually several someones. But it looks like I now have all the time in the world to do that. There won’t be anything getting in my way anymore.”
I tried to think of something to say to her. But it was kind of hard to think when Sam was CLICKING handcuffs around my wrists.
The Chief nodded to Sam, then escorted Fran out of the building.
“Okay,” I told myself. “Don’t panic. You’ll think of something.”
And, you know what, I did think of something.
I thought, “I AM SO DOOMED!”
“You can’t do this!” I pleaded with Sam. “If I’m locked up, who is going to warn my other cousins about Fran?”
“You heard what the Chief said,” said Sam.
And then he unlocked my cuffs! HUH?!?!
“The Chief said he expects to see you behind bars when he gets back to the office,” said the detective. “So I’d say that gives us two hours tops to pinch the Werewolf and prove the Chief gave you a bum rap. So let’s shake a leg!”
Sam led me back to the bathroom door the Werewolf had shredded.
“What a bunch of hooey!” Sam said, shaking his head. “The Chief is so sure you were the one meeting Lavenza, he didn’t leave anyone to search for clues the Werewolf might have left. That means it’s up to us, J.D.!”
I followed Sam as he went into the bathroom and started looking around.
“I don’t know why the Chief didn’t believe me.” Sam sighed. “But he’s always looked down on the Monster Crimes Unit.”
“Oh, man! In all the excitement about going to jail and my life being over, I totally forgot! You’re in the Monster Crimes Unit!” I said. “That means you know all about monsters!”
“Well, yes and no,” said Sam as he searched the bathroom for clues. “The Vampire, the Mummy, the Fishman from the Dark Lagoon — when mugs like that get into some bad business, then yeah, I catch the case. But Frankenstein’s Monster never committed any crime in Los Angeles. At least as far as I know. He was a bit before my time. He disappeared years before I became a gumshoe.”
I guess he could see I was disappointed he couldn’t tell me more about my dad.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you find out about him,” Sam added quickly. “I am a gumshoe after all. As soon as we pinch the Werewolf, I promise, I’ll — holy mazuma!”
Sam had been digging through the trash can next to the sink. Now he started digging even faster. “I found something!” he exclaimed. “Look!”
In Sam’s hands were ripped-up pieces of paper.
“You found some trash in the trash can? What’s so strange about that?” I asked.
“This isn’t trash. It’s a clue! A really swell clue! This paper wasn’t ripped. It was shredded. See the cut marks on the edges? You’ll find the same marks on the door,” he said. “Because they were both shredded by the Werewolf’s claws!”
I looked. He was right!
“The Werewolf must have tried to destroy this when he heard us outside,” Sam said as he collected more pieces of paper. “Now let’s put this back together and see what it says!”
We got to work piecing the paper back together. Unfortunately, it turned out werewolf claws were really good at shredding! We couldn’t find all the pieces, but we taped what we found onto a page in my journal (good thing I kept some tape — as well as a couple of pens — in my back pocket with my journal).
“There’s a lot missing, but these are definitely instructions for the crime the Werewolf’s plotting tonight!” said Sam. “He must have been planning to give this to Lavenza. But he never got the chance!
“And look at this,” said Sam, pointing to what looked like part of a necklace of circles at the top of the page. “That symbol looks familiar. I can’t remember where I’ve seen it, though. Somewhere back at HQ. Maybe in the Werewolf’s police file.”
“Then let’s go! We gotta show this to the Chief of Police,” I exclaimed excitedly. “It proves the Werewolf was the one Lavenza was here to meet.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t see where this is signed by the Werewolf, do you?” he asked. “In fact, it doesn’t mention the Werewolf anywhere. This doesn’t prove squat. Anyone could have written this. Including you, J.D.
“At least, that’s what the Chief of Police would say,” he finished.
I slumped. We were no closer to figuring this out than when we started!
“Just because a clue doesn’t tell you everything doesn’t mean it’s telling you nothing,” Sam said. “Sometimes, a sleuth just needs someone to give him a little more information to put the puzzle together.”
“That’s great,” I replied. “But who’s going to give us more information?”
“The Werewolf,” Sam said with a smile.
Sam led me through the convention center to a room marked “Video Surveillance.”
Sam showed his badge to the man inside. He left and Sam sat down at the controls in front of a big monitor.
“I’m pulling up the footage from when we saw the Werewolf,” Sam told me. “That’s going to take a minute or two.”
While I waited, I took out my journal and thought of everyone on the Chief’s list of suspects.
Lavenza. Me.
That right there was my problem: how was I going to get my name off that list and the real criminal’s name on it?
Of course, there was one easy way to do that. I took out my pen and wrote:
That didn’t really change anything. Well, not true — it did change one thing. It made me feel a little better. Just a little.
Sam saw what I had written.
“That should be Werewolf,” said Sam. “Not Wolfman.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“Well, for starters, a Wolfman is a man,” said Sam. “We don’t know if the Werewolf is a guy or a dame. Even if it is a he, he could be anybody.”
“Or anywhere,” I sighed.
“That’s what we are here to narrow down,” said Sam. “Take a look at these.”
Sam laid out a bunch of printouts from the convention center’s main surveillance camera.
They all looked pretty much the same to me: they each showed the entire convention floor crowded with sports mascots.
The only difference was the time printed on the bottom of the photos.
“This camera takes a photo of the entire convention floor every sixty seconds. These were taken from the time the Werewolf ran from us until now,” Sam explained. “If we can see which exit he ankled out of, it may give us a clue as to where he went.”
I nodded and took half of the stack of pictures to look through. Each one had dozens of furry costumed mascots.
Looking for the Werewolf in that crowd was like trying to find a needle in a furstack.
So I was pretty surprised when I spotted him (or maybe her?) right away!
“Aces!” Sam smiled. “You really do have the eye of a gumshoe! There’s the Werewolf, right there, going into that bathroom right in the middle of the convention center!
“What is it with the Werewolf and bathrooms?” Sam wondered, try
ing to figure out if it were some kind of clue.
“Maybe he isn’t housebroken?” I offered.
Sam didn’t answer. He was busy shuffling through the rest of the printouts.
“Look at this,” said Sam. “This is the picture taken a minute later. There’s the Chief already here, pretty close to where the Werewolf was in your photo. If the Werewolf had left the bathroom then, the Chief would have seen him for sure.”
Sam pulled out the rest of the photos and looked through them quickly. There was no sign of the Werewolf in any of them.
“Which means,” said Sam, “the Werewolf never came out of that bathroom!”
A minute later, Sam and I were standing outside of that bathroom.
“This could get pretty hairy,” Sam said. “Better let me go first.”
I didn’t argue with that.
Sam charged in. It was hairy, all right. Very hairy!
There was hair everywhere in the bathroom.
But there was no Werewolf. Or anyone else. The bathroom was empty, except for the fur everywhere.
And the disposable razor and can of shaving cream on the sink.
“Of course!” said Sam as he picked up the shaving cream. “We never saw the Werewolf come out of the bathroom because he shaved off all his hair!
“But that would leave him naked,” Sam continued, thinking it through. “Unless he had clothes somewhere . . .”
“He had clothes,” I said, thinking, “when he ran past me. Under all his hair he was wearing some kind of blue suit.”
“That answers that,” Sam nodded. “He’d still have his claws, though. But he could easily have hidden them in his pockets. Or in a pair of gloves.
“In which case,” Sam continued, “the Werewolf would have come out of here looking like he normally does. And since we don’t know what that looks like, this is a —”
“Dead end.” I sighed.
“Good gumshoes don’t let dead ends stop them,” said Sam. “When they hit one, they change directions and keep going.”
“How are we supposed to keep going?” I asked. “We don’t know where to go!”
“We don’t know where the Werewolf is,” Sam said, “but there’s one hood we do know where to find.”
I smiled. “Levenza!” The Chief had told the policemen to take him back to headquarters and put him in a cell.
“If we get him to sing,” Sam said, nodding, “he may be the one to piece this puzzle together!”
The Los Angeles Police Department headquarters was cube-shaped building of glittering glass.
Most boys my age would have been psyched to have been personally invited there by the Chief of Police.
Of course, my invitation was more like a one-way ticket. Which actually turned out to be a good thing.
When the officers at the front desk asked what I was doing there, Sam told them the Chief had ordered him to take me to the holding cells.
By the looks on their faces, I could tell most of them were too scared of the Chief to call and ask him. But if any of them did, the Chief would have told them that Sam was telling the truth.
So that was one good thing about the Chief wanting me locked up, I guess.
“Watch your beezer,” Sam warned as we walked down the hallway toward the holding cells.
“Got it,” I nodded back. Then I whispered, “Wait, my beezer is my back right?”
“Nope, your nose,” Sam said.
“That was totally my next guess,” I lied.
Lavenza was sitting in his cell, still wearing his blue jay costume.
“All right, jailbird,” said Sam. “I need you to sing.”
Lavenza leaped up. “Sure!” He nodded eagerly. “I’ll tell you anything I know. I don’t like jail. I just want to get out of here!”
“Swell,” said Sam. “So look here, we found the note the Werewolf was going to give you —”
“Wait, the Werewolf?” interrupted Lavenza. “Was that who was trying to hire me? I only talked to him once on the phone. I never got to meet him.” Lavenza looked at me. “That kid blew your cover, and I ran before I could.”
“Never mind that,” said Sam. “I want to know about the Werewolf’s plan. Spill!”
“I can’t!” moaned Lavenza.
“Don’t be a sap,” Sam told him. “Don’t you want out of here?”
“I do!” cried Lavenza. “But I can’t tell you his plan, because I don’t know what he was planning! All I know is I got a call from some guy, asking me to help him pull some big crime. I didn’t know it was the Werewolf. He told me to rent this costume and meet him at the mascot convention so he could fill me in on the crime.
“But I never got to meet him,” he wailed. “Because of you!”
Sam turned to me. He didn’t say it, but I knew what he was thinking.
Another dead end.
We were running out of leads — and out of time. In fact, we were down to our very last lead: that necklace of circles on the top of the note the Werewolf had written for Lavenza.
Sam told me to wait in the detective’s lunchroom while he got the Werewolf’s file to see if that’s where he had seen that symbol before.
“At this time of night, no one should come in here,” he said as he left me in the bathroom. “But just in case, lock the door until I come back.”
As I waited for Sam, I took out my journal and started writing down what had happened. I didn’t get very far before there was a light knock at the door. Sam was back, carrying two thick folders.
“Here’s the file on the Werewolf,” said Sam, patting the folder he held under one arm. “And here’s one for you,” he said, tossing another file on the table.
Sam went to a vending machine and threw in a handful of quarters. He offered me half of what came out of the slot, but I shook my head.
I was hungry, but not hungry enough to eat a stale avocado sandwich.
Not when I had the LAPD’s file on Frankenstein’s Monster sitting on the table in front of me!
Inside could be the answer to every question I ever had about my dad!
And maybe a whole bunch of clues to finding my other cousins!
“Like I said, your dad was before my time,” Sam told me as he crunched loudly on his sandwich. “But in that file is everything the police ever found out about him.”
I opened the file to the cover page.
But before I could get any farther, Sam cried out: “You gotta be kidding me! What a load of bunk!
“There’s nothing in the Werewolf’s file!” he exclaimed. “Look! It’s just stuffed with blank pages! Someone took everything out!”
“Maybe it was another detective in the Monster Crimes Unit?” I suggested. “Maybe he took it to the copy machine or something?”
Sam shook his head. “I’m the only detective in the Monster Crimes Unit. And if the Chief had his way, there wouldn’t even be me.”
“So then who could have taken it?” I asked.
“I don’t know, kid,” he said. “Detectives aren’t allowed to touch files that aren’t in their department. Not without special permission from someone way high up.”
I turned back to my dad’s file.
If I was going to jail, at least I could go with answers to all my questions about him. But I didn’t get past the cover page.
Because I saw it!
What we had been looking for was right there!
In the middle of the cover sheet was the LAPD logo.
If you covered up the top two-thirds of the logo, the bottom part that was left looked exactly like the “necklace” of circles we had seen on the note the Werewolf had shredded!
Sam slapped his forehead. “Of course!” he cried. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize it! I had been trying to think of what criminal organization had a symbol like that. I never would ha
ve thought of something I see every day!”
Something BUZZED loudly.
“Hang on,” Sam said. “I’m getting a call on my blower.” He took out his walkie-talkie and hit a button.
A voice roared out the speaker: “Why isn’t that kid behind bars?” shouted the Chief.
Sam and I stood in the Chief’s office, waiting for him to come out of his private bathroom.
And for life as I knew it to end.
As we stood there, I looked around. I guess I thought the Chief of Police would have had a fancy office, like a President or a CEO. But there actually wasn’t much in it. Just a desk, a comfy chair, and a wastebasket.
Which was filled with disposable razors and empty cans of shaving cream!
The same kind we had found in the convention center bathroom where the Werewolf . . .
That’s when I noticed the Chief’s blue uniform jacket hanging on a hook on the outside of the bathroom door.
It was the exact same blue as the suit I had seen under the Werewolf’s fur.
The Chief’s jacket was decorated with several medals. SQUARE medals. Which looked just like what I had thought were square buttons on the Werewolf’s jacket!
Hang on. The Chief was the Werewolf?
If he were, it would explain why the note to Lavenza was written on paper with the police logo on it! And why when the Werewolf went into the convention center bathroom and shaved, we saw the Chief outside the bathroom a minute later!
The Frankenstein Journals Page 5