These shreds were a brownish-white, with multicolored parts. The paper felt thin and soft between my fingers. I lifted one to my nose. There was a dusty smell, a smell I’d smelled once before. With a sudden feeling in my stomach as if it had been tied to a giant boulder and thrown off a cliff, I realized what Charlie had been doing.
Have you figured it out too?
He’d just shredded The Tomb of Death.
I gasped. Loud. I collapsed. Onto the floor. Charlie Foster had just shredded a comic book worth…I gasped again.
So Charlie had stolen the comic? I could hardly believe it. A dozen enormous questions suddenly popped into my head, most of them beginning with “Wait a sec, how on earth…?”
Mrs. Penzler emerged from the teachers’ lounge and loomed over me. “If you’re emptying that bag, then get it emptied and run along to class. Honestly, Saxby, you’re in a world of your own today!”
I pulled the remains of the comic out of the bag and stuffed them into my pockets.
There had to be more to this than I was seeing. There just had to be. As soon as school was over, I hurried home to my Thinking Chair. Sitting down carefully so that I didn’t make the rip on the arm any worse, I settled down with my notebook, my sharpest pencil, and my brain cells.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following day (Saturday), I asked two specific questions. The answers to those two questions finally gave me the key to the entire case.
The first question was one I asked Izzy. I called her up and said: “Safes. Like the one the Fosters have. Can you set your own combination for them, or do they come with one that you can’t change?”
Ten minutes later, she called me back. “Most of them have a user-set combination. You can use whatever numbers you like. People usually choose something memorable, like a birthday or their house number.”
Aha!
The second question came a little later. This time, I called Ed Foster. I said, “I have something here I’d like you to look at.”
He said, “No problem, I’ll come over right away.”
Twenty minutes later, a dilapidated, banged up car chugged and shuddered onto the small paved driveway in front of my house. I suppose it makes sense that a guy as scruffy as Ed Foster would have a seriously trashed car like that. Owner and vehicle in perfect harmony.
Unfortunately, Ed had brought Charlie along. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t, but it was too late now. I’d just have to risk it.
This whole meeting was a risk. I needed to show Ed some of the shredded remains of the comic. I was hoping he wouldn’t realize exactly what it was I was showing him.
Ed and Charlie came out to my shed. I took just two of the shreds out of my filing cabinet, as Ed sat perched on my desk. The minute Charlie saw them, he started to shuffle nervously. He realized at once that I must have followed him into the school office. I tried not to give away the fact that I knew that he knew that I knew what those shreds were. I told myself to play it cool.
So now, here comes that vital second question: “What can you tell me about these?” I asked Ed, handing him the two shreds.
He frowned, then raised his eyebrows. “Well, they’re shredded paper,” he said.
My heart was thumping. I needed to establish the age of these shreds. It was central to the whole case. I also needed to choose my words very, very carefully, or I’d have a babbling wreck of a comics collector on my hands. “I mean, can you tell me anything about the paper? I only ask because you know a lot about whether or not some types of paper are old or new.”
Ed examined the shreds closely, turning to hold them up to the light coming through the Plexiglas window. “Well, this could be standard comic book stock,” he said at last. “You see the way the colored ink there is printed in tiny dots? That’s certainly what you’d see in older comics.”
I glanced over at Charlie. He’d gone as pale as a ghost in a snowstorm.
“So…the paper…itself…” I said.
“Oh, that’s not old,” he said confidently.
I snapped to attention. “It’s not? That’s not from a really old comic book?”
“No way,” said Ed. “What on earth made you think so? No, if you put old pulp paper through a modern shredder, you’d end up with a bunch of little pieces, not neat shreds like this. I told you, that old paper is really delicate.”
Aha Number Two!
And it wasn’t the “aha” I’d been expecting. The age of that paper was indeed central to the whole case, but in a way I hadn’t quite foreseen. Suddenly, the theories I’d been working on in my head needed to be reversed.
“That’s it!” I declared. “I’ve solved the case!”
“Really?” cried Ed, grinning. “So where’s my comic book?”
Charlie had turned almost see-through, he was so pale. If he hadn’t been leaning on the lawnmower off in the corner, I think he’d have fallen over.
“I’ll explain everything when we get to Rippa’s store,” I said.
“It’s closed today,” said Ed.
“Why?”
“He’s going to L.A.”
“Why?”
“The International Comics Convention,” said Ed. “It starts tomorrow.”
Now it was my turn to go pale. I leaned against my Thinking Chair to stop myself from falling over.
“Of course,” I gasped. “That’s what he’s been saving up for.”
“Sure, it’s an expensive trip,” shrugged Ed. “Are you telling me he’s got my comic?”
I nodded. Charlie stared at me, open-mouthed with relief.
“Right!” declared Ed. “When he gets back, I’ll—”
“No, you don’t understand!” I cried. “We have to stop him from going, or you’ll never see that comic again!”
“Impossible,” Ed wailed. “If his flight hasn’t already left, it’s going to go real soon.”
“What about your car?” I said. “It’s only twenty miles from here to the airport.”
“Impossible,” Ed wailed. “The radiator’s busted. It’s got a leak. That car’s got a range of about three miles, at most. How about the bus? Or a taxi?”
“Too slow,” I said. “We need to get there now!”
Charlie slid to the floor with a bump. “That’s it, then,” he said mournfully. “It’s gone. Rippa’s won.”
Ed let out a yelp of anger and panic. I looked around quickly. There had to be something we could do. There had to be some way to fix that car.
And as I looked around my shed, an idea struck me. There was something here that had been giving me no end of trouble, but which might, just, make a temporary seal for the car’s radiator.
Think back…
“Look!” I cried, snatching up the roll of super-tough heavy-duty tape I’d been trying to use on my Thinking Chair. “Guaranteed 100% Bonding Power!”
Ed took the roll from me. “Brilliant.”
The three of us raced out to the car. Ed hurriedly taped up the leak and refilled the car’s radiator from the plastic water bottle he had in the trunk.
“So, Saxby,” said Charlie quietly. “How exactly did Rippa steal the comic?”
Ed jumped into the driver’s seat. “Yeah!” he cried. “I wanna know too!”
“I’ll explain on the way,” I said. “Now move!”
We buckled up as Ed shifted the car into reverse, and it lurched around in a semicircle. With tires screeching like a fast getaway car in a movie, the vehicle bounded for the street.
“Well?” said Ed, as he drove around a sharp bend and headed for the side road that fed into the highway.
“Well,” I said, watching the median strip zip past at a frightening speed and wishing I hadn’t been quite so insistent on getting there as fast as possible, “the thing is, what took me ages to realize is that there were two thefts here, not one.”
“Two?” said Ed, maneuvering the car onto the highway and revving up to just below the speed limit.
“Yes,” I said. “The first happen
ed because the thief saw a chance and took it. The second was carefully planned. Okay, let’s consider the second one first. Ed, do you have a firm hold of that steering wheel?”
“Yeah, why?” said Ed.
“Because I’ve got to tell you that the second crime was done by Charlie.”
“What?!” yelled Ed. He whizzed the car into the fast lane, and we were all thrown from side to side. Charlie buried his face in his hands.
“Charlie Foster, you thieving little twerp, I’ll—” cried Ed.
“Shut up!” I cried. “You just concentrate on driving! Yes, Charlie did it, but hear me out. He didn’t mean any harm. He only wanted to borrow the comic for a bit. Am I right, Charlie?”
“Yes,” mumbled Charlie from behind his hands. “I’m sorry, Ed, really. I wish I’d never even heard of that comic.”
“You’ll soon wish you’d never heard of me!” barked Ed. “Did you give my comic to Rippa? Is that it?”
“No!” Charlie wailed.
“I told you, Charlie’s was the second crime,” I said. “It happened like this…Some time ago, you banned Charlie from your entire collection. Now, naturally, Charlie felt a bit put out by that. After all, the incident with the jelly was an accident. Right, Charlie?”
“Right,” Charlie murmured into his hands.
“But, naturally, he was very curious to see The Tomb of Death. Your pride and joy. The most valuable collector’s item he was probably ever going to set eyes on. But it was locked away in the safe.
“Now, Charlie here is a brighter guy than you give him credit for. He might not have known the combination to the safe, but he could work it out. He realized that you and your dad would have set it to something memorable. A significant date, a phone number…Right, Charlie?”
“Mom’s birthday,” mumbled Charlie.
Ed glanced at Charlie a couple of times in the rearview mirror. “How did you know that?”
“He didn’t, at first,” I said. “Over several days, when nobody was around, he tried various combinations. Until he found the right one, last Sunday night. So he opened the safe and took out the comic. He only wanted to take a look at it, to read it and to see what all the fuss was about. He had every intention of putting it right back. But almost as soon as he took it out of the safe, he realized he was in a world of doo-doo.”
“So true,” muttered Ed.
“Ed! Just listen to me,” I said. The car wove ahead, overtaking a truck and changing lanes to pull away from a big SUV filled with fighting toddlers.
“As soon as Charlie looked through the comic, he realized it was fake. A dummy. A very good one, but a fake nonetheless.”
“A what?” yelled Ed. “That’s impossible! I know every square inch of that comic! Do you think I can’t tell a fake when I see one?”
“We’ll get to that,” I said. “Keep your eyes on the road! What Charlie took from the safe was not the actual Tomb of Death. And when he realized that, he panicked. He had no idea what had happened to the real one. Would you think he’d taken it? Who had taken it? Had it always been a dummy? Were you hiding something?
“He didn’t know what to do. Okay, with a bit more thought on his part, or by being honest from the beginning, things might have turned out better. But he was scared; he knew you’d be furious. For a start, there was nothing he could say without having to admit he’d gotten into the safe. And he figured he’d be in enough trouble for that, let alone whatever might happen because the comic was a fake.
“The point is, while he obsessed over what to do, the safe was reopened and the comic was discovered missing. Then you, Ed, told him to come and see me. Which, reluctantly, he did. And all this time, he was hiding away the fake comic.
“With Saxby Smart on the case, Charlie realized it was only a matter of time before he got found out. Which is true. He still had the fake comic in his backpack. So he went to the school office, distracted the secretary, and shredded the fake. Now, at least, when suspicions pointed toward him, there wasn’t any physical evidence left.”
“Wait a minute,” said Charlie, finally uncovering his face. “When you gave Ed those shreds of paper, you thought they might be the real comic, didn’t you?”
“Ummm,” I said, “yes, but anyway, moving on—”
“As if I’d do that,” muttered Charlie.
“Moving on,” I said quickly, “we now come to the first theft. The theft of the real Tomb of Death.”
“By Rippa,” said Ed.
“By Rippa.” I nodded. “Izzy’s research, and my own observations, had shown Rippa to be a shady dealer in more ways than one. He’d already tried to pass off a facsimile edition comic as the genuine article. He’d nearly succeeded too. So what more logical step is there for him than to go one better, and produce a really convincing fake, one that only an expert would spot? And why not aim high? Why not go for one of the most valuable comics there is? The Tomb of Death Issue 1.
“From various published sources, he could reproduce the comic’s cover and inside pages. And there was a local dealer he knew, Ed Foster, who actually had a copy. If he played his cards right, he could go along and take a look at the real thing, to make sure his fake was as perfect as possible.
“The trouble was, he didn’t have a good reputation within the trade. He decided that once his fake was ready, he’d travel outside the Midwest, to one of the big American comics conventions where he wasn’t known, and sell it there. In such a huge gathering, selling a super-valuable comic book might not attract much attention. So he worked away at his fake, and he managed to get you, Ed, to show him the real comic, for comparison. You said he had some magazines with him when he came to your house?”
“Yeah,” said Ed.
“And tucked away inside one of them was his carefully made forgery. He only intended to get a close look at your comic. He knew you’d never allow him to borrow it or anything like that. But when the doorbell rang, and he was left alone in that room, he spotted the opportunity of a lifetime. Purely by luck, his forgery was on hand, and he made a snap decision. While you were gone, just for a few seconds, he swapped the real comic for his fake one. He gambled that when you came back in, you’d put the comic in the safe right away, without examining it closely. And that’s exactly what you did. You assumed that was your comic back in its plastic cover. It wasn’t. Rippa slipped the real Tomb of Death in among his magazines, and he walked out with it, right under your nose.”
“But he must have known I’d spot the forgery eventually,” said Ed.
“Oh, eventually, yes,” I said. “But he knew that normally, you never, ever took that comic out of the safe, let alone out of its protective cover. It might have stayed in there for months, or even years, before being discovered. I said to you when I examined the safe that only a stupid and desperate thief would try to snatch that comic, but I was wrong. Rippa took huge risks, but he wasn’t an idiot.
“Think about it. If you, months or even years later, discovered the fake, and even if you linked that fake to Rippa, what actual evidence would you have? None. Even if you told the world, and ruined Rippa’s reputation for good, he’d hardly mind, would he? He’d have sold the real comic and be living off a mountain of cash.
“He took a risk, and it seemed to pay off. The only problem was, he now had a genuine Tomb of Death and needed to get rid of it. He needed money to finance his trip to the convention, so he started selling off stock from his shop. He’s been selling loads and buying little, to make sure he had enough money to take the trip as soon as possible. Today. And once he’d sold the comic…”
“…No evidence again,” said Ed, grinding his teeth. “Unless I spent a fortune following the comic around the country, tracking its sale.”
“Right,” I said.
Ed signaled, and the car sped toward the exit off the highway. By the little clock that was Velcroed to the dashboard, the time was 3:22 p.m.
It was 3:27 p.m. when we raced into the parking lot opposite the airport’s main
entrance. Charlie and I hurried over to the terminal building while Ed hunted through the trash in the car’s glove compartment for some change to pay for parking.
3:28 p.m. The glass doors slid open, and Charlie and I stepped into a swirling river of people, carts, and luggage. Tugging at Charlie’s sleeve to get him to follow me, I headed straight for the enormous Departures screen, hanging above a nearby coffee stand.
3:29 p.m. “Let’s see, let’s see,” I muttered. “Look for LAX. That’s Los Angeles. No, wait, this is Arrivals. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, LAX, LAX, LAX…I can’t see it. Wait, the screen’s changing…”
Charlie poked his head into view. “There’s only one more flight to L.A. today; passengers have just been called to the gate—over there, Gate 22B.”
I glanced back and forth between him and the screen. “That’s genius. How’d you figure it out?”
“I asked that flight attendant over there.”
“Ah, right,” I said, nodding a thank you to a woman in a ghastly green uniform.
3:30 p.m.
We sped up a short staircase and across a wide area covered in shiny floor tiles and bolted-down seats. The departure lounge was directly ahead of us. Passengers were lining up at a row of scanners, ready to have their bags checked.
And there was Rippa! He was facing away from us, a carryon in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. He was almost at the front of the line.
“He hasn’t seen us,” said Charlie.
“But if he gets past those scanners, he’s gone!” I said. “Airport security means we won’t be able to follow him any farther!” We hurried toward him, worried about drawing attention to ourselves. If he spotted us now, all he’d have to do was leave the line and lose himself in the crowd. “Whatever you do,” I whispered, “don’t run. Don’t make anyone in that line look around.”
Suddenly, Ed overtook us, running like his butt was on fire, heading straight for Rippa. Charlie and I both made So-much-for-that!-faces.
But it was almost too late. Rippa was at the head of the line. In a few seconds, he’d be through the scanners. Even at full speed, Ed wouldn’t reach him in time!
The Treasure of Dead Man's Lane and Other Case Files Page 3