Shirley Link & The Party Poopers

by Ben Zackheim

  "To dunk his stuff in the toilet," she answers.

  "Cool!" Wylie says with a little too much enthusiasm.

  "She's kidding, Wylie," Marie mutters.

  "Oh." He looks like the Red Sox just lost the World Series. But when the sound of a toilet seat slamming reverberates through the house his face is just solid joy.

  Chapter 3

  I have a bad feeling.

  Something isn't right.

  I've recently started to pay attention to my gut. It doesn't come easy. All that emotional, touchy-feely stuff is Marie's world, not mine. But I guess she's started to rub off on me. The last two cases prove that my instincts can serve me well. I'm not sure where this particular feeling comes from, exactly. Something to do with Jacob, I think.

  The phone rings. Mom answers it in the kitchen downstairs.

  Oh boy, do I ever have a bad feeling.

  "Shirley!" Mom's voice darts up the stairs and hits me right in the touchy-feelies. "It's Wylie!"

  "What's wrong?" I say quickly into the phone.

  "Someone stole my dad's trophy," is all Wylie has to say to make my stomach hit the floor. That trophy, in this case, is the only memento he has of his parents, who died in a fire when he was a toddler. He'd been in the hospital, being treated for a nasty flu, when the smoke took them away forever.

  The only thing to survive the fire was a trophy that his dad stored in a safe in his office. His dad had won it for coming in Third Place in a marathon in Akron.

  "Oh, Wylie, I'm so sorry. Are you sure it wasn't just misplaced?"

  "It was over my bed this morning and now it's gone. Mom says she didn't do anything with it."

  "Did you call the police?"

  "Yeah, they just left."

  I hear my mom's cell phone ring.

  "You want me to come over?" I ask.

  "No. I'll see you at school Monday," he says.

  "What about the bike ride tomorrow?"

  "Don't feel like it. I'll see you."

  He hangs up.

  "I'm headed out, Shirley!" Mom yells up. "Your dad will call in an hour!"

  Dad's in Germany at some convention to talk about archeology. It's hard to be a hands-on parent from thousands of miles away, but he actually does a great job hammering me with emails, texts, and phone calls when he's away. He'll even insist on video calls when he thinks I'm up to something. If I don't answer his "Ping-Pows" (as he calls them) within five minutes, he calls Mom. Let's just say that I've learned to answer within five minutes.

  I run downstairs in time to catch Mom before she heads out.

  "What's going on?" I ask. "Is it about Wylie's trophy?"

  "That was mentioned as one of the crimes, yeah." She shuts her eyes, like she wishes she could take that back.

  "One of the crimes? What do you mean one of the crimes?"

  "Shirley Link..."

  "What? I'm just asking."

  "And then you'll disappear into the night to track down the bad guys. I'm not going along this time, Shirley."

  "I promise I will not leave the house tonight. Please just tell me what's going on."

  She sizes me up. She knows I never break a promise. Ever.

  "Tell no one, young lady. The whole town will know tomorrow. But tonight, we need it quiet."

  "Definitely," I say. I can feel something big is happening. Maybe the biggest ever in Shelburne Falls, and that's saying something!

  "We've had a number of reports of robberies today. It was bad when I clocked out. But it looks like it's gotten worse in the last hour. Lots of people are finding things missing from their homes."

  "How many people?"

  "We have 72 reports."

  Chapter 4

  I don't surprise easy. But that I did not see coming.

  Seventy-two reports of robberies in one day? In a town of 1800?

  I see what Mom means now. Once word gets out about this we'll be on the national news. Nothing chills a warm trail faster than a few dozen reporters bulldozing their way through town.

  Mom seems amused at my speechlessness. She makes me repeat my promise to stay put. I do, and I'm good for it.

  But I didn't say I was going to hang around here and paint my nails.

  It's time to get to work. My cat Elvis (otherwise known as Prickly Pillow around here) hops onto my lap. He sticks his claws in my jeans and gives me a look that dares me to say anything. I can't believe I love this beast, but I do. I saved him from a life of crime a few months ago. He was helping a crook sniff out empty houses. When the jerk tried to poison him I swooped in and took him home. Every piece of furniture in the house is now his and he pays rent in affection.

  I scratch his head and go to my seventh favorite website in the whole world, Broadcastify.com. It lets me listen in on local police, fire and EMT radios. They even include a handy feed of the latest reports. It's all public knowledge and legal.

  I click on our county and cannot believe what I'm seeing.

  There's usually a couple of listings, like:

  SUSPICIOUS CAR

  04/17/14 10:19

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - 75 GRAND ST.) SUSPICIOUS CAR PARKED ON STREET, ALARM ACTIVATED FOR AN HOUR, OFFICER AND TOW REQUEST [MAS227]

  But I'm looking at a huge page of reports. They all look like this:

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 17:35

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - ) STOLEN MOTORCYCLE, NO OFFICER AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME [MAS227]

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 17:36

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - ) STOLEN DECK CHAIR, NO OFFICER AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME [MAS227]

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 17:38

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - ) STOLEN WEDDING BAND, NO OFFICER AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME [MAS227]

  What a mess. I scroll down, hoping to find a report or two where an officer was available. There's a string of three slightly detailed reports near the bottom, probably before the flood of phone calls started.

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 16:13

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - 172 KING ST.) STOLEN GOLD-PLATED TROPHY, NO EYEWITNESS, FILED [MAS227]

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 16:36

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - 170 KING ST.) STOLEN BICYCLE, NO EYEWITNESS, FILED [MAS227]

  ROBBERY

  09/06/14 16:45

  (SHELBURNE FALLS - 154 KING ST.) STOLEN WATCH, NO EYEWITNESS, FILED [MAS227]

  It's not much, but the addresses tell me that the officers were basically zig-zagging the streets, going from one report to the next, between 4pm and 5pm. They must have had a sense that something was wrong. Ah, now I know who called Mom during her snack with Aunt Patty. The robbery reports were flooding in.

  I pull up Google Maps and stick a virtual pin in each of the victims' addresses. Putting a pin in Wylie's house is so depressing. Poor Wylie. If I hit a dead-end tonight I'm going to head downstairs and bake him something.

  I click on the police radio live stream and listen in. The chatter is constant. The dispatcher and police are doing an excellent job, but I can tell they're swamped and (from some of the language being used) I can also tell they feel the pressure.

  I need to get my hands on all of the addresses. I'll have to pull off some sweet talking when Mom gets home. She knows I can help, but she has her hands tied in about a thousand ways. I get it, but I hope she'll lean on me a little bit. One thing I can say for sure, and this is the reason I need to map the scenes of the crimes -- the locations of the robberies will be the key to solving this case.

  How can I tell?

  Seventy-two crimes in one day took some incredible coordination. The logistics of moving from one house to the next, and breaking in without getting caught, are stunning. Granted, most people were at the Iron Bridge party but I doubt that accounts for all of the homes that were burgled. The pins in the map will let me dig up the most logical path from one crime scene to the next. And that will help me get into the criminals' heads.

  Which is where I'll need to be to crack this case.

  Wait.
Who is that?

  Someone just walked underneath my window. I'm on the second floor, facing our neighbors, and their porch light cast the person's shadow over our house.

  I lift my window open and lean out. I see a figure walk onto the sidewalk. His shoulders are hunched so I can't make out his face.

  "HEY!" I yell.

  He looks over his shoulder before he runs down the street.

  It's Eric.

  What is Jacob's brother doing lurking around my neighborhood?

  The phone rings. I almost jump out of my socks. It's Marie's number on caller ID.

  "Hi."

  "Shirley?" Marie asks. "You okay?"

  "Fine. Why?"

  "You sound weird."

  "I just spotted Eric outside my window. Creeped me out."

  "Serious? What's he doing?"

  "Who knows? What's up, Marie?"

  "Okay. Shirley, you're not going to believe this," Marie says.

  "They made Pluto a planet again?" I answer.

  "Really?" Marie says.

  "No, not really. What will I not believe?"

  "It's Jacob," Marie says. "He's locked himself in my bathroom!"

  Chapter 5

  On one hand, I promised Mom I would stay put. On the other hand, I have a friend in need. I'd call 911 and tell them that Jacob is acting weird, but, well, there aren't any police officers available.

  So I tell Marie I'll call her back and I call Mom's cell.

  "He what?" Mom asks, while deflecting a bunch of questions and updates from her team.

  "I said Jacob's locked himself in Marie's bathroom," I repeat.

  "Why is Jacob locking himself up in Marie's bathroom and not yours?"

  "I... what?" I say. "Look, Mom, I want to go help Marie work this out. Her mom isn't home yet and she wants to get him out of there."

  "Fine. But you go straight there, twist his head on straight and come right home. No detours!"

  "Promise."

  "Be careful, Shirley. I don't know what's going on out here today."

  My phone beeps. "You too, Mom. There's Dad on the other line. Bye." I switch lines. "Hi dad."

  "Hi sweety."

  He's across the world but he sounds like he's sitting right next to me. I miss dad.

  "I can't talk right now," I say. "Mom is trying to solve 72 robberies and I need to extract Jacob from Marie's bathroom."

  "Okay. Did you do your homework?" he asks, not missing a beat, but entirely missing the point.

  "Yup!"

  "Tell Marie and Jacob hi, and have your mother call me when she's done solving everything."

  "Will do, bye."

  I stare at my phone for a second.

  Dad.

  ***

  "You okay Jacob?" I ask the closed bathroom door.

  "Oh. Hi Shirley," he says from the other side. He sounds tired. "Not really. I can't take my family anymore."

  "A lot of us get in fights with our families, but we don't lock ourselves in friends' bathrooms to hide."

  There's a long pause.

  "Where do you go?" he asks.

  I look at Marie and she just shrugs.

  "Library, maybe. I don't know. Movies."

  "I just want them all to go away."

  "Especially Eric, I'll bet," I say.

  "No. Well, yeah. But he's one of the nicer ones."

  "Oh, come on," Marie says.

  "It's true! I found my cousins, Sarah and Jim, planting Dad's wallet in my bedroom. They were trying to frame me!"

  "Jacob..."

  "And Franklin, he's my aunt's sixth husband, he actually told me he was going to make sure I'd never see a dime of inheritance. He whispered it in my ear and then gave me the biggest smile you've ever seen. You have no idea what it's like to live there."

  "I'm getting a pretty good idea," I respond.

  "It just gets worse when The Birthweek comes along. And my dad loves it. He's, like, more alive than ever when his entire family competes for his attention."

  "Okay, first open the door and then we can talk about this," I say.

  "I'm not going back there."

  "That's fine. You can stay at Wylie's house."

  "You may not have noticed, Shirley, but Wylie hates me."

  "He doesn't hate you."

  Jacob opens the door. He has rubber cleaning gloves on and his hair is wet against his forehead. He wipes it with his forearm and drops a sponge in the bucket on the floor.

  He also has a black eye.

  "Jacob, what happened?" Marie asks.

  "I'm just cleaning. Figure if I'm going to hide in here I may as well be useful, right?"

  Marie looks at him like he spontaneously gave her a calculus problem to solve.

  "What are you looking... Oh, the eye?" he asks. "Some third cousin of mine. Can't remember his name, shoved me down the stairs. Hit the banister hard."

  "That's horrible!" Marie cries.

  "Not as horrible as my Grandma's boyfriend giving him five bucks after he did it."

  "If there were any police officers available I'd ask Mom to send them all there and break up that madhouse."

  "What do you mean? Where are the police?" Jacob asks. I get ready to change the subject. Remembering my promise about staying quiet for the night. Which is when Marie surprises me. If I go through a day without Marie surprising me, I feel incomplete.

  "There've been a bunch of robberies today," Marie says. "So the police are spread thin."

  "How did you know that?" I ask her.

  "Wylie called me while you were on your way here. He's trying to get them to pay attention to his missing trophy."

  "How many robberies?" Jacob interrupts. He's suddenly transformed into the Jacob I know. He has that sharp look in his eyes that reminds me how smart he is. When he tries to wipe the sweat off his face with the back of those filthy rubber gloves, I also remember that he can be a bit dense.

  "Can you not do that thing with the gloves?" I ask, wincing in disgust. He wipes his nose with his gloved hands and sniffles. "That, right there. Don't..."

  "Answer my question," he says pushing his hair down with his hands.

  "A lot," I say. "Can you... Please. Your gloves have been... I don't even want to know where..."

  "How many, Shirley?"

  "Lot and lots." I'm trying here, Mom! I take his hands and help him take his gloves off. I can feel his eyes on me, though.

  "Seventy-two?" he asks. How did he know that? My expression gives me away. His head dips. I think he's about to cry, especially when he starts shaking back and forth.

  But, no, he's laughing.

  "What's so funny?" I ask as I drop the gloves in his bucket full of gray water.

  "My dad's doing a scavenger hunt," Jacob says, catching his breath. "Everyone in my family needs to find one and only one unique thing from his list."

  "What kind of things?" Marie asks.

  "Bikes, wheelbarrows, mailboxes, stuff like that."

  "Okay, fine. So your family is doing a treasure hunt. So what?" I say.

  "So when someone finds an item, they have to use some mobile phone app to check off a box and claim it. That's it. They're done. One item per person. But the fun for my dad is that everyone in the family watches that mobile app like a hawk. So people who haven't found an item scramble for something from the shorter list. I think it drives them nuts to watch their list of options shrinking by the minute. Eight people are getting eliminated this year. If they don't find an item on the list then they don't have a chance to win the prize."

  "What prize?" I ask.

  "Each item is basically a ticket to a raffle. 25,000 for the winner."

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars?" Marie yells.

  "No, 25,000 marshmallows, Marie," he says, sarcastically.

  "Okay. Get out of my bathroom," she snarls, pulling him into the hallway.

  "Randomly picked?" I ask.

  "Yup," he answers looking over his shoulder at me as Marie leads him down the stairs.


  I can tell where he's going with all of this.

  "Everyone plays?" I ask.

  "Everyone but Dad. And me. And the eight people who are too slow to snag an item from the list."

  "So you have 80 family members in your home?" I ask.

  Jacob smiles and nods.

  "How did you know that?" Marie asks me.

  "Eighty people, minus the eight who are eliminated. Seventy-two items on the list."

  "Seventy-two criminals," Marie finishes, eyes wide.

  Chapter 6

  It's hard to believe that a huge group of people could pull off a string of crimes this complex. If the Graham family stole from us while we were at the Iron Bridge Dinner then I'm sure Mom must be swimming in clues by now. One of the Grahams is bound to have messed up.

  Mrs. Garcia took Jacob's presence in her house well. She walked in while we were getting ready to leave and Marie explained the whole thing like a pro. Her mom even gave us a ride here. I did notice her shooting looks at Jacob in the rear view mirror, though. He'd better be charming the next time he sees her.

  We're on a cobblestone path up to The Graham mansion. The main gate down below is where guests are expected to park, and that's where Marie's mom is patiently waiting for us to escort Jacob home.

  I don't think anyone in Shelburne Falls has ever been this far into the Graham estate, much less gone into the main house. I'm excited to get a peek inside The House on the Hill, as us locals call it. If the exterior is any indication, it's going to live up to all of my expectations.

  The grounds are hundreds of acres, packed with deep forest, dotted with stunning gardens, the standard swimming pool, or three. In the short walk up the path I spot every luxury you'd expect from a guy who's worth a billion dollars.

  Ugh. Jacob is not going to make this easy. It's like every step he takes is some epic effort.

  "If we go any slower I'm going to fall asleep," Marie says, right on Jacob's heels. "Come on, Jacob. My mom was nice enough to drive you up here. The least you can do is try to get safely inside sometime tonight."