by James Leck
“Do you need help finding anything, young man?”
“Just looking,” I said.
“Well, son,” he said, hoisting his thumb over his shoulder at a No Loitering sign, “I’m afraid you’re either going to have to buy something or come back tomorrow.”
Tyler would blow his stack if I left before five, so I stalled for time. “I don’t suppose you’ve got root beer floats on the menu?”
“Vanilla or chocolate ice cream?” he asked.
“Vanilla.”
“Tall or short?”
“Tall.”
“Anything on the side?”
“Lemon meringue pie?”
“Coming right up,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
I took a seat in a booth close to the cash register and noticed that the walls in the dining area were covered with cartoon sketches of local citizens. Most of them I didn’t know, but I spotted Principal Snit and a few of the other teachers at Iona High. I even saw one of our town’s new football hero, Lance Munroe, whose giant bobble head smiled out at me from the top of a tiny body that was about to throw a football downfield, no doubt for another touchdown. I figured I’d be able to hear about any illicit transactions from there while I waited for my order and kept my eyes peeled for any suspicious activity.
Wednesday, October 30, 4:36 p.m.
54 Main Street, Pop’s Soda Bar and Comic Book Shop
The old-timer with the mustache wasn’t named Pop — I know because I asked (just to make sure). His name was Harry and he knew how to put together a mean root beer float. The lemon meringue pie wasn’t bad either. Long story short, the food at Pop’s was good enough to make me lose focus for a little while. In fact, I didn’t realize I’d gotten so sloppy until Tyler slipped into the seat across from me.
“What do you got for me, punchy?”
“Huh?” I mumbled, looking up, my mouth stuffed with lemon meringue pie.
“What. Do. You. Got?” he said, his eyes bulging.
“Nothing, nada, niet,” I said.
“One answer will do.”
“How about you?” I asked. “Any luck in the city?”
“They’re all a bunch of know-it-all wusses,” he said. “They pretended like they couldn’t care less.”
“You think they know something?”
“How should I know?” he said, glancing down at my food. “What are you doing here, anyway? Just stuffing your face? You should be out there asking questions! I thought you were supposed to be finding my Captain Marvel #146!”
“You asked me to meet you here at five o’clock. I didn’t want to leave before we checked in with each other.”
“You’re real good at following orders, aren’t you, punchy? Well, here’s one for you: go find my comic book!”
“You know what,” I said, sliding out of the booth and throwing my napkin on the table, “forget it! Go yell at somebody else for a while.”
“You’re quitting?” he said, getting out of the booth, too.
“Quitting, resigning, vacating the premises, call it whatever you like, Tyler,” I said. “I’m outta here.”
I started for the door, but Tyler grabbed my arm, spun me around and punched me square in the kisser. I stumbled back a few feet and got seriously miffed when I realized the coppery taste of blood was quickly replacing the wonderful taste of root beer, ice cream and lemon meringue pie that had been lingering in my mouth.
“Nobody quits on me!” he roared, and charged. This time I was ready to dodge and parry, but good ol’ Harry stepped between us.
“Not in here, young buck,” he said, wrapping Tyler into a bear hug and lifting him up like he was made out of feathers.
Tyler kicked and screamed, but Harry managed to haul him outside and dump him on Main Street like a sack of potatoes.
“Thanks,” I said, when Harry came back in.
“Clean yourself up in the restroom and I’ll get you some ice,” he said. His eyes weren’t twinkling anymore.
Everyone in the joint was staring at me when I came out of the little boys’ room pressing a wad of paper towel to my bottom lip, which was split and swelling. Harry was standing by the front door talking to a Luxemcorp security guard.
FYI — Besides owning all the stores in town, Luxemcorp also patrols the streets using a squad of rent-o-cops who try their best to look like actual police officers. They might pass for the real thing, too, except for a red triangle-shaped patch they wear on their hearts that has Luxemcorp Inc. stitched into the middle in bold black letters.
“Here you go, kid,” Harry said, handing me a white dishcloth filled with ice. “That should help with the swelling.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking it. The ice felt good against my lip.
“I’m Officer Reynolds,” the rent-o-cop said. “I’ll give you a drive home.”
“I can walk,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Reynolds said, looking stern. “I want to have a word with your parents.”
“It’ll have to be my grandmother,” I said.
Reynolds frowned. “You’re,” he started, and then flipped through a notepad he pulled out of his pocket, “Jack Lime?”
“That’s right,” I said, surprised he had my name jotted down in there.
“Well, I’d like to have a word with your grandmother,” he said, putting the notepad away. “Just to explain what happened.”
“Is that really necessary?” I said.
“I insist.”
Reynolds walked me out to his cruiser, and I reached for the passenger-side door, but Reynolds opened one in the back.
“You ride in the back, kid, capiche?” he said.
“Capiche,” I said, and made a mental note to take that word out of my vocabulary ASAP.
Wednesday, October 30, 5:03 p.m.
A street with no name, Grandma’s House
Reynolds took me home and told my grandma that I’d spent the afternoon loitering at Pop’s. He explained what happened, suggested that I find some new friends and then left in his Luxemcorp cruiser.
Grandma interrogated me about why I was hanging around at Pop’s all afternoon, and I had to admit that I’d been working on a case.
“You promised you were going to stop being the town detective, Jack,” she said.
“It was a momentary lapse in judgment,” I admitted. “You’ll be happy to know I dropped it.”
She pursed her lips until they disappeared, and then grabbed the dishcloth Harry had given me. “I’ll get you some fresh ice,” she said. “Go put on a clean shirt for supper — yours has blood on it.”
I did like she said and was coming back downstairs when she called from the kitchen to remind me to turn off the light in my bedroom. I have a bad habit of leaving it on. “I can’t reach it from here, Jack,” she added, and that’s when I realized I’d missed a huge clue in Tyler’s case.
“What did you miss?” KC asked, looking up from her notepad.
“Let me finish telling the story and you’ll find out, Stone.”
“Fine,” she said, “but pick up the pace, Jack, I’m running out of time.”
Thursday, October 31, 8:28 a.m.
Iona High, The Cafeteria
I got to school early the next morning and headed straight for the gym. The tables from Comic-Con had been put away, but I knew that Tyler’s had been set up about halfway between the doors and the stage. The light switches are beside the doors, and I conducted a little experiment to see if it was possible to run from there to where Tyler’s table had been and then back to the doors in under ten seconds. My best time was twelve seconds, and that didn’t include turning the lights out, grabbing the right comic and weaving my way through a crowd of people in the dark.
“So somebody else had to be working the lights,” KC said.
; “Correctamundo, Stone! It couldn’t have been a one-man job.”
“But who was the accomplice?”
That’s what I needed to find out, and I was hoping the photo Darla had taken just as the lights came back on would give me a clue. I headed for the cafeteria and found her sitting at a table in the corner, wearing a Batgirl costume and eating a fried egg sandwich that was dripping grease.
“What’s with the costume?” I asked.
“It’s Halloween, Jack.”
“It must’ve slipped my mind,” I said.
“What’s with your lip?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, and tried to forget the fact that I’d officially taken myself off Tyler’s case. “I don’t suppose you developed that photo you took yesterday?”
“Sure,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, “but it’s a little out of focus.”
She pulled the photo out of her backpack and handed it over. It was big and glossy, but it wasn’t in color.
“It’s in black and white,” I said, without taking much of a look.
“I told you, Jack, I’m an old-school kind of girl.”
“Right,” I mumbled, and turned my attention to the photo.
She’d been standing close to the middle of the gym when she took the photo, and it was blurry, but only a little. Through the crowd I could clearly see the culprit’s left leg on the way out the door. The rest of him, or her — I’m an equal opportunity investigator — had already escaped. Whoever swiped Tyler’s comic had been wearing black cargo pants with a utility pocket just above the knee and black army-style boots. I was so focused on that leg I almost didn’t spot the light switches at the edge of the photo. They were by the door, and beside the light switches was an arm — a left arm poking out of a short-sleeved golf shirt. Because the picture was in black and white, I couldn’t ID the color, but I’d guess it was a light shade of something, possibly yellow. Last but not least I could tell that the arm belonged to someone about my height, since the shoulder was an inch or two above the switches.
“Do you know who belongs to that arm?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Who had the display table next to the doors?”
“Maybe you could ask somebody on Student Council,” Darla said, shrugging. “They organized it.”
“Mariam Singh’s the president, right?”
Darla nodded, and I headed for the door.
“Jack,” she called.
“Yeah?” I said, turning around.
“I need that photo back.”
“What? Really? I wanted to take a closer look at it.”
“We’re printing the newspaper today, Jack, so I’ll need the photo for the layouts. Besides, it’s going to be on the front page. Everyone will have a copy by tomorrow.”
Thursday, October 31,12:06 p.m.
Iona High, The Cafeteria
I finally tracked down Mariam Singh in the cafeteria during lunch. The place was swarming with kids dressed in their finest Halloween costumes, and she was standing near the back of the room handing a card to someone dressed up as a long-haired hippie. I waited for the hippie to leave and then made my move.
“Can you guess who I am, Jack?” she asked, when I stepped up to her.
She was wearing a blue dress with a white top, blue ankle socks, ruby red shoes and carrying a picnic basket that had a small black stuffed dog hanging over the edge. Under the dog the basket was filled with black envelopes.
“The Tin Man?”
“Jack!”
“The Cowardly Lion?”
“Some detective you are,” she said. “I’m Dorothy, and my little friend here is Toto,” she added, giving the stuffed dog a little scratch under his stuffed chin. “Mr. Snit wouldn’t let me bring a real dog.”
“I’ve got a question for you —” I started, but she held up her hand to stop me.
“First things first, Jack. I’ve got a card for you. It’s from a secret admirer.”
She rooted around in her basket and pulled out an envelope with my name scrawled across the front in white ink.
“Trick or treat!” she said, handing over the card. “And don’t forget, you could send one, too. It only costs two dollars and all the proceeds go to a good cause!”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, “but first I need to know who had the table next to the light switches at Comic-Con yesterday.”
“Gee, I don’t know,” she said. “I’d have to check the Student Council records.”
“Where are those?” I asked. “Can you check now?”
“Sorry, Jack,” she said, smiling, “but I have to give out the rest of these cards first.”
Before I had a chance to say anything else, she skipped away, leaving me there holding my silly Halloween card.
I couldn’t do anything without seeing those records, so I decided to grab something to eat. While I waited in line, I ripped open the envelope she’d handed me and took out the card. A smiling jack-o’-lantern was on the front underneath the words “Trick or Treat!” On the inside, a witch was flying on a broom in front of a crescent moon. One word had been written under the witch in large red letters — “HELP!” There was a key taped to the card under that urgent message. It had an orange plastic handle with the numbers 333 printed on one side and the letters ITS on the other. Everyone in town knew that ITS stood for Iona Train Station, and the 333 would’ve been the number of a locker you could rent for a quarter. I tucked the key in my pocket, cut out of line and went after Mariam. She was talking to someone dressed up like Frankenstein.
“Who sent me this card?” I asked, waving it in front of her.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said. “It’s anonymous. And don’t forget,” she added, before hustling away again, “you can send one, too! It only costs two dollars and it’s for a good cause!”
That key didn’t have anything to do with a good cause, and a little part of me wanted to toss it in the nearest garbage can and forget about the whole thing. But I’m a PI and I wouldn’t be able to look at my handsome mug in the mirror if someone landed in a heap of trouble because I ignored a cry for help. Long story short, I decided to forget about lunch and Tyler’s comic for a little while. Instead I headed down to the train station to find out what was behind door number 333.
Thursday, October 31, 12:31 p.m.
The Train Station, Locker 333
I walked into the train station, stopped and cased the joint. Other than a few men and women milling around, looking at cell phones and waiting for the next train, the place was empty. I headed for the lockers, stopped ten feet in front of them and looked around again. Something wasn’t right. My gut was telling me to forget about the key and hustle back to school. I scanned the room one more time, slowly, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything looked absolutely hunky-dory, completely copacetic. I figured I was just being overly paranoid, so I pulled the key out of my pocket, stepped over to locker 333 and slipped it into the lock. All my highly tuned gumshoe instincts were screaming at me to make a run for it, but I ignored them and opened the locker. There was a large manila envelope sitting inside. I pulled it out and turned it over. There was nothing written on either side. So I ripped the top open, reached inside and pulled out a comic book, a Captain Marvel #146. The next thing I knew, Tyler was snatching the comic out of my hand and Sebastian Cain was sticking a camcorder in my face.
“Caught you red-handed, Lime!” Cain exclaimed.
“No wonder you couldn’t find it,” Tyler barked. “You stole it!”
“Have you gone nutty, Tyler?” I said. “Why would I want to steal your comic?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Cain said, still aiming the camcorder at me. “To drum up business for your detective agency!”
“That’s crazy!” I said.
“Is it?” Cain smi
rked. “You know what I think is crazy? Some loser from Los Angeles, who can’t help falling asleep, pretending to be a detective. There’s only one hitch, though. What happens when there are no more mysteries to solve? I’ll tell you what — you start committing the crimes yourself. Then you solve them and everyone thinks you’re the hero.”
“You’re not buying this hogwash, are you, Tyler?” I said, ignoring Cain.
“There’s nothing to buy, Limey,” Cain added. “I bumped into Tyler last night walking down Main Street, and he told me you dropped his case. I smelled a rat, so I offered my own investigative services. And I don’t charge my clients favors. I do this for free, because there’s nothing better than taking down the bad guys at Iona High, is there?”
“Nice try, Cain,” I started, “but I couldn’t have stolen Tyler’s comic, and I have an airtight alibi to prove it.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your excuse?”
“I was here,” I said, “on a case.”
“Sure,” Cain said, “and who were you working for, Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy?”
“A kid named Jake Clam,” I said. “No, wait, Jake Clum … no, no, Jake Clim. Jake Clim, that’s it.”
“Are you sure that’s it?” Cain said with a chuckle. “Because it kind of sounds made up to me. What do you think, Tyler?”
“Yeah,” Tyler rumbled, grabbing me by the collar, “it sounds real made up.”
“Plus,” I added, “stealing that comic was a two-man job.”
“Huh?” Tyler said.