by Josh Berk
But I knew there was no way Bonzer was going to move from that chair. There was a time for being subtle, and there was a time for being blunt. Isn’t that what a real detective would do? Wait, why would I think I was a real detective? What was I doing?
“Is there anyone who might be using these computers before the library is open?” I said, trying to sound tough.
“Lenny, what is this about? I know you’re not doing any project on libraries. I thought you were merely being nosy. But it’s starting to sound like something is going on here. Just tell me.”
How does he know?! What to do now?! Telling him does seem to be the only option.
“Okay, Mr. Bonzer,” I said, lowering my voice to an even quieter hush than the normal library level. I also hoped the voice sounded very serious and important. “I’ll level with you.” I heard the Mikes snicker, but I pressed on.
“Please do,” he said.
I don’t think my voice conveyed the seriousness of the situation as well as I hoped because it sort of squeaked. Mr. Bonzer smiled, then wiped at his mouth to erase the grin. “I think someone has been sending messages from the library’s computer to a baseball website. A Phillies website. Bedrosian’s Beard. Do you know it?”
If he knew of the site, that would be a clue! Maybe Mr. Bonzer was PhilzFan1 and the killer of R. J. Weathers!
“Unfortunately, I don’t,” he said. “I mean, I remember the pitcher Steve Bedrosian, but I can’t imagine why his beard has a website.” He answered quickly and casually. “I guess they have everything on the Internet these days. Plus, it really was a pretty sweet beard.” It didn’t seem like he was lying. He was sweating, which maybe was a sign of a liar? But Mr. Bonzer always sweated. He could have been sitting on an iceberg in his underwear and he’d probably be mopping sweat from his brow. But I wasn’t letting him off the hook.
“Bedrosian’s Beard. Do you know it?” I asked again, pounding the table.
“Didn’t I just say that I don’t, Lenny?” he said. His eyebrows crinkled. It was sort of a guilty-looking face, but it might have just been that I was confusing him. “You’re confusing me,” he said. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”
It was a good theory, the idea that Bonzer was PhilzFan1 and the killer of R. J. Weathers, but now it seemed to be a bad one. Nothing added up. But still, how was it possible that PhilzFan1 was posting from the library before it opened? I figured I’d just tell him the whole story.
“We’ve been following this guy on Bedrosian’s Beard,” I said. “He calls himself PhilzFan1. And he has been writing some crazy things. Some really crazy things. Things about R. J. Weathers. Who now is dead, if you haven’t heard.”
“I heard,” Mr. Bonzer said. “I was watching the game. Such a tragedy.”
“We were able to trace the messages back to here!” I said.
“Oh,” he said again. “Well, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Even if someone is saying something crazy on a library computer, we’re bound to protect their privacy.”
“Even if PhilzFan1 killed R. J. Weathers?” I asked. Oh yeah. I went there.
Bonzer stammered a bit. “Lenny, this is sounding serious. If you think that something like that is really happening, if this isn’t just your imagination, then we need to call the police.”
That pretty much made it clear to me that Bonzer wasn’t PhilzFan1. Why would he want to call the police if he was guilty? But I hadn’t revealed my final card. Classic move. I was a good detective.
“Some of the messages PhilzFan1 wrote,” I whispered, “were sent before the library opened. I don’t think it’s a library user. I think it’s … an employee.” I cast my eyes around the room. No one else seemed to be working there, but you couldn’t be sure. Bonzer’s eyes lit up, a clear sign of recognition on his face. “Do you know the guy?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, leaning close, answering my whisper with one of his own. “I do know the guy. Just about your size. Your age. Maybe a little taller. Nice smile. Brown eyes, brown hair. Wears it in a ponytail.” He paused, and then: “She’s spending the summer at my house.”
I looked at the Mikes. They shrugged. Other Mike tapped his nose, which is something weird he does sometimes when he’s thinking.
Mr. Bonzer pressed a button on his phone. “Maria, could you come out here, please?” A few seconds later, a girl who looked a little older than me joined us at the desk. Bonzer kept talking to me. “When the library’s open, we pretty much have her working in the back, cleaning books, mending books, handling inventory, stuff like that,” he said. “Mornings she’s supposed to be doing computer stuff for the library. Oh, and where are my manners? Lenny Norbeck, this is Maria Bonzer, my niece. You might know her as PhilzFan1.”
Maria’s eyes got huge, and she started tugging at her ponytail. I thought she might make a run for it. “I—I, um,” she said.
“I guess that’s the end of letting you use the computers before we open,” Mr. Bonzer said. “Lenny tells me you’re in a bit of trouble. He’s talking about the police.”
“What—why?” she said. Her voice got all high-pitched, and she pounded the desk. Some library patrons looked at us. She lowered her voice. “All I did was write stuff on the Internet. I just love the Phils. Is that a crime?”
“No,” I said. “I do not suppose it is.”
So Mr. Bonzer was not PhilzFan1. Maria Bonzer was PhilzFan1. But probably not a killer. I looked at Mike, then at Other Mike. I could tell that they were thinking the same things. Where did that leave us? A killer was still out there. The game wasn’t over. It was only the start of a new inning. And I was just getting warmed up.
CHAPTER TEN
The next few seconds went about like this:
“Dude!”
“Shhh.”
“What the—?”
“Dude.”
“Shhhh!”
“You mean she’s—”
“SHHHHH!!”
“PhilzFan1 is Bonzer’s—?”
“No way!”
“SHHHHHHHH!!!!”
A library is not exactly the best place to have a bombshell dropped on you. Hard to keep the volume down.
“Can we maybe discuss this outside?” I said to Maria, sensing the angry glares from the assembled readers.
“If it’s okay with the boss,” she said, pointing a thumb at Mr. Bonzer.
“What-ever,” he said, sighing, saying it as two words, like a grumpy child. “I’d hate to take you away from your demanding schedule of posting incendiary comments on the Internet.”
“Um, is that a yes?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s a yes,” he said. “Better than having you annoy everyone in here.”
When we walked out of the library into the bright, hot sun, I swear to you, there was honest-to-goodness applause from the library patrons. They literally gave us a standing ovation, including the old folks for whom standing was a bit of a challenge. Even the gray-haired lady in a wheelchair struggled to her feet to show her approval at our departure. I guess we were making sort of a scene in there. Interrupting their reading and what have you. But never mind that! I had other things on my mind.
I sized up Maria. She was as Mr. Bonzer described: our age or a little older, with a slick bundle of brown hair snaking through the back of a red ball cap. As for the nice smile? You’d have to ask the Mikes. They were basically drooling at her feet. Great. So it was up to me to begin the interrogation.
“Would you mind telling me exactly what is going on here?” I asked. Seemed like a good way to start. Her answered surprised me.
“Would you mind telling me exactly what is going on here?” she parroted. Touché.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You come down here, acting all weird, demanding to know about stuff I wrote on the Internet, getting me in trouble with my uncle, who is also my boss. What is up with that?”
“I—I, um … Guys, help me out?” I said. It was all I could manage. She was furiou
s! Her eyes were burning, her ponytail was swinging wildly. Her pointer finger was an inch from jabbing into my chest. It looked like someone was going to get hurt. And by “someone,” I meant “me.”
“Okay,” Mike said. He was always good at staying calm. “I’m sorry we got you in trouble and stuff, but Lenny was at the game where R. J. Weathers died. He was supposed to announce an inning—”
Maria cut him off. “You were the one who won Armchair Announcer?” she said, her voice taking on a much friendlier tone. “No way! I totally wanted to win that! Congratulations. That’s really awesome. I would love to be there in the booth. Hanging out with Buck Foltz and Arnie Mickel and those dudes. Dream come true.”
“Thanks!” I said. “Buck is pretty cool. Mick too. I was really psyched that I won. Only I didn’t get to actually do any announcing. I think my dad was happy about that, though. He wants me to be a doctor.”
“Well, yeah. What a bummer. I guess they had to cancel, under the circumstances.”
“Suspicious circumstances!” Other Mike said.
“Oh, now I think I see where this is going. You guys didn’t suspect me of having something to do with RJ’s death, did you?”
“Well, um, I, sort of. We didn’t know it was you exactly, and we sort of … maybe …” I was muttering, rambling, making a mess of my words. Mike jumped in.
“Yeah, we thought it was PhilzFan1, so, yeah, you. That stuff you wrote was threatening! What did you mean: ‘a surprise in store’?” Mike said.
“I brought a sign to the game,” she said. “That’s all—TONIGHT’S FORECAST: BAD WEATHERS.”
“Ha-ha. I saw that,” I said. “Good one.”
“But you said ‘drastic action’!” Mike said. “I mean, PhilzFan1 said it, which is you, or whatever. I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time processing all this.”
“Well, yeah, no,” Maria said. “It is me, but it’s not me.”
“That clears that up,” Other Mike said.
“Okay, dudes,” Maria said. She was backing off a bit. Not quite so angry. “It’s sort of like PhilzFan1 is part of me but isn’t really me.”
“Is this chick talking about multiple-personality disorder?” Other Mike muttered. He’s not good at muttering. Maria heard him.
“I’m not crazy!” she yelled, in a tone of voice that made me not quite believe it. “I just … I just get so wrapped up in the games, and I just want the team to win so bad that sometimes I get a little crazy. ‘Drastic action’ didn’t mean, like, killing a player or something. That’s crazy. I was talking, like, a protest. A boycott. Burning all my team shirts, something like that. And believe me—for me, that would be drastic.”
“You think you have a lot of Phillies shirts,” Other Mike said. “If Lenny burned all his Phils shirts, the fire would be visible from space. You should see Lenny’s closet. It looks like the Phillie Phanatic threw up in there.”
Whatever that means.
Maria laughed. “So, yeah, well, I get carried away sometimes. A lot of times. Believe me. But it’s just because I want the same thing as you guys. I only want the team to win.”
“That’s not all we want,” I said quickly. “We also want to figure out who killed R. J. Weathers.”
A light breeze rustled the trees. The bell from the Schwenkfelder Church tolled in the distance. A bunch of little birds chirped a high-pitched song while a goose honked bass notes in the sky. Somewhere a lonesome dog barked. Maria squinted at me and spoke slowly.
“And I want to help,” she said. She spit into her hand and thrust it toward me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I spit in mine. But I couldn’t get a good spit because my mouth was feeling really dry. I tried, and a few sparse drips of spittle flew out. So then I just licked my palm. Both Mikes rolled their eyes and nearly fell over laughing. Maria kept her serious face on, so I did too.
“Put ’er there,” I said. We shook hands firmly. I couldn’t believe it. PhilzFan1 was going to help me find out how R. J. Weathers died.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Standing out there in the hot sun spit-shaking and squinting like cowboys felt pretty good. Like we might really have a chance to solve this thing. But then a police car went screaming by, and the sound of the siren sort of popped my bubble. I thought of all the crime-stopping power in just one of those vehicles. Radios. Fingerprinting kits. Handcuffs. Weapons. We didn’t have cars, we had bikes. We didn’t have guns, we had our bare hands. We didn’t even have mustaches. What kind of detectives could we be? Besides that, Maria was probably grounded. Mr. Bonzer certainly didn’t look happy looming in the door of the library, shielding his eyes from the sun and staring out at us.
“You going to come back to work anytime today?” he shouted at her.
“I was hoping to take the rest of the day off,” she said. “If that’s okay.”
“I’m going to have to have a talk with your mother about all this,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“Come on, Uncle Alan,” she said. We laughed. There’s nothing inherently funny about being named Alan, of course, just that anytime you learn a grown-up’s name you never knew before, it’s hard not to laugh. If he wasn’t just Mr. Bonzer, the library guy, but rather Alan, somebody’s uncle … well, it makes a person seem more human somehow. “I’ll mow the lawn for you,” Maria said. This also made me laugh. Mainly because I was picturing Bonzer sweating all over a lawn mower.
“Okay,” Bonzer said, sort of quickly. He probably hated mowing the lawn. He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “I’ll let you take the day off to go do whatever business you’re doing with these gentlemen.” He pointed toward the three of us. We certainly looked like classy gentlemen. Other Mike was picking his nose (with both hands at once), and Mike was kicking the bike rack with the toe of his raggedy sneaker. I was actually behaving like a perfect gentleman. Maybe farting a little. “As long as you stay out of trouble,” Bonzer said like he doubted it.
“You got it,” we all said at once, Maria too.
“Great,” he said, wiping sweat off his forehead again. “Cerberus has become Brahma.”
“Um, what?” Maria asked.
“Cerberus is a three-headed monster, Brahma is a four-headed god. Instead of the three of you guys acting as one, now you’re a four-headed beast. What dangers hath I wrought?” he said. Then he smiled. Librarians are sort of weird.
It was cool that Maria could have the day off with us, but I still wasn’t sure where to begin. We stood in silent awkwardness in front of the library for a few moments. Luckily, Maria wasn’t one to keep silent for long.
“Oh man, I can’t believe you were there, in the booth, at the game when this went down, Lenny!” she said, turning to face me.
“Yup,” I said, looking away. “I totally was.” And then I didn’t know what else to say.
“So did you notice anything unusual? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“He talked to the other announcers,” Mike said, butting in. “And they reported observing a highly suspicious dork with dark hair and glasses farting in the booth. I think we should check into him. First name Benny or Penny. Last name Dorkback. Penny Dorkback, something like that? He’s probably our man.”
Other Mike coughed and they high-fived. They were hilarious. Penny Dorkback.
“Very funny, Mike,” I said, blushing a little.
“Something shady definitely happened last night,” Maria said. “Just think—what else did you see?”
“I—I—I really can’t remember,” I said. “It was all sort of a blur. I was so nervous and excited, it just— Hey! I was filming a bunch of stuff at the time. Maybe we can look at my video, see if we can find anything on there?” I sort of doubted that any key clues would be lurking on the video camera, but it was my best shot.
“Whoa, do you have a spy camera?” Maria asked.
“I wish!” I said. “It’s just a regular little video camera.”
“I have a spy camera,” she said proudly. She put her hand
s on her hips and stuck out her lip. Very spylike. The Mikes looked impressed. She continued, “It looks just like a pen, but it does audio and video and everything.”
“Is that the PCX05?” Other Mike asked.
“I don’t know what model it is,” Maria said, sounding annoyed. “It’s a spy camera that looks like a pen, and it’s awesome.”
“Fair enough,” I said, thinking that might come in handy later.
“So do you have that camera on you, or …?” Maria asked.
“It’s back at my house,” I said. “I could go get it or whatever.”
“Let’s just go hang out there,” Mike said. “It’s hot out here, and I’m insanely tired of the library anyway.” Then he added to Maria, “No offense.”
“It’s not like I own the library,” she said. We stood and stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.
“Race you!” I said, rushing toward my bike and unlocking it as fast as I could. Then I looked back and saw Maria standing there with her hands on her hips, this time with her eyebrows pointed toward the sky. She whistled a little tune. “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t have a bike. It’s not far. We could just walk or I could give you a ride, or whatever.”
“Or,” she said, pausing for a moment, then grabbing the bike from my hands and jumping onto it in one amazingly fast motion, “I could give you a ride. Hop on!”
I stood there, blinking in disbelief.
And that’s how I ended up riding on the handlebars of my own bike while Maria Bonzer pedaled me home. I was too mortified to speak. The Mikes led the way, turning around every so often to shout directions to Maria or to laugh at me. For some reason, I was wearing the helmet. Nice.
“Looking good, Snake Eyes,” Other Mike yelled back at me.
“They call you Snake Eyes?” Maria asked.
“Snake Eyes … Killer … Nitro,” I said. “You know. It varies. Other Mike likes to give us different biker nicknames. He likes to pretend we’re a biker gang sometimes. You know. He’s a dork!”