by David Lewman
He saw Tessa, the girl who played Millicent, standing with her hands covering her mouth. She was staring at the set for act two, which was set up behind the set for act one.
It was splattered with hot-pink paint.
On the wall of the dining room set, someone had used the hot-pink paint to write: MILLICENT DID IT.
“ ‘Millicent did it’?” Corey read. “Did what?” He gestured toward act two’s ruined set. “This?”
Shaking her head, Tessa said, “No. Not this. I play Millicent, and I certainly didn’t do this.”
The other cast members arrived, shocked by what they saw. “Why would someone do this?” Tim asked. “And why would they give away the ending?”
Ben and Hannah had followed Corey, and Ben asked, “You mean in the play it turns out Millicent is the one who’s been trying to scare away the others?”
“Yeah,” Tim said. “Whoever did this knows how the play ends.”
Corey whispered to Hannah, “See? I told you one of the sisters did it. And you said that wasn’t fair.”
Hannah gave Corey a quick look that told him to drop it.
Mrs. Gordon walked in briskly. But when she saw the paint splattered all over act two’s set, she slowed down and then stood there, staring.
The whole cast waited to see what she’d say.
“Well,” she said. “It looks as though I was wrong. Someone has been trying to sabotage this play. And it’s worked. I don’t see how we can possibly fix the set in time for tomorrow’s opening.”
She shook her head, looking discouraged.
“What are we going to do, then?” John asked.
Mrs. Gordon took a deep breath. “We’re going to cancel.”
The five cast members started to protest, but Mrs. Gordon held up her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’ve all worked very hard to be ready for opening night, and I’m proud of you. But the second act’s set is extremely important in this play. We can’t do the show without it.”
“Will we put on the show on Saturday night?” Melissa asked. “My whole family’s coming.”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gordon said. “We’ll have to see. Right now I think the important thing is to get out the word that the first performance is canceled due to . . . unforeseen circumstances. Courtney?”
The stage manager stepped forward. “Yes, Mrs. Gordon?”
“I’m putting you in charge of making signs announcing the cancellation. The whole cast will help you.”
“Right,” Courtney said, nodding. “Come on,” she said to the five cast members as she headed offstage. They followed her, looking miserable.
Ben, Corey, and Hannah stayed on stage, studying the ruined set. Ben knelt down for a closer look. Hannah was taking pictures with her phone’s camera.
“Pictures are always a good idea, Hannah,” Corey said. “But aren’t you forgetting something?”
Hannah stopped taking pictures for a second. “What?”
“We had the digital camera running,” Corey said. “We must have gotten video of the whole thing, including who did this.”
Ben stood up and turned to face Corey. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Corey asked, surprised. “We haven’t even checked the recording yet.”
Ben walked over and patted the back of act one’s set. “Because of this,” he said. “The set for act one. It was between the camera and act two’s set, blocking everything. I doubt we caught anything.”
Corey looked at the back of the damaged set. He saw what Ben meant. The way the scenery was set up, the wall with paint flung across it was invisible from the auditorium seats. And that meant it was invisible to the camera in the auditorium. He sighed.
“Well, I still think it’s worth reviewing the recording,” he said. “We might have caught something. Maybe the person who did this walked through the auditorium on their way backstage.”
“I agree. We should always be thorough with any evidence, no matter how unlikely it is that we’ll find something,” Ben said. “And speaking of evidence, I want to get a sample of this hot-pink paint.”
He knelt down by the splattered wall again. Opening his backpack, Ben dug out a plastic bag and a metal scraper. Carefully, he removed some of the dried paint from the set, put the evidence into the plastic bag, and sealed it.
While Ben gathered his paint sample, Hannah and Corey searched the set and the backstage area for any additional evidence.
“Do you see any open cans of paint or used paintbrushes?” Corey asked. “Maybe we could find some fingerprints or shoe prints.”
“Nope,” Hannah reported, checking the corners of the backstage. “Whoever did this must have taken everything away after they messed up the scenery.”
Corey stared at the big, bright pink letters on the dining room wall: MILLICENT DID IT. “Why do you think the saboteur decided to spoil the ending?” he asked.
“I think it was to make sure the set couldn’t be used,” Hannah said. “If there were just random blotches of paint, they might have been able to quickly paint over it in time for the opening night’s performance. It probably would have been hard to cover up such a bright color of paint, but if it was only squiggles and doodles bleeding through, it might not have mattered. But there’s no way you could do the second act of the show with the name of the culprit coming through and showing up on the wall.”
“That makes sense,” Corey conceded. “Wow. I guess whoever did this really didn’t want them to perform Nobody’s Home.”
“I guess not,” Hannah agreed.
“Do you think we could do handwriting analysis on this?” he asked, peering at the pink message.
“I kind of doubt it,” Hannah said. “It looks as though whoever wrote this used a paintbrush. Painting with a brush isn’t like writing with a pen. And they probably tried to disguise their writing, anyway. They knew they were doing something really wrong.”
Ben put on his backpack. “Come on. Let’s go to my house. We can check the camera’s recording on my laptop.”
“How long will that take?” Corey asked, shouldering his own backpack.
“The camera was on for hours,” Hannah said. “It could take a long time.”
“In that case,” Corey said, “we’d better stop and pick up some snacks.”
Chapter 11
Ben’s room was full of scientific equipment: microscopes, beakers, chemistry sets, and test tubes. The walls were covered with posters related to science. One showed the periodic table of the elements. Another pictured different species of whales. There was a big black-and-white photo of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.
Ben’s mother kiddingly called his bedroom “the lab.” Ben secretly liked that.
“I love what you’ve done,” Corey joked.
“What do you mean?” Ben asked, puzzled. “It’s the same as the last time you were here.”
“Okay, then I love the nothing you’ve done,” Corey corrected himself. He started to dig out the snacks they’d bought on their way to Ben’s house.
Hannah plopped her backpack onto Ben’s bed. “Let’s get going on reviewing the recording,” she said. “I’m afraid it’ll take all night, and I’ve got homework.”
Ben took the memory card out of the camera and then pushed it into his laptop’s SD slot. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I’ve got homework too. Maybe we should watch the footage in shifts. One of us could watch the screen for twenty minutes while the other two work on their homework. Then we could switch.”
“Good idea,” Corey said, biting into an apple. “You go first.”
While Hannah and Corey opened their textbooks and started doing their homework, Ben watched the first twenty minutes of the recording.
It wasn’t very interesting.
A single light was shining onstage. (Mrs. Gordon told Club CSI it was called the “ghost light,” but she didn’t tell the cast members that, since she also knew there was already a rumor about the theater
being haunted.) Act one’s set was set up.
No one came. Nothing moved. Watching the recording was like staring at a painting.
After twenty minutes, the alarm on Ben’s phone went off. He paused the playback, rubbed his eyes, and reached for his homework.
“Anything?” Hannah asked, even though she was pretty sure Ben would have spoken up if he’d spotted anything.
Ben shook his head. “Nope. Nothing.”
“Okay, well, I’ll go next,” Hannah offered.
“Have fun,” Ben said, opening his math book.
Hannah did not have fun. Staring at the unchanging recording of an empty stage was about as interesting as watching a tree grow. Actually, less interesting. With a tree, at least the occasional leaf blew in the breeze.
When Corey’s turn came, he made a suggestion less than a minute into his shift. “I say we fast-forward through this.”
Ben looked up from his homework. “But we might miss something.”
“I don’t think so,” Corey said. “Nothing is moving. In fast-forward, we’ll be able to spot someone coming onto the stage without any trouble. The person’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
After thinking about it, Ben and Hannah agreed. Corey hit the fast-forward button. At first he was only watching it at double speed, but soon he had it up to fifteen times the actual speed.
The picture on the laptop still looked pretty much like a painting. The light flickered a little bit, but nothing moved.
“I wish a mouse would at least run across the stage,” Corey complained.
“So you wish our school was infested with mice?” Hannah asked, grossed out.
“I didn’t say ‘infested,’ ” Corey said. “I said ‘a mouse.’ Or even a bug. Like, maybe a big beetle or something. Or a bat. Anything!”
They decided that if all three of them watched the computer screen, they could run the fast-forward at its top speed.
But there was nothing. They came to the end of the recording. The last thing they saw was Ben walking up to the camera and turning it off. And they’d seen nothing suspicious.
“So whoever smeared paint on the set was hidden behind act one’s set the whole time,” Hannah said. “Where the camera wouldn’t catch them. They must have come in through the side stage door.”
“That seems right,” Ben said, disappointed. Even though he’d thought act one’s set would block the act of vandalism, he’d hoped maybe they’d spot something. Even a quick glimpse of the saboteur might help them figure out who they were.
“Maybe the Mad Paint Splatterer knew about the camera,” Corey suggested.
Hannah shook her head. “Only Mrs. Gordon knew. And I’m sure she didn’t do this.”
“That’s why I set up the camera where the audience would be,” Ben said. “That way it wasn’t nearly as obvious as if I’d set it up onstage. Now I wish I’d put it somewhere backstage, maybe hidden in a corner.”
“There’s no way you could have known ahead of time what the best angle would be,” Hannah said. “And we only had one camera.”
“Which we have to return to Peter first thing tomorrow morning,” Ben said, stretching. It was almost dinnertime. “We’d better call it a night.”
The next morning Ben, Hannah, and Corey headed for the AV club’s room in the learning center to return the equipment Peter had loaned them.
They passed posters that announced Nobody’s Home was opening that night. But now all the posters had pieces of paper taped across them saying CANCELED.
Hannah kind of felt as though Club CSI had failed. If they’d figured out who was messing with the props earlier, they could have stopped the person before they ruined the set. And they still didn’t have any good leads to follow!
Peter looked up from a tangle of power cords when Club CSI walked in. “I wish people would return these cords coiled up,” he complained. “It’s really a pain having to untangle them.”
Ben felt relieved that he’d made a point of carefully coiling the power cord they’d borrowed. He handed the carrying case to Peter. Peter unzipped it and then smiled when he saw everything neatly arranged in the black leather case.
“So, did you catch the bad guy?” he asked.
“No,” Corey said. “The only thing I got out of watching our recording was a stiff neck.”
Ben explained to Peter what they’d done with the digital camera, setting it up in the theater and letting it run to try to catch the culprit.
“But when we reviewed the recording, we didn’t see anything,” Ben concluded.
“Except for the set,” Corey said. “Boy, did we see that. And see it and see it . . .”
Peter thought for a moment. Then he had an idea. “You watched the recording, but did you listen to it? Sometimes what can’t be seen can be heard.”
All three investigators shook their heads. “We had it on fast-forward most of the time, so we didn’t hear the audio,” Hannah explained.
“Then I’d suggest listening to the soundtrack,” Peter said. “Maybe you’d catch something that way.”
Corey looked discouraged. “You mean we should go through that boring recording again?”
Peter smiled. “I could help you. Got any free periods today?”
It turned out Ben and Peter had a free period in common. They agreed the two of them would come back to the AV room and see what they could find out.
“Or rather hear what we can find out,” Ben said.
Later that morning Ben returned to the AV room. Peter was already there, fiddling with some equipment.
“We’ll play back the recording on this computer,” he said, patting an old desktop.
Ben looked skeptical. “What’ll the sound be like?”
Peter grinned. “It’ll be great. Because we’re going to run the audio from the recording through this.”
He then patted a black piece of equipment on a shelf. It looked like some kind of amplifier.
“The sound will come out through those,” he said, pointing to a pair of large speakers hanging in the corners near the ceiling.
Ben nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Oh, it’ll sound better than good,” Peter said. “It’ll sound excellent.”
Peter was right. When they played the recording, the sound that came through the speakers was crisp and clear. They could even fast-forward the recording and still hear the sound, though it was sped up.
Through most of the recording the sound was very consistent—a kind of unchanging hum.
“That’s probably just electrical equipment in the auditorium,” Peter guessed.
“Makes sense,” Ben agreed. “There are a lot of lights, and a big electrical box to control them might hum even when all the lights are turned off.”
“Except for that one light,” Peter noted.
“Right,” Ben said.
They continued to watch the playback in silence.
But then they heard something different.
Peter stopped the recording and rewound it a little. Then he turned up the sound and played back the recording at its normal speed.
“Hear that?” Peter asked, excited.
“Yes,” Ben said. “Definitely. It sounds like a door opening. And then footsteps.”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “You’re right. But what’s that other sound?”
There was something else. Over the footsteps, another sound could be heard. A higher sound. Familiar, but they couldn’t quite place it.
What could it be?
Chapter 12
After his free period, Ben had forensic science. He could hardly wait to tell Corey and Hannah about the sounds he and Peter had heard on the recording. He hurried through the crowded halls of Woodlands Junior High.
He spotted Hannah and Corey ahead of him in the hallway, heading toward class. “Hannah! Corey!” he called. His two friends turned around, but no one else even noticed him yelling. Everyone was noisy between classes—talking, laughing, squealing, banging their locker doo
rs . . .
Hannah hurried to Ben. “So, did you hear anything on the recording?”
Corey was right beside her. “Like maybe someone saying, ‘I did it! I’m the Mad Splatterer!’ ”
Ben laughed. “Nothing quite that conclusive. But Peter and I did hear something interesting.”
The three of them stepped around a corner into a slightly quieter hallway where they could hear one another without having to shout. Ben told Corey and Hannah about the sounds of the door opening and the footsteps. And the jingling sound he couldn’t identify.
“Very interesting,” Hannah said. “Did you happen to notice what the recording’s time stamp said when these sounds occurred?”
“Definitely,” Ben said. He consulted a small notepad he always carried with him. “It was just before seven a.m. The sound of the door opening happened at six fifty-seven a.m.”
“Could you be a little more precise?” Corey joked. “How many seconds after six fifty-seven was it?”
Corey looked at Hannah to see if she thought his questions were funny. When Corey teased Ben, Hannah was usually his best audience. But right now she seemed horrified.
“What’s the matter?” Corey asked. “Is that the time the theater ghost always appears?”
Hannah shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “But I think I might know who ruined the set.”
“Who?” Ben asked.
“Kelly,” Hannah said reluctantly.
Corey looked confused. “Why do you say that? Just because Ben heard a door open really early in the morning?”
“Because I know Kelly gets to school really early in the morning,” Hannah explained. “Her parents have to be at work at seven, so they always drop her off at school when it opens at six forty-five. Every day she’s one of the first students to arrive. She’d have time to sneak into the auditorium and destroy the set way before she had to be in homeroom.”
Ben looked doubtful. “I don’t know. Other students get here early too. And the saboteur might have come in early just to wreck the set, even if they don’t usually get here so early in the morning.”