The Copycat Caper

by John V. Madormo

  My mind drifted to Sam Solomon. I tried to remember a time when Sam might have made a decision to close the office for a few weeks, voluntarily or not. And if so, how had he coped with it? I thought hard for several minutes and then I had the answer. Why had it taken me so long to remember? The answer was so obvious—Episode #45—The Faulty Breaks Caper.

  In this particular episode, Sam had been hired by the business partner of a man who was suspected of embezzling funds from the company. When Sam contacted the accused and asked for a meeting, he was invited to the man’s mountain retreat. Why in such a remote location? he wondered. Could it be a trap? Would he come back alive? Against his better judgment, Sam agreed to the meeting—which turned out to be pretty uneventful. As he drove back down the mountain, however, he realized his greatest fear. During the meeting, someone had poured acid over his car’s brake linings. As he approached a treacherous turn, and without the ability to stop, the car veered off the road and down an embankment. Sam suffered multiple contusions and half a dozen broken bones. He was forced to close the agency for three months. And it was during that hiatus that Sam learned that he could live without the adventure, the intrigue, and the danger. He actually found himself enjoying the break but was anxious to resume business when he was fully healed.

  So if Sam could survive for three months, then I could certainly survive for six weeks. It was decided. I would hang the GONE FISHING sign on the door first thing Monday morning and immerse myself in the play. I was determined to be the best private eye in town—even if I was mouthing someone else’s lines.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Miss Information Caper

  I met up with Henry and Scarlett on the playground before school the next day.

  “I’m glad I caught you guys,” I said. “I have a plan. Since play practice begins on Monday, why don’t we at least keep the office open until then? That way we might get a last-minute walk-in before we close up shop for the next month and a half.”

  “I can’t today,” Henry said. “My little sister has a dance recital after school and my mom’s making me go.”

  “I can’t either,” Scarlett said. “I have an appointment at the orthodontist.”

  “Then that just leaves Friday,” I said. “Does that work for you guys?”

  Henry nodded. “I can do it.”

  Scarlett frowned. “Can’t you guys ever give me a little more warning?”

  Unlike Henry, I liked the idea of having a third brain at the agency. And I really liked being able to spend more time with Scarlett. But sometimes she made it so difficult. She wasn’t committed yet, and I wasn’t sure if she would ever be.

  “That’s more than twenty-four hours from now. That’s plenty of notice,” I said. “It may be the last chance for us to help out our fellow man for who knows how long. We owe it to the client.”

  Scarlett sighed. “I’m just not a big fan of this walk-in business. We’re just sitting around doing nothing until someone decides to show up. It seems like a big waste of time. Do we absolutely have to?”

  “Well, you don’t,” Henry snapped. “But me and Charlie’ll be there. And if a client with a killer case happens to stroll in, we’ll be sure to call you . . . if we remember, that is.”

  The first bell went off. We now had five minutes to get to our first class.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Blackmail,” she said. “If I don’t come, you’re going to freeze me out of the next caper.”

  Henry shrugged. “What can I say? It’s just business. It’s like the story of the Little Red Hen. You wanna piece of nice, warm, oven-baked bread, you gotta help roll out the dough.”

  Scarlett rolled her eyes. “I’ll be there,” she said as she squeezed past a group of kids standing near the front door.

  Henry grinned and wiped his hands. “If you need any more help handling the princess, you know who to call.”

  It was funny the way things seemed to work out. Henry, who could barely tolerate Scarlett, knew all of the right buttons to push to get her to do exactly what he wanted. Then there was me, a kid who’d do anything for her attention and who was totally clueless when it came to girls. At times I thought about adopting Henry’s strategy—complete rudeness—but I knew it’d never work for me. As soon as I’d utter a negative comment, I would immediately feel the need to apologize. I needed a new approach, but I had nothing in mind. I could only hope that my theatrical debut would ultimately win her over.

  • • •

  The next day was a blur. All I could think about was Friday afternoon when we’d meet up in the garage for one last session at the agency. Since it would be weeks before we’d get a chance to take on new clients, I was hoping that someone with a quick and manageable problem would stroll in. And as strange as it may sound, I was actually hoping that no one would walk in with a killer, Sam-Solomon-type case. Our schedule simply wouldn’t allow it.

  When I got home on Friday afternoon, I changed clothes and ran downstairs to meet up with Henry and Scarlett. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. My mom was at her monthly book club meeting. We would be safe for a good two hours. On my way out to the garage, I passed through the kitchen and immediately spotted a plate of brownies on the counter. For a kid who was supposed to be monitoring his calorie intake, brownies presented the ultimate temptation. There weren’t really any foods that were absolutely forbidden as far as my parents were concerned, but if there had been, I was fairly certain that brownies would have been in the top ten. My mom, who had struggled with her own weight for as long as I could remember, had always preached moderation. Nothing was off the table, but you were expected to exercise prudence when choosing portions. I knew that a small sliver of a single brownie would be acceptable, so I cut off a corner and promptly inhaled it.

  While savoring the moment, I spotted a headline in the newspaper lying on the kitchen table. It read Mystery Cards May Link Crimes. I sliced off another corner of the same brownie and sat down to read the article. It recounted the story of the theft of Persian rugs from the carpeting store a little more than a week ago. Then it mentioned the burglary of the bakery shop this past Tuesday. I remembered both stories and I also recalled thinking that they seemed unrelated. But now there appeared to be a connection.

  On the floor of the rug shop, police recovered a business card with the letters SS on it. There was a red circle around the letters and a red slanted line over the SS lettering. I had seen the red symbol before. It usually meant that something wasn’t allowed somewhere. Then, according to the story, exactly one week later on the floor of the bakery, the same card was found. The article said that the discovery of the cards might indicate a connection between the two crimes. Or it might just be a complete coincidence. At press time, police had been unable to explain the significance of the SS markings on the card.

  I glanced down at the plate of brownies. No less than six of them were now missing all four corners. This was not what my mom would refer to as moderation. I knew that I would have to answer for this crime. I could only hope that my punishment would be swift and relatively painless. As I walked out the back door and into the garage, I found myself thinking about the SS lettering on the business cards found at the crime scenes. Had the perpetrator inadvertently dropped them at each location? Or had he done so intentionally?

  That immediately made me think of Sam Solomon. In Episode #43—The Miss Information Caper, he was on the trail of a notorious female assassin. After each hit, she would leave a flower called a black spider—an Asiatic black lily—at the foot of each victim. When police struggled to identify a suspect, Sam was hired by the family of one of her potential targets who hoped to stop the killer before she struck again. Within days, Sam had managed to track her down. It was later learned that the woman was playing a game of cat and mouse with police and had deliberately left clues for them, with the hopes of being caught.

  I doub
ted if we were dealing with the same sort of psychopath in tiny Oak Grove, but it sure was interesting. And then there was the question about the markings on each card. What did the SS mean anyway? The only time I recalled seeing that abbreviation was in a history class when we were studying World War II. I seemed to remember that the SS was an elite corps of the Nazi Party that guarded Adolf Hitler. I could see where someone might not be particularly fond of that group. Or it could stand for Secret Service or Selective Service or even Social Security. Maybe the guy was an anti-government type. Whatever it turned out to be, this story had piqued my interest, and I was determined to follow it to its conclusion.

  When I entered the garage, Henry was already waiting for me. He had set up the card table and lawn chairs. He had even laid out my trench coat and fedora. He was ready for business.

  “She’s late as usual,” he announced.

  “She’ll be here,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  And before Henry had a chance for a clever retort, Scarlett strolled in.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It took me a while to get past that long line of walk-ins out there.”

  “Very funny,” Henry said.

  It appeared that I needed to intervene—as usual. “Why don’t we all just take a seat and relax. When someone does eventually walk in, we need to have our game faces on.”

  Each of us dropped down into our respective lawn chairs. I smiled weakly at the others, hoping to preserve the peace. Scarlett crossed her legs, folded her arms, and did her best to avoid eye contact with either of us. Henry stretched out his legs, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and pretended to be napping. After a couple of minutes, Scarlett jumped out of her chair.

  “I just can’t sit here like this,” she said. “It’s making me crazy.”

  Henry opened one eye and smiled. He apparently was going to let me get myself out of this.

  “Well, we could have a conversation,” I said. “We could talk about the play. We do have that in common. Scarlett, you go first.”

  She made a face and sat back down. “I think I’d rather just sit here.”

  I shook my head. Now I was completely confused. Wasn’t she the one, about twenty seconds ago, who couldn’t stand just sitting around? Oh, well. I would never understand girls. For the next few minutes, an uncomfortable silence followed. Scarlett would shift in her chair every so often. Henry would let out an occasional snore just to irritate her. And from the expression on her face, it was working. I kept glancing at the door. I so prayed that someone would walk in just to end the standoff. When it was clear that a prospective client was nowhere to be seen, I decided to ease the tension myself.

  “So, has anyone heard any good brainteasers lately?” I said. I doubted if Scarlett would react to my question, but I was almost certain that Henry would be unable to pass up a chance to stump us.

  He sat up in his chair. “Since you asked,” he said, “I just happen to have a little something for you.”

  “Great, let ’er rip,” I said. This would hopefully pacify Scarlett. If she was forced to do a little critical thinking, she might feel that the afternoon hadn’t been a total waste of time.

  “Here goes,” Henry began. “A man, convicted of murder in Canada, is sentenced to life behind bars. He vows to escape. He’s sent to a prison on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia. One day he does manage to escape without anyone’s help. There is no bridge connected to the mainland, yet he is able to walk away.” Henry sat back in his chair. “How’d he do it?”

  Scarlett uncrossed her legs. It had worked. We now had her attention.

  “Maybe the water was shallow and he was able to wade to the shore,” she said.

  “Nope,” Henry said. “It was twenty feet deep, and he couldn’t swim.”

  This was getting interesting. The fact that this happened in Canada was either an important clue or it was meaningless and just intended to throw us off. Even if the inmate managed to escape from the prison himself, I was having a hard time imagining how he could just walk away. I began to concentrate on the facts: the prison, the island, the water, and maybe Canada. The combination had to lead to a solution.

  “He had a boat stashed somewhere,” Scarlett said.

  Henry shook his head. “No boat. And he walked. He didn’t paddle.”

  I stared straight ahead and tried to imagine the scenario that Henry had described. There had to be a logical way to get the prisoner off the island, across the body of water, and onto the mainland. What was I missing? I decided to toss Canada into the mix to see if that would help. What was unique about Canada? I thought. And then suddenly, I had it. In this particular brain buster, the location was important.

  “So, do you give up?” Henry said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Scarlett said. “What is it?”

  “Not so fast,” I replied. “I’ve got it.”

  Henry and Scarlett both turned in my direction.

  “Here’s how he did it,” I said. “Since the prison is so far north, the prisoner just waited until the dead of winter, when everything was frozen, including the body of water between the island and the mainland. And then he just walked away.”

  Henry, foiled again, sat back in his chair. “Wake me when a client walks in.” And that was it. No congratulations. No “nice going, partner.” No nothing. Henry was too competitive for his own good. But that spirit did come in awfully handy when we found ourselves embroiled in an unusually challenging case.

  “Are we done here?” Scarlett asked.

  “No,” Henry said. His eyes never opened.

  She began tapping her fingers on the card table. “How long are we expected—” She stopped in mid-sentence.

  There had been a knock at the door. Henry sat up and smiled.

  “What did I tell you?” he said. He raced over and threw open the door.

  And almost as if he had planned it, a walk-in client stepped into the garage. It was a familiar face—Derrick Hirsch. Derrick was a fellow sixth-grade classmate at Roosevelt. The most interesting thing about him was his mouth—it was full of metal. This kid was a dentist’s dream. He had been in braces for as long as I could remember. Derrick would regularly pop out his retainer, along with other dental paraphernalia, and set them on his desk. If that wasn’t bad enough, they were always dripping in drool. Not an appetizing picture during lunch, let me tell you.

  “Collier, you open for business?” he asked.

  “You bet,” I said. “Pull up a chair.”

  Henry reached for the change jar and shook it just for Derrick’s benefit.

  Derrick reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. “There’s at least a buck here. Don’t worry.”

  “Just checking,” Henry said.

  With that ugly business out of the way, it was time to get to work. “Okay,” I said, “what can we do for you?”

  Derrick leaned in, folded his hands, and set them on the table. “Here’s the deal, Collier. My grandpa is a big coin collector. Been saving coins all his life. He’s got this awesome collection. And he’s always telling me that someday he’s going to give it to me. So yesterday, he says: ‘Derrick, it’s time for you to become steward of my collection.’ So naturally I’m pretty excited. Then he says: ‘But before I hand it over, you’ll have to earn it.’”

  I couldn’t stop staring at Derrick’s braces. I could see these little rubber bands in his mouth moving up and down as he spoke. I knew I should have been concentrating on what he was saying, but it was tough.

  “So my grandpa pulls out this jar,” he continued. “It’s about this high.” Derrick held one hand about eight inches above the other. “Then he drops a coin in there. It’s an 1875-CC twenty-cent piece.”

  “Twenty-cent piece?” Scarlett said. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

  “Yeah, they made them from 1875 to 1878,” De
rrick said. “But let’s not get hung up on details.”

  “What’s it worth?” Henry asked.

  “About five hundred bucks,” he replied.

  Henry, Scarlett, and I looked at one another. It was obvious we weren’t charging this guy enough.

  “Then he sticks a cork into the top of the bottle. He looks at me, smiles, and says: ‘If you want my collection, you have to remove the coin from this bottle, but you can’t take the cork out, and you can’t break the bottle.’” Derrick sat back in his chair. “How the heck am I supposed to do that? Collier, you gotta help me.”

  I turned to my colleagues. “Any thoughts?”

  Scarlett shook her head.

  “How wide is the opening at the top of the bottle?” Henry asked.

  “About an inch,” he said. “Just large enough for the coin to fit in.”

  I tried to imagine a bottle with a cork in it and a coin sitting at the bottom. I grabbed a pad of paper from the shelf and began to sketch. I sat there and stared at it for a good minute. Nothing was coming. I glanced at Henry and shrugged. He shook his head. As did Scarlett.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Derrick said. “What am I gonna do, guys?”

  “Maybe if we think about it overnight, we’ll come up with something,” I said.

  “I’m not getting my money’s worth here,” Derrick said disgustedly.

  Henry jumped up. “You haven’t paid yet. What are you talking about?”

  Normally, I would immediately have tried to put an end to the bickering, but I was too deep in thought. I repeated the directions to myself: You have to remove the coin, but you can’t take the cork out, and you can’t break the bottle. I began to stress each phrase and then each word. You can’t take the cork out . . . you can’t take it out . . . out, that’s it. I sat up in my chair and grinned.

  “Get your money ready,” I said to Derrick. “Here’s what you do. Your grandpa said that you couldn’t take the cork out, but he didn’t say anything about in.”