Super Max and the Mystery of Thornwood's Revenge

by Susan Vaught

  Mayor Chandler started speaking into the microphone. “Everyone find seats, please. Let’s get settled in so we can call this meeting to order.”

  At first, nobody listened to her, so she said it louder. Then, when people finally did quit moving around and chattering, she said, “This meeting of the Blue Creek City Council will come to order. The clerk will call the roll.”

  The room got really quiet then, and I could hear the thud of my own heartbeat as an older man stood at the foot of the dais and called out seven names. Each of the aldermen and the mayor answered with, “Here.”

  “We have a quorum present,” the clerk told the mayor.

  I looked up “quorum” and found out that he meant enough Council members were present to make the proceedings legal and binding.

  “The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Alderman Smith,” Mayor Chandler said. “Please rise.”

  Everyone in the room besides me stood. I kinda hated everybody-stand things, but I tried to sit even straighter and taller, and I put my hand over my heart as one of the aldermen, a lady with long white hair pulled up in a ponytail, led us in reciting the pledge.

  After that came a prayer from the Methodist minister, and a text from Lavender telling me, Oh geez, this is going to take all night.

  By the time Mayor Chandler called for a vote approving the minutes of the last meeting, I texted back my agreement.

  But then one of the aldermen, John Eastland, according to his nameplate, stood. “Mayor Chandler, I move to go out of the regular business since this is a called meeting, and get to the issue at hand—the management of our local police force and the attacks on our town.”

  The mayor paused for a moment, then said, “Hearing no objections, you may proceed, Alderman Eastland.”

  The alderman, who seemed to be around Mom’s age, straightened his suit jacket and tie. He faced the gallery—or the television cameras, more like it—and said, “Our city’s general funds have been drained in a hack attack, as have the bank accounts of innocent citizens of Blue Creek. Many local business owners are here to discuss the impact of the recent cyberattacks and vandalism. I call the first of these, Danique Mitchell, owner of Danique’s Foods on 317 Bypass Road.”

  There was some rustling behind me, and then Danique, a tall woman fond of wearing a bright green smock dress, came to the table where Toppy was sitting. She took an open microphone and explained first her hurt feelings over the nasty stuff getting published about her grocery store, and then the damage to her profits from the reduction in Internet sales of her “boutique foods,” from the bad publicity, and from the denial of service attacks that kept crashing her web page.

  “This hacker seems focused on you, Chief Brennan,” she said. “And you haven’t been able to find out who it is. I’m sorry, but I’m not sure you can stop this—and it has to be stopped.”

  She yielded to Evan Dourling, who owned the hardware store. When he changed places with her, I saw how many people had formed a line to go talk, and I wondered if having a screaming fit would speed things up or slow them down.

  “Chief Brennan,” Mr. Dourling said, “I realize that one of this hacker’s goals might be to get you fired. I don’t want to give in to what amounts to blackmail, but this mess is really hurting my bottom line. It’s putting my business at risk.”

  I winced, then went back to my list.

  Tired of Being Invisible.

  Might Have Been Overshadowed By a Bad Person.

  Might Love a Bad Person Even Though They Know the Person Is Bad.

  Probably Knew About Detention.

  Probably Local.

  Probably Knows Us Pretty Well.

  Has Good Computer Skills or Money to Hire Hacker.

  I couldn’t do much to search about the first three things, and Probably Local included every resident in Blue Creek. Clearly—and a lot of people were really mad now, some at the hacker, but apparently at Toppy, too, because he couldn’t find the person making all the trouble.

  Probably Knows Us Pretty Well, now that was better. Good Computer Skills or Money—harder. People didn’t wear stamps on their heads discussing their computer proficiency, right?

  In Notes, I thumb-typed Local + knows us + good computer skills or money + knew about detention. Then I typed the names of my teachers and the principals I could think of, and spent a few minutes doing Internet searches on their names.

  I found Facebook and Twitter profiles. Ms. Kendrick’s cousin had died last year, and I found his obituary. One of our principals had a dad who kept getting DUIs.

  Hmm.

  I copied my notes to Lavender.

  A few seconds later, she wrote back, But Principal Legon was on vacation when the school fire happened. Hawaii, I think.

  I scratched him off the list.

  She sent me some thoughts and search links on officers Toppy worked with, but I shot each one of those down. Out of town, too nice, very loyal to Toppy, Toppy helped pay his student loans . . .

  I sighed and listened to the owner of the Blue Creek Country Store and Hoedown Emporium explain how he’d cancelled tonight’s square dancing competition out of fear of more fires being set. “I use a lot of straw, Mayor Chandler. It’d go up so fast no fire hose could help. Plus, my business and my personal accounts have been hit. Right now, I’m flat busted. I can’t even buy milk for my granddaughter.”

  My grandfather’s back stayed very straight, but his shoulders had started to round a little. “Strong,” I muttered, and wished I could message the word to him, or go write it on his arm.

  When I went back to my Notes program, I stared at Local + knows us + good computer skills or money + knew about detention. I added, Some connection to Blue Creek High School, nursing home, car lot, empty building? and sent that to Lavender.

  Another alderman got to her feet. Her nameplate read Alicia Tulley.

  “Chief Brennan,” she said to my grandfather. “Could you respond to these business people and explain the steps your department is taking to stop both the cyberattacks and arson in Blue Creek?”

  Toppy stood and cleared his throat. In the bright chamber lighting, I could tell he wasn’t flushed or angry. By his posture and tone, he was frustrated and worried—but I thought maybe he was more concerned about the town and the people in it, and probably me and Mom, than his own job.

  “As soon as I realized this was going beyond just personal jabs at me,” Toppy said, “I asked for the assistance of TBI and the State Police. Now that public and private bank accounts have been robbed, we’ll be able to get federal assistance as well.”

  He went on to explain how he had changed patrol schedules, approved overtime, altered routes to give more coverage to the business district, and assigned officers to be at the disposal of arson investigators from the state. One of the aldermen asked where those investigations of the fires stood, and if anyone had figured out the connections between the sites that got hit last night.

  My eyes went back to Notes and what I had written. Some connection to Blue Creek High School, nursing home, car dealership, empty building?

  The high school thing and the computer skills fit with my sense that maybe this was somebody younger, and definitely local. But then the nursing home, car dealership, empty building—that made it seem like somebody older.

  I looked up all six aldermen as Toppy answered question after question about his actions, his competence, and his department’s competence. Alderman Eastland, who owned a shipping and receiving business near the abandoned building that got damaged by one of the small fires, seemed to be getting louder and harsher each time he spoke.

  “What I can’t understand is this, Chief Brennan,” Alderman Eastland said. “I hear you saying you care about the businesses and you care about the town. I hear you saying you care about your officers and your family—but as we all have acknowledged, the hacker clearly wants you out of your job. Why has it not occurred to you to step down, or at least take a leave to see if the attacks on the town w
ould stop?”

  He sounded like Ellis and Bot, talking about how Toppy should just give the hacker a win, and—

  And I went very, very still.

  The Council chamber got a little blurry.

  In my mind, I heard—no, remembered the words, I could come keep you company. Blue Creek High’s not much on detention . . .

  Riley’s voice.

  OMG, I typed to Lavender. OMG, OMG, OMG!!

  What? she asked right away.

  Riley and Ellis and Bot knew about us being in detention. WE TOLD THEM.

  I couldn’t even hear what was happening around me right now. A message came in from my mother. I didn’t open it. I just watched the little moving dots that told me Lavender was typing.

  You can’t seriously think one of those guys would hurt Toppy, she typed. Or you. Or anybody.

  I shot back with, Local + knows us + good computer skills or money + knew about detention.

  Okay, Sherlock, then how are they connected to Blue Creek High School, the nursing home, the car dealership, or that empty building?

  We need to find out, I typed. Let’s go ask them.

  Lavender banged her head on the back of her chair and sent, You gotta be kidding.

  Frustrated, I looked away from the iPad and caught Mom’s eye. She seemed to be waiting for something.

  Oh, right. The message she sent.

  I opened it.

  It was a photo. No, wait. It was the picture of Toppy’s crime board, mostly unblurred. I expanded it. A list of eight names hung on the left. Four were marked out. Three I didn’t recognize. One name I knew very well.

  I stared at the mug shot and arrest record sheet for a young-looking man charged with criminal mischief and fraud. The arresting officer? Thomas Brennan. And the young-looking man, I might not have recognized him at all, except for the name listed in bold letters right below the photo—the same name I recognized from the list on the left:

  David Botman

  21

  I almost ran over Junior Thornwood as I rolled out of the wheelchair box and out of the Council chamber. My mother and Lavender followed me, and Ms. Springfield followed Lavender, and Junior Thornwood followed Ms. Springfield. We all ran straight into Captain Coker, who had taken point at the main City Hall entrance.

  “Hold on there.” She put up her hands. “Where’s this little train headed?”

  “Across Town Square.” Lavender pointed toward the blob of blinking Christmas lights that marked the front door of the electronics shop.

  Captain Coker frowned at all of us. “I can’t let you go out without an escort, and we’re tied up tight here, folks.”

  “But it’s Bot.” I stared at Captain Coker, heart racing. “He’s local. He knows us, he has good computer skills, he knew Lavender and I were in detention that Friday—and Toppy arrested him. It was a long time ago, but it fits. We just need to understand the connections to all the places he burned.”

  The stern lines of her face shifted to slack confusion. She glanced at the small crowd behind me. “Is she babbling?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Ms. Springfield said.

  “Dunno,” Junior offered.

  “It’s Bot,” Lavender said. “Probably.”

  I grabbed Captain Coker’s hand. “Bot needs money because he just lost a big contract. And don’t you understand? If we don’t stop the hacking and stealing and vandalism and these butt-faces fire Toppy, I’ll have to go to California, maybe forever!”

  Her answer was a shocked expression and an intense silence.

  My brain rushed over details about Bot and the hacks and the fires—but a small corner of my mind remembered that Mom was here. As in right with me, behind me. I turned in my chair. “I’m sorry. But I don’t want to leave Toppy. I don’t want to live somewhere I don’t fit.”

  Mom’s expression went flat. “The truth is what it is, Max.”

  I winced and turned back around because I knew she was trying to sound like it was no big deal, that I hadn’t hurt her feelings. That’s exactly what I would have done, and I hated it when Mom and I did stuff exactly alike, because it got really obvious that we were related, and I couldn’t not like her or even be mad at her when that happened.

  “Let me get this straight,” Captain Coker said, mostly to me. “For some reason, you’ve decided Bot Botman, the man who owns the electronics store here on Town Square—that he’s your hacker-slash-vandal-slash-thief-slash-Thornwood’s-Revenge scary bad guy?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why?” Junior Thornwood asked.

  “Be quiet, Biker Boy,” Lavender snapped. “Just be glad we don’t think it’s you anymore.”

  “Lavender Dusty Springfield!” Ms. Springfield crossed her arms and leveled a glare at my best friend that might have withered a soul who hadn’t spent half her life shooting imaginary death rays out of her wrists.

  “It’s okay, Joy,” Junior said with a grin. Then to Lavender, “So I’m in the clear now?”

  “You’re lucky,” Mom said. “I’m surprised I’m not still on their corkboard.”

  Captain Coker ignored all of them and kept her gaze on me. “I’m struggling with the fact that your answer to deciding that Mr. Botman is a dangerous criminal is to charge straight over to his store and confront him.”

  “Um,” I said. “Yes! Maybe. I guess?” When she put it that way, it did sound ridiculous. I jerked a thumb toward Mom and Junior and Ms. Springfield. “I was taking adults, see?”

  “I don’t think the girls are totally sure,” Ms. Springfield said. “More like, they have a theory, and we’re going to help them explore it.”

  “I see,” Captain Coker said in a totally I’m-not-letting-you-do-this tone.

  “Max needs to stay busy,” Mom added. “She needs to do something to help her grandfather instead of listening to all that negative mess in the Council chamber.”

  Wow. Points to Mom.

  “This could really hurt Bot’s feelings,” Ms. Springfield said to Lavender.

  “Look at our case information here, on my phone,” Lavender said to her mom. Then a bit more grudging, “And show Junior, too.”

  About a minute later, Ms. Springfield, wide-eyed, held the phone up for Junior, then passed it to Captain Coker. I watched Captain Coker’s brows draw closer and closer together as she scrolled through the case facts and theories Lavender and I had assembled, right up to the unblurred mug shot of Bot.

  “Well.” Captain Coker lowered the phone, looking more like the stone-hard trooper who had first walked into Something Wicked nine days earlier. “Hate to admit it, but you two may be on to something.”

  She motioned to one of the two other green-uniformed officers on post at the chamber doors. He came straight over. “Trooper Allen,” she said, “do me a favor and stand here while I escort these ladies and gentleman elsewhere. We need to talk to somebody.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Trooper Allen gave her a curt nod and immediately settled in by the main doors of City Hall.

  • • •

  Before we got halfway across Town Square, snow started to fall. I had to get in my arm pouch and dig out a baggie to cover my controller, because my chair’s electronics despised any type of moisture.

  As powdery flakes drifted onto our shoulders, Captain Coker and I led the way into Bot’s Electronics, with Lavender, Mom, Ms. Springfield, and Junior jingling the bell right behind us. I had expected Riley to be waiting in his elf suit with his candy bowl, but for a few seconds, I thought the shop was empty.

  “Hello?” Captain Coker called over the too-loud Christmas music piping through what had to be twenty different types of speakers.

  No answer.

  “Huh,” Ms. Springfield said. “Weird. They’re so right-in-the-customer’s-faces, usually. Especially near Christmas!”

  “Anybody here?” Captain Coker moved toward the door to the back of the shop. Her hand lifted slowly, coming to rest on her holster and sending my already fast heartbeat into a gallopin
g frenzy.

  I rolled forward—and my chair turned off, along with a bunch of the shop speakers.

  Mom banged into my handlebars with an “Oooof.”

  I stared first at my chair, then at the speakers that had shut off. I recognized some of the brands and colors, since I had coveted a few of them and had them on my Amazon wish list.

  “What’s with your chair, Max?” Lavender asked. “I thought that only happened at Thornwood.”

  Captain Coker eased through the back shop door, but I couldn’t focus on her, only on the speakers. “The wireless ones,” I muttered. “All the wireless speakers just turned off.”

  “Is this one of those power surges that isn’t a power surge?” Mom asked as she walked around the front of my chair.

  I turned my controller back on and it lit up.

  “It’s EMI,” I said, suddenly understanding.

  Lavender hit my shoulder. “Electricity-ese! Stop it!”

  “What?” Mom and Ms. Springfield and Junior said all at once.

  “Electromagnetic interference.” I glanced from one of their faces to the next. They all looked clueless. I pointed to the speakers. “The wireless speakers all turned off when my chair did. I have components in my controls that function like Bluetooth, so the same EMI must have just blasted my circuits. My controller did the safe thing and turned itself off.”

  They still looked clueless, so I tried again. “It’s kinda like putting an AM radio next to a vacuum cleaner.”

  Junior brightened. “I’ve done that before! You can hear the vacuum over the radio because the vacuum’s motor overpowers the weak AM signal. Doesn’t work on FM stations because—oh. I get it! Some strong wireless signal just swamped the weaker Bluetooth signals, right?”

  I looked past all of them, my eyes roving over the store, trying to find what might have caused it. A spark on some inductor? Something with a signal so strong it could literally take over a weaker one—

  Captain Coker came out of the back of the store with Riley, who looked both sad and confused.