There was one that troubled Frank more than the others.
What was Mr. Gilliam up to at Tri-State Express?
8: Two for the Executioner’s Block
Joe couldn’t believe what he found when he got to school the next morning. Everybody was talking about the run-in the day before between Kevin and Tom. Now everyone was acting as if there were going to be some sort of shootout at high noon.
Kevin was strutting around as the kids waited for the doors to open. “Trouble Boy doesn’t look so tough now,” Kevin boasted. “All we needed was for somebody to stand up to him.”
“Aren’t you afraid Gilliam might try to get even somehow?” a sophomore breathlessly asked. He glanced over to where Tom was leaning against a chain-link fence. “I mean, he could set it up as an ‘accident’ or a prank—something like that.”
Kevin responded with a superior grin. “I’m going to keep him too busy worrying about me. See what I, um, borrowed today.”
He reached into his knapsack, digging among its contents, and came out with something that looked like a tiny knife with a dull gray metal sheath. “My dad and I go hiking sometimes. He thinks this gadget is primo for starting a camp-fire—even with damp wood.”
He pointed to the sheath. “See this stuff covering the blade? It’s magnesium. You peel off a few slivers and dump them on a pile of sticks. Put a match to them, and the strips really flare up—instant campfire.”
That annoying grin came back to his face. “Maybe, somehow, somewhere, Trouble Boy is going to get himself a high-tech hotfoot. I bet he won’t know what to do.”
Joe shook his head as Kevin swaggered off. It was obvious that Wylie was new to the prank business. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be shooting his mouth off in front of witnesses. Did Kev really expect that no one would pass along a warning to Tom Gilliam? These kids were here to see a nice, exciting fight. If they had to, they’d push the two boys into each other. Kev seemed to think they were there to act as cheerleaders for him.
The doors opened, and the crowd poured in. Thoughts of a possible fight disappeared. Now people had to worry about forgotten homework and the possibility of pop quizzes.
As he headed for his homeroom, Joe debated warning Tom Gilliam himself. That magnesium could be dangerous stuff. It might cause more damage than Kev expected.
Then Joe shook his head. Was Kev Wylie really the type to give someone a high-tech hotfoot? Joe noticed that before Kev had said, “somehow, somewhere,” he’d said “maybe.”
No, Joe told himself, stepping up his pace to beat the first buzzer, Kev Wylie is all talk with very little action. No need getting Tom Gilliam stirred up. Joe paused at his homeroom door. And no need to get the new kid in any more trouble than he’d already made for himself.
• • •
When lunchtime came, Joe didn’t join the mad dash for the cafeteria. He had decided he was sick and tired of the Kev and Tom show. Let the other idiots gawk at the latest episode.
Jingling the change in his pocket, he turned away from the crowd. Down this corridor, just before one of the less-used stairways, was a pay phone.
The day before, Joe’s dad had spent some time reaching out to friends and colleagues. Joe suspected Fenton’s morning had been spent receiving calls in return. How had that new information changed the profile of Russell Gilliam? Joe decided to find out.
He slipped coins into the slot of the pay phone and dialed his home. His aunt Gertrude answered. When she heard Joe’s voice, she was worried that he was in trouble. Finally, though, she passed him along to Fenton.
“What’s up?” his father asked.
“Oh, I got to thinking about Frank’s crazy theory,” Joe said. “Then I wondered what else you’d gotten on Russ Gilliam.”
Fenton laughed. “As far as I can find out, he’s never been in trouble with the law—officially. But right before he left his job at Dynodyne, his house burned down.”
“There’s a string of tough breaks,” Joe said. “He lost his job, his wife and family, and even his house.”
“Actually, it went this way: his house, his job, then his family,” Fenton put in. “I haven’t been able to clear up what happened at Dynodyne. The records don’t show whether he quit or was fired.
“The local police and fire department haven’t been very helpful about what happened to the house. But the court papers are pretty clear on the family issue. Mrs. Gilliam got an uncontested divorce.”
“If Gilliam didn’t try to hold on to his family, and the wife got custody of Tom, what’s Tom doing with his dad now?”
Fenton paused for a moment. “Mrs. Gilliam passed away about a year and a half ago.”
Joe took a deep breath. No wonder Tom had swung when Biff started talking about his mother.
“Joe?” his father said. “Did I lose you?”
“No, Dad,” he replied. “Anything else new?”
“Not about Russell Gilliam,” Fenton said. “The technical people finally finished with the car that nearly turned me into a hit-and-run statistic.”
“Did they find any clues? Anything that might point to whoever was driving that night?”
“None, zip, nada.” Fenton’s voice had a what-can-you-expect? tone. “The police technicians said the car was cleaned very carefully. The report said, ‘With surgical care.’ ”
“Con let you look at the report?” Joe asked in surprise.
“He hoped it might stir something to help with the investigation.” Fenton sighed. “Looks as though all they’re doing is hitting dead ends.”
Joe knew how that felt. “So, even though that driver acted like a maniac, he was a pro. Or at least the driver’s boss was a pro and cleaned away any possible evidence.” He hesitated for a second. “Did you mention Frank’s little theory?”
“No point to it,” his father said. “There are some odd things going on in Gilliam’s life, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t make him a traveling racketeer. Right now I’m more interested in tracking that wild driver—and the pearl necklace he got away with. As for Gilliam—well, no sense making trouble for him.”
“So you’re closing the file on Russ Gilliam?” Joe asked.
“Unless something startling comes up, yes.”
“I guess I can see why,” Joe said, but he had a strange, dissatisfied feeling.
“Catching your brother’s hunch?” Fenton asked, chuckling.
Joe laughed. “Well, I’m usually the one who has them. Thanks, Dad. See you later.”
He hung up and stepped away from the pay phone. As he did, he spotted Tom Gilliam going up the stairs.
Maybe it was the way Tom was moving that made Joe follow him. The red-haired teen climbed the stairway cautiously, as if he were someplace he shouldn’t be.
Strictly speaking, that was true. Tom was supposed to be in the cafeteria. For that matter, so was Joe.
A plastic soda bottle dangled from the fingers of Tom’s right hand. That was another infraction of the rules: no eating or drinking in the halls and stairways.
Somehow, though, Joe suspected that was the least of what Tom was up to.
Fenton’s words came back to Joe. “No sense making trouble for someone.” He still found himself following Tom.
Maybe I can stop some trouble before it happens, Joe told himself. He was a little slower going up the stairs, since he had to make sure Tom didn’t hear him. So, when Joe reached the second floor, Tom was nowhere in sight.
A second later, though, Joe heard a distinctive metallic clang. It rang out from a corridor that branched off to his right. Joe knew that sound—he had heard it dozens of times a day. It was the sound of a locker door slamming closed.
Joe came around the corner to see Tom at the far end of the hall, moving pretty quickly.
One other thing Joe noticed was that Trouble Boy no longer had the soda bottle. Had he stashed it in his locker?
Oh, no. Joe’s stomach sank as he remembered something he’d heard at the beginning of the school year. Kev Wy
lie had been complaining to Frank about the lousy locker he’d been assigned. It was in the least convenient corner of the second floor, Joe recalled.
Joe scanned both walls running along the corridor. Each wall was crammed with a double row of lockers. Which one was Kev’s?
A bubbling noise brought Joe’s attention to the right-hand wall. There—in the top row, about midway down the hall. A cloud of brownish smoke began seeping out of the vents in one of the locker doors.
Joe headed in that direction, then quickly stepped back gagging. A smell like the mother of all sewers drove him away from the locker.
A stink bomb! Joe thought. Of all the stupid—
That was when something went wrong—terribly wrong.
A glare of light, like a photographer’s flash multiplied by a hundred, burst from the vents in the metal door. Half-blinded, Joe stumbled back.
Even so, he could see the smoke and flames erupting through the openings in the locker door.
9: The Truth and Nothing But . . .
Joe spun around and ran back the way he’d come. Right before that last turn, he remembered he had passed a niche with a fire extinguisher. Yes! There it was!
He opened the case and pulled out the heavy canister.
A girl came down the stairs and spotted him. She froze halfway down the staircase, gaping at him.
“Get downstairs and sound the fire alarm,” Joe said. “Somebody’s locker has gone up.”
Spotting wisps of smoke coming around the corner, the girl scampered away. Joe lugged the extinguisher toward Kev Wylie’s locker. The hallway had pretty much disappeared in thick smoke. It had a chemical tang that burned at Joe’s lungs.
Coughing and choking, he made his way to the dull red glow of the fire. Joe jammed the extinguisher’s cone-shaped nozzle against the vents in the locker door. He pulled the trigger, and foam spewed out of the extinguisher, filling the locker. The smoke began to thin as the burning books and whatever else was inside were smothered.
Joe could still feel the heat, though. The flash he’d seen—it had to be that magnesium fire-starter Kev had been showing off!
Joe knew that magnesium burned very hot and continued to burn even under water. Was there enough of the magnesium in there to cut through the bottom of the locker?
Joe didn’t know. He just did his best to keep the blaze contained with the extinguisher in his hands.
Just as the canister ran out of foam, Mr. Sheldrake appeared with another extinguisher. He followed Joe’s example, squirting the frothy white foam into the vents in the locker. The stuff was going in the bottom vent and overflowing out the top openings. Joe suddenly realized his shoes were soaked.
Then he heard shouted orders and heavy footfalls tramping up the stairs. The professional fire-fighters had arrived. Armed with even more extinguishers, the newcomers took up the battle.
A fire captain approached Joe and Mr. Sheldrake. In his gas mask and helmet, the man looked like something out of a bad science-fiction movie.
“Can you get that door open?” he asked.
“I have the master key—” Sheldrake began.
“There’s something out of the ordinary in there,” Joe warned. “I think it’s magnesium.”
Both men stared at him.
“Magnesium?” Mr. Sheldrake said.
“There was a big flash, and something in there is still burning,” Joe said.
As the firefighters adjusted their game plan, Mr. Sheldrake led Joe back around the corner. Moments later the fire captain joined them. “All clear,” he said. “The kid was right. There was a small piece of magnesium in the locker. Looks like it came from one of those survival firestarters campers use.”
“Firestarter?” Mr. Sheldrake repeated. “You mean this was set deliberately?”
The fire captain shot a glance at Joe. Then he took the assistant principal aside. After a few moments’ agitated discussion, Mr. Sheldrake was back.
“Did you see anyone fooling with that locker?”
“No.” Joe was able to answer truthfully.
He hadn’t seen Tom at Kev’s locker. Tom was already at the far end of the hallway when Joe arrived on the scene.
Joe wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to rat on Tom Gilliam. Yes, Trouble Boy had planted a smoke bomb. But the disaster had been caused by the high-tech hotfoot gizmo Kev had in the locker.
This was a serious situation. Tom didn’t face a slap-on-the-wrist lecture, detention, or even a suspension. An accusation of arson could get him bounced out of school. He could wind up in Juvie Hall, or even be charged as an adult and do real jail time. It all depended on how harsh the school board wanted to be.
The members of the board would probably take their cue from Mr. Sheldrake. And the assistant principal had plenty of reason to throw the book at Tom Gilliam.
Mr. Sheldrake knew how to question kids. He knew when he wasn’t getting the whole story. The assistant principal did his best to loom over Joe. “And what were you doing up here?” he demanded suspiciously. “Where were you supposed to be? In class? In the cafeteria?”
“I decided to avoid the first rush to lunch,” Joe replied. “There was something I needed to discuss with my dad. So I called him from the pay phone downstairs—”
“And what brought you up here?” Old Beady Eyes was really pushing it.
Joe had known the question was coming. And he knew a direct answer would sink Tom.
“There was a funny smell,” he said, fast-forwarding his story. “I went to check, and there was smoke coming out of the locker. Then came the flash I mentioned earlier. Next thing I knew, there was a fire.”
“Do you know whose locker that is?” Sheldrake wanted to know.
Joe shrugged. Old Beady Eyes had asked what he knew, not what he suspected. “No.”
The assistant principal pulled a cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He dialed and a moment later was speaking with the secretary in the general office.
“Mrs. Effingham,” he said, “no need to be alarmed. The fire is out. Yes, it was in a locker—I want to find out whose. Locker two forty-seven.”
Sheldrake waited for a moment, listened, then said, “Kevin Wylie. I see.”
He turned to Joe again. “Did you see Tom Gilliam at that locker?”
“No.” Joe again was able to answer in strict honesty.
“Did you see him near the locker? Was he on the second floor?” Old Beady Eyes was really boring in with his cross-examination.
Joe did his best to look confused. “I don’t know,” he said. “There was someone at the far end of the hall—”
“A tall, skinny kid with red hair is pretty hard to miss,” Mr. Sheldrake cut him off. He hit Joe with his beadiest stare. “I know some students might hesitate at getting a classmate in trouble. That’s false loyalty, Mr. Hardy. Your responsibility is to the whole school. Imagine what might have happened if you hadn’t come along. This is very serious. You’ll have almost three hours to think about it—before you see me after your last class.”
Old Beady Eyes turned away. Joe was definitely dismissed for the time being.
His shoes still squishing from flame-retardant foam, Joe headed for his next class.
• • •
The end of the school day came all too quickly. Reluctantly, Joe set off for Mr. Sheldrake’s domain. Joe had already told Frank he’d be late getting home. He hadn’t discussed why—no sense getting big brother sucked into this mess.
Eyes fixed gloomily on his still-damp shoes, Joe headed for the Executioner’s Block. That was the joking name for the bench outside the assistant principal’s office. The name didn’t exactly seem funny right then.
Joe had almost reached the bench when he stopped short. A pair of long legs ending in scuffed running shoes blocked his way. The Executioner’s Block was occupied.
Joe raised his eyes to see Tom Gilliam. Trouble Boy gave him a wry smile, but his eyes were uneasy. Had he spotted Joe behind him during his little prank? More
likely, the school grapevine had been at work. Tom knew Joe had been on the scene. What he didn’t know was what the younger Hardy had actually seen.
The office door swung open, and there was Mr. Sheldrake. “Ah, gentlemen, right on time.” He pointed to Tom. “I think I’ll talk to you first.”
Tom rose, and Joe dropped onto the bench, resting his head against the tiled wall.
The assistant principal’s office had a door with a large frosted-glass window. From where Joe was sitting, he could hear everything going on inside.
“I had quite an interesting time with Captain Menzies of the fire department,” Mr. Sheldrake began. “He examined everything that was left inside a certain burned-out locker.
“It seems some student created a stink bomb using materials pilfered from the chemistry lab. Clever enough—if our young genius had used a glass bottle to carry it. Instead, a plastic bottle was used. Besides causing a foul smell, the chemicals managed to melt their container. Then this mixture reacted with some magnesium inside the locker. The result was a surprisingly effective fire-bomb.”
Mr. Sheldrake paused for a second, but for once Tom Gilliam had nothing to say.
“Only dumb luck saved us from a blaze that could have gutted the whole school,” the assistant principal went on. “Not to mention what it would have done to all the students. You might want to think of that.”
“Yeah?” Tom’s bravado might have been more convincing if he didn’t have to clear his throat to go on. “Why is that?”
“Mr. Gilliam, let’s not play games. You and Kevin Wylie had words several times in public. People were expecting a fight. You apparently backed down—possibly because your father works for Kevin’s father. Then comes this botched prank—”
“If Wylie had something dangerous in his locker, he should be in trouble,” Tom interrupted.
“He and his father will be seeing me this evening,” Mr. Sheldrake said. “Right now, I’m talking to you. I know you’re not stupid, Tom. I’ve seen your school records. You were doing quite well until you hit the road with your father. Straight A’s in California. You were working well above grade level.”
Trouble Times Two Page 5
