The Camp Phoenix Caper Read online

  JOHN V. MADORMO

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd). Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2013 by John V. Madormo. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the United States of America.Edited by Jill Santopolo. Design by Amy Wu. Text set in 12-point New Baskerville.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Madormo, John V. The Camp Phoenix caper / John Madormo. p. cm.—(Charlie Collier, snoop for hire; #2) Summary: The twelve-year-old private detective who sets up shop in his parents’ garage solves more cases for fellow sixth-grade classmates. [1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Grandmothers—Fiction. 3. Family life—Illinois—Fiction. 4. Illinois—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. PZ7.M26574Cam 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012002315

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60779-4

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

  To my daughters Caroline, Christine,

  and Mary, for their encouragement,

  their support, and for never allowing

  me to take myself too seriously.

  Also by the same author:

  Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire:

  The Homemade Stuffing Caper

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 — THE CEREAL KILLER CAPER

  Chapter 2 — THE REIGN IN SPAIN CAPER

  Chapter 3 — THE MISSING LYNX CAPER

  Chapter 4 — THE WEAKENED WARRIORS CAPER

  Chapter 5 — THE ATHENS GREASE CAPER

  Chapter 6 — THE UNFRIENDLY FIRE CAPER

  Chapter 7 — THE THYME BOMB CAPER

  Chapter 8 — THE BARTLETT PAIR CAPER

  Chapter 9 — THE DIED IN THE WOOL CAPER

  Chapter 10 — THE FOOLS RUSH INN CAPER

  Chapter 11 — THE UNCIVIL MARRIAGE CAPER

  Chapter 12 — THE FRESH HEIR CAPER

  Chapter 13 — THE WRITE A WRONG CAPER

  Chapter 14 — THE FRENCH-MADE CAPER

  Chapter 15 — THE BIZARRE BAZAAR CAPER

  Chapter 16 — THE SUITE AND SOUR CAPER

  Chapter 17 — THE PROSE AND CONS CAPER

  Chapter 18 — THE RACK ON TOUR CAPER

  Chapter 19 — THE LYIN’ TAMER CAPER

  Chapter 20 — THE WHINE AND ROSES CAPER

  Chapter 21 — THE QUICHE OF DEATH CAPER

  Chapter 22 — THE DEAD SEE CAPER

  Chapter 23 — THE GULL NEXT DOOR CAPER

  CHAPTER 1

  The Cereal Killer Caper

  Henry impatiently tapped on his watch. “She’s late. I can’t believe it. The first day of our new three-man agency, and she’s late.”

  “Correction,” I said. “Two-man, one-woman agency.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Relax,” I said. “There’s probably a perfectly good reason for it.”

  “Like what?” Henry refused to let it go. “Charlie, I told you this was a bad idea. We don’t need her.”

  It was no secret that Henry and Scarlett would never be considered BFFs, but they both had something to contribute to this agency, and I had to do my best to keep the peace between them, for all our sakes.

  “I thought you were over all of this,” I said. “Let me remind you that Scarlett comes highly recommended.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Both my grandma and Eugene suggested that we take her on. Don’t you remember? They were impressed by the way she handled herself in the birdnapping case. They thought she just might make a nice addition to our little detective firm.”

  To be perfectly honest, I could understand how Henry felt. He was probably worried about getting squeezed out. The Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire partnership had been a two-man operation from day one—Henry Cunningham and yours truly. With the addition of a new associate, namely one Scarlett Alexander, I’m sure Henry felt that he might slip a notch in the chain of command.

  “Well, she better get here soon,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

  He was right about that. With my dad at work and my mom at the beauty salon with Grandma, there was no telling how long we’d have the garage to ourselves.

  Henry picked up a handful of darts and began tossing. “Let me know when she gets here,” he said disgustedly.

  I for one was excited about Scarlett joining up with us. Not only would she add another brain to the mix, but the thought of being this close to her each day was dizzying. I only hoped I could concentrate. Oh, don’t worry, I’m a realist. I know that a kid like me—one who closes his eyes when he steps on the scale—could never end up with a girl like Scarlett. But stranger things have happened. When she sees me in action each day—when she’s able to witness my amazing powers of deduction—when she watches me solve cases with little to no effort—then who knows? Sparks could fly. But I’m not holding my breath. If I were only as suave and debonair as Sam Solomon, then things would be different. That’s Sam Solomon, Private Eye, if you’re wondering. It’s a series of detective novels set in Chicago in the 1930s. I’ve read every one in print. I consider myself not only a fan of the master detective, but a student as well. I credit Sam with helping me sharpen my reasoning skills. I only wish he could help me sharpen my social skills.

  “Ooh,” Henry cried. “I missed the bull’s-eye by a quarter inch.”

  Before I could congratulate him, there was a knock at the door.

  “Finally,” he said as he tossed the remaining darts at the board.

  “Come in,” I said.

  When the door opened, I tried to maintain my composure. I didn’t want to look too eager.

  “Hi, guys,” Scarlett said as she entered. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Oh, that’s al—” I started to say.

  Henry was somewhat less forgiving. “That’s it? ‘Sorry I’m late’?”

  “Something came up. Is that all right?” she snapped. “Something important.”

  Henry sighed. “And if you just happened to be on a stakeout, and you just happened to show up late, and you just happened to miss the perp in action, are you gonna say ‘sorry I’m late’? It’s unacceptable. Tell her, Charlie.” He folded his arms and smile
d confidently.

  Scarlett placed her hands on her hips and glanced in my direction.

  I was well aware that once Scarlett joined the agency, I’d be breaking up squabbles between these two on a daily basis. I was prepared for that. But in this particular instance, I was being asked to take sides. The wrong move here could haunt me for a lifetime. I paused to think it over. On the one hand, Henry was right—punctuality in our business was important. But he also needed to understand that trust was equally important. Sometimes you had to give someone—in this case, a business partner—the benefit of the doubt. I had to handle this in a delicate manner.

  “Henry, I’m sure that Scarlett would have been here on time if she could have,” I said. “Right, Scarlett?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “And I’m sure that she had a very good reason for being late,” I said. “Right, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett began tapping her foot. She didn’t look happy. “Why don’t you just ask me why I was late? I know you’re dying to.”

  “I don’t want to pry.”

  “Well, I do,” Henry said. “What was so important?”

  I pulled a lawn chair out from under the card table and motioned for Scarlett to sit down. We needed to deal with this in a civilized manner.

  She reluctantly lowered herself into the chair. We joined her at the table.

  “Well?” Henry said.

  “Would you believe we had a flat tire?” she said.

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. He seemed skeptical. “You can do better than that.”

  “It’s true,” she insisted.

  I needed to seem supportive, even though it did seem like a pretty lame excuse.

  “Flat tires happen, and there’s nothing you can do about them,” I said. “Let’s move on.”

  “Not so fast,” Henry said. “I want to hear the details.”

  Scarlett sighed. “Not that’s it’s any of your business, but all right, I’ll tell you. We were driving on Thiry-Third Street when we heard this thumping sound, and the car started to pull to one side.”

  Henry folded his arms and made a face. He wasn’t going to make this easy.

  “So my mom got out and noticed that the front passenger’s-side tire was flat,” she continued. “We didn’t want to have to wait around for the motor club, so we decided to try to change it ourselves. I’d watched my dad it do it before.”

  “You should become a novelist,” Henry said. “This is some of the best fiction I’ve ever heard.”

  “For your information,” Scarlett said, “I happen to know what I’m doing. I opened the trunk and took out the jack and the lug nut wrench.”

  The expression on Henry’s face suddenly changed. He knew as well as I did that people just didn’t throw out a term like lug nut wrench if they didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “So we popped off the hubcap, loosened the lug nuts just slightly, jacked up the car, took the lug nuts completely off, and set them in the hubcap.”

  Henry was speechless. She did know what she was talking about.

  “We got the spare tire from the trunk, put it on…” She sighed. “And that’s when the trouble started.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “It sounded like you were doing everything right.”

  “Everything was perfect until my little brother decided that he wanted to help. So I told him he could hand me the lug nuts. He was so excited that he ran over, but he accidently kicked the hubcap, which sent the lug nuts flying. They ended up in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road. We were never able to find them. So then we had to wait for the motor club.” She glanced at Henry. “Are you happy now?”

  “Whatever,” he said. “Let’s just get to work.”

  I would have been perfectly fine with doing just that and putting this squabble behind us, but I kept thinking about that flat tire. I figured that there had to be a way to solve the problem even with the missing lug nuts. I thought about it for another minute, and then I had it.

  “You didn’t have to call the motor club,” I said. “You had everything you needed to put that tire back on.”

  “What are you talking about?” Scarlett said.

  “All you had to do was take one lug nut from each of the three good tires, and use those. Then you could have replaced them later.”

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “And you could have been here on time. Just see that it doesn’t happen again.”

  Scarlett slid her chair out and stood. “It’s not going to be like this every day, right? Because if it is, I want no part of it.”

  I needed to do something, and fast. I was not about to let Scarlett walk out that door. Partner or not—best friend or not—Henry was being unreasonable and someone had to tell him. It was just like what happened to Sam Solomon in Episode #15—The Cereal Killer Caper.

  In this particular story, Sam was investigating the owner of a local diner who was suspected of trying to poison one of his customers with a tainted bowl of cornflakes. Sam immediately sought out the services of two old friends, a husband and wife team of chemists, to analyze the fatal feast. They were good—very good—but they were always at each other’s throats. The mismatched lovers, whose expertise Sam desperately needed, were constantly trying to sabotage each other’s findings. In time, Sam was able to convince them to put their petty jealousies aside and to work together for the good of the client.

  And suddenly I knew precisely what I had to do.

  “Scarlett,” I said, “please sit down. Henry, I have to be perfectly honest—I can’t take this either. If we spend all our time arguing, we’ll never accomplish a thing. We might occasionally disagree on what strategy to employ on a particular case, but if we’re constantly bickering, then we’re doing our clients a disservice. Scarlett is an official associate of this agency, and we have to work together—no matter what.” I stood up. “Now, I want the two of you to shake hands. It’s the only way.”

  Scarlett extended her hand. She was willing to bury the hatchet. Henry, however, just sat there with his arms folded.

  “Henry, we can’t move forward until we put this behind us,” I said.

  Without making eye contact with Scarlett, Henry sighed and reluctantly shook her hand. It was a weak effort on his part, but at least we had made some peace. Neither of the combatants, however, looked too pleased about it.

  I knew this was about as good as it was going to get for now, so I decided to take advantage of the cease-fire and move on.

  I rubbed my hands together. “Okay, what’s on the docket for today?” I asked.

  Henry reached over his shoulder and grabbed a legal pad off the workbench behind him. He glanced at it and then held it up for both of us to see. The page was blank.

  “No clients?” I said.

  “Nada,” Henry replied.

  “Then what are we doing here?” Scarlett said.

  “Not everybody makes appointments,” Henry said. “We do take walk-ins, you know.”

  Scarlett got up, walked over to the door, and opened it. She stuck her head out.

  “You’re right,” she said. “There’s a long line of people out here.”

  Henry jumped up and ran over to see. There was no one.

  Scarlett flashed a devious smile.

  “Real funny,” Henry said as he slammed the door shut.

  Here we go again, I thought. I needed to maintain some order. “Listen, I thought we had a truce. C’mon, both of you, sit down. Let’s get to work.”

  “What work?” Scarlett said. She picked up the legal pad off the card table and held it up.

  “We have other business to discuss,” I said.

  “Whatever happened with that thing that Eugene was talking about? I thought there was something going on. The other day when he was here, he said something about a big case that he needed our help on. What’s up with that?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “What about that?”

  I knew what they were talking about, but I
didn’t think they’d like the answer. Shortly after we had wrapped up the Rupert Olsen birdnapping caper, Eugene had shown up and had asked us to join him on a new case—one he described as a matter of national security. We were all excited about helping out, but we never heard anything more about it. So a couple of days ago, I rode my bike over to Eugene’s office to ask him about it. It was now apparently on the back burner.

  “I spoke to Eugene about that case just the other day. It’s on hold for the time being.”

  “Why?” Henry asked. “What happened?”

  “Something else came up. Something bigger. Eugene got called away on a special assignment,” I said. When Uncle Sam called, Eugene—despite the fact that he was in his eighties—dropped whatever he was doing to report in.

  “What kind of assignment?” Scarlett said. “To where?”

  “All he said was that he’d have to get back to us on this other case and that he needed to brush up on his Portuguese.”

  “He’s headed to Puerto Rico?” Henry said.

  “No, not Puerto Rico. Portugal, probably,” I said.

  “Or Brazil,” Scarlett added.

  Before I could compliment Scarlett on her knowledge of world languages, I heard a car engine in the distance.

  “That’s my mom,” I yelled. “How could they be back this soon?”

  Henry looked at his watch. “It’s only four fifteen. I thought your grandma had a four o’clock appointment.”

  I quickly folded up the lawn chairs and hung them on hooks on the garage wall.

  “She did,” I said. “Something must have happened.”

  Henry broke down the card table and slid it behind a ladder. “A little help over here, if you don’t mind,” he said to Scarlett.

  “Well, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how you guys do it,” she said.

  “Scarlett, you’d better take off,” I said. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” I didn’t have to tell her twice.

  She shot out the side door and disappeared.

  Henry and I followed. Before exiting, I grabbed a football from one of the shelves.

  “What’s that for?” Henry asked.