The Copycat Caper Read online

  Philomel Books

  An imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group

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  Copyright © 2013 by John V. Madormo.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Madormo, John V. The copycat caper / John Madormo.

  p. cm.—(Charlie Collier, snoop for hire ; [3])

  Summary: Continuing to work out of his parents’ garage, twelve-year-old private detective Charlie Collier solves a new case for his 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.M26574Cop 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012039012

  Published simultaneously in Canada.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60092-4

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also by John Madormo

  Chapter 1-THE WELL-DISPOSED-OF CAPER

  Chapter 2-THE MUMMY AND DADDY CAPER

  Chapter 3-THE HYMN AND HER CAPER

  Chapter 4-THE LOAN ARRANGER CAPER

  Chapter 5-THE FAULTY BREAKS CAPER

  Chapter 6-THE MISS INFORMATION CAPER

  Chapter 7-THE HAMMOND EGGS CAPER

  Chapter 8-THE FRIGHT TO THE FINISH CAPER

  Chapter 9-THE HIS AND HEARSE CAPER

  Chapter 10-THE WURST CASE SCENARIO CAPER

  Chapter 11-THE HAIR, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE CAPER

  Chapter 12-THE WADING GAME CAPER

  Chapter 13-THE PIER PRESSURE CAPER

  Chapter 14-THE PITCHER FRAME CAPER

  Chapter 15-THE HIGH STEAKS CAPER

  Chapter 16-THE KNOT GUILTY CAPER

  Chapter 17-THE BRASS TAX CAPER

  Chapter 18-THE RISING SON CAPER

  Chapter 19-THE PAIR O’ DICE CAPER

  Chapter 20-THE ILL WILL CAPER

  Chapter 21-THE HOARSE HORSE CAPER

  Chapter 22-THE FUR REAL CAPER

  Chapter 23-THE SHORE THING CAPER

  Chapter 24-THE SANTA CLAWS CAPER

  About the Author

  To my parents, James and Marie Madormo, for their unending support and guidance, and for their unconditional love.

  Also by John Madormo:

  Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire:

  The Homemade Stuffing Caper

  Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire:

  The Camp Phoenix Caper

  CHAPTER 1

  The Well-Disposed-Of Caper

  Scarlett appeared impatient. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than wait around here for clients who may never show up.”

  “I’ve told you before,” Henry said. “We have to maintain certain office hours for walk-ins. It’s the way we’ve always done things.”

  “Well, then I’d like to propose a new policy,” she said. “From now on, we don’t see anyone without an appointment. Then we won’t have to sit around here and waste our time.”

  Henry made a face. “You can’t make up a new policy just like that. We have to vote on it—and I vote no. Charlie, what do you say?”

  You would think that after weeks of working together, Henry and Scarlett would have at least learned how to tolerate each other. It was almost as if they enjoyed confrontation. Most people go out of their way to avoid fighting, but not these two. They seemed to embrace it.

  “So what’s your vote?” Henry said. “Vote no if you want to continue to offer a necessary service to your fellow man . . . or yes if you’re self-centered, self-absorbed, or self-indulgent.” He smiled. He was proud of his command of the language. It didn’t hurt that our list of vocab words at school today all began with the word self.

  I folded my hands and set them down on the card table. “Why don’t we just call it quits for today,” I said. “We don’t need to vote on any new policies. And besides, my mom’s due back anytime now.”

  “Fine with me,” Scarlett said.

  I removed my fedora and flipped it across the room in the direction of the hook that I always seemed to miss. I wasn’t even close this time. I unbuttoned my trusty trench coat and hung it up as Henry folded the card table and slid it behind a ladder on the wall.

  “Bye, guys,” Scarlett said. “See you tomorrow.” She swung open the garage door and stopped in her tracks.

  Standing in the doorway, completely out of breath, was Danny Reardon, one of the basketball jocks from school. He squeezed by Scarlett.

  “I’m glad I found you, Charlie,” he said. “You’re still open for business, I hope.”

  “We were just closing up shop for the day,” Scarlett said.

  Danny was having a hard time catching his breath. “Listen, guys, this is an emergency. I need help . . . right now.”

  Henry reached for the cash jar on one of the shelves and shook it for Danny’s benefit.

  “There’s an additional fee for a rush job,” he said.

  Danny threw up his hands. “Whatever, I’ll pay it. We just gotta hurry.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to work.” While Henry and Scarlett opened up lawn chairs, I retrieved the card table and set it up. As I slid on my trench coat and fedora, I felt my heart racing. This is what I lived for—a chance to tackle a real caper—and one with urgency to boot. Danny had come to the right place. We wouldn’t rest until the client was completely satisfied. It was the only way the Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire Agency did business.

  “Okay, Danny,” I said, “what seems to be the problem?”

  Danny stood and began pacing. “It’s Rita. She’s going crazy. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Who’s Rita?” Henry asked.

  “She’s my dog,” Danny said. “We just got her from a shelter.”

  Scarlett folded her arms. “This is about some crazy dog? I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. Shouldn’t you be taking her to a vet?”

  Danny shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. A vet can’t help with this problem.” He sat down and tried to compose himself. “Rita loves this one tennis ball. And it fell down this hole in our yard . . . and we can’t get it out. You just gotta figure out a way to get it for me.”

  I leaned forward. “How deep is the hole exactly?”

  “Ten or fifteen feet.”

  “Why don’t you just go buy her another tennis ball?” Scarlett said. “If you can afford to pay us, you can afford a new ball.”

  Danny plopped down into a lawn chair and squeezed the handles. “I’ve tried that already. It won’t work. She only likes this one tennis ball.”

  “This doesn’t sound like a real emergency,” Henry said.

  “Oh, no?” Danny said. He was getting upset.
“Just how exactly would you define an emergency, then? Try this—Rita stayed outside all night. She refused to come in the house. She just stands over the hole and stares down into it. She hasn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours. Is that good enough for you?”

  Before Henry could respond, I held up my hand. “Tell me, Danny, how wide is this hole exactly? And can you slide a ladder down into it?”

  “No way. It’s only about five inches in diameter,” he said.

  Henry got up and leaned against the wall. “What kind of hole is this anyway?”

  “There was this old water pipe in there. Some workmen from the city came by yesterday and removed it.”

  “And they didn’t fill it back up?” I said.

  “They’re gonna do that tomorrow,” Danny said. “So we gotta get Rita’s ball outa there before they come back.”

  I reached for a small pad of paper on a shelf behind me and began sketching images of the hole. I tried to think of what might be long enough to fit down there, as well as something that could grab the ball. The more I drew, the more frustrated I became.

  “Have you tried using a long pole with some double-faced tape on the end?” Scarlett said.

  “It won’t work,” Danny said. “The hole goes straight down for about six or seven feet, but then it turns to the right . . . maybe thirty degrees or so. There’s no way to get something down there. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  “Why don’t you just trade this dog in for a less crazy one?” Henry said with a grin.

  Danny didn’t seem to appreciate Henry’s attempt at humor.

  I sat back in my chair. There just had to be a way—an easy way—to get that ball. I tried to recall any Sam Solomon episodes that might help us find a solution, but I kept coming up dry. Then just when I was about to surrender, I had it. Of course, Episode #41—The Well-Disposed-Of Caper. In this particular story, Sam was hot on the trail of a country doctor who had improperly prescribed a drug that had left his patient clinging to life. To avoid getting caught, the doctor decided to discard the empty pill bottle at the bottom of a dried-up old well. The bottle might have remained there forever had not a torrential downpour occurred that raised not only suspicion, but the evidence as well.

  I slid my chair up to the table. “Danny, you said this hole is in your backyard, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you by any chance have a hose long enough to reach it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  I rolled up the sleeves on my trench coat. “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to fill the hole with water—all the way to the top.”

  “What good would that do?” he said. “Then it’d be even harder to get the ball.”

  Scarlett grinned. She knew exactly what I had in mind.

  “It’s brilliant, Charlie,” she said. “Don’t you see, Danny? A tennis ball is hollow. If you fill the hole with water, it’ll float to the top.”

  A smile began to form on Danny’s face. “It might work. You are brilliant, Charlie.”

  “As long as Rita doesn’t mind a ball that’s soaking wet,” Henry said.

  Danny jumped out his chair, dug into his pocket for a pair of dollar bills, and stuffed them into the change jar.

  “Trust me, that won’t be a problem,” he said. “It’s always covered in her slobber anyway. She won’t mind a bit.” He waved as he exited. “Thanks, guys.”

  And so the trio of Henry Cunningham, Scarlett Alexander, and yours truly, Charlie Collier, had managed to crack yet another unsolvable case. You know, there was a time, not so long ago, when I had gotten tired of the ho-hum cases presented by fellow sixth-graders. I wanted nothing to do with them. Instead, I dreamed of tackling the types of capers found on the pages of a Sam Solomon novel. But after the Rupert Olsen and Colonel Culpepper capers, I’ve since learned that if you are patient enough, one of those lightweight cases could actually turn into the big score. The lost tennis ball was obviously not going to lead us to our next adventure, but I always made it a point to look at every client who walked into our garage as someone who might just present us with a challenge that could turn out to be life-altering.

  Scarlett had only been with the agency for a few weeks now, but I was pleased with her progress. She wasn’t as dedicated as Henry, and she didn’t possess his rottweiler mentality for collecting cash, but she had an above-average intellect and frequently offered solutions to problems nearly as quickly as I did. It was also nice to have an extra set of eyes when surveillance missions presented themselves. And it was still hard to believe that I actually had the chance of spending time with her not only in class, but after school at the agency as well. Scarlett and I would never be an item. I had come to accept that. We traveled in different circles. But I figured that as long as I had a stage to demonstrate my amazing powers of deduction, then anything was possible.

  We were deciding whether to close up for the day or prepare for another unexpected walk-in when the side door of the garage swung open. A cloud of smoke filled the doorway. In the haze I recognized a familiar face . . . in unfamiliar attire. My grandmother, Constance Collier, a free spirit who sported a new identity on an almost daily basis, unveiled her latest personality. She had a towel wrapped around her head like a turban, a short purple vest over a tight yellow T-shirt, red satin slippers with the tips pointing up, and sheer turquoise pants.

  This was almost too much to bear on an empty stomach. All my fantasies about genies went right out the window at that moment. Gram placed her hands together with her fingertips pointed straight up and bowed repeatedly as she entered.

  “Thought you might like to know that your mom is on her way,” she said.

  “Ooh, thanks, Gram,” I said. I turned to the others. “We’d better break this stuff down . . . and fast.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Mrs. Collier,” Henry said.

  Henry had seen my grandmother assume any number of identities over the years. It was nothing new for him, and he actually seemed to enjoy them. But this was all relatively new for Scarlett. I was hoping she wouldn’t hold it against me that I had a rather eccentric grandmother.

  Gram continued bowing as she backed out of the garage. “Gotta run. Time to squeeze back into my lamp. See you later, kids.”

  Henry was holding back laughter. He waited for the door to close. “I love her, man.”

  “She is so cute,” Scarlett said.

  Phew, was I glad to hear that. If Scarlett somehow found Grandma’s unusual behavior cute rather than odd, then I’d have nothing to worry about the next time she reappeared in one of her unpredictable ensembles.

  As we flicked off the overhead light and slipped out, we could hear the grinding of the garage door opener. My mom was home and we had escaped in the nick of time. Had she found us conducting business again, there would have been serious consequences. I still was on probation following the Camp Phoenix Caper. They were proud that I helped expose Colonel Culpepper and successfully tracked down Sherman’s brother, Josh, but they were still upset about how I had deceived them into thinking I was on a camping trip. It wasn’t that my parents weren’t impressed with my amazing deductive reasoning skills, it’s just that they would have preferred if I had exercised them at school rather than using them to solve problems for fellow classmates. My grandmother had lectured my parents at length about how they shouldn’t suppress my talents and that they should embrace them. That would never be the case. My folks just wanted a normal kid who did normal kid things and didn’t engage in life-and-death adventures every few weeks. My dad threatened to ground me if he caught me taking on clients again. And not just ground me—he went out of his way to use the term house arrest.

  Henry and Scarlett were on their way home and I was safely in the house by the time my mom arrived. I had carefully positioned myself at the kitchen table and was downing a glass of chocolate milk when she
came in. I sprinkled cracker crumbs on the table in front of me to suggest that I had been there for a while.

  “The traffic was just horrendous downtown,” she said as she plopped bags of groceries on the counter.

  “I wonder why,” I said.

  “I’ll tell you why,” she said. “The police had Belmont Avenue blocked again. They were back at that carpeting store. They’re still trying to figure out who stole all those Persian rugs. It’s been a few days now.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah, and they have no clues, no suspects, no nothing.”

  Gram appeared in the doorway—still in her genie outfit. “Sounds like a job for the Charlie Collier, Snoop for Hire Agency if you ask me.”

  “I would love that, Gram.”

  My mom made a face. “Please, that’s the last thing we want.” She pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “Promise me, Charlie, that you won’t interfere this time.”

  “But Mom, it sounds like the police could use my help. They’re obviously stumped. I might be able to turn up something they’ve overlooked.”

  “Just let the professionals handle it,” she said.

  “Charlie’s almost a professional,” Gram said.

  “Please, Mom,” my mother said. “Don’t encourage him.”

  “The boy’s got a gift,” Gram said. “It’d be a shame if his talents went to waste.”

  My mom got up and began putting away groceries. “If he wants to go into law enforcement when he grows up, I won’t stand in his way. But for now, I just want him to be a normal kid. Is that asking too much?”

  “But how will he ever know what he wants to be if you don’t let him explore a little?”

  My mom slammed the refrigerator door shut. “Do you call nearly getting himself killed exploring a little? Mom, you have to let us raise our own son.”

  Gram sneered at my mom and motioned for me to follow her into the living room. Once we were out of harm’s way, Gram put her arm around me.

  “Ahh, don’t worry about her,” my grandmother said. “She and your dad’ll come around one of these days.”