CHAPTER 13 STATE COLLEGE FOOTBALL CAMP
Later that night, Brooks called Brad’s cell phone. "What's new Sherlock Holmes?" asked Brad when he saw Brooks’ number calling him. "Had some interesting conversations today. Can you come over?" "Sure, give me 10 minutes," said Brad.
Brooks heard the doorbell ring and then a knock on his bedroom door. "Come on in," said Brooks. Brooks and Brad did their special handshake - slapping the palms of their hands together, then the backs of their hands and then a fist bump.
"Are you ready to have your Uncle Mike bust down the doors at Trojan Computer?" asked Brad. "Ha. Funny you should mention that. Listen to what I've uncovered." said Brooks. He went on to tell Brad about how he had gotten into Coach Vitrano's office and found the camera. Then he went on to tell him about the conversation he'd had with the guy from State College Networking & Internet.
Brad's face had flushed red with anger when he found out about the camera. "We have to tell Coach about that camera - this is killing the season!"
"We can't." said Brooks. "I need more time to get to the bottom of who is doing it. If we expose the camera, we might lose our chances of finding out whose it is."
Brad knew the situation was tough. "I wish I could go with you to the game this Friday, I'd take that guy with the long hair and clock him right in the jaw." "What? Why won't you be there?" asked Brooks.
"Football camp, I already told you that," replied Brad. "Arrgh" said Brooks remember now that Brad had told him earlier in the week about it. "We have a big bonfire on Friday night, it's a lot of fun," said Brad.
"Let's update the board." said Brooks. Under suspects he added STATE COLLEGE NETWORKING & INTERNET. He dug out the guy's card from his backpack. On the blackboard Brooks added the name of the guy he had met in the parking lot - BOB RUSSELL. Brad looked at it and seemed even more confused.
"I don't get it, Brooks. What is the motivation there? It has to be Gunther Ille at Trojan Computers. He's spying on Tosa East and giving the information to the schools they are going to play. It's obvious, isn't it? He wants his son Jeff to get the scholarship to the University."
Brooks was stumped also. "I know. That's what I thought too. Now I just don't know. At this point, I’m not ruling anyone or any motive out, so by putting everything up on this board, it will help us visualize things better and make sure we don’t miss any detail, or rule out any possible suspect or motive."
The boys sat there stumped. "Well, maybe it's time to turn up the heat a little bit," said Brooks. "What do you mean?" asked Brad. "I'm not sure yet, I just know that I have to start getting some answers."
Brad left and went home. Brooks went downstairs and found his dad sitting in the living room watching TV on the family's big 50" television screen. Ripken sat on his lap.
"Hey Brooks," said his dad. "How's the case coming? I saw your assistant Brad was over." "Well," said Brooks, "I thought I had it all figured out, but now I'm more confused than ever."
"Well you'd better figure it out soon, Coach Vitrano is pulling his hair out trying to figure out what he's doing wrong. I had lunch with him today and he's really upset. Between the losses, his star quarterback on the verge of losing his scholarship to the University and Coach Russell going to coach at State, he's a wreck."
"Why would he care if Coach Russell goes to State? Did he want that job?" asked Brooks.
"No, he and Coach Russell had a falling out a few seasons back. It seems that Coach Russell had made up an address where a player lived in order to get him to become a student at Kenosha instead of Tosa East. He had gotten a mailing address from one of those postal places inside his district so it looked like the kid lived a lot closer to the school and was eligible to go to his school and play for him. He said that he felt that the coach had started to do a lot of shady things in order to win because he was getting closer to retirement and was still only a high school coach. Now his playing with shades of gray were getting rewarded when he got his new promotion to State."
"Wow that is pretty below board. I guess that explains why Coach Vitrano didn't shake his hand after the game last week," said Brooks. "I'm going to bed, dad. This whole thing is making my head hurt."
"Good night, son," said his dad. Ripken jumped off the couch and followed Brooks up to his bed where he slept most nights.
After school on Thursday, Brooks got on his computer to look up the phone number for Trojan Computers. He dialed the number and he recognized the voice of the owner, Gunther Arno. "Hello, I have a website that needs to do live streaming to the public. Is that something your company does?" asked Brooks.
"No it's not, I'm sorry. We don't do anything with video; we are mainly a networking company. We help computers talk to different computers and other devices. But we do some computer repair and sell some parts and things like that also. But nothing with video or anything like that. Might be something we should look into though. I know they wanted that at the school district where we just did a big installation," said Gunther.
"Oh yes, I read about that in the newspaper," said Brooks. "Who is doing that for them?" asked Brooks, even though he thought he already knew. "I believe it's State College Networking.”
It was confirmed. This totally threw a monkey wrench in Brooks’ solution. If it wasn't Gunther Ille and Trojan computers, who was it? He thanked Gunther and hung up the phone.
Brad sat around the bonfire with the rest of the kids attending the football camp. He had the hood of his bright red Tosa East football sweatshirt up over his head to fight off the chill of the night air. The fire was keeping his legs warm enough.
He sat next to John Porter, a kid he'd met at the camp last year. John was a wide receiver and had pretty good hands. They were drinking sodas and roasting marshmallows over the fire. There were a few fathers of some of the campers there and most of the staff of the State College Football team. It was just a time to relax and get to know each other and the counselors before the actual camp started.
All of the sudden from behind a tree came a crazy looking man shrieking and running with his hands flailing in the air. Some of the kids jumped in fear and some just stared as if they were in a trance. "What in the heck?" thought Brad. He saw the counselors laughing, some were even doubled over they were laughing so hard at the campers reactions. The man who had been running was about 6 feet tall and had a large mustache, long hair and a yellow baseball hat. "It's that guy from the parking lot!" thought Brad.
The guy stopped and doubled over in laughter as the kids tried to compose themselves. The man took off his hat and the hair came with it. "Fake hair!" Brad yelled inside his head. The man then took off his mustache also. The man was actually bald and had no facial hair. He vaguely recognized the guy as George Russell or Smokey as everyone called him. Smokey was an assistant coach at State and Brad knew him from last year's camp. Brad remembered he worked with the quarterbacks.
Smokey stood in front of everyone, "Hopefully that didn't scare you too much!" he laughed. "I wanted to liven things up here. For those of you who don't know me I was the quarterback coach here at State University. My name is Coach George Russell, but you guys can call me Smokey. As of next year, I'll be the assistant coach for the team, acting as the right hand man to the real Coach Russell of the team - my dad - Thomas Russell who was the coach at Kenosha High School until a few weeks ago and now is the new head coach here at State College. You'll meet him tomorrow. To keep things straight, just call me Smokey. It'd be far too difficult to have 2 Coach Russell’s running around here! For now, everybody enjoy the campfire, don't stuff your faces too full of marshmallows, I don't want to see that stuff out on the field tomorrow. We are going to spend the next two days working you into the ground, so be ready for it. I'll see everybody bright and early at 7am tomorrow on Field 2. "
Smokey walked over to the other coaches and the parents. Brad sat at the c
ampfire in shock. "You look like you've seen a ghost," said John. Brad smiled and tried to shake himself back to normal, "Nah, I'm ok. He just startled me a little. I'm going to the bathroom, I'll be back in a second."
Brad got up from the campfire and walked towards the locker room. He got out his phone and dialed Brooks. "Hey Brad, how's Boy Scout camp?" answered Brooks. Brad ignored the joke, "You aren't going to believe this. One of the counselors just played a joke on us running out of the woods and trying to scare us. He was dressed with a yellow baseball hat and a mustache. Oh, and long hair too." Brooks paused, confused. "Whoa, what? Why is that guy there?" he asked. The wheels were turning hard in his head. "Guess what else. He's a fake. The hair is attached to that hat. He's bald. Care to guess who he is?" "Tell me," said Brooks quietly. "Smokey Russell, assistant coach here at State and son of Coach Russell from Kenosha."
Brooks was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. "This makes no sense. Why would he tape high school games and give the tapes to the other coaches? Was it for scouting whom to give scholarships to? Usually coaches are more than happy to help by giving video to college coaches to try and assist their athletes to get scholarships. And if he was taping the games, and the practices, why wasn't he helping his dad win more games at Kenosha High School?" Brad’s buddy John walked up behind him as he was talking - "Talking to your girlfriend, Klemz?" he teased. "I gotta go, Brooks," said Brad.
Brooks sat down on his bed. "This makes no sense. Well, if a costume store sells that hat and hair thing, it might be somebody else. Anybody would be able to walk in and buy the costume, but what are the odds? And if it was Coach Russell’s son in the disguise, why had Coach Russell smacked the envelope out of his hand when he had walked up to him at the football game.
“Too many things aren’t adding up here." Brooks was feeling even worse now after getting the call then he had before. He decided to go to bed and hope he felt better in the morning.