“Maybe he keeps some of his fake money in there,” I whispered. “Is he pulling out any bills?”
Claudia shook her head. “Nope. Not yet, anyway.” There was a pause while she watched him. “Oh!” she said, suddenly. “He pulled something out!”
“What is it?” we all asked at once. “What?”
“A red pencil,” she breathed. “Maybe he uses it to put those little red lines onto bills.”
I held my breath. Finally, we were on the brink of cracking the case.
“Oops,” said Claudia, “never mind.”
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Correcting papers,” she said. She turned to grin at me. “Did you take a quiz today?”
I nodded, remembering how hard it had been to concentrate on a multiple-choice test on To Kill a Mockingbird when my mind was full of counterfeiters.
“Maybe he’s grading yours right now,” whispered Claudia. “He’s making lots of red marks.”
“Oh, ha, ha,” I said. “Very funny.”
“Whoa!” said Claudia. “He’s getting up. He’s coming toward the door!” She ducked quickly, and we all scrambled away from the door. Mr. Fiske strode out and headed back down the hall, the way he had come.
“Maybe he’s going to the basement!” Kristy whispered. “You know, where the copier is?”
“Think he’s going to run off a few thousand?” asked Jessi. “It would be so cool if we could catch him in the act.”
But Mr. Fiske just kept walking, past the stairway that leads to the basement. He walked to a door, opened it, and went in. I was right behind him.
“Stacey!” Claudia hissed. “No!”
I turned to face her. “We’re never going to catch him if we don’t follow him,” I said.
“But that’s the men’s room.” Claud pointed to the sign. “I don’t think you want to follow him there!”
I blushed. That was a close call. We waited outside the door until Mr. Fiske emerged. Then we followed him all the way back to his homeroom, and Claudia watched while he packed up his briefcase. “I guess he’s going to mark the rest of those papers later,” she said.
Mr. Fiske left his room and walked down the hall, back toward the stairway to the basement. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t spotted us yet, but he seemed preoccupied. I decided he was probably thinking about how much money he should make that night.
He paused at the head of the stairway, looked at his watch, and then continued down the hall. “I guess he has enough money for today,” Jessi whispered, giggling.
And that was it. We followed him out the main door, and watched him climb into his car. He owned a battered blue Honda. “It’s not exactly a Cadillac, is it?” said Jessi as we watched him drive off.
“But just because we didn’t catch him in the act doesn’t mean he’s innocent,” I replied. I was still hoping.
“True,” agreed Kristy. “But basically he seems like your average, everyday English teacher.”
“Good cover,” I said, under my breath.
“Well, we’ll keep an eye on him,” said Claudia. “Maybe he needs more supplies or something. Or maybe he’s lying low. After all, he can’t make money every day. He would look suspicious if he used the copier too much.”
We split up, and I headed home to grab a snack before our BSC meeting. Just as I was taking the last bite of a banana, the phone rang. It was Terry.
“Hi!” I said, happy to hear from him.
“What have you been up to?” he asked.
And for some reason, the whole story about the counterfeiting and our detective work came spilling out. Well, not the whole story. I just told him that my friends and I were interested in the case, and that we wished we could solve it. I guess I wanted to feel him out, to see if he would take the bait. Maybe he’d end the suspense by breaking down and telling me that he and his family were the guilty ones. Of course, he didn’t. But he did seem very, very interested in what I told him. He also seemed to know quite a bit about counterfeiting, which I thought was odd. He even knew about those tiny little red and blue lines.
Should I be happy that he knew so much? Maybe he could help us solve the case. Or should I be suspicious? After we had talked for a while and I hung up, I just stood there for a minute, thinking. I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t going to report this conversation at the meeting I was about to attend.
“Wait, wait,” said Charlotte. It was Saturday morning, and Charlotte and I were on our way downtown to do some sleuthing. Officially, I was baby-sitting for her, but unofficially we were McGill & Johanssen, Private Investigators. And one of the investigators had forgotten something. We had to double back to her house to get it.
“We can’t do detective work without our notebook,” said Charlotte, poking around her room to find it. “I can’t believe I almost forgot it.” She pulled it out from under her pillow, found a pen, and said she was ready to go.
We hit the sidewalk again and walked downtown without hurrying. It was a nice day. The sky was bright blue and there was just a little crispness in the air, enough to make you think of apples and sweaters and warm, cozy evenings by a fireplace. Charlotte skipped along beside me, singing “The Wheels on the Bus.”
Downtown was busy that morning. People were dashing in and out of the stores, intent on their weekend errands. Charlotte and I stopped to look in a few windows, just for fun, on our way to the office supply store. “Sometimes I can almost understand why people make counterfeit money,” Charlotte said with a sigh, gazing into the toy store window. She was looking at a gigantic teddy bear propped near a beautiful doll house. A china tea set with pink roses on it sat on a table nearby. “If I made my own money, I could buy everything I wanted,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“For a while, maybe,” I replied. “But you’d probably get bored pretty soon with having all that stuff.” Then I thought of the red cowboy boots I had seen in a store window a few blocks back. They would look great with a full-length denim coat and a wide leather belt with silver medallions on it. I could think of a few things I wouldn’t mind having, myself. And I’m not sure how soon I would get bored with buying everything I wanted. But I knew that counterfeiting wasn’t the way to go.
When Charlotte and I arrived at the office supply store, we found that it was only open until noon. We wouldn’t have much time to spy. Still, we hung around the copy machines, trying to appear as if we belonged there. I noticed that the woman behind the counter was beginning to look suspicious. I didn’t blame her. I mean, it was a little odd that we had started to hang out there so much. She seemed busy with some paperwork, though, and she left us alone.
Unfortunately, it was a slow day at the office supply store. I guess they do most of their business during the week. A couple of people came in for little things like envelopes and paper, but that was it. Not one person looked at the new copiers, and nobody bought copy supplies.
At a quarter to twelve, I turned to Charlotte. “How about some lunch?” I asked. “We can grab a sandwich and then check out some other stores.”
“Sure,” she said. “Can we go to the Rosebud Café?”
I nodded, and we headed out the door and down the street. We decided to take a shortcut to the café, which meant crossing the parking lot in back of some stores. As we walked, we talked about what we planned to order for lunch. Suddenly, a young man ran across the parking lot — right toward us. He was running fast, and he kept looking over his shoulder. He hadn’t seen us yet. I grabbed Charlotte and pulled her down behind the closest car. Somehow, I had a bad feeling about this man. He was running so wildly! Was he being chased?
Charlotte gasped when I grabbed her, but she squatted down quietly and we both watched the man as he dashed nearer to us. As he ran past us, we heard a thump, as though he had dropped something, something that sounded heavy. I ducked down to make sure he didn’t see us. He paused for a half second, but then he ran on without picking up what he had dropped.
As
soon as the man was out of sight, Charlotte started to stand up, but I pulled her back. “Somebody must be chasing him,” I said. “Let’s wait and see.” But we waited for five minutes, and nobody showed up. Finally, when my heart had stopped beating like a drum, I stood up slowly and motioned to Charlotte to follow me.
We tiptoed out from behind the car and looked around to see what the man had dropped. “There!” cried Charlotte, pointing to a dirty white canvas bag. We walked toward it and examined it from a distance. It looked like a big laundry bag. I poked it gingerly, trying to figure out what might be in it. Not laundry, that was for sure. I felt hard edges, and corners.
“Let’s open it,” said Charlotte.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, nervously. But then my curiosity got the better of me. I picked up one corner of the bag and peeked inside. I nearly passed out when I saw what was in it.
“Money,” breathed Charlotte. “Lots of it.”
She was right. The bag was packed full of money. New bills, stacked tightly, with bands around them. I bent to look closer. The pack closest to me was one-hundred-dollar bills! They were new and crisp and clean and — I touched one of them — totally smooth.
“It’s money, all right,” I said. “But it’s not real money.”
“You mean —?” asked Charlotte.
“Right,” I said. “It’s counterfeit.” My heart had started beating hard again.
“What should we do?” Charlotte asked.
“We should tell the police,” I answered. “But we’re not going to. I want to solve this case myself.” I thought fast. “We’ll stay here and stake out the area. There’s no way he’s going to leave all this money sitting in a parking lot. He’ll be back. He may wait awhile, to make sure the coast is clear, but I’m sure he’ll come back for this bag.”
“I — I’m scared,” said Charlotte.
“Me, too,” I admitted. “That’s why I’m going to call Claudia and tell her to come down and wait with us. Maybe she can get some of our other friends, too. And I’ll tell them to bring a camera. When that guy comes back, we’ll be hiding nearby. We’ll snap his picture, get it developed, and take it to the police. That’ll be that!” I made it sound simple, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Still, I thought it was a good plan.
The first thing to do was call Claud. I looked around to make sure the man was nowhere in sight, and then Charlotte and I ran for the nearest pay phone, which was just across the parking lot. I called Claud and spit out the story as quickly as I could. I kept an eye on the money bag as I talked. “Hurry!” I said. “We’ll be waiting for you.” After I hung up, I thought for a minute. Then I took a deep breath and dialed Terry’s number. I wasn’t sure that calling him was the right thing to do, but I had a hunch that he could help us. I was sure, by now, that the Hoyts were not the counterfeiters. The man I’d seen was too young to be Mr. Hoyt. And Terry didn’t even hesitate when I told him what was going on. He just said he was on his way.
Then Charlotte and I hid behind the red car again, the one I’d told Claud and Terry to look for. “I hope they get here soon,” said Charlotte. “What if that guy comes back before we have the camera?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’d have to follow him.” That was not something I wanted to do. After all, he was a criminal. We wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. I crossed my fingers and waited for my friends, keeping a close eye on the parking lot. Charlotte looked excited and a little scared, which was exactly the way I felt. Were we finally about to catch the counterfeiters? I couldn’t believe our big break had come while we were innocently crossing a parking lot, after all that time we’d spent staking out copy machines and following Mr. Fiske.
After a tense twenty minutes, Claudia showed up with Kristy and Jessi. Mary Anne was right behind them. I told them that Terry was coming, and made them promise not to act suspicious around him. After all, we seemed to have our suspect. They said they would be on their best behavior, and when Terry joined us a few minutes later they greeted him warmly.
“Did you bring the camera?” I asked Claudia. She nodded.
Kristy pulled me aside. “You know,” she said, “I don’t think Charlotte’s parents would appreciate her being mixed up in this.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. But I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Jessi said she’d take Char back to her house to play with Becca,” said Kristy. “We have enough people here to let her go, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “Hey, Char, can you come here?” Charlotte joined Kristy and me, and we told her we thought she should go home with Jessi. She looked disappointed for a second, and tried to talk us out of it, but then I thought she looked relieved.
“Okay,” she said. “But will you call us right away if something happens?”
I promised I would.
After Jessi and Charlotte left, the rest of us huddled near the red car. The bag was still lying on the pavement in clear view. There was no way we could miss the man if he came back. I checked over the camera Claud had brought, making sure that there was film in it, that the battery had plenty of power, and that the automatic zoom lens was working.
“It’s the end of a roll,” Claudia said. “I was taking some pictures of flowers for a project I’m thinking about, but there are a few shots left.”
“Great,” I said. I held the camera ready, waiting for the man to come back. It was a long wait. People with shopping bags crossed the parking lot, heading for their cars. Other people drove in, parked, and headed for the stores. But the man didn’t show up. Luckily, nobody came for the red car we were still hiding behind. We waited patiently, and then not so patiently.
“When’s he going to come?” asked Claudia. “I should have brought a sketchpad with me so I wouldn’t be wasting all this time.”
“Here, you can draw on this,” I said, handing her Charlotte’s spy notebook. “Charlotte left it behind.”
“The paper’s too small,” said Claud. “And I don’t have my good pens with me. Plus, there’s nothing much to sketch, really. But thanks, anyway.” She handed the notebook back, and I started to flip through it, just to pass the time.
Most of the handwriting in the book was terrible, since the notes had been jotted down while the writer was standing around spying. I strained to read a note near the beginning. “Hey, this is funny,” I said to Claud. “Didn’t you say you saw a man with a blue tattoo one day? Here’s another note about him. Somebody else saw him, too.” I showed her the page. “I can’t tell whose handwriting it is.”
Claudia peered at the page. “It might be Becca’s,” she said. “Huh, that’s —”
“Shhhh!” said Terry suddenly. Claud and I turned to look at him. He was pointing at something. I poked my head up over the back bumper of the car to see what it was. It was the man! He was back for his bag of cash, and he was only a few yards away from where we were hiding. I grabbed behind me for the camera, and Claudia put it in my hand. I raised it over the bumper, pointed it at the man, checked through the view-finder to make sure I had him in the frame, and snapped three pictures as quickly as I could while he bent to pick up the bag. My hands were shaking so hard that I could hardly hold the camera still.
The man looked around after he’d picked up the bag. We ducked down quickly, and he didn’t spot us. Then he hurried off.
“Did you get the pictures?” Kristy asked.
I nodded. “I think so,” I said.
“All right!” said Terry, giving me a high-five. We were all grinning like maniacs.
“Now what happens?” asked Mary Anne.
“I’ll take the film to be developed at that quickie place,” I said. “As soon as we get the pictures back we can take them to the police. It might take a couple of hours, though.”
“A couple of hours?” asked Claudia.
“You guys don’t have to stay,” I said. “I can take care of it. Go on home,
and I’ll call you as soon as the pictures are ready.”
So my friends left, but Terry decided to keep me company.
“It’s nice of you to stay,” I said to Terry as we walked toward the photo store. I felt a little shy with him all of a sudden.
“That’s okay,” he replied. He started to say something else, but then he stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stacey,” he said, looking very serious, “when we get those pictures developed, we don’t have to go to the police.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “How else can we —”
“We can just take them to my father,” he interrupted. “He’ll take care of everything.”
I froze. “Take care of everything”? What did Terry mean? Maybe his family was involved in making the mystery money. And now, maybe they were about to get rid of me — permanently — because I knew too much.
“Your father?” I repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“He — I mean, I — oh, man,” said Terry. “It’s a long story. Let’s drop off the film first, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
I was incredibly curious, and also pretty scared, but I could see that Terry wasn’t ready to explain himself yet. I led the way to the camera store and gave the film to the woman behind the counter. She said the pictures would be ready in a little over an hour. We left the store, and as we walked down the street I turned to Terry. “So what’s going on?” I asked.
“You know what?” he said. “I’m totally starved. How about if we get something to eat?”
We had to wait for the pictures anyway, so I figured we might as well. Besides, I had suddenly realized that I was incredibly hungry myself, even if I was about to be rubbed out. We headed for the pizza place and ordered some vegetarian slices and two sodas. (Diet for me, of course.) I started to look around for a table, but Terry steered me toward the door.
“Let’s eat out in the park,” he said. “I can’t talk in here.”