Poached (6 page)

“What's going on?” Dad asked. “Is something wrong?”

The room suddenly lit up as a pair of headlight beams slashed across our windows. I glanced outside and saw two official vehicles approaching in the distance.

“Very much so,” I said.

“Who is that?” Mom asked, worry in her voice.

“The police,” I told her. “Large Marge is bringing them to arrest me. She thinks I stole Kazoo.”

My parents both gasped at the very thought of this.

“Summer just told me,” I explained. “I have to get out of here. I'll stay close, though.”

Before either Mom or Dad could protest, I banged out the door.

We lived on the very fringe of civilization. Beyond our front door there was a small patch of grass and then miles of uninterrupted woodland. A herd of white-tailed deer was
gathered on the grass. They'd frozen like statues, staring at the approaching cars, but at the sound of my exit they scattered, darting about frantically before melting into the darkness.

I followed them, ducking into the woods before the headlights could catch me.

It was freezing outside. My breath clouded the air in front of my face. I pushed deeper into the trees, putting distance between myself and the police. “You still there?” I asked into the phone.

“Yes,” Summer said. “Sounds like you're taking my advice.”

“Marge is practically here,” I told her. “Thanks for the warning.”

“What would you do without me?” Summer asked, only half teasing.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. “How'd you even know the police were coming right now?”

“Because you got me involved.”

“How?”

“You used my secret code to break into the koala exhibit.”

I winced again. I'd forgotten something like that could be tracked. “Oh. Sorry.”

“You should be. Daddy didn't know I'd given that to you.”

I figured I'd run far enough. I scrambled up a cedar tree and peered back through the woods, just in time to see the
police vehicles stop in front of our trailer. I tried to tell Summer to be quiet for a moment, but when Summer wanted to tell you something, it was impossible to get a word in.

“They didn't realize the koala was missing until about an hour ago,” she was saying. “Some night watchman noticed. He freaked out and called Marge, and then she declared a full-on red alert.”

Since there weren't any streetlights around the trailer, the police left their headlights on so they could see the way to our door. I saw four of them silhouetted in the high beams. Marge was easy to pick out, given her girth. A man built like a linebacker with a ten-gallon hat walked beside her, while two humans of slighter build—I couldn't tell if they were male or female in the dark—hung back by the cars.

Luckily, I was far enough away that they couldn't hear Summer on the phone. To be safe, though, I turned the volume down so she was barely audible.

“The first thing they did was call Daddy,” Summer went on. “He's in Germany on business. Of course, he flipped when he heard the news. When they told him which code had been used to enter the exhibit, he recognized it and called me.”

Marge pounded on the door of our trailer. Her fist on the metal rang out like gunshots in the still night air.

“I didn't answer right away, seeing as it was crazy early in
the a.m. and I had my phone off,” Summer continued. “But I checked my calls when I got up and there were like a hundred from him, so I called back, and by that time park security had looked at the tapes and seen you on them. Daddy said they'd have to arrest you—”

“Even
he
thinks I did it?” I asked, worried.

“He doesn't
want
to,” Summer explained. “But he also says video doesn't lie.”

My parents opened the trailer door. I couldn't quite tell from the distance, but it looked like they were pretending that Marge had woken them.

“Hold on for a bit,” I told Summer. “Marge is with my parents. I want to listen.”

“Gotcha,” she said.

Even though there were a dozen trailers near ours housing sleeping FunJungle employees, Marge made no attempt to be quiet. In fact she seemed to be speaking louder than usual, as though she wanted everyone within earshot to know what her business was there. “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy,” she announced, then nodded to the giant man beside her. “This is Officer Bubba Stackhouse from the Juvenile Services Division of the Kendall County Sheriff's Office. He's here to take Teddy into custody for the kidnapping of Kazoo the Koala.”

My parents were illuminated by the headlights, so I could
see them do a solid job of feigning surprise, followed by indignation. “You're making a mistake,” Mom told Marge. “Teddy didn't do any such thing.”

“Oh, he did it all right,” Marge said. “We've got it all on video. Caught your boy red-handed. Now, you have thirty seconds to produce your son or we will take him by force.”

“Teddy's not here,” Dad said. “He's having a sleepover at a friend's house.”

Marge snorted with disdain. She sounded like a hippo coming up for air. “I don't believe that for a second. Step aside. We're coming in.”

Dad and Mom quickly blocked the doorway with their bodies. “You can't do that!” Mom protested. “Not without a warrant. This is our private property.”

“Actually, it's not.” Marge sounded as though she was enjoying this. “You haven't paid one red cent for this place. It is officially the property of FunJungle—and as the chief security officer of said park, I have the right to enter any structure I choose whenever I choose. So step aside—or I'll have Officer Stackhouse here arrest the both of you as well.”

If I'd actually been in the trailer, Mom and Dad probably would have put up more of a fight, but as it was, they stepped back from the door. “J.J. McCracken is going to hear about this,” Mom warned.

“Oh, he already knows all about it,” Marge chuckled. She shoved past my parents into the trailer and called out tauntingly, “Teddy! Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Bubba Stackhouse followed her inside. The trailer groaned under his and Marge's weight. The other two police officers remained outside. My parents stayed by the door.

“What's going on?” Summer asked me.

“Marge is searching our trailer,” I reported. “Did your father send her?”

Summer waited a bit too long before answering. “I don't think so. He likes you, Teddy.”

“Can you get him to call Marge off, then?”

“I'll see what I can do. It's just that . . .” Summer trailed off.

“What?”

“Well, from what I understand, the evidence against you is awfully strong. And you have a history of causing trouble at the park.”

“I only play pranks!” I snapped. “I've never broken the law! In fact, I
caught
someone who was breaking the law here. Doesn't that count for anything?”

“It should, but you and I both know Marge has a serious bone to pick with you. If all the evidence points to you, she won't be very motivated to look anywhere else.”

In the trailer, Marge roared in frustration. Our home was so small she and Bubba had already searched every corner.
She stormed back to the door, glaring at my parents. “Where is he?”

“We told you,” Mom said. “He's sleeping at a friend's.”

“Where?” Marge demanded.

When Mom and Dad hesitated, Marge told them, “I can have Officer Stackhouse run you in for impeding a police investigation, you know.”

“I think we have the address somewhere around here,” Dad said. He disappeared into the trailer for a few moments, then came back jotting something on a scrap of paper. “Here you go.”

Marge greedily snatched the note out of his hand. “If you hear so much as a peep out of Teddy, you'd best report it to me. Otherwise I'll consider that you've aided and abetted a felon.”

“He's only
accused
of being a felon,” Mom shot back. “You haven't shown us one shred of proof yet.”

“Oh, there's plenty of proof, all right,” Marge said cheerfully. “I'll be happy to show it to you once we have your son in custody.” She then hurried toward her car, excited to find and arrest me.

Officer Stackhouse tipped his hat to my parents, then returned to his vehicle as well. If he'd said anything to them, he'd spoken too softly for me to hear it. The other two officers followed him to the cars.

Marge had caused a big enough commotion to rouse our neighbors. In every other trailer the lights had come on. Ken Parker, the polar bear expert who lived next door to us, and Mike Matthews, an elephant researcher who lived on the other side, were both on their way over in bathrobes and slippers to see what was going on.

I waited until Marge and the police were back in their cars and driving away before speaking to Summer again. “So since this crime occurred at FunJungle, Marge is the one in charge of the investigation?”

“That's right. FunJungle is technically its own incorporated municipality.”

“And since she's convinced that I'm the thief, she probably won't look for the real one.”

“Exactly,” Summer agreed. “You know what this means, Teddy?”

“Yeah,” I said sadly. “I do.”

“If you want to prove you're innocent, you're gonna have to find the bad guy yourself.”

“Absolutely not,” Mom told me.
“You are not investigating any more crimes.”

“But if I don't, no one else will,” I protested. “Marge is the law here, and all she wants to do is bust
me
.”

It was only a few minutes after Marge and the police had driven away. Dad had lied to our neighbors about what Marge had wanted and sent them all home. He'd also lied to Marge: He'd given her a fake address in town where I'd supposedly spent the night, one he'd simply picked at random out of the phone book. We figured it would take half an hour for Marge to discover this and another half hour to get back. In the meantime our trailer would be safe. Dad and I were seated at the kitchen table. Mom was making us breakfast, although I didn't think I
could eat it. My stomach was churning with anxiety.

“Marge will come around,” Mom said, cracking eggs into a bowl. “J.J. McCracken will force her to. He needs her to find that koala as soon as possible, not waste time with you.”

“But Summer says all the evidence points toward me,” I protested. “What if that convinces J.J. McCracken, too? What if everyone really thinks I'm the thief?”

“That's ridiculous,” Mom said. “We know you didn't do it.”

“You're my parents,” I argued. “You're
supposed
to think I didn't do it. I'm going to need more proof than that to get Marge off my case.”

Dad nodded. “I think you're right.”

“Jack!” Mom snapped at him.

“I mean about Marge,” Dad told her, then turned to me. “Though I agree with your mother that you shouldn't take this on yourself. . . .”

“Why not?” I pleaded.

“Because the last time you investigated a crime here, you nearly got yourself killed a couple times over,” Dad said.

I sat back in my chair sullenly, aware he had a point.

“In fact,” Dad went on, “this time, I suspect whoever kidnapped Kazoo knows you all too well, Teddy.”

Mom froze in the midst of scrambling the eggs. “What do you mean?”

“It seems Teddy has been framed,” Dad explained. “And
to do that, the kidnapper must have been keeping an eye on him.” He turned back to me. “What's this evidence Marge has on you?”

“Video from the security cameras,” I said. “Summer says they have footage of me entering the koala exhibit and leaving it last night.”

“But no footage of you inside?” Mom asked.

I thought back to my phone conversation. “Summer didn't mention anything about that.”

Mom started scrambling the eggs again. “Aren't there cameras inside the koala exhibit?”

“I'd assume so,” Dad replied. “There are cameras everywhere else in this park.”

“Then there ought to be footage from inside the exhibit proving that Teddy didn't take Kazoo,” Mom said.

“Maybe not.” Dad sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “If that footage existed, Marge would have seen it, wouldn't she? And more importantly, there should be footage showing who actually
did
steal Kazoo. Someone else entering and leaving the exhibit besides Teddy. So where is that?”

None of us had an answer. I could only shrug.

Mom began to soak slices of bread in the eggs, then drop them on the griddle. “Do you think someone tampered with the footage?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Dad said. “Sadly, we know from experience
that people in FunJungle security can corrupt the cameras when they want to.” (During Henry's murder investigation, we'd learned his killer knew how to turn off the security systems in some exhibits.) Dad grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil and started to make notes for himself. “I know one of the guys who works with the security system. I'll see if he can show me what they've got. Maybe somewhere in all that footage there'll be video of the
real
thief—or something else that proves Teddy's innocence.”