The Great Circus Train Robbery (4 page)

“Mer-row-w,” the cat said, and she jumped, then giggled. The cat had its own language.  She meowed back but the cat looked bored and jumped up on a table.  The cat’s litter box was underneath. So that’s what she’d smelled! The box needed cleaning.

She signaled Spence to come up. “Coast is clear. No one here but the talking cat.”

“The what?”

“Never mind.” They were in a kitchen that opened into a sort of dining-living area. The walls were pale yellow, left over, she supposed, from the lampshade ladies. The refrigerator was practically bare except for a pound of butter, half a gallon of milk, some takeout Chinese, a pair of sunglasses, canned cat food, a bottle of Liquid Sleep (was his guilt keeping him awake at night?), a quart of root beer, and three bottles of some other kind of beer. It was like he shopped only once a month and today was the day. A pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey sat in the freezer compartment, along with—a frozen owl? Hmmm. That was a bad sign.

The dining area held a round oak table set with a single straw placemat with ketchup spilled on it, and an oak buffet with two framed photos. In one of the photos a dark-haired woman glared at the camera. Was she Boomer’s mother? He’d had a deprived childhood which was why he was a criminal now? She never ever hugged him?

The other photo, a black-and-white, showed a train with a skinny boy waving at it; she nudged Spence to come and look. The boy was wearing short pants and a shirt half tucked in and half hanging out.  He wore a striped engineer’s cap on his head.

“What do you make of that?” she asked Spence.

“He likes trains.”

“I suppose so. But more than that?”

“More than what? He’s a kid who likes trains.  Like me.”

“Like you.  Exactly.  So we appeal to Boomer’s better side. Try to make friends.  Show him your train.  Get him to talk about himself.  He might make a blooper.  We’ll find out things.”

“How do you know Boomer’s that kid in the photo? Could be some other kid. His own kid.”

That was a possibility. But whether himself or his kid or someone’s else’s kid, there was a train involved. And Zoe was going to follow that lead.

The living room was bare and drab. A brown couch with claw marks on the sides, a bookcase full of fat boring-looking books, a large TV, a black leather chair and a small end table. On the other side of a front hallway was a small room with a desk, an armchair, a computer and a tall filing cabinet. She nudged Spence, who was examining the rack of guns, and pointed at the computer. “We have to get into that.”

“How? I’m no computer hacker. If I tried—and got caught? No way.” Spence hugged his chest. Today he was wearing a T-shirt with a black locomotive labeled
RUTLAND ROCKET.

“Deadline’s coming up for that essay, right? So boot up the computer, please.” She was blackmailing him, but what else could she do? She needed his help. She couldn’t count on her brother or any of the other boneheads in the Northern Spy Club.

“You boot it up. I’ll look in the file drawers.”

“Oh all right.”  Spence could be stubborn.  She had to humor him. “Call out if you find anything useful.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know like what! Just anything that looks suspicious.” The computer was a tall narrow machine on the floor with a large monitor above on a desk, not unlike her mother’s. The keyboard sat on a pull-out drawer. Fortunately, he was using
WORD.
She clicked on
Outlook Express.

Two messages popped up on the screen. One read,
The item you requested is back-ordered until later this week.
It was signed,
H.Z.

She read the message aloud to Spence. “Meaning he can’t get the right bullets he wanted,” she suggested. “Or the right poison.”

“Meaning he can’t get the deodorant he ordered,” Spence said. “My dad ordered some special deodorant and got a message like that. He sweats up an ocean when he plays his guitar. Mom objects to the odor.”

The second message read,
Yes, it has a sizable hole
—
big enough for your needs. H.Z.

“So it wasn’t any deodorant he’d ordered,” she told Spence. “It sounds more like a coffin or maybe a bomb—H.Z. meant to say it
makes
a sizable hole.”

Spence came over behind her to look at the computer screen, shrugged; then hearing a noise outside, went to the window and lifted a corner of the shade.

“Shut it down!” he cried out. “Boomer just drove up!”

8

A QUICK ESCAPE

Zoe’s heart was marching ahead of her fingers. Already Spence was calling at the cellar door: “He’s getting out of the car. Hurry!”

Now the phone was ringing. It rang four times while she waited for the computer to shut down. A voice in the living room said, “Boomer,” and her heart went bang; she held on to the back of a chair. “I’ve got what you want. Sending it UPS,” the voice said. “Look for it in two days.”

Whew! It was the answering machine, she realized, and she raced into the kitchen.

The front door cracked open and Boomer stomped in. She heard him cough, and then groan—he was probably carrying heavy bags. The cat mewled and she shushed it. She crept down the cellar steps and shut the door softly behind. She heard Boomer call: “Here, Bashy, here, boy”—she shuddered at the name. Was that how he killed his victim—by bashing in his head? Would he kill the cat, too, as witness to the crime?

Spence was outside, holding up the wooden door for her to climb through. Together they let it gently down. She snatched up the book and basket and started across the yard. A shade zipped up, then the window, and there was Boomer, glaring out. “Hey!” he yelled.

“We were just picking up the pie basket,” Zoe hollered. “Backyards are safer than the road.  Mother makes us.”

“Not in my yard you don’t.  You’ll have to go in front. Now get out of here.  Get, I said!”  Boomer’s face was mad. The dimple was winking in his chin like a traffic light.  They ran through the thicket between the houses.  Zoe dropped the book and Spence picked it up.

“Good spies don’t get caught.” It was Butch Spinelli in Spence’s gazebo, a circus car in his hands. “You missed another meeting. Kelby’s pissed you weren’t there.”

“Then what are you doing here with my rail car?” Spence asked.

“The chief sent me to find Zoe. Says he’s not getting any information. If you want to stay a dumb sergeant,” he warned, glaring at her. He glanced at the bulldozer car in his hands and put it down. “Just lookin’. I never had a train like this.”

“We got chased off Boomer’s property,” Zoe said, blinking at him. “I don’t think we’ll learn much there. He has a cat—a big one—lion cub, I think. We saw it in the window.”

“Yeah?” Butch said.

“Put the car back,” Spence said. Then hearing his mother call, “Come in, Spence—you didn’t make your bed,” he started toward the house.

“How come Spence was with you at Boomer’s?” Butch asked Zoe. “He’s not a club member. Kelby won’t like that.”

“He happened to come by is all.”

“He see the lion cub?”

“Um, yeah, it was in a cage, I think.”

“Better bring him to the hut then.  You’ll need a backup. Kelby’ll never believe a lion cub.” Butch hooked the bulldozer back on and slouched off.

Zoe caught up with Spence at his back door. “You have to come to the hut with me. To tell about that lion cub.”

“What lion cub? I didn’t see any lion.”

“Sure, you did. We saw it on the window sill. That big cat? You have to back me up to Kelby.”

“Jeezum. Do I have to?”

“Some great train wrecks in my notes, Spence.”

“Train wrecks? Really?”

“I’ll be right in,” he called to his mother, and followed Zoe through the west orchard and down to the club hut that sat in front of a row of Northern Spy apple trees. The late afternoon sun was polishing the apples a shiny red. Zoe saw her father on a ladder, reaching high; the buttons of his blue overalls flashed silver. Mr. Elwood had built the hut to “get the kids of my hair—and out of my apples.” He said that because the boys were using apples as weapons. They liked the apples when they were hard and green, and could give a sizable bump on the body part they happened to hit.

They arrived just as Chief Kelby was barking out assignments to the assembled crew. “Lieutenants Butch and Jake,” the chief shouted. “Over to the Bagley sisters. Bring back a sample of everything in that garden.” He said that, Zoe knew, because the sisters grew strange herbs and plants; they’d been suspects in the pea soup demise of Granny Fairweather.

“Even the weeds,” the chief said, pointing a finger at the two lieutenants who were lounging on an old mattress with feed caps pulled down over their foreheads.

“You wanted to see us?” Zoe stood in the doorway. Spence hung back behind her.

“Don’t interrupt,” Kelby snapped. “Corporal Jimmy. The old blacksmith shop. There’s a suspicious guy in there. See what he’s doing. Why he locks the door when it’s supposed to be open to the public. Take recruits Punk and Bobo with you. Take the dog.” He shooed off the spies with a quick jerk of the thumb.

“You’ll get it for being late,” Butch said as he ran past with the dog at his heels. Zoe thumbed her nose at him.

“Okay. So what do you want?” Kelby said. He pushed out his chest and patted the painted stars.

“What do
you
want?” Zoe said.

“What do you want,
Chief,”
he said. “Now sit down and show respect. And tell
that one
the same.”

“You know perfectly well, Kelby, who
that one
is. Please call Spence by his name.”

The Chief leered. “Hey, Cello Boy. You want to join the club?”

“I don’t think so,” Spence said. But he sat down on the mattress beside Zoe.

“So what’s this about a lion cub in Boomer’s house?” Kelby asked.

“We think it’s a lion cub, that’s all. It was big. Big and black and gold-striped. It had a face like a lion. Whiskers, green eyes.”

“You saw this from the backyard? With the shades down?” Kelby smirked and Zoe stuck a tongue in her cheek.

“Not all the way down,” Spence said. “We could see in when we got close and looked through a rip in the shade. We saw it.” He gave an emphatic nod and folded his arms.

“Right.” Zoe shot a grateful look at her friend. “Though at first the beast was outlined against the shade, you know, the way the sun was hitting the back of the house? That was really scary.”

“Sounds fishy to me,” Kelby said. “So what else have you got to report?”

Zoe thought a moment. She didn’t want to give too much away. “Um, we told you about the guns—it was Spence saw them. And that’s about it, except for the stuff he eats and drinks I already wrote down.” She flushed pink, thinking of the e-mail messages. But she wasn’t going to tell about those.

The chief looked at Spence with interest. Zoe knew he’d been over to examine the circus train. “You could be a special agent,” he said.

Spence looked thoughtful. “If I’m a special agent, then I won’t get hit with a green apple?” He still had a bump on his forehead where an apple thrown by Jake had almost knocked him out. “And nobody will hit my train?”

“Agreed,” said Kelby, and held out his hand.  “Shake.”

“Wait. Does he get a badge?” Zoe asked.

“I don’t want a badge,” Spence said. “And I don’t want to come to meetings. I just want to be a Special.”

Kelby looked dubious, but he held out his hand anyway and Spence shook it.

“You could come now and then to back me up,” Zoe told Spence as they started up the hill. “I mean, to back up what I say.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I might not always agree with what you say.” As if to underscore his words, Spence veered off toward his own yard.

“It’s okay,” she called after him. “You don’t have to.” It would be boring, she decided, to have someone who always agreed with you. She was glad that Spence wouldn’t be a full club member. She wouldn’t be either, if she didn’t get promoted.

Inside the house the red light was blinking on the kitchen phone. She punched it and Ms. Delores’s voice came on, sweet and loud.

“Zoe—my niece called! I told her about you and she said to bring you to meet her. I’m going over this evening. Would you like to come? My number is 462-2229. Let me know and I ...” The message ran out. Zoe dialed the librarian’s number to say yes, but had to give her message to an answering machine.

The phone rang again almost immediately and she snatched it up.

“Hi,” she said, but it wasn’t Ms. Delores. It was Spence and he was breathing hard—he was stammering. “It’s my b-baggage car. My f-favorite new old r-red b-baggage car. It’s gone. Gone! Somebody stole it!”

9

A MOVING LIGHT IN THE NIGHT

“Have you looked everywhere, Spence?”

“Dad and me, we…we both looked.” Spence’s voice on the other end of the line sounded like a steam engine. “It was hooked between the water tank car and the bulldozer and now the tank car is hitched to the bulldozer and—” He was talking so fast she could hardly hear the words. “And somebody stole it and in plain sight. I mean, plain sight to whoever stole it, while I was with you at Boomer’s, maybe, watching that lion cub, I mean, that—that c-cat. Who would’ve—?”

“Slow down.  Was the baggage car there when we left Boomer’s? We saw Butch with the bulldozer car, remember?”

“I guess it was. Maybe not. I wasn’t really looking.” There was a silence while they both thought of Butch. But he’d had the bulldozer in his hands, not the baggage car. Zoe couldn’t believe he’d go over in daylight and take it—would he?

“So it could have been stolen last night as well, right? Did you call the police?”

“Dad did. And I got to go now. Dad’s making me take the train into the house every night and I can only have it outdoors when somebody’s watching.   It’s too valuable, he says. But that’s a pain in the butt!... Yes, Dad... What?... Coming.” The line clicked off.

“Somebody highjack the train?” said Kelby, who’d just wandered into the kitchen.

“The red baggage car. Spence’s favorite.”