The Case of the Old Man in the Mailbox Read online

  Chapter 18

  The Great Escape

  The next morning I got up early and went downstairs to eat some cereal and catch my mom on her way out the door to the wedding. When I got downstairs at 8 a.m., however, she was already gone. Well, this could work out well, I thought.

  I wolfed down my cereal and headed upstairs to begin implementing my plan. I kept the door to my bedroom open and turned my stereo on. I cranked the volume up to somewhere between “downright annoying” and “unruly alarm clock” and started digging into my closet as if it was time for spring cleaning.

  As expected, the door across the hall flew open, and a tangled-haired monster (also known as my sister) in checkered pajamas stood in my doorway, yelling at me to turn the music down. I half-heartedly argued with her for a moment before grudgingly marching over and turning down the volume ever so slightly.

  I managed to drag the argument out a good three minutes before she was fully awake and fully ticked off. She finally said, “I have a ton of studying to do. If you have to listen to that garbage, then please shut your door.”

  She slammed my door for me as she huffed down the stairs—presumably to grab some breakfast herself. Jail guard: neutralized. I went over and locked my door and then turned the stereo back up a tad.

  Now that I had established in my sister’s mind that I was hunkered down in my room for the morning, I moved on to getting ready for the rest of the day. I quickly changed into some outdoor clothes and waited at the window for AJ to appear. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Well?” he said, looking up and trying to shield his eyes from the sun, which was just popping up over my roof above me.

  “Let’s get out of here first. See that big metal pipe by the fence? Grab it, and hand one end to me.”

  AJ turned around and found the pipe I was referring to. It was about three inches wide and about twenty feet long. My dad had intended on using it to replace a water pipe buried in our yard, but he waited too long and the ground got too cold and hard for him to dig up the old one. He kept postponing the project until I think he finally forgot all about it, and so the pipe had sat along the fenceline ever since.

  AJ struggled to lift the heavy pipe and maneuver it in such a way as to hand one end to me and not hit the house or the fence with the other end. Finally, he got one end up to me. I took the pipe and stood it straight up about two feet from the house. I then crawled out the window and stood on the window sill.

  Using the pipe to hold my balance, I shut the window as closed as I could so that my one heel was on the sill and the rest of my body was outside the window, holding on to the pipe for dear life.

  I flashed a grin to AJ and then leaned toward the back of the house and pushed off the house. The pipe and me began to fall. I turned my body so that I was facing the same direction I was falling. But I picked up speed a little faster than I anticipated. So as soon as my feet touched the ground, I ran to help break my fall. It wasn’t the most stylish landing—as evidenced by AJ’s muffled laughter—but I survived.

  I hadn’t considered that the same soft ground that would muffle the sound of the falling pipe would also keep me from being able to run very well. I stumbled into the woods behind my house while AJ quickly put the pipe back against the fence.

  Most of the houses on our street have a decent-sized backyard that butts up against the woods. AJ actually has a six-foot fence that surrounds his entire backyard because he owns a dog. There is one house between AJ’s house and mine, but AJ and me have worn a path in the woods behind the neighbor’s yard so we can get to each other’s backyard pretty easily.

  The path dead-ends at the back fence of AJ’s yard, so a couple years ago we took his old bunkbed ladder and put it back there so we can easily climb the fence. (Don’t ask me why an only child like AJ ever had a bunkbed. There are plenty of other questions surrounding AJ that I would like answered first.) Anyway, on the other side of the fence from the ladder is a large doghouse. This large doghouse is for a rather large dog.

  AJ has a pet pit bull named SPUD, spelled with all capital letters. Don’t ask me why. I will probably figure that out about the time that I learn what the A and the J stand for.

  As far as naming him after a potato, the only thing I can think of is that that dog is lazy like a couch potato. I’m serious. All it ever does is lie around and eat. The only thing that ever gets that dog excited at all is strangers.

  But, boy, does he get excited! That dog will snarl and growl and bark and act as if he’s going to tear you apart. I think he’s too lazy to actually do anything more than that, but SPUD makes one great guard dog. In fact, AJ’s dad had to put a metal grate with a hinge on the front of the big doghouse just so he could barbeque on the back porch without his dinner guests feeling like they were about to be ripped to shreds. Anyway, SPUD was going to play a big role in my plan for the day.

  “So are your parents out sailing like usual?” I asked.

  “Yeah, at Henderson Bay.”

  “Good. I think we’ll get those guys to come here, then,” I said. We both climbed the ladder, hopped the fence, and stood on the doghouse, surveying the yard.

  “Why my house?” AJ asked.

  “Well, we can’t have them showing up at Scooter’s again; they would never come. And they can’t come to my house: I am supposed to be in my room.”

  We hopped off the doghouse and walked across the lawn toward the back porch. SPUD barely startled as we walked past him. I don’t understand how that dog can distinguish friends from strangers while sleeping, but he does.

  “Why do we have to meet them at anyone’s house?” AJ asked.

  “Because they need to come pick up their furniture at a house, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” AJ admitted.

  “So remember that time when Scooter’s mom was putting on a kitchen gadget show at her house, but all these ladies kept showing up at your house asking where the party was?”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember—that’s when we realized that I live at 473 Mountain View Drive, and Scooter lives at 473 Mountain View Court. What are the odds!”

  “Exactly. I plan on using that to our advantage. I’m going to call the furniture company pretending to be Mr. Mathisen and act like I thought about it and, to protect my grandkids, I decided to let them come get the furniture after all.

  “Now, they will be thinking that surely since my house has been trashed, I must be onto them and know that the recall is a hoax. That’s when I will have to play the ‘clueless, cranky old man’ and tell them to make sure that they come to the right address this time. Because when they delivered the furniture, they delivered it to the Mountain View Court and not the Mountain View Drive address.

  “I know the story is a little rough, but for $250,000, I think Snelling won’t think about it too hard. He’ll just assume he picked a really dumb old man to dupe and consider himself fortunate that Mathisen called him back.”

  “I think it will work,” said AJ. “Why would he think that some old man is setting a trap for him? After all, as a con-man, he probably thinks he’s smarter than anyone. It probably wouldn’t cross his mind that someone could be conning him.”

  “Good point, Aidge,” I agreed. “So let’s call and set up a pick-up time. Where is your phone?”

  “Wait, Tyler, your voice! You can’t call unless you have that pitch-changer thingy; otherwise, you won’t sound like Mathisen this time.”

  “Oh, good point. Shoot. Scooter’s pitch changer was in his backpack. Wait! What was his message to you? Didn’t he say something about his backpack?”

  “Yeah, he said he left his backpack at my house. But that’s impossible; we never came over here.”

  “Hmm. Then why would he tell you his backpack was at your house? He was obviously trying to draw attention to his backpack, but he was being cryptic in front of his dad. Do you think he knew we would need the pitch-changer?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” AJ sa
id.

  “Yeah, I don’t know either, but I think the fact that he mentioned your house, when clearly we all know it could not be at your house, means he was actually trying to steer us to the shelter… so let’s go.”

  I was probably giving Scooter too much credit, but I had to try. We really couldn’t make that phone call without the pitch dilator. We hurried across the street and entered the woods via a shortcut: a trail that runs behind a couple of Scooter’s neighbors’ houses and directly to the woods behind Scooter’s backyard. We decided not to get anywhere near Scooter’s house in case the police were inside or parked in the driveway.

  Once inside our headquarters, I could see the jewelry box still sitting on the table where Scooter had left it. And sitting next to it was the pitch dilator.

  “What? How did that get down here?” AJ exclaimed as he ran over and picked up the device.

  “Scooter, you are one devious little genius!” I said, looking up as if talking to him while he sat on the ceiling. “You know, I think he had this thing in his pocket the whole time we were down here arguing. His plan all along was to call the furniture company and set up some sort of pick-up. But then I bolted and left you guys without the same Mathisen voice we had used before. I imagine he left the pitch dilator down here, knowing that whenever one of us finally did make that call, it would probably be from down here.”

  AJ and me paused a moment to reflect on the fact that, once again, Scooter was a couple steps ahead of us. Then I placed the phone call to Jungle Furniture. I’m not sure if Snelling really believed what I told him, but he did a good job of using his “Great Customer Service” tone and we set up a pick-up time of two o’clock that afternoon.

  I hung up and looked at my watch: 10 a.m. That left plenty of time to set up the rest of the trap, track down Scooter, and fill him in on the details.

  On a whim, I picked up the phone again and dialed Scooter’s house. Mr. Parks answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Mr. Parks, this is Tyler. Is Scooter there?”

  “Sure, Tyler, he’s in the kitchen, helping clean up this mess. One moment.”

  “Hey, Ty,” Scooter said as he picked up the phone. “I see you got my message.”

  “Yes, I did. Pretty impressive. We are at headquarters, and things are now in motion. Are you going to be able to get free to help us out? We need you. Especially at two o’clock.”

  “Uh, one sec.” The phone got silent for a moment. And then, “Yeah, I probably have another hour of work to do here, and then Dad says I can play. We’ve been at this for most of the morning, and I am really looking forward to getting out of here for awhile. Where do you want to meet? AJ’s house?”

  “Yes, but AJ’s real house, not the cryptic one.” Both Scooter and me laughed, then I continued, “The furniture company is coming at 2 p.m., and we need help with the lifting.”

  “Gotcha. See you then.” He hung up.