The Devil's Copper, Jamie Crothall [classic books for 7th graders .TXT] 📗

He jumped to attention and nearly lost his fries in the process.  I heard him muttering obscenities as he got out of the car.  I stopped to check the mailbox.  When I returned, he was already ascending the steps to the front door.  He managed to effortlessly open my rigged door latch in order to get inside.

“How did you…?”

“I figured it out.  That was clever though.”

Walter entered the house with a self-assured demeanor, like an investigator ready to line up all the clues.  When he looked around however, he found very little out of note, except for the bedroom door off its hinges.

“I’ve already looked around, but there’s not much out of place.”

“Then we have to look at what is in place.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Did you check his computer?”

Huh.  I never thought of that.  “No.”

“The place where he keeps all his records of important financial dealings…you never thought to have a look?”

I shook my head in frustration.  “Look, I had a very stressful morning, okay?”

Walter pulled out the chair and sat down at the desk.  “What’s his password?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He peered up at me.  “You don’t know?”

“I don’t use it!”

“It has the internet!  You don’t use it?  Do you have any idea what it might be?”

“No idea,” I replied.  “Might be something to do with…”

“I got it.”

I looked over his shoulder and saw the main desktop screen.  “How did you…?”

“Lucky guess.”

Okay, this was getting a little too convenient.  I should have listened to my suspicions the moment they started to whisper in my ear.

“Do you see anything?” I asked, as I wandered away from the computer desk.

“No, it’s just a bunch of financial stuff.  It means nothing to me.”

“That’s too bad,” I muttered as I made my way into the bedroom.  I recalled a day-planner that Jack often looked at first thing in the morning – he kept it on his dresser with his keys and wallet.  I wanted to look at it but I didn’t want Walter to see.  While he busied himself with the computer I went over to it and opened it up.  I thumbed through the pages and nothing jumped out at me at first until I got a few pages in.  I found an entry on a Saturday that simply said ‘T @ 10am’.  Had it been on a weekday then I would have assumed it was work-related, but this was on a Saturday.  Also this was on a Saturday where he said was going to the gym.  I began flipping through his planner and found a few entries marked as ‘T’.  All during non-working hours, all at times where he told me he was otherwise engaged, either at the gym or helping Walter with something.

“Well I don’t know,” I heard his voice say.  “I don’t see anything here.”

I quickly closed the day-planner and dropped it in the top drawer moments before Walter entered the bedroom.  His attention was caught by the door that was leaning against the wall.

“Wow, they really did a number on it.”

“Listen, I thank you for your help but I’m really tired.  I never slept at all last night and it’s really starting to catch up with me.”

“One…two…okay if you’re really going to insist then you’re going to insist.”

“Yeah.  I, uh…insist.  I’ll let you know if I find anything, and you let me know if you find anything, okay?”

I didn’t know how he’d get home but he had a hundred dollars cash in his pocket so he could at least get a cab.  I politely ushered him out the door and closed it behind him as best as I could.  I peered out the window and watched him aimlessly walk down the sidewalk until he was definitely gone.  I returned to the bedroom but didn’t find anything else in the day-planner aside from what I had already uncovered.  I heard a buzz from the other dresser and realized that my pager had been attempting to alert me of important messages all morning.  I could hardly care at that point and simply ignored it.  Instead I reached into Jack’s wallet and withdrew his debit and credit cards as well.  I got into my car and drove to the nearest bank machine and attempted to withdraw cash from each and I was continuously declined.  This was no coincidence.

With no other idea in mind I decided to head over to his day job’s office to see if there was anything of any note there.  It was Sunday so it would likely be quiet, it had very minimal security, and I had been there with him in the past so I wouldn’t appear too suspicious if I showed up in his office.  I drove to the other end of town and parked in the small lot outside the building.  There were a few people milling about and conversing, so I waited for them to finish before I attempted to enter.

My cover story to Walter was not a lie; I was excessively tired, having not slept at all that evening.  While waiting for the two weekend workers to finish their conversation, I ended up falling asleep in my car.

FOUR

I was startled awake by my pager.  I quickly scrambled to turn it off.  I looked at the clock on the dashboard.  It was just after four o’clock.  Fortunately, I hadn’t slept too long.  I scanned the area to see if anyone was around, but also to remind myself where I was.  There’s always that little bit of sweet, blissful ignorance when you wake up, during which you could hope everything bad that happened was just a dream.  No such luck this time.  On the up-side, there was no one else lingering around the parking lot.

Wait; I was wrong.  There was one more figure