Murder To Go - Megan Stine

“Look what I found,” Jupe said, pulling out a small crumpled piece of paper, shiny foil on one side and plain white on the other.

“A candy wrapper,” Pete said, smoothing it until he could read the name written in silver ink. “Miracle Tastes! It’s like the candy Don Dellasandro handed out at Big Barney’s party!”

“Yes, exactly,” Jupe said. “Free samples of a product not on the market yet. This creates two possibilities. Mr. Sweetness could have been at the party and gotten candy samples as we all did. Or — and this would be considerably more interesting—perhaps Don Dellasandro and Mr. Sweetness are in league together.”

“We’re just a plane ride from finding out,” Pete said. “Let’s go home!”

It was midnight when Jupe returned to the junkyard and too late to do anything except work on his latest electronic project — the lock combination decoder. When he got too tired to tinker with it anymore, he turned off the workshop light and started to lock up.

Just then the phone rang.

“Hello?” Jupe said in the darkness.

“Hello, Jupe, it’s Pete. Kelly wants to talk to you. Tell him, babe.”

Jupe flipped the lights back on.

“Hi, Jupe!” Kelly said with an awful lot of energy. “Well. like. you know, Juliet Coop took me out to lunch today. ” she began.

Jupe could picture Kelly twisting one long brown piece of hair, and he knew this was going to be a long story. He put the call on the speaker phone so he could walk around while he listened.

“. but she doesn’t remember where she was or where her briefcase might be,” Kelly was saying. “But she remembers something about a car behind her that night. but it’s still fuzzy. Anyway, after lunch she gave me a ride home, and it was great. Big Barney just gave her a new Mustang convertible.”

“You know the one,” Pete interrupted in the background. “The baby with the five-liter V-8 engine and the — ”

“Pete, please,” Kelly said. “Jupe wants to hear this story. So anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. So before she got in the car, she opened the trunk and threw in her purse. Hey, I said to myself, that was weird. So I asked her, ‘What’d you do that for?’ ‘Habit,’ she said. She was riding with the top down once in her old Mustang and someone reached in and grabbed her purse. So do you get the picture, Jupe?”

Jupe’s eyes lit up. The trunk! Juliet’s briefcase might be in her trunk!

“Yes! A brilliant observation, Kelly. You’re learning a lot from me,” Jupe said.

Kelly sort of snorted a laugh.

“Let me talk to Pete,” Jupe said. “Pete, first thing Monday morning, we’re going to the auto salvage yard to check out the trunk of Juliet’s car.”

“Knew you’d say that,” said Pete. “Okay, see ya.”

At 9:00 Monday morning, Pete and Bob showed up in the VW. But Jupe wasn’t quite ready. He picked up the phone and dialed the number of police headquarters. When Chief Reynolds got on the line, Jupe announced he was calling about Juliet Coop’s briefcase.

“A briefcase is news to me,” said the chief.

“Of course, you searched the scene of the accident thoroughly for all personal property,” Jupe said.

“Of course,” the chief answered patiently.

“And the car?” asked Jupe.

“Jupiter, I have uniforms that are older than you are,” said Chief Reynolds. “I know how to do my job. My guys said the car was empty.”

“I was just checking loose ends,” Jupe said.

“Grasping at straws, you mean. You wouldn’t want to put a little wager on this case, would you, Jupiter?” asked Chief Reynolds with a laugh. “Loser buys the winner a Big Barney dinner?”

“Chief, if I lose this one, Big Barney’s chicken may be the last thing you’d want to eat,” Jupe said. “Talk to you later.”

Then Jupe joined his friends and the Three Investigators drove over to the Miller Auto Wreckage Yard. It was the size of two city blocks and surrounded by a tall wooden fence. The far side of the yard was piled high with newly wrecked cars just waiting to be stripped. Scattered elsewhere throughout the lot were piles of various sorts: tires, fenders, cars that were too damaged to be used for parts, and so on. In the left rear corner of the lot there was a huge compactor machine and a 200-foot crane.

Almost as if it had been planned by a television action-adventure show writer, they arrived at the exact moment when Juliet’s little blue Mustang was being lifted into the air by the enormous electromagnet on the end of the crane.

“He’s going to drop it in the masher!” Pete shouted. “It’ll squeeze the metal into a solid block!”

“We’ll never get anything out of the trunk then,” Bob said, breaking into a run.

They ran as fast as they could to the crane, shouting and waving at the crane operator. When they got there, they saw it was Dick Miller, the owner’s son, who had just graduated from Rocky Beach High School a year ago.

He shut down the motor and stepped out on the big yellow painted platform around the operator’s cage. “What’s your problem?” he shouted down to them.

“If that’s Juliet Coop’s car, we’ve got to see it,” Jupe shouted back.

“That’s it, all right,” Dick Miller said. “But it’s past it for spare parts, guys.”

“We only need to inspect it for a minute,” Jupe said.

“Okay, I’ll set it down over there,” Dick Miller said, pointing to a space in the middle of the yard beside a huge pile of trucks.

The Three Investigators nodded and headed for the area where Dick Miller had pointed. As they walked the crane’s engine started up again and the wrecked car, dangling at the end of the flat, round magnet, started moving after them. Jupe looked over his shoulder and saw the car swinging gently back and forth. But then it began to pick up speed, swinging in wider arcs.

“That thing’s gonna really hit hard when it hits the ground,” Pete said. “He’s crazy.”

They moved back out of the way but the car above them followed, swinging dangerously near.

“What’s the joke?” Pete shouted above the roar of the crane’s engine.

“It’s no joke! Look!” Bob shouted.

On the ground at the foot of the crane lay Dick Miller. He was holding his stomach, doubled over in pain. Someone else had climbed up into the crane operator’s booth and was now working the controls. The crane swung the car ten feet above their heads.

“Who’s operating the crane?” Jupe asked.

But there wasn’t time for an answer. Suddenly the crane swung the car toward them, and then the electromagnet let go of Juliet’s car. All 3,000 pounds of mangled metal came falling to the ground.

13

A (Brief) Case for Murder

The car hit the ground with a shattering crash. Fortunately the Three Investigators had dodged just in time. They crouched behind a stack of wrecked cars, watching the empty electromagnet swing freely in space. All by itself, the magnet was big enough and heavy enough to knock a person dead. And it was obvious that whoever was in the operator’s booth wouldn’t mind that kind of “accident” one bit.

When the giant magnet stopped swinging, Pete peeked out from his hiding place to see who was in the crane’s cab.

“I should have known,” he whispered to his buddies. “It’s Mr. Sweetness.”

All three Investigators came out from behind the stack of cars. They saw a tall man in army camouflage fatigues climbing out of the cab of the crane. He jumped down and gave Dick Miller a chop to the back of the neck to keep him from getting up.

“He’s coming this way,” Pete said, motioning to his friends to back away. The three of them ducked around to the other side of the car pile, trying to stay out of sight.

“He probably wants to get into Juliet’s car — just like we do,” Jupe said.

Suddenly they heard a bottle break followed by a sharp crackling sound. Pete didn’t look out again until he smelled the smoke. When he looked, he saw Mr. Sweetness tossing a second Molotov cocktail into Juliet’s car.

“He’s destroying the evidence!” Pete said frantically.

“So that’s it,” Jupe said. “He doesn’t want what’s in the car. He just wants to make sure we don’t get it!”

“If there’s still gas in the tank, that car will go off like a skyrocket!” Pete said.

As soon as the flames took hold, Mr. Sweetness ran for his Porsche at the entrance of the junkyard. Pete started to follow, but Bob and Jupe held him back.

“Never mind him,” Bob said, grabbing Pete’s arm forcefully. “We’ve got to get into that trunk!”

“Quick, before Juliet’s car burns up!” Jupe added.

“Explodes, you mean!” Bob said.

Pete took one look at Juliet’s flaming car and flew into action. He raced around the junkyard, looking in open car trunks and digging through piles. Finally he found what he needed — an old crowbar. Then he rushed to Juliet’s bombed-out Mustang. The flames had already eaten away most of the interior and were working their way toward the back — where the gas tank was.

Sweat flew off Pete’s forehead as he applied the crowbar to the trunk, all the while keeping an eye on the flames. Finally the trunk lid gave up and sprang open.

“Got it!” Pete called triumphantly as he reached inside and pulled out a soft brown leather briefcase. He waved it in the air for Jupe and Bob to see. “Let’s get out of here before this thing blows!” he cried.

Jupe smiled. “Being very familiar with the rules and regulations of junkyards, I know for a fact that gas tanks of wrecked cars are drained,” he said to Bob. “The car’s not going to blow up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Pete asked, giving Jupe an exasperated glare.

“I knew by the time I’d convinced you it was really safe, the car would have burned up,” Jupe said. “You work better when your raw instincts take over.”

“Thanks a lot.” Pete groaned.

After calling an ambulance, Jupe, Bob, and Pete hung around to make certain that Dick Miller was going to be all right.

“I always heard you guys were detectives,” Dick Miller said. “But I didn’t know you investigated bombers and stuff like that.”

“It’s not always this rough,” Jupe said with an apologetic smile.

Then they hurried to Big Barney’s mansion, where Juliet and Kelly were waiting for them. Big Barney himself was out and not expected home until late.

“Did you find anything?” the two anxious girls said at once as they opened the front door.

Jupe merely held up the briefcase as evidence of the morning’s adventure.

Juliet smiled and led the way into the living room, where Jupe laid the briefcase down on the glass coffee table. Eagerly she unzipped the front compartment and pulled out her blue morocco-leather appointment book. She turned to the page that listed her plans for that fateful Friday — the day of her accident, the day that was so blank in her memory.

“Here it is,” she said, breathing quickly.

She stared at the page for a minute and then shook her head. “All it says for the whole day is R&D.”

“That’s Research and Development, Pandro Mishkin’s department, isn’t it?” Jupe said. “Why would you have been meeting with him?”

“I was spending a whole day in each department, to learn the business,” Juliet said. “But I don’t remember anything more.”

“Maybe you will when you see what else is inside the briefcase,” Jupe urged.

Juliet opened the back leather flap and found a three-ring binder with about two hundred xeroxed pages in it. She took it out and flipped through the pages for a few minutes, then dropped it and shrugged. “I don’t recognize this material,” she said. It was clear that she had been counting on getting her memory of the accident back when the briefcase was found. She was terribly disappointed.

“Do you mind if I have a look?” Jupe said. He picked up the notebook. Pandro Mishkin’s name was stamped on the first page. Quickly Jupe scanned the report.

After reading silently for a few minutes, Jupe looked up and addressed the room.

“I believe I can now reconstruct much of what must have happened two Fridays ago, the night of Juliet’s accident,” he began. “This is Pandro Mishkin’s copy of a report about a food additive called Multisorbitane. It was invented by Don Dellasandro several years ago. In the summary it says that Multisorbitane, as a food enhancer, makes foods taste remarkably better and more intense — but there’s a catch. It makes food so good, in fact, it’s nearly addicting.”

“Is that the catch?” Bob asked.

“Surprisingly, it isn’t,” Jupe said. “The FDA — the Federal Food and Drug Administration — tested Multisorbitane, as it must test all new drugs and products of this nature. But it denied Don Dellasandro permission to market Multisorbitane because it found strong evidence that it might be a carcinogen.”

“A what?” asked Pete.

“It could cause cancer,” Bob explained.

Jupe cleared his throat and continued. “We know that you met with Pandro Mishkin on the Friday of your accident. And we know that you have his copy of this incriminating report in your possession. Now we move from what we know,” he said, tapping the report, “to what we think we know. I suspect that you discovered this report, perhaps by accident, sometime during your visit to Mishkin’s office. Considering the time of your accident, I’d say it was late in the day when you found it. And when you did, I think it upset you quite a bit,” Jupe said.

Jupe was pacing now, going into high gear. “I think it upset you so much that you took it from Pandro Mishkin’s office and fled. He probably chased you to get it back. And when you left the Chicken Coop Corp. building in your car, I think that Pandro Mishkin followed you. In short, I believe it was he who was driving the car that left the second set of tracks at the scene of your accident.”

“Time out,” Pete said. “Why did this report upset Juliet so much?”

“Yes, that is the key question, isn’t it?” Jupe said, smiling knowingly. “It upset her because she knew, or suspected, as I do, that Multisorbitane is a key ingredient in a delicious new product called Drippin Chicken!”

Jupe let them all digest that idea for a moment and then he began again. “You discovered the horrible fact that someone—maybe Pandro, maybe Dellasandro, maybe even your father — was knowingly and quite cold-bloodedly putting this poison into Drippin’ Chicken., Of course the effects of the Multisorbitane wouldn’t show up for years. But slowly, over a period of time, millions of people who had regularly eaten this carcinogen would begin to get cancer. No one would realize the danger until it was too late.”

Juliet’s mouth was trembling. “My father wouldn’t do something like that!” she cried out.