Spy Cat

  Two tears trickled down Benjie’s cheeks. He hoped Alex would feed Lizzy for him and clean out her litter pan.

  He wondered if Pete had gotten hurt when the bad men threw him out of the van. He hoped not. Pete had tried to help Benjie. He had puffed out his fur and bit the bad man’s hand.

  Benjie shivered, wishing he had a jacket or a warm blanket. His feet were freezing on the concrete floor, especially the foot with no sock.

  He wondered how long it would be before someone went past this storage unit and heard him pounding on the door. Tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?

  No. He couldn’t think that way. He needed to focus on something positive. Benjie decided to make a mental list of all the information he knew about the burglars. He knew their names, he had written down their license number, he knew what their van looked like. He knew they had used a truck for one burglary and that Porker called himself a muscle man.

  Benjie could describe both men. He knew they went hunting and stayed in a cabin in the mountains. He knew a lot about those bad guys. But all of his information wouldn’t help him unless he got out of the storage unit.

  Benjie remembered that there had been a light on in the storage unit earlier. He stood up and began feeling along the walls, searching for the light switch.

  If he could turn the light on, he could look at everything the bad guys had stolen. He could see what was packed in the boxes.

  He found the switch and pushed it. The light made him blink. He looked around, feeling less frightened now that it wasn’t dark. Maybe there was a cellular phone in here, and he could call for help. Maybe there was an ax, and he could chop a hole in the door. Maybe there was a box of cookies.

  19

  There’s the storage place,” Deputy Flick said. “On the right, in the next block. I can see the sign.”

  Sheriff Alvored slowed the patrol car. “There’s a vehicle on the grounds. It’s coming out.”

  “And the driver’s in a big hurry,” Deputy Flick said.

  Sheriff Alvored stopped the patrol car, turned off the lights, and waited.

  A maroon-colored van barreled out of the gravel driveway of Overflow Storage, turned right, and sped away.

  Sheriff Alvored turned on the lights, stepped on the gas, and followed the van. As soon as the patrol car’s lights reached the back of the van, Deputy Flick saw the license number.

  “Bingo,” he said.

  He called their position in to headquarters and requested backup officers as Sheriff Alvored turned on the siren and the flashing lights.

  Vance saw the blue lights in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got cops behind us,” he said. “We’re being pulled over.”

  Porker groaned.

  “They can’t pin anything on us. This is my van and there’s nothing in here to connect us to any burglaries. Act innocent. Say we were looking over the storage units because your grandmother died and left you her furniture and you need a place to keep it for a while.”

  “My grandmother didn’t leave me any furniture. My grandmother’s healthy as a horse. She’s in Reno with her sister.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Vance said. “Let me do the talking.”

  Vance stopped the van and rolled his window down.

  Sheriff Alvored approached cautiously. “I’d like to see your driver’s license, please,” he said.

  “Sure thing, Officer.” Vance felt in his back pocket, then made a show of feeling his other pockets. “My wallet’s gone,” he said. “I must have left it in that phone booth.”

  Deputy Flick and Sheriff Alvored glanced at each other.

  “Name?” Sheriff Alvored said.

  “Vance Rogers.”

  Sheriff Alvored looked past the driver, at the passenger. “Do you have any ID?” he asked.

  “No,” Porker said.

  “Your name?”

  “Porker Canyen.”

  “Porker’s your legal name?”

  “No. That’s Beau, but everyone calls me Porker.”

  “Who’ve you been fighting with, Porker?”

  “I haven’t been fighting.”

  “Your shirt looks as if you’ve had a tiger on your back, and your hand’s bleeding.”

  “He was wrestling with his nephews,” Vance said. “They got a little carried away.”

  “Do you have the registration for this vehicle?”

  “It’s in the glove compartment,” Vance said.

  Porker opened the glove compartment. Something white fell out and dropped to the floor by Porker’s feet.

  “What was that?” Vance said.

  Porker reached down and picked up a child’s sock, white with two red stripes around the top. He held it by the toe, letting the other end dangle. “Look at this, Vance,” he said.

  The deputy pointed his flashlight in the window, illuminating the sock.

  “Where’s the little boy?” Sheriff Alvored said.

  Vance gawked at the sock, looking as surprised as if it had suddenly come to life and begun to sing. “How did that get in there?” he asked.

  Porker said, “The kid must have—”

  “Shut up, Porker.”

  “What kid?” said the sheriff.

  The two men shrugged.

  “I want you both out of the van,” Sheriff Alvored said, “with your hands on the roof. Now.”

  Two more patrol cars pulled up; more deputies surrounded the van as the men did what the sheriff had directed.

  Deputy Flick read Vance and Porker their rights while Sheriff Alvored shined his flashlight around the inside of the van. He saw paw prints in the dust on the dashboard. There were a few bits of food wrapper on the floor, along with a tuft of white fur. It looked like cat fur.

  Both men denied knowing anything about any burglaries. They claimed they had never seen a small boy and had no idea why a child’s sock was in their glove compartment.

  “Whose cat has been in your van?” Sheriff Alvored asked.

  “We haven’t seen any cat,” Porker said. “I don’t like cats.”

  “You didn’t have a cat in your van?” the sheriff asked.

  “What makes you think we had a cat?” Vance asked.

  “The paw prints. The white fur.”

  “Must have been a stray,” Vance said. “Probably jumped in through an open window.”

  “Which one of the storage units do you rent?” Sheriff Alvored asked.

  “We want a lawyer,” Vance said. “We aren’t answering any more questions until we get a lawyer.”

  “You’re going to need one,” the sheriff said. He turned to two of the officers who had just arrived. “Take them in and book them,” he said.

  “For what?” Vance said. “We haven’t done anything.”

  “Right,” Sheriff Alvored said. “You want to explain whose sock that is?”

  “You can’t arrest us for having a dirty sock in the glove compartment.”

  “I can when the sock belongs to a missing child,” Sheriff Alvored said.

  Ten minutes later, with the two men in a squad car on their way to the county jail, Sheriff Alvored and Deputy Flick turned into Overflow Storage and drove slowly past the first row of storage units.

  They had already placed a call to the manager, who was on her way in case they needed to open one of the units. The manager said she had a list of all the people who rented storage units and would print it out as soon as she got there. She didn’t remember anyone named Porker Canyen, but Vance Rogers sounded familiar; she thought he was two months behind in paying rent, but she didn’t remember which unit he had.

  “This may be a goose chase,” Sheriff Alvored told Deputy Flick. “Even if they put the stolen goods in a storage unit, they wouldn’t leave the boy there.”

  “Not if he was alive.”

  The patrol car came to the end of the row of storage units, turned, and started down the next row.

  “Those two were lying through their teeth,” the sheriff said. “They not only had the boy in the van,
my guess is that they tangled with the boy’s cat. Those scratches and bite marks weren’t made by any nephews.”

  “Let’s get out and walk,” Deputy Flick said. “If Benjie had enough sense to plant that sock in the glove compartment, he might have dropped some other clue as well, and it’s hard to spot anything small unless we’re on foot.”

  The two men got out of the squad car and walked, swinging flashlights in wide arcs.

  “Look at this,” Sheriff Alvored said. He knelt and examined the gravel.

  Deputy Flick looked, too. “Blood?” he asked.

  “Looks like it. It’s fresh, but there isn’t much—a drop every couple of feet.”

  “Porker Canyen’s shoulder was a mess, but I don’t think he was bleeding enough to leave a trail,” Deputy Flick said.

  “This looks more like someone was walking on a cut foot.”

  The two men looked at each other.

  “Someone who wasn’t wearing shoes,” the sheriff said.

  “No shoes and only one of his socks.”

  They followed the bloodstains to a corner, where they turned and went down a different row of storage units. Twice the red smudges went up close to one of the units, as if the boy had tried to open the door.

  They followed the trail around another corner and then, as suddenly as the bloodstains had begun, they stopped.

  Both men shined their lights all around that area, but the line of drops had simply ended.

  “The ground is wet here,” Sheriff Alvored said. He sniffed the gravel. “No odor.”

  “Maybe we should call in the K-9 team.”

  They made a note of which unit they were in front of, then continued their search.

  When they turned down the next row, Deputy Flick pointed. “Look. I see a sliver of light under that door!”

  Both men ran toward the light. As they approached, they called, “Hello! Is anyone in there?”

  Fists pounded on the inside of the door. “Help,” a voice called. “Help! I’m locked in!”

  “Benjie?” Sheriff Alvored called. “Benjie, is that you? This is Sheriff Alvored.”

  “I’m in here!” Benjie said.

  “Are you all right? Someone’s coming with a key, but we can break the lock if you need help.”

  “I’m okay, except I’m cold, and hungry, and my feet hurt.”

  “I’ll go get the squad car,” Deputy Flick said. He ran toward where they had left the car.

  “We’ll have you out of there in a few minutes,” Sheriff Alvored said.

  Deputy Flick returned with the car.

  The manager of Overflow Storage drove up, too.

  “We need to get in this unit,” Sheriff Alvored said.

  The woman used a master key to unlock the door.

  When Sheriff Alvored and Deputy Flick rolled up the door, they saw a boy who matched their photo, wearing the clothes his mother had described. He also wore one white sock with red stripes around the top. His face was tear-streaked and his clothes were dirty, but he was unharmed.

  “Hello, Benjie,” the sheriff said.

  “I’m a spy,” the boy said, “and I have a lot of important information for you.”

  Deputy Flick dialed the Kendrills’ number.

  20

  Sheriff Alvored called the Kendrills again after checking the contents of the storage unit. “We not only have your boy,” he said, “we have everything the thieves took from your house and from your neighbors. We’ll have Benjie home in half an hour. He’s requesting a peanut-butter sandwich.

  Alex called Mary to tell her the good news, and to invite her and Mrs. Sunburg to come to welcome Benjie home and hear what the sheriff had to say. Rocky called his parents, too.

  Now everyone sat in the Kendrills’ family room, sipping hot cider and eating the snickerdoodles that Mrs. Sunburg had brought with her.

  “Deputy Harper called while we were bringing Benjie home,” Sheriff Alvored said. “After Benjie told us about the burglars calling themselves muscle men, we asked her to do some research. She has already found two more unsolved burglaries where the victims or their close neighbors had recently hired Muscle Men Movers.”

  “That’s who moved us!” Mrs. Sunburg said.

  “Muscle Men Movers?” Rocky said. “I saw their truck go past on Saturday morning. I remember it because Mom and I laughed about the name.”

  “What time did you see the truck?” asked Deputy Flick.

  “About nine o’clock. My folks and I were going in to town, to go out for breakfast, and the movers drove past just as we left.”

  “When you got home your house had been burglarized,” said Sheriff Alvored.

  “Do you think that’s who did it?” Rocky asked. “The men with the moving truck?”

  “It wasn’t a truck at Mary’s house the night she was robbed,” Alex said. “It was a van.”

  “They had a van today, too,” Benjie said.

  “Nine o’clock Saturday is when they were supposed to bring our furniture,” Mrs. Sunburg said, “but they didn’t show up until noon.”

  “Maybe they were on their way to Mary’s house and they saw Rocky’s family leave,” Alex said, “so they decided to break in there.”

  “A crime of opportunity,” said Deputy Flick. “They broke in, loaded the stolen goods in their truck, and made a trip to Overflow Storage. Then they came back to deliver the Sunburgs’ load.”

  “I knew those Muscle Men Movers were jerks,” Mary said, “when they insulted Pearly.”

  Pete, who had run under the table when so many people had crowded into the room, came back out and walked toward the sheriff.

  Sheriff Alvored eyed him warily.

  Pete rubbed his face on the sheriff’s shoe. He wound around the sheriff’s ankles, purring. This man had found Benjie and brought him home and had put the bad men in jail.

  “Is this the same cat that jumped me?” Sheriff Alvored asked.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “This is Pete.”

  “He seems mellow enough now,” Sheriff Alvored said. “Earlier, I thought he was a wild cat.”

  “I’m a mighty jungle beast,” Pete said.

  “Benjie,” Mr. Kendrill said, “how did you get so filthy? You look as if you’ve been mud-wrestling.”

  Benjie looked down at his shirt and pants. “First I hid in the bushes,” he said. “That’s where I was when I saw the license number.”

  “That was good work,” the sheriff said.

  “I stayed in the bushes until they left,” Benjie said. “Then I found out the bad men were stealing Pete. He was in their van, and they were driving away, and I heard Pete crying, and I ran after the van and told them to let him go.”

  “I was not crying,” Pete said. “I put up a fight. I bit and scratched and tried to rescue Benjie.”

  “I think your cat wants to tell his version of the events,” Deputy Flick said.

  “I climbed in the truck to get Pete,” Benjie continued, “but the men threw him out and made me go with them. Pete was brave; he wanted to stay with me.”

  “Benjie was brave, too,” Pete said. “He tried to save me, and I tried to save him.”

  “Is Pete hungry?” Mr. Kendrill asked. “Alex, did you remember to feed him?”

  “I gave him kitty num-num,” Alex said.

  “Could I have some french fries, too?” Pete asked.

  “The suspects deny having a cat in their van,” Sheriff Alvored said, “but we saw paw prints and found white fur.”

  “Pete’s missing a hunk of fur,” Alex said.

  “From the looks of one of the suspects,” the sheriff said, “Pete inflicted some damage before they threw him out. The man’s T-shirt was shredded across the top, he had deep scratches in his shoulder, and he’d been bit on the hand.”

  “Way to go, Pete,” Alex said.

  “I hope the scratches get infected.”

  “If you have the fur from the van,” Benjie said, “we can prove Pete was there.” He opened his bac
kpack, removed the envelope marked pete, and handed it to the sheriff.

  “What’s this?” Sheriff Alvored asked.

  “DNA,” Benjie said, “from Pete. You can match it to DNA from the fur in the van.”

  Looking astonished, the sheriff took the envelope.

  “He collected a DNA sample from everyone in our family,” Alex explained, “in case bad guys came and kidnapped one of us.”

  “Benjie, you are a fine spy,” Sheriff Alvored said. “That license number in the dirt really helped, and so did the sock in the glove compartment.”

  “I think we should make Benjie an honorary deputy,” Deputy Flick said, and Sheriff Alvored agreed.

  Benjie beamed.

  “Don’t forget who found the number in the dirt,” Pete said. “Don’t forget who showed it to you.”

  “I’m surprised the burglars put their trash in our garbage can,” Mrs. Kendrill said.

  “They didn’t,” Mrs. Sunburg said. “I did.” She explained.

  Lizzy crept into the room. Benjie picked her up and petted her.

  “Thanks for making posters about me,” Benjie said to Rocky.

  “I’m glad we don’t need to put up the rest of them,” Rocky said. He smiled at Alex.

  Making the posters got us through the terrible fear, Alex thought. Instead of crying because we might never see Benjie again, we took action. Mom and Dad went out looking for him; Rocky and I made the posters. We were still afraid, but it helped to do something positive.

  “I’m not scared of those bad guys anymore,” Benjie said.

  “I never was,” said Pete.

  “We can’t control what bad people do,” Mr. Kendrill said, “but we can choose how we react. You were brave, Benjie. You didn’t panic; you used your head.”

  “So did Alex and Rocky,” the sheriff said. “If they hadn’t called as soon as they found that address, we might not have caught the men. Another five minutes and they might have ditched the van and gotten away.”

  “Now that I’m an official deputy,” Benjie said, “I’ll let you know when I see any flying green panthers.”

  “You do that,” said Sheriff Alvored.

  “Maybe I’ll even see a flying green possum, and it can be Pearly’s friend.”

  “Pearly’s going to be released tomorrow,” Mary said. “Gramma’s driving her to the wildlife center, and they’ll take her into the woods.”