Chapter One
Do you know me?
If you live in Hayvenhurst, you probably know of me. Celebrated Boy Detective Merle Madison.
Or, these days, Former Celebrated Boy Detective Merle Madison.
Which is still better than the occasional Formerly Celebrated Boy Detective Merle Madison. Because, say what you will, my exploits as a boy detective were…okay, maybe not legendary, but impressive for a kid of eleven, which is how old I was when I solved my first big case.
The headline in the Daily Bulletin ran: Local Boy Solves Arson Case. The framed article still hangs in my office. Or did.
Before the bomb behind my filing cabinet went off.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s start at the beginning. My first memory—okay, not my first memory because that’s probably a false memory anyway—but from as far back as I can remember, there was Isaac.
But never mind him.
I grew up reading The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown and the Three Investigators and, okay, yes, don’t bust my chops for it, Nancy Drew. When other little kids were babbling about growing up to be astronauts or firefighters or police officers or mermaids, I wanted to be a PI.
Is that so wrong?
I wanted to have adventures and solve mysteries and help people. And I wanted Isaac to be my associate. Of course, we didn’t call them associates back then; we called them sidekicks. But it was still a pretty good gig. He didn’t complain.
Okay, he did sometimes complain. He did point out that Frank and Joe were equals and that the Three Investigators were largely equals (though, let’s face it, Jupiter Jones is really the star of the series), and Encyclopedia Brown would have been smashed to a pulp a zillion times if not for Sally Kimball, but no one can deny that Beth and George were Nancy Drew’s sidekicks. They were not partners.
It was during one of those intermissions in our friendship that I solved the Beamer Arson Case.
Yes, Isaac did help. A little. At the end.
Okay, and maybe at the beginning. A little.
But it was my case and I solved it.
The first time Old Man Beamer tried to burn down his warehouse, everybody thought it was an accident. Including me. I was the one who reported the fire and actually saved the warehouse, which is why I started taking an interest in said warehouse and Old Man Beamer. Also, I hated Bobby Beamer, the old man’s son.
Some people just annoy you by their very existence, and that was me for Bobby. Bobby had it in for me from day one of Mrs. Miller’s kindergarten class. He did not like the cut of my jib. Or anything else about me. And I wasn’t crazy about him either, especially after he started trying to deliberately run me down at recess with one of Room 4’s tricycles. Play Time became a living hell for me until Isaac stepped in.
But I digress.
At the time of the first fire at Tractor Beamer’s Warehouse, everyone assumed the Beamers were rolling in dough, so the fire had to have been an accident. If that warehouse went up in smoke, George Beamer would have lost everything. Sure, there was insurance, but he’d have been out of business, and that company had been in his family forever. He’d have lost his purpose in life, his standing in the community, his very raison d’être as Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin might have said.
At least, that’s the way we all thought back then. We made suppositions about what was important to Mr. Beamer instead of just looking at the facts. Our deductions were based on a false premise. A good detective tries not to make assumptions. A good detective just looks at the facts.
Although sometimes instinct plays a part.
Did I mention Bobby used to try to steal my lunch money during those occasional lulls in my friendship with Isaac? Well, that was a clue right there that didn’t sink in until the second time Mr. Beamer tried to burn his warehouse down.
To be fair, it was really Isaac who brought that lead to my attention.
“Jeez,” he said, helping me pick myself up after Bobby tried to push me down three flights of stairs after social studies. “Why’s he always trying to steal your lunch money when his family’s so rich?”
Yeah, good question.
Anyway, the first fire happened on a Sunday morning when everyone was in church. Everyone except for me.
I was supposed to be locked in my bedroom, thinking better of saying something so blasphemous as “justice is more important than heaven.” (But really, if you don’t believe in heaven, justice is more important.) Anyway, I crawled out my bedroom window as I always did when I was supposed to be “thinking better,” and went down to the creek behind the Beamers’ warehouse to catch frogs.
Which is how I noticed black smoke billowing from the loft of Tractor Beamer’s Warehouse. I ran across the road to Mr. Dean’s house, got his house key from under the porch light, and went inside to call the fire department.
I got a mention in the paper for my quick thinking, which added fuel to the fire. My fire to be a detective, I mean.
But sadly, my quick thinking (per the Daily Bulletin) was only a reprieve for Tractor Beamer’s Warehouse because not a month later, the building burned to the ground in the middle of the night.
That fire coming so soon on the heels of the first fire did raise a few eyebrows, but people just couldn’t believe Old Man Beamer would deliberately put himself out of business. Even I didn’t think the fire had been deliberately set. Not at first.
I couldn’t help noticing, though, that Bobby seemed to hate me even worse after I saved his dad’s warehouse. And I couldn’t help remembering what Isaac had said about it being strange Bobby kept mugging me for lunch money when he had three times the lunch money the rest of us did.
Or did he?
That was when I realized Bobby had started bringing a sack lunch to school.
I had time to notice stuff like that because Isaac and I were taking one of our breaks from being best friends.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Isaac had yelled in my face. “You don’t get everything your own way all the time, Merle.”
“I never said I did!”
“Sometimes I get to pick what we do.”
“I know that!”
“Sometimes I get to pick our cases.”
Uh-oh.
Screeching brakes. Smashing glass.
“But that’s not how it works,” I had tried to explain with kindness and patience.
Well, he wouldn’t listen. So we were not speaking to each other when I started snooping in the woods behind the Beamers’ farm and found that abandoned chicken coop. And in that abandoned chicken coop I found empty cans of gasoline, an unopened pack of wiping rags, and—looking like it had been forgotten in the dirty straw of the wall shelf—a battered blue baseball cap with the Tractor Beamer logo. Exactly like the one Mr. Beamer used to wear.
Naturally, I had gone straight to Isaac.
“You don’t think you’re maybe slightly overreacting?” I rattled the handcuff on the railing of the hospital bed. I mean, really? Handcuffed to a bedrail? Were we trapped in an episode of Barnaby Jones?
“No,” Isaac replied grimly. He had tried to wash the ash stains from his face, but I could still see smudges of gray under his blue eyes. His black eyebrows looked singed. “How is he?” he asked Dr. Waters. “Can he be discharged?”
“Well…” Dr. Waters has known us our entire lives. He delivered both Isaac and me. Not at the same time, naturally. Isaac is six months older than me. He likes to say those were the only peaceful six months of his life.
“Lucky,” Dr. Waters said.
Isaac’s face went grimmer still.
“Two cracked ribs. Assorted cuts and abrasions. Mild concussion—”
“Normal state for him.”
“Minor smoke inhalation—”
“Any chance it might shut him up for a while?”
“I want to remind you that I’m the victim here,” I broke in. “I told you someone was trying to kill me. You wouldn’t listen. You insisted I was making it up.”
“You’re under arrest,” Isaac snapped.
“No kidding!” I rattled my handcuff at him again. “You already said that. You already did that.”
Isaac’s eyes narrowed to bad-tempered slits. The thing is, he’s not really bad-tempered. In fact, for a law-enforcement officer, he’s kind of…easygoing. Even good-natured. Except when it comes to me.
Case in point. His mouth drew to a thin line. So thin, I’m surprised he could pry the words out. He did, though. He said, “I’m going to say a lot more before we’re done.”
I opened my mouth.
He said harshly, “And I do mean done.”