“Rollo, the girl commits half the crimes in
our state. Only a fool would be surprised by
—”
There is a loud crash.
I look up and see that Total has dropped
the mini-fridge.
“
See
what happens?” I shout at my bear.
“
See
what happens when you do that?”
The motel stocks the mini-fridge with
candy bars, nuts, and soda. All of which Total
ate. So every few minutes, he turns the fridge
upside down and shakes it to make sure he
hasn’t missed anything.
Only now he has dropped it.
“What’s going on?” asks Rollo over the
phone.
“It’s my former business partner. He ate
everything in the mini-fridge, and now he’s
broken it.”
“Oh, they definitely charge for the stuff in
the mini-fridge,” says Rollo. “Not to mention
the broken refrigerator.”
“Did you hear that?” I shout at the bear.
“You’ve ruined us!”
Embarrassed, Total hides.
“So what’s so surprising about Molly
Moskins committing another crime?” I ask
Rollo.
“Oh, yeah, I was gonna tell you that.”
“So tell me.”
“Well, it’s really weird.”
“Say it, Rollo.”
Rollo clears his throat.
“Nunzio Benedici confessed to the whole
thing.”
Before I can react, there is a second loud
crash.
But this time, it’s not Total.
The sound is from the next room. And it sounds
like an ice chest has dropped.
I can hear the scooping up of ice. Followed
by voices.
I know all this because I am using my
high-tech listening device.
I hear two people. One of them is my mom.
She is yammering about something.
The other is a man. It is not Mr. Moskins.
I know this because he is not talking about
maps.
Then I hear “Chicago” and “job.”
And applying my oversize brain, I realize
the second voice is Doorman Dave.
Then the two of them talk about other stuff.
So I grab a motel notepad and write down
everything I hear.
I know, I know.
You want to know why I cut all that stuff
out of the memo at the end of the last chapter.
Well, first off, my mother deserves her pri-
vacy. She’s a civilian, and she didn’t
ask
to be
the mother of a world-famous detective.
And second, you don’t have to know
everything.
And third, it wasn’t important.
Really.
Though what happens next is.
“I’ve boarded up the door!” I shout.
“You WHAT?” yells my mother from out-
side our motel room.
“I’ve boarded up the door!” I repeat.
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” I reply. “The bear’s out of control.
So I’ve trapped him in here with me.”
“Timmy, open this door right now!” shouts
my mother.
“I can’t,” I answer. “The wood I found in
the motel’s maintenance shed is quite solid. It
won’t budge.”
“You
really
boarded up the door?!”
“Why do you make it sound like a nega-
tive?” I reply. “I’m preventing the bear from
causing more damage. He’s already broken the
mini-fridge, you know.”
I hear what sounds like the pounding of
her fist upon the outside of the motel door.
“Timmy, tell me this is a joke,” she shouts.
“Tell me you didn’t really nail the door shut!”
“Detectives don’t joke, Mother. I boarded
up the door. And I’d call that pretty respon-
sible on my part.”
“Responsible? How is that responsible?”
“Because if it weren’t boarded up, that polar
bear would have pushed the ice machine into the
pool by now. And besides, being trapped in here
gives me time to focus on the YIP YAP case.”
“The
what
?” she cries, pounding on the
door again.
“The YIP YAP case. There was a confes-
sion. Two confessions, really. It’s all very
strange.”
I hear footsteps outside the door, followed
by voices.
“He boarded up the door,” says my mother.
“He did
what
?” answers a man’s voice, fol-
lowed by more pounding on the door, this time
heavier.
“Timmy, this is Dave. Please open up the
door.”
“Oh, goodness,” I reply. “This is getting
repetitive. The door is boarded up, Dave.”
“We should have just let him go to Chicago
with the Moskins,” I hear Dave mutter to my
mother.
“Now look what he’s done.”
“I’m not going to Chicago with the
Moskins,” I yell through the door.
“How was I supposed to know he’d barricade
a motel-room door?”
barks my mother to Dave.
“I’m not going to Chicago with the
Moskins,” I repeat.
“He’s a kid!” Dave replies to my mother.
“In the middle of nowhere. Kids get bored!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” cries my mother.
“Listen to me, Timmy. You stand far away
from that door. We’re going to get someone
from the motel to pry it open.”
“I’m not going to Chicago with the
Moskins,” I repeat.
“I’m not kidding around, Timmy,” she
says. “Are you standing away from the door?”
“I’m not going to Chicago with the
Moskins,” I answer.
I’m going to Chicago with the Moskins.
For as fate would have it, the Moskins
were not thrilled with their E-Z Daze accom-
modations and wanted to leave. (I’m guessing
Esther Moskins did not like the poor reception
her beloved smartphone got in the middle of
nowhere.)
So while I am no longer in Nowhere-ville,
I am now someplace worse.
In the backseat of a car, bookended by my
two favorite people.
And it’s an uncomfortable place to be.
Because Molly is not speaking to me.
And Snot
is
speaking to me.
And Esther Moskins is singing sanitized
road songs.
And Mr. Moskins is saying things about
roads.
It is as though my vengeful mother has
calculated exactly how to make me the most
uncomfortable traveler on our nation’s high-
way system.
Or at least the second most uncomfortable.
“It’s a lie-detector test,” I tell Molly Moskins.
“It sounds exciting,” she answers.
It is a rainy morning in Chicago. I am
stuck in a hotel room with Molly Moski
ns. She
is in a better mood than in the car, so I am
using the opportunity to get to the bottom of
the now messy YIP YAP case.
“What do I do?” she asks.
“Well, first I tie this string to your fin-
ger. Then I ask you a question. And when you
answer, you pull the string.”
“All right,” she says.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Did you, Molly Moskins,
steal YIP YAP’s money?”
She giggles.
“You can’t giggle, Molly Moskins. This is a
felony investigation.”
“Okay,” she says. “Ask me again.”
“Did you, Molly Moskins, steal YIP YAP’s
money?”
“Yes,” she answers, and pulls the string.
“The cow says MOOOOOO,”
says the lie-
detector equipment.
“What’s that mean?” asks Molly.
“I think it means you’re lying,” I answer.
“Let’s do it again,” says Molly.
I reset the lie-detector machine by turning
the farmer in the center to twelve o’clock.
“Okay, get ready,” I say. “Did you, Molly
Moskins, steal YIP YAP’s money?”
“No,” she answers, and pulls the string.
“The cow says MOOOOOO,”
says the lie
detector.
“You can’t say ‘No,’
” I tell her. “You just
said ‘Yes’ to the exact same question!”
“I changed my mind,” she says.
“But you handed me the stolen money at
the E-Z Daze Motel!”
“That might have been my brother’s birth-
day money,” she whispers. “Or it might have
not.”
“Make up your mind, Molly Moskins!” I
tell her. “Did you steal the money or not?”
“Well, the machine doesn’t seem to know
the difference. It says I was lying both times.”
Of course.
She is using psychological gamesmanship
to outwit the machine. It is shrewdly calculat-
ing. Boldly devious. And it is precisely what
separates her from the common criminal.
“Let’s take a break,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says. “We should probably
play with You-Know-Who, anyway.”
“You-Know-Who” being her little brother,
Snot.
Who is currently standing on the ironing
board.
“What’s he doing?” I ask Molly.
“I don’t know,” she answers.
And that’s when I see the pen in his hand.
“I think he’s trying to write his name on
the ceiling,” I tell Molly.
“Micah, NO!” she says, running toward him.
Seeing her approach, Snot sprints down
the length of the ironing board like it’s an
Olympic springboard, leaps off the end, and
yells something that sounds like:
“INO WUD DADOO MINSES!”
I have no idea what it means, or if he even
said it. He might have been reciting the Pledge
of Allegiance for all I know.
But I do know that as he said it, Mr.
Moskins walked into the room.
And I do know the result of the dive:
And oh, yeah.
One more result, too:
“Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were
two explorers who President Thomas Jefferson
sent to explore the Louisiana Purchase and
find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. They
traveled from St. Louis to what is now Oregon
with their Shoshone guide Sacagawea and . . .”
“You’re boring me,” I tell Rollo.
I am on the free hotel phone making calls
during Molly’s absence, and Rollo is talking
about a man named Meriwether.
“Well, I saw the grade you got on Mr.
Jenkins’s history test, and it wasn’t very
good,” says Rollo.
“Oh, please, Rollo. Grades matter to nor-
mal people. I am not a normal people.”
“Normal
person,
” Rollo corrects me.
“That does it. I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t hang up.”
“Well, then stop wasting my time. I’ve had
a trying couple of days and my nerves are shot.
If you have something to say, say it.”
“It wasn’t Nunzio.”
“What wasn’t Nunzio?”
“The person who stole the YIP YAP money.
It wasn’t Nunzio.”
“You said he confessed! What’s happening
over there? It’s like the whole town falls apart
when I’m gone!”
“Well, I guess Nunzio was talking to Max
Hodges the other day, and Nunzio said . . .”
“But when Max Hodges was talking to
Jimmy Weber, Max told him that Nunzio
said . . .”
“And when Jimmy Weber was talking to
Gunnar, it became . . .”
“And when Gunnar was discussing it with
Mr. Jenkins, it turned into . . .”
“And when Mr. Jenkins mentioned it to
me, I could have sworn he said . . .”
“That’s it!” I tell Rollo.
“What’s it?”
“Nunzio!” I shout. “He’s molding all the
bunnies.”
“No, Timmy, you
“Now the only question is
why
!”
“Timmy, Nunzio wasn’t
—”
“Stop talking, Rollo. I need to
think
.”
But I can’t.
Because there’s an interruption at the
hotel door.
It’s Mr. Moskins, and he’s holding a cell phone.
“It’s your mother, Tim.”
It’s as though she has radar for when
detective work needs to be interrupted.
I take the phone from Mr. Moskins.
“Hello, Mother. I’m very busy.”
“Hi, sweetheart. How are you?”
“Busy,” I repeat. “My Chicago work has
me swamped.”
“Well, I just called to say the car is fixed.
The tow-truck man was able to do the repairs
himself. So we should be there early this
afternoon.”
“There’s no rush,” I answer.
“Don’t get so excited,” she says. “Are you
going to do anything with the Moskins today?”
“It’s raining, Mother. There’s nothing we
can do.”
“Oh, Timmy, it’s a big city. Maybe you can
go to a museum.”
“A museum?” I snap. “Mother, I’m in the
middle of an investigation that’s taken me
halfway across the continent. I have conflict-
ing reports from eyewitnesses. I have a bear
who’s eating my profits. I have a roommate
who’s a felon. And I’m with a family that
—”
I see Mr. Moskins standing at the end of
the hall.
I lower my voice.
“I’m with a family that makes
ours
look
ideal.”
“Timmy,” she says, “be nice. That was
very kind of them to take you to Chicago.”
“Kind?”
I answer. “It w
as torture.”
“Why don’t we talk about this when I get
there?”
“Fine. But my appointment book is filled
through next week.”
“We’ll talk about this when I get there,
Timmy. Hand the phone to Mr. Moskins.”
“Okay. But don’t go giving him any ideas
about things to do in Chicago. I’m strapped for
time as it is.”
“Hand the phone to Mr. Moskins,” she
repeats.
So I hand the phone to Mr. Moskins and
go back into the hotel room and shut the door.
And there’s another knock.
From Mr. Moskins again.
And he looks much too excited about the
thing he says next.
“Tim, we’re going to a museum!”
I know nothing about art.
But if my mother is going to punish me by
furthering my misery with the Moskins, I am
going to make the most of it.
So when we get to the museum, I hand the
museum woman my business card.
“What is this?” she asks.
“I’m Timmy Failure,” I answer.
“Okay,” she says.
“This is in case your art is ever stolen,”
I add.
She stares at the card.
“I wrote my number on the back. It’s
the Timmyline. Call anytime. But if a bear
answers, hang up. He’s not supposed to be
answering the phone.”
“Enjoy the museum,” she says.
I walk through the turnstile and see Mr.
Moskins on the other side.
He is studying a map.
“Okay,” he says, talking to no one. “If we
walk down this center hall, we can make a
left at the end and see the Modern wing. Then
we’ll circle clockwise to cover the rest of this
floor. Then we can go up these stairs over here
to the next floor and circle it in the same clock-
wise fashion. How does that sound?”
He looks up absentmindedly.