The Potato Chip Puzzles: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen (19 page)

“They must be stuck,” said Mr. Garvey, his voice as hopeful as a child opening his birthday presents. “If they’re stuck, and we get there and figure it out quickly, we’re still in the game.” His eyes were gleaming. “We’re still in the game,” he said again, as if to say it repeatedly was to make it true.

Winston asked to see the computer, and Mal handed it to him.

“Everybody has solved the Ferris wheel puzzle now, except for New Easton Junior High and Bethany’s team,” Winston said.

“New Easton dropped out,” Mr. Garvey reminded them. “And I’m afraid the girls were kicked out of the park, so I’m not sure what they’re going to do.” He didn’t sound sorry at all, of course.

There was an awkward silence in response to that. “Huh, yeah,” said Mal. “Well, they’ll figure out something, I’m sure.”

Winston resumed looking out the window, so that Mr. Garvey wouldn’t see him smiling.

After a minute, Winston asked, “Did you show the memo pad to Mr. Denham?”

“I did,” said Mr. Garvey.

Of course he had, Winston thought—Mr. Garvey wanted to scare his rival team into quitting.

The math teacher continued, “And they were on the verge of solving the Ferris wheel puzzle, by the way. We’re ahead of them now, but only barely.”

“Did Mr. Denham have any idea why his name was on the cheater’s list?”

Mr. Garvey shook his head. “He saw the cheater for a quick moment, right before he ran away. He didn’t get a great look, but he swears he’s never seen the guy before in his life. He couldn’t imagine how the cheater would know his name. Are you concerned that your name was on his list, Winston?”

“I guess I am a little.”

“Well, you stay close to me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Just because we’re not running away like scared rabbits doesn’t mean I’m not taking this person seriously. How do you think he knows about you?”

Winston had been wondering about that himself. Suddenly, he realized there might be a way to figure out the answer. Maybe. He sat up a little straighter in his seat, and thought about it. Yes. A really wonderful idea was sprouting in the middle of Winston’s brain like a whole flower garden.

If he got very lucky, he could find out who was cheating.

“Winston?” said his teacher. “Hello?”

“Mr. Garvey,” he said, “can I borrow your cell phone?”

 

THE VOICE ON THE
other end of the phone was gruff and impatient. “Who’s this?” it said, all but accusing Winston of interrupting something important.

Winston felt himself losing his nerve. The man he’d called, Ray Marietta, was an ex-policeman who had been an important part of Winston’s last treasure hunt. Winston hadn’t spoken to him in months, and he’d had the idea that maybe Ray would be happy to hear from him. That idea went right out of his head the moment he heard Ray’s voice.

“Uh, Ray, hi. . . . It’s Winston. Winston Breen.”

“Winston?” Ray sounded surprised. “What can I do for you?” Ray made this friendly question seem very unfriendly, as if he could not imagine what Winston might ask that Ray would be willing to do.

Winston wasn’t sure where to begin. His realization was this: The cheater had called him at home the same day they had cracked the code. Who else could have made that strange, suspicious phone call? It had to be the man in the green jacket, or whoever was working with him. That’s how the cheater knew Winston would be here. He was willing to bet that the other people on the cheater’s list had received similar calls.

“Can you trace a phone call?” Winston asked.

There was a startled silence from Ray Marietta, followed by loud, raucous laughter. Winston had never heard Ray laugh before. He sounded like a washing machine with too large a load in it.
HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH!
Winston got the feeling his brilliant plan was going to die right here at the first step.

“You want me to
what
?” Ray said when he could speak again. “Why do you need a phone call traced?”

Winston explained as succinctly as he could: that they were playing in a puzzle contest sponsored by Simon’s Snack Foods, but someone was running around sabotaging other teams, and this cheater, whoever he was, had beaten up his friend Jake.

“Is that the short kid with the big mouth?” Ray asked.

“No, that’s Mal,” Winston said. During that last treasure hunt, Ray had met both his friends, and he’d found Mal to be more annoying than a cloud of mosquitoes. Ray gave a little grunt, like he was sorry it hadn’t been Mal who’d been smacked around. Winston finished his recap of the events by talking about the cheater’s list and how Winston’s name had been on it.

“Are you saying this guy is after you specifically?”

“It looks that way. Me and a bunch of others.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I thought I was.”

“You know what I mean,” Ray said. “The police who are actually police. I’m retired, you know that.”

“That didn’t occur to me,” Winston said. “I just thought of you.”

Ray grunted again. “All right. What do you want? To trace a phone call? I can’t do that. Besides, how would that even help you?”

Winston said, “The cheater called me. Or somebody working with the cheater. I want to know who made that phone call.”

Ray was silent for a moment or two before saying, “Well, first of all, you can’t trace a phone call without a court order, and I can’t get a court order because I’m not on the job anymore. Second of all, you can only trace a phone call that’s happening at that moment. This phone call happened when? Last week?”

“A few days ago,” Winston said, his heart sinking.

“Yeah,” said Ray. “You can’t trace that call.”

“So there’s nothing you can do,” Winston said.

“Oh, now,” Ray said. “I didn’t say
that.
This guy, whoever he is, really beat up a kid?”

“And he gave at least two teams flat tires,” Winston said, “and he sabotaged the Ferris wheel over at Adventureland. We have to find out who he is.”

There was a silence as Ray thought for a moment. “All right,” he said. “What’s your phone number?”

“My home number or the cell phone I’m on now?”

“Both.”

Winston said his home number, and then had to ask Mr. Garvey for his cell phone number, which he relayed to Ray. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I know a guy,” Ray said. “He might be able to do something. I’ll call you back.” And before Winston could ask another question, Ray hung up.

“Is he going to help?” Jake asked when Winston closed Mr. Garvey’s phone.

“I think so,” he said.

“How is our old pal Ray?” Mal said.

Winston thought of that small grunt Ray made after he’d asked if Mal had been beaten up. “He says hi,” Winston said.

 

 

As they approached the police station, there was some conversation about whether or not the puzzle would be difficult to find. It was not. In fact, it was quite a spectacle and had attracted a crowd.

Winston pressed his nose against the car window, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. On the police station’s neatly manicured front lawn, a platform had been built with six makeshift jail cells. Each one held a prisoner. The prisoners were dressed like they had been brought here from a 1920s-era silent movie: They wore old-fashioned convict uniforms with wide, black-and-white horizontal stripes, and little black-and-white caps. The prisoners paced in their small cells, sometimes stopping to grasp the bars and stare out at the gathering audience.

At various points around the platform were advertisements for Simon’s Square Potato Chips. The onlookers must have been perplexed about the connection between potato chips and this mock outdoor prison.

Mr. Garvey parked. In his excitement, he went a little too fast and had to slam on the brakes—all the kids in the car lurched. They got out of the car. The weird homemade prison looked very far away.

“Come on, let’s run!” Jake said, and started doing just that.

“Wait, wait,
wait
!” Mr. Garvey shouted, and they all stopped abruptly. Winston nearly ran into Jake’s back. Then Mr. Garvey said, “Why am I telling you to wait? Go! Run! I’ll catch up.”

So they all ran again. “But stay together!” Mr. Garvey shouted after them.

It was hot out, but it was good to run, and great to feel like they were still in the game. Winston looked around for Brendan Root but didn’t see him anywhere. Maybe they had solved the puzzle in the last few minutes. Still, they were definitely catching up.

He saw a couple of other teams staring at the prison from a distance, or studying something they had written down.

They drew closer to the pretend prison, and now Winston saw another element of the puzzle: In front of each cell was a sign, supposedly showing what each prisoner had done to earn this humiliation.

A photographer stood to their right, taking pictures of this crazy scene. A label on his shoulder bag identified him as working for the local newspaper. The photographer called out, “Hey, Tommy!”

The man in the Lewd Behavior cell looked around, wondering who had called his name. He spotted the photographer, who sang out, “I knew they’d catch you one day!” He cackled, and Tommy, in the cell, nodded wearily, like he’d heard this joke several times already.

Jake said, “So what is this?”

Winston said, “I have no idea.”

“Stole friend’s
chickens
?” Mal said. “What kind of crime is that?”

“Dmitri Simon chose these crimes for a reason,” Winston said, trying to think of some ideas. Or even one idea. Right now he had nothing.

They all thought about it for a few moments. “Do they really put you in jail if you disobey a traffic signal?” Jake asked.

“My sister would be in jail a dozen times by now,” Mal replied. “She thinks stop signs are suggestions.”

Mr. Garvey had caught up, panting a bit. He looked around, his face a mix of wonder and bafflement. “This is a puzzle?” he said.

“Seems to be,” Mal said.

The math teacher took another gasp of air. “I guess Dmitri Simon isn’t interested in sudoku. So what is this?”

“We don’t know yet. We were just looking at those signs.”

Mr. Garvey nodded. “Attempted robbery,” he said. “Counterfeiting. . . . Yes, these certainly look important. How many letters are on each sign?”

That was a pretty good thought, so they counted. There were twenty letters in the first sign . . . and also in the second sign. The third sign had fourteen letters. Winston thought maybe they could apply the familiar 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C alphabet code, but that gave them a word beginning with TTN. Not very promising.

The prisoners continued to pace. They all looked sorry they’d gotten involved with this event. Perhaps they hadn’t considered just how long they would be in these closed-in little cells with nothing to do but walk back and forth. At least real prisoners get a cot to lie down on. These guys didn’t even have that.