Chapter 18: The Purple Porcupine

“This is Auburn Reynolds,” Frank said, making the necessary introduction.  “Auburn, this is Dick White.  You two can become buddies later.  For now, we’ve got to follow those crooks!”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dick asked, as Frank and Auburn ran downstairs.  “You heard what they said—”

“Yes, but those two were pretty scared,” said Frank.  “If they hear someone following them, they’ll figure it’s The Shadow, and not ourselves.  I figure we’ll be able to keep close enough behind that we can track them.”

“Even so, let’s be careful when opening the door,” Auburn suggested.  “Why don’t you have Dick do it?  He’s the only one of us they know is in the house.”

“Good idea,” said Frank.  “Be ready to jump out of the way if lead starts flying.”

“Thanks for the cheery reminder,” Dick said.  Finding the catch was tricky, as the door was well-camouflaged, but Dick had it open a minute later.  Sure enough, Hill and Dooley were nowhere to be seen.  Lights had come on, though, and Dick and the others could see a long flight of stairs leading down into a subterranean tunnel.

“Let’s go,” said Frank.  “All three of us.”

Cautiously, the trio started down the steps.  They soon found themselves in a narrow hallway.  No doors were in view on it, but it was finished—the walls were painted white, and a light-colored hardwood floor lay below their feet.  Fluorescent lights ran the length of the ceiling.  The hall was perfectly straight, and far ahead, another flight of stairs was visible.

“They must have gone up there,” Frank realized.  “Let’s see where they are.”

Even as they ran, they could hear a car starting up.  Frank quickly whipped out a walkie-talkie.  “Frank to Zach.  Frank to Zach.”

“10-4,” came the reply.  “What’s up?”

“Did you see anyone run out of the house?” Frank asked.  “Or, did you see any car take off?”

“Negative.”

“Alright…well, keep your eyes open.  More in a second.”

Frank broke into a sprint—the others sped up as well.  Only until they got to the staircase, though, at which point Frank slowed to a walk.  Cautiously, the three crept up the stairs, where they found—

“Oh, rats!” said Frank.  “They got away!”

They were standing in a garage—but not the garage for the Detwiler residence.  This one fronted on another street—from the positioning, Frank assumed it to be the one on the next street over.  Glumly, he pulled out his walkie-talkie.

“You didn’t see a car come off the next street over, did you?”

There was a pause.

“Uh, maybe,” said Zach.  Frank heard muffled voices in the background—then—“Yes, there was one—Nancy saw the headlights from it.  She doesn’t know what it looked like, though.”

“And now it’s gone?” Frank asked.

“Afraid so.  Was that—”

“It was…we’ve lost them.”  Frank smacked his forehead in annoyance.  “I should have planned for that.  Oh, well.  We learned a lot, and I think we’re getting close.  Call the police, and tell them to get here as soon as possible.”

“10-4,” said Zach.  “Over and out.”

“Okay,” said Dick, as the three started back to the Detwiler residence.  “Now, Frank, would you mind telling me just who Auburn Reynolds is?”

“While you’re at it,” said Auburn, “could you fill me in on how you knew who I was?  I’ve never even seen you before.”

“That’s simple,” said Frank.  “She solved one of the most terrifying mysteries in all of Oklahoma this summer.  Back when that Blackwell case broke, there were a lot of news articles about it.  You couldn’t put a radio or TV on in the morning without hearing something about the Purple Porcupine, and—”

“I guess I missed something,” said Dick.  “What Blackwell case?”

Frank glanced at Auburn.  “Shall I tell him, or shall you?  You solved it.”

Auburn smiled.  “You go ahead.  I’d like to hear your version of it.”

“Well, I hope it’s correct,” said Frank.  “Over the summer, Dick, there was a slew of ‘kidnappings’ in Blackwell, Oklahoma.  Children—for the most part—were disappearing all over town.  The only clue to their whereabouts was a little purple porcupine sticker left at the scene of each crime.”

“Hence the name of the kidnapper,” said Dick.  “Who was the Purple Porcupine?”

“Her,” said Frank, nodding at Auburn.

Dick’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.  “Her?  But Frank—you just told me she solved the case!”

“She did solve it,” said Frank, “but the kidnappings weren’t the main part of it.  You see, Dick, there was this ‘Community Service’ club in town—the Friendship Club, or something like that—”

“Brotherhood Club,” corrected Auburn.

“That’s right,” said Frank.  “The Brotherhood Club, and most of the kids ten and up were in it.  Its leader was a guy named…uh…”

“Richards.  Jack Richards,” Auburn spoke darkly.

“Right.  Jack Richards.  He went around telling all the parents that the organization was designed to promote community involvement.  The club would meet together once a week, they’d do a few community projects, and none of the kids would ever complain about it.  Seemed like a great deal, and Richards had almost every kid in town signed up for it.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad—” started Dick, but Auburn interrupted him.

“It was HORRIBLE!!!” she exclaimed.  “In reality, Richards wasn’t the least bit interested in community service.  He was a master criminal who got all the club members to do his dirty work for him, out of threats.  He told them if they wouldn’t go along with his schemes, he’d kill a member of their families.  He even had detailed plots laid out for each of the children involved.”

“Of course, the parents had no idea,” continued Frank, “and the kids couldn’t tell them, because they were afraid of what might happen if they did.  Even if one had dared to talk, no adult would have believed them because of Richards’s reputation.  He’d made himself out to be a great guy, and there wasn’t a single adult that was even the least bit suspicious.”

Dick’s jaw dropped as Frank continued the story.  “My goodness,” he exclaimed.  “There’s an evil setup!  How did they catch him?”

“That’s where Auburn comes in,” explained Frank.  “She wasn’t in the club, and she managed to figure out what was going on from someone that worked at a gas station—”

“Brittany McPherson,” Auburn filled in, “a name I’d assume you know.”

“Oh, she was the one,” said Frank.  “I figured you girls knew each other.  Anyway, Auburn had never met Richards, so he hadn’t fooled her.  She figured out what was going on, and she knew they’d have to get concrete evidence against Richards somehow before he could be arrested.  Of course, that’d be hard since he wasn’t the one committing most of the crimes—”

“Most of what he’d done had been threats,” Auburn explained, “and of course, talking’s not illegal.”

“So, to help get evidence on him, Auburn arranged for the disappearances of several of the family members Richards had threatened,” Frank explained.  “That way, Richards couldn’t hurt them, because he didn’t know where they were.  The kids whose relatives had disappeared didn’t have to follow his orders anymore, because their siblings were safe.  Once she got enough to disappear, it all fell apart, and Richards—well, I’ll just say he won’t be committing crimes anymore.”  He glanced at Auburn.  “Was that pretty much correct?”

The Blackwell girl nodded.  “Totally!  I can’t believe you remembered all that!  It was a few months ago that it happened—”

“Well, my siblings and I solve mysteries too,” explained Frank.  “Naturally, I was interested in hearing about another child detective—especially so close by.  Plus, I seem to recall an interview in which you mentioned you liked old radio shows—”

Auburn nodded excitedly.  “You’re right!  I got the whole idea from—”

“The Green Hornet,” said Frank.  “I love listening to those shows myself.  They’ve got such neat stories.  It’s a great thing to do in your spare time.  Though, there is one thing I noticed,” he continued.  “In the interview, I think it said you listened to The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Challenge of the Yukon—all the Striker ones.  Tonight, though, those clips you played were from The Shadow.”

Auburn nodded.  “Personally, I like The Green Hornet better, but he didn’t have a menacing laugh.  Finding episodes that used those lines I played tonight was easy.  A lot of those phrases are on each show—”

“Like ‘the weed of crime bears bitter fruit,’” commented Frank.  “You sure got him going.”

“Wait—that was a radio program we were hearing?” Dick said.

Auburn nodded.  “I used a digital recorder to get those lines—then, I played them one by one as appropriate.”

Dick looked confused.  “But the voice—it sounded like it was coming from different parts of the room.  Don’t tell me you’re a ventriloquist.”

Auburn shook her head vehemently.  “No, but I had a bunch of speakers set up all around the room.  I just set different ones to go off at different times, and that’s why the voice seemed to be moving around.”

“Much better than anything I could have come up with,” Frank said, admiringly.

Dick nodded.  “The moment we heard the laugh, I thought, ‘Frank didn’t tell me he was planning this…’”

“He knew nothing about it,” said Auburn.  “Until, I guess, you found me upstairs—”

Frank nodded.  “Did you go in through the trash tube too?”

She nodded.

“And this wasn’t your first time, right?  Were you the one that made the phone call?”

Auburn nodded again.  “I heard them making the plans yesterday.  A few more were here then—I think some of them have gotten arrested since.  Anyway, I wanted to warn you, but I had to wait until they weren’t around.  Then, of course, I had to find your number.  You wouldn’t believe how many Andersons live in Norman.  I must have called five people before I finally got a hold of your sister.  Then, I told her they were planning to kidnap you—”

“You mean him, specifically?” Dick asked.  “Not the others?”

“No, they were just interested in him.  Hill was afraid Frank might’ve seen him shoot Bob that night at the car dealer.”

“Oh, he told me about that,” Dick looked at his friend.  “Only, you made it sound like you didn’t get a good look at the gunman—”

“I didn’t,” Frank said, “but I guess he didn’t know that.”  Looking straight at Auburn, Frank continued, “Of course, someone else probably did see him—were you the other person in the room that night?”

Auburn nodded.  “I was searching the office when I saw you coming, so I hid behind the filing cabinets.  The funny thing is, I didn’t get a good look at Hill either.  Not right away, that is.  When your father and sister ran in the building after you, I snuck around to the front, just in time to see him close the door to the truck.  That’s when I got a look at his face.”

“You did?” said Dick.  “Why didn’t you tell the police, then?”

“I’ll tell you why, Dick,” Frank answered.  “Officer Porter didn’t tell me the whole story when I first called the Blackwell Police.  There were two girls missing—Brittany and Auburn.  When Chief Morris told me your name, then I remembered the name of the one who solved that case.”

Auburn nodded.  “This case actually started a lot like the Blackwell one.  It was a hot day, and I’d wandered down to the Conoco to get something to drink.  Brittany was working there, and we got to talking.

“As you probably know by now, her Toyota Camry had been stolen a few days before.  Brittany was proud of that car—her parents had bought it brand new for her.  Toyotas last a while, and she’d had visions of getting three hundred thousand miles out of it.  When she discovered it was missing, she was devastated.

“Naturally, we got to talking about the car.  I hadn’t realized this at the time, but Brittany was looking for it.  Not just keeping her eyes open, but actually investigating, like a detective.  So far, she hadn’t uncovered any trace of it, but she had learned that towns all across Oklahoma were experiencing an increase in car thefts.

“‘I’ll bet it’s the same gang,’ she told me.  ‘They must have some secret base somewhere, some place big enough to hide all those cars before they dispose of them.’

“It was a logical idea, and we started discussing just where they’d have enough space to hide all those.  All at once—have you ever been the victim of perfect timing?  You know—you mention something, and all at once, there it is?  Well, the two of us were glancing out the window—and we saw a man picking the lock on a car next door!”

“You don’t say!” said Frank.  “Of all the cars in Blackwell!”

“I guess he didn’t realize we were trying to find the thieves.  Brittany quickly put the ‘Closed’ sign up.  Then, we slipped outside, where her other car—that Chrysler Three Hundred you see out front—was parked.  We got in and followed the stolen car around the corner of a building, where it drove into the back of a North American moving truck—”

“Moving truck?” said Frank.  “Sounds like the one that came by Bob’s that night—only, that one was Atlas—”

“It might’ve been the same one,” said Auburn.  “I’ll tell you why in a moment.  Anyway, the door closed automatically on the truck, which started moving as soon as the car was in.  The thieves must have had it timed.  It wasn’t long before they were on the Interstate, and Brittany and I still hadn’t had a chance to call the police!”

“Couldn’t you have used her cellphone?” Dick asked.

“It was out of battery,” said Auburn, “and she’d forgotten to bring the charger for it.  We couldn’t stop, or we’d lose the truck, so we followed it down to Oklahoma City.  There, we trailed it off the highway, until it came to an abandoned warehouse in the southwest part of town.  A door closed after it when we drove inside, so Brittany parked and got out.  She left me with the car and told me to get help if she didn’t come back.”

“Is that when she disappeared?” Dick asked.  Frank was shaking his head even as Auburn answered.

“Not then,” said Auburn.  “Brittany snuck inside.  She was there for about ten minutes, at the end of which time, she came running out, carrying a license plate.  Hopping in, she sped out of the parking lot, just as the door opened and five other guys came running out.  As we drove away, she explained that the paint scheme on the truck could change.  They had some device that could make it different colors, and she saw them switch it to Global Van Lines.  They were getting ready to move the car to another destination—their secret base.

“The ones who’d dropped the car off left, and Brittany took the license plate off it—so she’d have proof that she’d found the vehicle.  Then, though, the crew that was supposed to take it to the base showed up.  Hill was one of them.  They saw her leave and followed us, but we shook them, briefly.”

“‘I’ve got to drop this plate off,’” Brittany told me.  “‘Sooner the better.  Do you know anyone in Oklahoma City we could leave it with?’

“I used to live in Kansas, so I hadn’t been to OKC a whole lot.  However, my dad and I came once a couple months ago to buy some Kansas City Royals cards at one of the baseball card shops downtown.  The owner seemed nice enough, so I suggested him.  Brittany drove by there, parked, and dropped the plate off.  Then, when she got back in the car, she started to write a letter.  First, she made sure she had an envelope, and she addressed that.  Then, she started to write the letter—”

“Only, she was interrupted,” filled in Frank.  “Did Vince find you all?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Auburn said.  “They chased us through the downtown.  Brittany tried to lose them, but in the process, she turned into a dead-end alley.  We were trapped, and she knew it, so she had me hide in the trunk.  So far, those men had no idea I was there—they only knew about her.”

“So you were never actually kidnapped?” said Frank.  “Only her?”

Auburn nodded.  “There wasn’t anything I could do except hold my breath and pray.  One of them said something about taking her to their secret base, and then, they started arguing over what to do with the car.  Initially, I think they were planning to take it there as well, but they must have changed their minds.  A tow truck showed up later and moved it to this house, where they put the covering on over it!  I had to wait until midnight before I could finally sneak out.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police then?” Frank asked.

“If I’d done that,” noted Auburn, “I’d have had to go straight back to Blackwell, and then I couldn’t have helped much with the case.  As it was, I knew more about it than anyone else, except Brittany—and Stephanie later on, I guess.  I figured the letter would give the first clue, and by the time it got delivered, I’d be able to tell the police where the hideout was.  Little did I realize just how secretive they were about it.”

“You never found out?” Frank asked.

“No, and I’ve searched this house multiple times.”  Auburn smiled wryly.  “That trash pipe’s an easy way in, but there’s not a single reference to the base anywhere in the place.  I didn’t even know about the Subway until you did—when Bob brought it up.  After I heard that, I searched the house again, but I couldn’t find a single reference to a specific Subway—other than an occasional wrapper from one in a trash can.  There was never a receipt with it, though.”

“Not everyone asks for a receipt,” noted Dick.  “Plus, they’d be a lot more likely to shred the receipt than they’d be to shred the wrapper.  Not that you couldn’t shred a wrapper, but—”

“You wouldn’t want mustard in your shredder,” agreed Frank.  “Surely, you didn’t spend the whole time searching the house!”

“Oh, no!” said Auburn.  “First, I was going to go find Stephanie and tell her what happened.  I found my way to the Amtrak station and took the train to Norman a couple days later, only to find a police car by the time I got to her house.  I hid in the bushes and listened…it didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened.  Then, I took the train back up to Oklahoma City that night.  The next day, I made it back to Hill’s house and eavesdropped on some of his phone conversations.  One of them was with Bob, and I recognized the voice instantly—I’d heard the commercials before.  I made my way down to his dealership, and that’s where I was when you came in.”

“I see,” agreed Frank.  “Guess that gets us about caught up.”

At this point, Auburn started fidgeting.  “I guess you’ll have to turn me in, then?”

Frank thought about this for a moment.  “Tell you what.  My dad’s a member of the Oklahoma City Police Department.  We’ll take you home, and I’ll speak to him about it.  We can probably convince him to put you under house arrest.  Then, you’ll be in our custody for the rest of the case, which means you can keep working on the mystery along with us.  Does that sound good?”

Auburn was visibly relieved.  “Okay by me!” she said.  “Anything that’ll let me stay in town.  Plus, I’ll bet your house is nicer than the hotel I’ve been staying in—”

“You got a hotel?!” exclaimed Dick.  “I thought they only let people twenty-one and over check into those places!”

“That only applies to ones in business,” said Auburn.  “This one was vacant.  I’m getting kind of used to that variety.”

“Well, we’ll give you an air-conditioned/heated, running water, electricity-supplied room for the next few days,” said Frank.  “As long as it takes us to solve the rest of the case.”

“Hopefully, that won’t be much longer,” said Auburn.  “I may not know where the base is, but I have found out a few things…”