After school on Monday, Club CSI went back to Woodlands High School to see if they could find Mitchell and talk to him.
They walked right by the site of the bonfire, so they paused to see if they might spot anything new or different. But the custodians had done a good job of cleaning up. There was no sign the bonfire had ever been there.
As they walked across the parking lot, Corey looked around for Mitchell’s car. “Maybe you’d recognize it better if you crawled underneath,” Hannah teased.
“Very funny,” Corey said. “I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it.”
Suddenly he pointed.
“There it is!” he cried. Ben and Hannah looked to see where he was pointing and saw a small blue car—nothing fancy.
“Just out of curiosity,” Ben said, “let’s see what kind of tires Mitchell has.”
They walked over to the car. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, they knelt down to check the tires.
“It should have the brand name on the sidewall,” Ben said.
“‘Sidewall,’” Hannah said. “Excellent use of tire vocabulary.”
“Thank you,” he said with a slight bow of his head.
It was an overcast afternoon, and the name of the company that made the tires was the same color as the tire—black on black. So the brand name wasn’t obvious.
But then Corey spotted it. The way the tire was positioned, he had to turn his head upside down to read it. “Acme Value Tires,” he said.
“Score one for Bob,” Hannah said.
“Excuse me,” said a voice above them. “What are you doing?”
They looked up and saw Mitchell looking down at them. He did not look happy.
“Oh sorry,” Corey said. “We were settling a bet.”
“A bet? About what?”
“Well, Ben has this thing he always claims he can do,” Corey explained, making it up as he went along. “He says he can tell what brand a tire is just by looking at it. So we were checking to see what brand the tires are on this car.”
“Why? Is it your car?” Hannah asked innocently.
“Yeah,” Mitchell said. “It’s my parents’. They let me use it.”
Ben, Hannah, and Corey stood up. They stayed there by Mitchell’s car, blocking his way to the driver’s side door.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got to get home.”
“We were wondering if we could ask you some more questions about Rocky the Ram,” Ben said.
“Sorry,” Mitchell said. “Now’s not a good time. I’ve got a ton of homework and a test in algebra tomorrow. I’ve got to get home to study.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Okay.”
They stepped out of Mitchell’s way. He started to open the door.
“Um, would you mind giving me your e-mail address so we could just shoot you an e-mail with our questions?” Ben asked.
Mitchell paused. “Well, I couldn’t answer your e-mail tonight. Like I said, I’ve got homework and studying to do.”
Ben smiled his friendliest smile. “No, you wouldn’t have to answer any questions tonight. But if you wouldn’t mind giving me your e-mail address now, then we’d have it.”
Mitchell sighed. “All right. You can type it into your phone.”
Hannah got out her phone. But Ben said, “I thought your phone was out of charge, Hannah.”
Hannah stood there for a second. “Oh yeah,” she said. “That’s right. I forgot to charge it up.”
“That’s okay,” Ben said. He reached into his backpack. “Here. I’ve got a pad and a pen.” He pulled them out and offered them to Mitchell. “If you could just write down your e-mail address, and maybe when the best time for you to answer our questions might be . . .”
But Mitchell was already getting in his car. “My phone number is listed online.”
“Um, yeah, but—”
“Then just call me if you have any questions,” he said. “But don’t call tonight.” He slammed his door shut, started the car, and backed out of his parking space. Then he peeled out of the parking lot.
Club CSI watched him go.
“That was weird,” Hannah said.
“I was just trying to get him to write down his e-mail address so we could have a writing standard to compare to the costume wrecker’s note,” Ben explained. “I realize it would’ve been a requested standard, but I didn’t see any way we could get a nonrequested standard.”
“I knew what you were doing,” Hannah said. “I meant Mitchell’s behavior was really weird.”
“Yeah,” Corey agreed. “What’s the big deal with writing down your e-mail address? It’s almost like he knew you were just trying to get a sample of his handwriting to compare to the note.”
“At this point, Mitchell is definitely suspect number one,” Hannah said.
“I’m starting to think those VIP football tickets are as good as mine,” Corey said. “I mean, ours.”
“We still need a handwriting standard from Mitchell,” Ben said. “But I’m inclined to agree with you.”
Club CSI was feeling confident that they had cracked the case.
That’s why the next day at school was such a surprise. . . .