Boomtown (30 page)

Still, that wasn't the biggest shock of all. No one could have prepared for what they saw next. Looking up out of the shadows of the hole, standing in the opening of what was clearly a tunnel, covered in dust and wearing a hard hat on his head, was the living, breathing, mirror-image of Chang himself—back from the grave. His face was filthy from the cave-in; his clothes were torn and tattered; his eyes squinted from the dust and the sudden bright light pouring into his underground hiding place—but the resemblance was unmistakable. If this wasn't Chang, then it was his twin brother.

He looked at me. I looked at him.

“Oh my,” I said, recognizing the face.

Then I fainted.

CHAPTER 15

The Trial of the Century

T
he town was buzzing like a swarm of bees in a rose garden. All anyone could talk about was the upcoming trial scheduled for exactly three weeks from the Fourth of July. A
trial—
with an actual jury and judge and everything!

Of course, every able-bodied citizen in Boomtown wanted to be on the jury. Mayor Tanaka's office was bombarded with phone calls and letters and a line of people at his door demanding to be selected. In other towns, you couldn't
pay
people to stand jury duty. But this was Boomtown's trial of the century.

Since the town didn't have its own prosecutor or defense attorney, it had to borrow both of them from Stickville. Like-wise, the circuit judge, Maria Rodriquez, would have to sit in for the trial; she was given a temporary office down the hall from Mayor Tanaka. She couldn't get a moment's peace either.

The immediate problem was where to hold the proceedings, since all eleven hundred seventeen residents of Boomtown wanted to attend. Not more than fifty would fit in the regular courtroom downstairs; only two hundred in the main room of the library if all the tables were removed; only about four hundred in the great room of the museum, even if everyone stood up; only three hundred and fifty could fit into the gymnasium of the school.

The problem was solved when the Hopontops offered their main circus tent as a courtroom. It seems that even the socially distant Hopontops were suffering from a severe case of “trial fever.” They graciously rearranged their summer travel schedule in order to make the tent and grandstands available. The tent was staked out in Chang Park and a makeshift judge's podium and jury box was built. The Hopontops offered their public address system, and that pretty much settled it. Everyone in town was welcome to attend the trial and would be able to see and hear the entire proceedings.

News updates about the trial were on the radio day and night. It made the papers in Stickville and Ainogold and as far away as Spokane and Seattle. Soon we had eight news paper reporters and even a film crew staying at Mitterand's Boarding House. Everywhere you turned, a reporter was pushing a microphone into someone's face. They were as common as cow pies in a cornfield.

Not that anyone seemed to mind. It was the only thing anyone wanted to talk about—except for me, that is. They learned about my other five “near misses” and how I was the one who'd almost been killed by the mysterious “Mole” (as they were calling him). They heard I had helped Sheriff Ernie with part of the investigation. They heard I would be called as a star witness for the prosecution. After that I wasn't given a minute's rest. They kept asking the same ridiculous questions over and over again:

“Were you surprised when the street caved in?”

“Did you have any idea who was behind the tunneling?”

“Are you going to sue the Mole for damages?”

“Is it really true that you've nearly been killed six times?”

“Is there any way you can sneak us into the jail for an interview with the Mole?”

They hounded me for the slightest tidbit of information that could be added to the very little that any of us already knew—which wasn't much. By now we'd determined that the “Mole” was in fact Xian (pronounced “She-On”), the great-grandson of Chang. His previous existence was unknown; he was currently a permanent guest at Burton's station house. Men had climbed down into the hole and traced the tunnel back to its origin. It headed west toward the river, passing just to the south of Lazy Gunderson's house, and then straight on to the north side of Chang's Famous Fireworks Factory. Hidden by the thick trees and heavy overgrowth was an abandoned warehouse. Inside the basement of the building was where we discovered the entrance to Xian's excavation.

Everything that had been stolen was found in the tunnel. Wood and boards were used to shore up the ceiling and walls. Various parts from farming equipment, bicycles, wheels, wires, belts, gears, and whatnot had been culled together to build a digging machine—rather ingenious, and strong evidence that Xian shared his famous ancestor's knack for invention. The lights stolen from in front of the courthouse were tapped into the electricity from the factory and strung along the tunnel to light the way. The motor from my lawn mower was cleverly rigged as the drive unit for a rope and pulley system to pull cart-loads of dirt down the tunnel. A conveyor belt lifted the dirt up to where Fred Cotton's truck was parked inside the ware-house. Xian had devised a special sort of muffler for the truck so it could be driven in absolute silence around town at night so he could dump the dirt. The entire setup was quite remark-able. It was hard not to be impressed by Xian's ingenuity.

Beyond that there were a thousand unanswered questions, especially the question of who would sit on the jury. Town hall was swamped with phone calls, and a line formed down the hall and out the front door morning, noon, and night.

It was Helga the librarian who finally came up with an agree-able solution. Every eligible juror in town had a library card. She took all of them (except those on the witness list) and put them in a basket, and Judge Rodriguez drew out twelve names. Fair, impartial, and fast. Boomtown had its first official jury in history. Unfortunately, the jurors who were named now became fodder for the newspaper reporters. The judge had to sequester the jury before the trial just so they could get some sleep.

Fortunately for the jurors, the trial was scheduled only three days after the selection. Everyone on the witness list spent that time being interviewed by Xian's defense attorney, George Rigdale, and the prosecuting attorney, Horatio Hooke. The former was quiet and efficient and kept his questions to a minimum. He wanted to help his client with as little trouble as possible. The prosecutor, however, was a horse of a different color.

The venerable Horatio Hooke was an ambitious lawyer from Stickville positioning himself for a future career in politics. He made no secret that the trial was his opportunity to get away from prosecuting parking tickets; he wanted to step up to the big leagues. He seized every opportunity to push his face in front of the cameras, to offer his latest theory of the case, to get his picture in the paper, and to pontificate about his strategy for the upcoming trial and his plans to get the maximum sentence for the Mole.

He stood on the steps of the town hall dressed in his black suit and white shirt, his dark hair slicked back, waving his arms, punching the air with his fist, and decrying the rapidly rising rate of crime in the county. He blamed Sheriff Ernie. He blamed the mayor. He blamed the county government. He blamed Congress. He blamed the Supreme Court.

Stomping his foot and pounding his fists, he cried out, “The only way to stop the deterioration of decent society and clean up our streets is to elect new representatives who can restore sanity to the towns and villages of Washington!

“We need
better
leaders—
stronger
leaders—
courageous
leaders! You need a man who will seize the reins of government and do whatever it takes to save our women and children from the degradation that threatens to destroy our way of life!”

He humbly announced his intention to run for governor of the fine state of Washington as soon as the trial was over. Until then, his entire life would be strictly focused on the trial and the conviction of Xian, “the most notorious and dangerous criminal of the twentieth century.”

Horatio Hooke continued to bang the drum until the very morning of the trial, 9:00 a.m., July 25, 1950, a date that would go down in Boomtown history. As expected, everyone was in attendance. The circus tent was filled to capacity and overflowing with people trying to catch the smallest glimpse of the action. With a few loud bangs of her gavel, Judge Rodriguez called the courtroom to order and the trial began.

Horatio Hooke stood before the jury to deliver his opening statement. The pompous lawyer stuck his thumbs in his vest, puffed out his chest, and marched back and forth like a peacock. Dramatically he crowed, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today we have before us, sitting over there next to his defense attorney, a man who has no defense. A criminal of the most despicable sort! A man who, unbeknownst to the citizenry of Boomtown, snuck into your small town under the cover of darkness and began to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. While you slept, he took whatever he needed—food, supplies, equipment—and then he began to dig a tunnel underneath your very feet!”