Maverick Mania (7 page)

“Hello, Matt,” he said, shaking my hand. “What brings you here?”

Mom gave him the newspaper article. “Remember I brought you some concerns about the Riggins family? You might find this interesting.”

“All right,” he said after reading it. “I'll agree it's strange to find a family with the same names.”

Mom took a deep breath. “Captain, you know I spend a lot of time trying to learn about detective work.”

It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw Captain Briscoe fight the twitch of a smile. “Yes,” he said, “I do know that.”

“I've learned that there's something people can do to change their identities,” Mom said. “I'm sure you know about it. They look for people about the same age who have died. They send away for the dead
person's birth certificate and use it to apply for a driver's license, credit cards...a new identity. No one ever cross-checks against death certificates.”

“Yes,” Captain Briscoe admitted, “I know of that happening. But this—”

“Is a whole family,” Mom said. “If the father and mother and son were born about the same time as those killed in the accident, think of how easy it would be to give a whole family a new identity from the dead people's birth certificates. Especially if the family lived so far across the country from Roaring River that no one would recognize their names and connect them to the people who died in the car accident.”

“How did you connect them?” Captain Briscoe asked.

I explained.

“I don't know,” he said. “This is so farfetched. And the Charlie Riggins we know is a respectable businessperson. There are probably thousands of Charlie Rigginses across the country.”

“But how many with a wife named Louise and a son named Caleb?” Mom asked.

“Good point,” he said. “But why would they go to this trouble?”

“I bet we could answer that if we knew who they were before they changed identities,” Mom said. “Maybe Charlie was a drug dealer. Or a wanted murderer. Or...”

Mom's eyes were beginning to have that excited mystery shine.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Captain Briscoe said. “You have to be very careful about what you say. If you're wrong and rumors get started, Charlie Riggins could sue you for slander.”

As he thought, Captain Briscoe rolled the article into a tube and tapped it with his right hand against the palm of his left hand.

“This is what I'll do,” he said. “I'll photocopy this article. First thing tomorrow—when the records offices are open—I'll make some phone calls to look into this.”

He shot a warning glance at Mom. “Remember, you keep this to yourself.
Last thing I need is for the department to know that I'm actually involving myself in one of your crazy mysteries.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Mom said.

“But...,” I said.

They both looked at me.

“If Mr. Riggins is some kind of criminal,” I said, “tomorrow might be too late. Caleb has been gone a day already.”

“I don't think we need to worry,” Captain Briscoe said after a few moments of thought. “At this point, Riggins doesn't know we're checking into his background. Say this does turn out to be something. Nothing will go wrong as long as Charlie Riggins thinks he is safe.”

He directed his frown at me. “Which means you can now leave this in police hands.”

He cleared his throat. “Right, Matt?”

“Um, yes, sir,” I said. “Absolutely right.”

As if I'd ever do anything crazy like my mom would.

In the darkness, a
Tyrannosaurus rex
roared as it charged toward me. I hardly noticed. I'd sat there for half of the movie that night, and I couldn't even remember eating my popcorn.

Who were Charlie, Louise and Caleb Riggins? Why had they moved to Lake Havasu City? Were they running from something? Where had they gone?

The
T. rex
pushed a van off a cliff. Steve, slurped on his cola as he leaned forward, totally focused on the movie.

But I couldn't get Caleb's note out of my mind. Over and over, questions kept repeating themselves. Where were Caleb and his parents? Why had they disappeared? I realized that without Caleb, our team might not make it to the nationally televised finals—

“Hey!” I said out loud. People in front of me turned around to glare.

“Sorry,” I whispered to them. I didn't explain that I had just been hit by a lightning bolt of a thought.

The nationally televised finals. Caleb was our star scorer. If we went to the tournament, Caleb would be seen on televisions all across the country. If Charlie Riggins and his wife and son were in hiding under a new identity, of course Charlie would do everything possible to keep Caleb off television.

I pulled together the threads that were dangling in my mind. Caleb had only been three years old when the Riggins family
moved to Lake Havasu City. Nobody remembered much about anything before they were three. Caleb wouldn't know anything about the identity change.

I remembered that Dad had told me about Caleb writing a story in first grade about a twin brother. What if it were true? That would explain why Charlie Riggins had gotten so mad.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

And what else had Dad said? Something about a golden bridge. Could that be a real place?

A golden bridge! Maybe there was a way to find out who Caleb had been.

“Steve,” I whispered, “I'll be right back.”

He didn't even hear me. He was watching the dinosaurs search for more food. He didn't know about the newspaper article and the car accident. Mom had asked me to keep that information to myself.

I ran up the aisle. I got to a pay phone. I called Leontine at home. I told her what I was thinking and asked her to do me a favor by searching for more stuff on the Internet.
She told me she'd have it ready by the time I got home after the movie. I thanked her and hung up.

Maybe popcorn is brain food. Because as I walked back into the darkness of the movie and saw the dinosaurs trying to chomp more people, I had another thought.

The dogs. Who was feeding the dogs?

Caleb's note had said they were leaving for a while. Long enough so that Caleb would miss the entire tournament?

Who was feeding the dogs while they were gone?

A neighbor? It would have to be a brave neighbor because those dogs were running loose. If it wasn't a neighbor, maybe it was... As I sat down in my theater seat, I groaned at how obvious it was.

They had taken the pontoon boat from the driveway. If Charlie Riggins wanted to keep Caleb out of town, spending the week on Lake Havasu made sense. It would look like a family spring-break vacation and keep Caleb from sneaking to any more soccer games.

Which meant Charlie Riggins could also stay close enough to home to feed the dogs.

I grabbed Steve's elbow.

“Come on,” I whispered. “We're getting out of here.”

“What! The movie's not finished.”

“Trust me,” I insisted. I had a copy of the article in my back pocket. “I'll explain while you're driving us back to Caleb's house.”

Two hours later, we were still sitting in Steve's mom's minivan. We had parked in the shadows between streetlights, a half block down from the Riggins house. The front of the van faced McCulloch Boulevard, giving us plenty of time to notice if any cars or trucks turned onto the street where we waited. Steve had slouched down as far as possible behind the steering wheel. I was slouched on the passenger side.

“I thought being a detective was more cool than this,” he said. “You know. Beautiful women who need help. Chasing bad guys. Stuff like that.”

“I agree,” I said. “Detectives should drive Corvettes or Porsches, not family vans with jelly beans on the floor and old, dog-hair-covered blankets in the backseat.”

Steve pointed at the newspaper article on the console between our seats. “If it wasn't for that, I'd think we were crazy.”

“We'll give it a half hour more, okay?” I turned my wrist so my watch could catch some light. “I need to get home by then anyway.”

Steve snorted. “And detectives definitely don't have to get home on time.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said.

“What about when we leave?” Steve asked. “I still think we should get some police here.”

“No,” I said. “They'll probably think that this is a dumb idea.”

“My point exactly. And we missed the best half of the mov—”

He snapped his mouth shut and slumped lower behind the steering wheel.

Headlights.

I ducked lower too.

The light swept over us as the car turned into the street. The car passed us. I saw it wasn't a car. But a Blazer.

Charlie Riggins.

We watched by turning and peeking over the seats through the back window.

When the Blazer pulled into the driveway, the dogs came running around the corner from the back. Mr. Riggins climbed out and squatted next to the animals. He rubbed their heads and their bellies.

Of all the stuff I knew already, that one little action made me the maddest. How could he be such a jerk to his family but still love his dogs so much?

A few moments later, Charlie Riggins walked around to the back of the house. Both dogs followed.

“Too bad we're parked so far away,” Steve whispered. “Your idea about the tape was a good one.”

On our way here from the movie theater, we had decided we would follow him as far as we could. Then we would turn around and tell the police where he had gone. I had suggested trying to put some duct tape over one of his taillights. With only one tail-light showing, it would be much easier to follow him from a distance.

“I know,” I said. “But if he catches us...”

After talking it over, we had decided there was so little traffic at this time of night we could stay a long way back and follow without losing him.

Which—five minutes later—we did.

Charlie Riggins backed out of his driveway. The headlights of his Blazer shone through the inside of the minivan. Steve and I were ready, though, and had ducked beneath the dash. To Charlie Riggins, the minivan would seem empty.

He sped by. His taillights glowed red as he braked for the corner. He turned right. Down McCulloch Boulevard toward the lake.

“Like you,” I said.

“What?” Steve asked. “You like me?”

“No, the taillights. They should be easy to follow. Just remember they're like you.”

“Like me?”

I grinned. “Yeah. Tall and skinny.”

“Ha, ha,” Steve said. “You want to follow him on your mountain bike?”

Steve waited a few seconds after Riggins had turned before starting the minivan. He put it into gear and we pulled ahead slowly. When we reached the corner, those tall and skinny taillights showed the Blazer had at least a two-block lead. Close enough that we could stay with him. Far enough away that he probably wouldn't notice us.

We got even luckier. At the stop sign, we had to wait for a car on our left to pass us. That put a car between us and Riggins all the way down McCulloch Boulevard.

“What do you think?” Steve asked as we neared the business section of town at the bottom of the long hill. “Is he going to the marina?”

“I doubt it,” I answered. “That would mean the pontoon boat is docked there. It would be too easy for Caleb to escape.”

Sure enough, Riggins turned left to reach Highway 95 instead of continuing straight to go over the London Bridge to the marina.

“Good,” I said.

“Good? What if he's leaving town? Maybe I should use my cell phone,” Steve said. “Call the police.”

“That's assuming you've actually charged it for once,” I said. That was just jealousy speaking. My parents didn't want me to have one. “But even if you did, what could the police do? Let's wait and see before we call.”

“He could get away.”

“The lake only goes as far as the dam at Parker. And that's barely twenty miles away. I doubt he put his pontoon boat in the river on the other side of the dam. That means he's got to pull off between here and the dam. At the most, we'll only have to follow him twenty minutes before turning around to get the police.”

We kept following. Riggins stuck to the speed limit through town. And he stuck to the raised speed limit outside of town.
He probably didn't want to risk calling attention to himself by getting a speeding ticket.

That made it easy for us to follow him. We gave him a half-mile lead. Even though the desert highway was empty of all vehicles except for his and ours, I wasn't worried. To him, we were just another pair of headlights.

The moon had risen over the mountain ridges, almost bright enough for us to drive without headlights. It gave a beautiful blue-gray glow to the barren desert, so strong that crosslike shadows fell from every cactus we passed.

The highway south of Lake Havasu City is mainly straight and flat for about ten miles, with the lake on the right just out of sight. As the highway nears the end of the valley, it begins to dip and twist and turn where the low mountains on each side grow closer together.

All the way along the straight sections of highway, those tall and skinny taillights drew us like red beacons. We lost the
lights briefly as the highway cut into the first dipping turn. Thirty seconds later, they reappeared as we made the turn, then disappeared again as Riggins topped the small hill ahead of us and dropped down the other side.

No other cars had joined us. We were still the only vehicles on this stretch of highway. It was dark and lonely, with the ribbon of pavement gleaming pale beneath the moonlight.

“Man,” Steve said. “You know what this area is like. There are a couple of cutoff roads that lead from the highway to the lake. If he turns off while he's out of sight, we'll pass him without even knowing it.”