“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. Can I look inside your backpack?”

“Go right ahead,” Jessie said, and shoved it at him. Hamilton unzipped it and slowly removed books, notebooks, a water bottle, a couple of magazines, nothing that appeared to be stolen. Hamilton shrugged and stuffed all of it back into the backpack. “Let’s go take a look at your locker.”

“You can’t do that,” Jessie said.

“Oh really? Why not?”

“It’s a violation of my privacy.”

“Not so fast, Jessie,” Mr. Trussel said as he lifted a piece of paper. “This is a locker rental agreement you signed for the academic year. We don’t require our students to use a locker, but when they choose to do so, they must sign this agreement. This clearly states that you must submit to a search of your locker when asked to do so by the school or the police.”

“Let’s go,” said Detective Hamilton.

Back at the middle school, Detective Vorman and Mrs. Gladwell returned to her office, along with Jonah, who looked as though he was ready to cry. On her desk were the same two tablets she and Vorman had taken from Jonah’s locker earlier in the day.

Vorman said, “We have your brother in custody over at the high school, and he’s saying it was your idea to plant the three Linx Tablets in the locker of Theodore Boone. He’s saying you hacked into the school’s files, got the entry number, and placed the tablets there last Wednesday morning in an effort to frame Theo for the crime. True or false?”

“Jessie said that?”

“Oh yes, and plenty more. Right now he’s sitting in a small room at the high school, in handcuffs, telling the entire story. Pretty sad, if you ask me, to rat out your little brother like this, but that’s what happens when you do stupid things with an accomplice.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t care what you believe, son. You’re in more trouble than you can possibly imagine. You’re looking at breaking and entering, felony theft, stalking, conspiracy, vandalism. Your brother even says you slashed Theo’s bike tires and tossed the rock through his office window.”

“No! He did that!” Jonah blurted, then caught himself. He held his breath as he stared at the detective, who just smiled. In the heat of the battle, the kid had made a crucial admission. Vorman looked at Mrs. Gladwell. Both smiled. The mystery had been solved.

Back at the high school, the contents of Jessie’s locker were stacked neatly on the floor of the hallway. Detective Hamilton, wearing surgical gloves, gently removed the last items—two Linx 0-4 Tablets. “Gee, I wonder where these came from,” he said with a smile. “Jonah said we would probably find them here. Let me guess, Jessie, you have no idea how these shiny new things made their way into your locker, right?”

Jessie said nothing.

They stepped into an empty classroom and Mr. Trussel closed the door. “Sit there,” Hamilton barked at Jessie as he pointed to a desk. Jessie did as he was told. There was no fight left in him.

“What I want at this point,” Hamilton said as he hovered over Jessie, as if he might begin slapping him at any second, “is the rest of the stolen goods. Where are they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessie said feebly. His hands were clenched together on the desk and he stared at them.

Hamilton reached into a pocket and pulled out some papers. “You’re a real smart kid, aren’t you, Jessie? So tell me, what is a search warrant?”

Jessie shook his head.

“You don’t know? Maybe you’re not that bright after all.”

Jessie shook his head.

“A search warrant allows the police to go into your house and search every room, every drawer, cabinet, closet, box, bag, every pile of junk in the attic, and every piece of old furniture in the garage. It allows us to turn your house upside down looking for the rest of the stuff you and your little brother stole from Big Mac’s.” Hamilton dropped his search warrant on the desk and it landed on Jessie’s arms. He made no effort to read it.

“Is your mother at home, Jessie?” Hamilton asked.

“She’s asleep. She works the night shift at the hospital.”

“Well, let’s go wake her up.”

Chapter 24

Linda Finn was sound asleep in her bedroom on the ground floor of her home at about 5:00 p.m. Monday afternoon when the doorbell rang and jarred her awake. She never got enough sleep. She worked from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., four days a week and occasionally on weekends for extra money. Such a weird schedule disrupted normal sleep patterns and kept her tired. And often, when she should have been sleeping, she was wide awake worrying about her bruising divorce, her worthless husband and his hardnosed lawyer, and her two boys and the bad direction in which they seemed to be headed. Linda had plenty to worry about.

The doorbell would not stop ringing, so she pulled on an old bathrobe and walked to the front door in her bare feet. She opened the door. Staring at her was Detective Vorman, with Jonah, and behind them were two police officers in full uniform. Beyond them, at the curb, were two police cars, with lights and all the usual decorative painting and decals. There was an unmarked car in the driveway. She put her hand over her mouth and almost fainted.

Then she managed to open the storm door and said, “What is it?!”

Vorman flashed his badge and said, “Detective Scott Vorman, Strattenburg Police. May I come in?”

“What is it, Jonah?” she asked, horrified.

Jonah looked at his shoes.

“We need to talk,” Vorman said, opening the storm door wider. She backed away, clutching her bathrobe to make sure she was decent. Vorman followed Jonah inside and closed the door behind them. In the driveway, Detective Hamilton sat in his car with Jessie in the passenger’s seat. “Are we going in?” Jessie asked.

“Maybe,” Hamilton replied. The two uniformed officers loitered in the front yard, smoking cigarettes. Across the street, a few neighbors were on their porches, watching with curiosity.

Inside, Vorman found a seat in an old chair with holes in the fabric. Linda and Jonah sat on a sofa with battered cushions. “I’ll get to the point, Mrs. Finn. A computer store on Main Street was broken into last Tuesday night. The thieves took some laptops, cell phones, and tablets. About twenty thousand dollars worth of stuff. Our prime suspects are Jonah and Jessie.”

She jerked around and glared at Jonah, who was still fascinated by his shoes.

Vorman went on: “We’ve searched their lockers and backpacks, and so far we’ve recovered five of the tablets and one cell phone. We suspect the rest of the stuff might be hidden somewhere in this house, so we have a search warrant, signed by a judge, that allows us to look everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Linda gasped, immediately thinking of the stacks of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink, the piles of dirty laundry in the basement, the unmade beds, the undusted furniture and shelves, the filthy bathrooms, the litter in the hallway, the half-empty glasses and cups in the den, and all of this was only the downstairs. The upstairs, where the boys lived and she was afraid to go, looked worse than a landfill.

“That’s right,” Vorman said as he pulled out the search warrant and handed it to her. She just gawked at it and shook her head.

“Every room, every closet, every drawer,” Vorman said, cranking up the pressure. Vorman knew no woman would want the police or anyone else poking through their house.

“Is this true, Jonah?” she asked, her eyes suddenly wet. Jonah refused to speak.

“Yes, it’s true,” Vorman said. “Jessie has pretty much confessed to everything, but he will not tell us where the rest of the stolen goods are. So, we have no choice but to take the house apart and see if the stuff is here.”