Free The Case of the Wilted Broccoli by William Hertling Page B

went farther away, towards the far end of the long row of doors. He got really small on the screen.  
    "Maybe I should move the drone closer," Elon said.
    "No, we don't want to risk the noise now."
    The man - at least they thought he was from his short hair, clothes, and the way he walked - stopped at the last door. His arms waved back and forth, and he turned and pointed toward the refrigerator.  
    "That does look like Mr. Hutchins," Linden said. "Look at the way his arms are waving around."
    "He talks with his hands, Mom would say," Willow remembered, from the last time they met him.  
    Mr. Hutchins then walked toward the left side of the screen where the offices were and disappeared off-camera. Soon after, two figures with handtrucks unloaded boxes from the far truck and brought them closer to the camera, toward the middle of the screen.
    Suddenly the first man reappeared and opened the big refrigerator door. The two workers brought the boxes into the refrigerator, stacking them in a pile right next to the door, and then went back toward their truck.
    "OMG," Elon said. "This is boring. Are we really going to watch people move stuff all morning?"
    "We have no choice," Willow said.
    For fifteen more minutes, they watched workers move food. Some boxes went into the refrigerator, adding to the pile next to the door. Others got stacked in various places around the warehouse. Mr. Hutchins came out a last time to talk to the workers, handing them something, and they gave him a tan folder and went back to their truck.  
    Willow heard the engine start. "See if you can get their license plate, and if it says anything on their door, like the name of the company."
    Linden nodded, then ran towards the driveway, keeping low. He noticed a few cars pulling into the Bannon Foods lot, then he heard the rumble of the truck leaving. The old blue truck came slowly up the driveway, its engine laboring as it climbed the incline to street level. It was impossible to read the faded letters on the side of the truck in the light coming off the street lamp. But he risked using the flashlight again for a brief moment to get the license plate, then scurried back to the others.
    "Got the license plate, but I couldn't make out the company name. It was from California. The truck was blue. And now some other employees are showing up to work. What's happening inside?"
    "Nothing," Willow said. "Mr. Hutchins went into the back."
    A few minutes later, the new employees entered the picture. They spoke with Mr. Hutchins, closer to the camera on the drone, and this time they could make out for sure that it was him.
    "Does this mean Mr. Hutchins is the one who is responsible?" Elon asked.
    "We didn't see him do anything wrong," Linden said. "He was just here at work, early, receiving a delivery."
    "Yes, but look at that!" Willow said. She pointed to a pile of black plastic crates on-screen. "I've been watching, and that's one of the things unloaded from the blue truck. If it gets loaded onto the truck for our school, we'll know exactly where it came from."
    Another fifteen minutes passed, and finally they saw a worker load the boxes into the Mt. Hood Elementary truck. By this time, some of the other yellow Bannon Foods trucks had already departed. From where they sat, they could see new trucks in a variety of colors arriving and then idling in the long driveway, waiting to unload new deliveries, the big refrigeration units above their cabs rumbling to keep the contents cold.
    "The blue truck wasn't a Bannon Foods truck," Linden mused.
    "Right. We know that. It was delivering food," Willow said.
    "It also didn't have one of those things above the cab."
    "They call it a reefer, short for refrigerator," Willow said. "Mrs. Dozen talked about them in class."
    "But we saw them put the food from the blue truck into the refrigerator in the warehouse. So it was food that was supposed to be refrigerated!" Linden said.
    "Oh!" Willow rubbed her eyes. "That is