Casey Templeton Mysteries 2-Book Bundle. Gwen Molnar
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McKay sighed. “That’s what Daisy keeps telling me, but I don’t know. I really thought coming to Canada would be the most wonderful thing for my children. I thought they would grow up in a land free of hate. I can’t believe how wrong I was. Gypsies have a hard time of it everywhere in Europe. Look what’s happened in the Czech Republic — people building a fence between themselves and Gypsy neighbours. You come to expect things like that in the Old Country. But here? Why here?”
Casey didn’t know what to say, but he felt he had to answer, anyway. “Well, Mrs. McKay, there are probably only a few of these haters around at most.”
Mrs. McKay took the cup of tea from her sister-in-law and shook her head. “I wish I could believe that, Casey, but every time I go downtown in Richford I get a lot of mean comments said to me. I swear there’s a lot of hate in those voices.”
“What’s in those voices,” Casey said with wisdom beyond his fourteen years, “is envy. Pure green-eyed envy!”
Mrs. McKay pushed another doughnut onto Casey’s plate. “What a nice thing for you to say.”
“Thanks, but I’ve had too much already,” Casey said. “And, Mrs. McKay, I’m sure you’ll soon feel better about living here.” He stood to go, then turned to Laszlo. “I’ve got a lot of my old books around, Laszlo. You can borrow any of them for as long as you like.”
“Can I get some now?” Laszlo asked.
“Sure, come on.” Casey opened the back door and glanced out. “On second thought, Laszlo, come tomorrow instead, right after school.” It was snowing once more. He was going to have to push the shovel around yet again.
Back outside in the falling snow, Casey let his mind dwell on the situation at his new school as he shovelled. Now that the guys have asked me to join the Coyote Club at school, and Marcie Finegood has smiled at me three times, I’m really in. If it’ll just stop snowing so I can take advantage of the situation, I’ll be set.
When Casey finally finished shovelling and returned home, there was nobody else there. He set the table, scooped six ginger cookies out of the cookie jar, put three back as he remembered the two doughnuts he had eaten at the Olbergs’, poured himself a glass of milk, and headed for his room. At his desk he took out a notebook and turned to a page where numbered questions and answers were set up in point form:
Question 1: Was Mr. Deverell part of what was going on in the attic of the Willson Place, or was he on the trail of whoever had set up the Hate Cell?
Answer 1: Mr. D. never said anything political in class. But a science teacher didn’t have the same opportunities to brainwash kids as a social studies teacher did. Mom’s friend, Hilda Deverell (Mr. D.’s recent ex — his first wife died years ago), said he was a very tolerant person but a very nosy one. She could see him spying, but not being part of a hate group.
Question 2: Who drove Mr. D.’s car back to his garage?
Answer 2: It had to be someone who: (a) knew where he lived and that he lived alone; (b) didn’t expect Mr. D. to be found so soon; and (c) counted on a search beginning only after Mr. D. failed to show up to teach the next day.
Casey figured Answer 2(a) could be anyone in Richford over the age of ten. Sitting back, he ate a cookie, then resumed his work. He wrote all he had learned from listening to conversations his dad had had with the RCMP in the Templetons’ living room during the past few nights. The Mounties, knowing of Casey’s father’s experience in Bosnia, much of it dealing with ethnic cleansing and racial hatred, had asked him to co-direct the investigative team. Standing on a basement chair, Casey had positioned himself under a wooden grille built into the living-room floor and listened to his father and the Mounties talk. Later he had written down what he had discovered. Now he reread his notes:
The computer, printer, scanner, and fax found in the Willson attic had been bought for cash in Markham, Ontario, a year before, along with a three-year service agreement signed by an Elsie Tavich.
The computer had been repaired at Apple Service in Fraserville six months ago and had been signed for by Elsie Tavich (though the signature differed from the one on the service agreement).
An Apple Service clerk remembered carrying the computer into the store from a new red Toyota pickup because the woman who drove the truck had a splint on her right hand and she had signed awkwardly with her left hand.
A police artist’s sketch of Elsie Tavich had been prepared with the help of the clerk. Staff in the Markham store confirmed it was the woman they had sold the machines to — she had been in the store often before she settled on the “package.”
All owners of new red Toyota pickups, some thirty in and around Fraserville, were questioned, but none were proven to have been near the Apple store on the date in question.
The hate posters had been printed in Idaho. Similar posters had been discovered in two Ontario cities, Toronto and Hamilton, and also in the South Okanagan in British Columbia. There was no way to trace how or when they had arrived in Richford.
Casey ate the last cookie, pushed his chair back, and put his feet on the desk. He thought about how the investigation was developing so far. His father and Hank, who knew more about computers than anyone in town and who had been hired by the police to assist in this particular case, had spent a lot of time in the Willson attic.
“You look like you’re doing some pretty deep thinking, bro’,” Hank said, breaking into Casey’s reverie.
Casey looked up. “I thought you weren’t coming home for supper.”
“I’m not. I’m just here to check something on my computer.”
Casey rubbed his chin. “Hank, I’ve been thinking …”
His brother grinned. “Tell me something new.”
“I know all about the posters and stuff in the Willson attic, but what else was up there? Can you tell me?”
“I guess it’d be okay. Come to my room.”
Casey got up and followed Hank to his bedroom. His brother took a seat at the computer, and Casey pulled up a chair next to him.
“Whoever was using that computer in the attic,” Hank said, “bookmarked a number of sites. I downloaded files from a bunch of white supremacist and Holocaust-denial groups, including the National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement of Illinois, the Heritage Front, Skin-Net, the European Christian Defence League, and on and on. I also found out that the area Internet provider of all these is a technology centre in Idaho.”
“What’s the worst thing you found up there besides what’s in the computer?”
“That’s easy to answer — The Turner Diaries. A well-worn, heavily underlined copy.”
“Hey,” Casey said, “that’s what those Oklahoma City bombing guys had.”
“Yeah, it details a successful world revolution by an all-white army and the systematic extermination of blacks, Jews, and other minorities.”
“Could that ever happen?”
“The diaries say it could — and should,” Hank said. “And look at these.” He handed Casey a sheaf of papers. “These are transcripts of radio broadcasts by the book’s author, Andrew Macdonald, who was really William Luther Pierce, head of the National Alliance. He died in 2002, but his teachings are still widely followed. Between the book and these transcripts you can find out how to commit every kind of destruction. These guys use very sophisticated hate sites to showcase their racist and neo-Nazi ideas. They disrupt chat rooms and send thousands of unsolicited emails full of their views. And here’s where they really do a lot of damage. They use Internet forums as a low-cost, convenient recruitment tool.”
Hank had found lots of emails addressed to “White Canada.” The server’s post office box was under the name R.U. Withus.
“The