Piper seems to get off with no consequences, but this is not actually so. For a while after the laundry scheme, Piper goes to live off island with her grandmother on Nob Hill. One of the other kids says that this is her punishment for the laundry scheme, but Piper downplays it and says that she is just "sick to death" of the other kids. Moose is glad Piper is gone. "It makes everything easier," he explains.

When Moose goes outside his family's apartment on the morning of January 9, he finds Piper stuffing extra clothes in the Flanagans' laundry bags. It is the practice on Alcatraz for the residents to put their laundry out in front of their doors, to be picked up by a courier and cleaned by the inmates of the prison. The extra clothes Piper is stuffing in the bags are shirts given to her by her classmates, who have each paid a nickel to have an item of clothing cleaned by "the famous convicts" on Alcatraz.

Piper has collected quite a lot of clothing from her fellow students, and she sneaks the items into the laundry bags of people she knows on the island, a little in each so that she will not arouse suspicion. It is assumed that she is using her own family's bags, as well as those of Annie and Jimmy, who are helping her. She had hoped that Moose would have agreed to put some in his family's bags as well, but since he has refused to get involved, she has to do it herself, in order to have enough space to get all the clothing done. Her plan is to sneak the extra items back out of their respective laundry bags when they are returned, cleaned. She will then distribute the things back to her classmates, in fulfillment of the deal.

Piper orchestrates a scheme that involves several other children on the island. She tells kids that for a fee, they can have their laundry done by Al Capone himself, with the laundry tags to supposedly prove it.

The warden, who is Piper's father, finds out about the shenanigans when he receives a letter of complaint from a local woman of high social standing. After realizing her own son had come home without his shirt, she began investigating the situation; her son told her that "the notorious gangster inmate Al Capone" was going to launder his shirt and that Piper and her friends had orchestrated the service.

Mrs. Del Peabody threatens to contact the local paper and the mayor's office if the warden doesn't resolve the situation immediately. Piper shifts the blame and buddies up to her father, who scolds the others for not taking personal responsibility for the situation.

Afterward, Piper disappears for a while; she is temporarily sent to stay with her grandmother on Nob Hill. Although Piper indicates that her absence reflects the fact that she's "sick to death" of their group, Annie asserts that the real reason Piper disappears is because she got into trouble for her role in the laundry scheme. In late March, the weather on the island improves, and Piper returns to Alcatraz.