Sophie tapped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I should’ve thought of that. This mystery has been so strange that I’ve been thrown off. Did a recipe get stolen or not? And why did Mr. P. walk like a young man?”
“Maybe the chocolate made him feel young again.” Jessica tucked her phone into her purse.
“Until then, I wondered why he wasn’t walking with a cane. In class, I thought he might fall over any minute, but he walked through the lobby”—they looked at each other—“like a younger man.”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“Now that we know where he’s staying, we don’t have to follow him, but we do have to hurry. Have your phone ready for a picture, Jessica.”
Sophie and Jessica calmly walked out the front door and up the street.
“It might seem strange to someone if we run now, but when we’re away from the building, follow me, Jessica. I know a shortcut to the resort that I doubt Mr. P. knows about. Let’s see if we can beat him there.”
They started running, made a turn, cut through the woods for about two minutes, and then down the street through the church’s side yard before turning right on a short street with a few houses, and heading up an alley. Jessica was surprised and relieved to see the back of the resort. They both stopped to catch their breath.
Sophie said, “I came with Mom once to deliver a piece of furniture for one of their special, fancy rooms. We used a big elevator near these doors that was for people working here. It wasn’t fancy at all.”
They stepped through industrial metal doors and entered a hallway that was very plain and clearly not decorated for guests. After going up a back elevator to the fifth floor, they hurried over to the hall with Mr. P.’s room and waited around the corner.
A few minutes after they arrived, he stepped off the elevator and walked down the hall toward his room. Jessica held her phone at the edge of the wall and snapped photos of him. When he paused at his door, they both stepped back quickly. After they heard the sound of the door closing, they peered around the corner again.
“I hope he doesn’t spend three hours reading a book or watching TV this afternoon,” Jessica said.
“Me too. The good news is that Mom gave us the afternoon off so we can spend as much time here as we need to.”
“Yes, but the first person who comes down the hall and turns this corner is going to wonder why two twelve-year-old girls are standing here. They may even call the resort’s front desk and ask if we’re supposed to be here.”
Just like the day before, a man came out Mr. P.’s door about five minutes later. He went to the elevator, got on, and left.
Jessica snapped photos on her phone as he walked away.
“So, his roommate has left. I wonder when he’ll leave.”
As they waited, Jessica scrolled through the photos on her phone. “Sophie, this is weird. These two men stand the same way and even walk the same way—exactly the same—in these photos. Maybe Mr. P’s son is in town with him.”
“Let me see.”
Jessica handed the phone to Sophie and leaned over her shoulder while she scrolled through the photos again. “Jessica, if the second man had on an old man’s wig and makeup, would he look like Mr. P?” Sophie slowly scrolled through the photos one more time.
“Wow! Do you believe that Mr. P. is actually this younger man in a costume?”
“I do. I think we found your spy. He might be involved with the jewels too. The question now is, what do we do about it?”
“The sheriff asked us not to come into the office, so I guess we print out some of the photos on your dad’s printer and leave them at the dead drop.”
“Maybe when she sees the photos, she will be able to arrest him.”
“I’ll miss Mr. P. though. He was fun to have around. It’s hard to believe he’s a bad guy.”
“I would guess that the most successful bad guys are the ones who can fool you. And Mr. P. sure fooled us.”
Code Word: Spy
JESSICA AND SOPHIE wrote their note to the sheriff, sharing their suspicions. Sophie wanted to say that Mr. P. was definitely a younger man, but Jessica told her that they weren’t sure, that the younger man could be his son or some other relative. In the end they decided to write:
Mr. Pleckenpoll from our chocolate class might be in disguise.
Mr. Sandoval had gone to a meeting, so they used his printer to print out four photos, two of the old man and two of the young one.
“To make writing the code faster, Sophie, we should make a chart with the alphabet, then put the code letters beside it.”
“That sounds good. It will be harder to make mistakes that way.”
Jessica wrote down the alphabet on a sheet of paper. Then she wrote each code letter next to it as Sophie called it out. Their coded message read:
NS QMFDLFOQPMM GSPN PVS DIPDPMBUF DMBTT NJHIU CF JO EJTHVJTF
“I think our message is clear, Sophie. It’s up to the sheriff to do something about it.”
“It’s frustrating that we can’t talk to her to find out what’s going on.”
“She doesn’t tell us everything anyway.”
“That’s true. We often figure it out on our own, don’t we?”
They wrapped the note and the photos they’d printed in a plastic zipper bag in case it rained before Sheriff Valeska picked it up. Sophie got out a roll of tape and slid that into her backpack along with the bag which she sandwiched in between the pages of a book—to hide it if this fell into other hands.
When they arrived at the bench in town and sat down, Jessica glanced around, then said in a low voice, “What’s your plan here, Sophie? Should I tie my shoes as a distraction while you stick it under there?”
Sophie unzipped the side pocket of her backpack, took out the tape, then reached into the main compartment and brought out the zipper bag.
As she was setting the backpack on the bench, a bee flew by her hand. She dropped the backpack, and it landed on its side, spilling half of what had been inside.
Jessica knelt in front of the bench to help Sophie gather everything. “Sophie, that was a great idea! No one will suspect what you’re doing here.”
Sophie said, “It would have been a great idea if I’d thought of it.”
Jessica laughed. “Accident?” She reached for a snack bar that had slid under the bench as Sophie taped the plastic bag underneath. Jessica found a piece of chalk, now broken in two, and kept that clenched in her hand as they sat back on the bench.
“The item is secured,” Sophie said.
Jessica had to fight a giggle. Sometimes Sophie got so into their mysteries that she played the part too well. Right now, Sophie was a spy. “I’m going to mark the bench now, if that works with your plan.”
“Perfect.”
Jessica reached out in what she hoped was a subtle way and slid the chalk across the bench. “Done. Now what?”
“Now, we go to Great Finds. Maybe Mom will let us go to the deli for lunch. Let’s hope the sheriff either walks or drives by and notices the chalk mark.”
Jessica said, “Sophie, she didn’t even want to do this. I just hope she stops to pick it up.”
The two of them walked to Great Finds. Once they were there, Mrs. Sandoval asked them to finish a project before eating. An hour later, they were on their way to the deli—with a stop at the dead drop first.
They raced back to Sophie’s favorite bench, Jessica barely keeping up with Sophie. She tugged on her cousin’s arm. “You’re going to attract a lot more attention running down the sidewalk.”
Sophie checked around them. “You’re right. It’s my first dead drop, and I’m excited to see if it’s been picked up.”
When they rounded the corner and could see the bench in the distance, Jessica thought there was a new chalk mark at the other end. She realized now that that was the one flaw in their plan. They hadn’t told the sheriff how to let them know if she’d left something for them.
As they got closer, the mark became more and more
noticeable, to them at least. She thought someone else would see it as a smudge. Sophie led the two of them past the bench and then back around in front of it before they sat down.
“Sophie, the chalk mark I made is gone.”
“Yes, and there’s a new chalk mark on the other end of the bench. I guess that’s how Sheriff Valeska let us know that she’s been here.”
Sophie reached down, pretending to retie her shoelaces, but Jessica saw her hand swish underneath the bench before sitting up with her shoelaces now secure. “I think it’s still there, Jessica. I’m going to set my backpack down, unzip it, and reach under here to peel off the bag. Then I’ll slip it into my backpack.”
As Sophie set her backpack on the ground, the owner of Buds & Blooms walked by. Instead of smiling at them, she continued on her way without a glance in their direction. Jessica wondered if she’d even noticed that they were there. She was focused on where she was going, and she didn’t look very happy about it.
Sophie noticed the same thing. “Jessica, I don’t think Kelsey has everything going well in her life right now. She was upset the day she came to the factory to talk to her brother. Maybe he’s done something else.”
With the florist out of sight, Sophie did as she’d planned. Then she leaned over to see inside her backpack. “Jessica! It’s different. What’s inside the bag is different.”
Jessica said, “Let’s get to lunch at the deli and read this. I doubt anyone will pay attention to us, and even if they did, we would only be taking something out of your backpack. And that way, if we find something that belongs with the mystery, we can tell Tony.”
Tony wasn’t at the deli when they arrived. They chose the table in the back corner, where no one else could see what they were doing, took out the note from the sheriff, and opened it. Using a pen from her purse, Jessica wrote the correct letter over each of the letters in the sheriff’s one-line message. Once she had it decoded, it said:
Meet me at the cemetery at four o’clock.
“No! I never wanted to step into that cemetery again!”
Sophie glanced around the room. “Shh, Jessica.”
Whispering, Jessica said, “Whoops. Sorry. Sheriff Valeska must know that we finish at your mom’s by three thirty. Four at the latest. I wonder why . . . ?”
“Me too. Why the cemetery? Why couldn’t she put her message in another note?”
“I guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours. We do need to make sure that we’re off duty by three thirty today, though, so that we have plenty of time to get there.”
The afternoon went well, or as well as an afternoon can go when you spent a lot of it going up and down a ladder and arranging things on shelves in a basement. But at three o’clock, Mrs. Sandoval said, “Sophie, you remember where Mr. Smith lives, don’t you?”
At Sophie’s nod, she continued, “I have a delivery for him. He bought one candlestick last year and said he wanted a pair, so he would buy the second one if I ever found one. He knows it’s coming and has already paid for it. If you and Jessica want to run it by this afternoon, I’ll let you off duty early.”
Sophie checked her watch and gave Jessica a thumbs-up. “Sounds good to us, Mom.”
Once they had gone out the door with the box in Sophie’s hands and Jessica carrying Sophie’s backpack, Sophie said, “Mr. Smith lives in the direction of the cemetery, so this is working out perfectly.”
Jessica said, “Almost too perfectly. Are you sure your mother isn’t involved in this?”
“Positive. She would have warned us to be careful, don’t you think?”
“You’re right. She’s always done that before. The good news is, we’re going to get to the cemetery a little bit early. Maybe we can choose a good hiding place and watch the sheriff arrive.”
They dropped the box off with Mr. Smith, who lived in a small brick cottage with yellow shutters and had a cute little Chihuahua puppy. Then they continued on their way.
“I’ve been thinking, Jessica: how do we know that message came from Sheriff Valeska?”
“She used the right code. It had to come from her.”
“What if someone found the first note, though, and they figured out the code? It’s a code that’s been around for a long time, so it might not be too hard for real criminals to figure out.”
“That seems unlikely to me. They didn’t have time.”
“Yes, but if that had happened, we would be stepping into a trap.”
The two of them walked along silently. When they were within a few minutes of the cemetery, Jessica said, “If you’re right, Sophie, and that’s a very big if, then we need to be careful. Being careful is a good idea anyway, especially when we’re in the middle of a mystery, which we seem to be standing knee-deep in right now. Do you have a plan?”
“I’ve been considering it as we’ve walked. I think we should hide behind one of the larger gravestones and wait for the sheriff.”
They arrived at the cemetery and walked under the arch that said Pine Hill Cemetery. This moment always gave Jessica chills. She knew no one was in there, at least no one who could talk to them, but it still gave her the creeps.
Sophie put out her hand to stop her. She surveyed the cemetery, slowly turning her head from left to right. Jessica decided to do the same thing, just to be sure.
“I think it’s clear.” Sophie pointed across the cemetery. “Let’s hide over there behind the largest grave marker we can find. The sheriff is probably going to enter the same way we did, so we’ll see her coming.” Sophie took a step, stopped, and added, “If she is the one who comes.”
They settled behind a gravestone in the shape of an angel. Not long after they got there, someone walked into the cemetery. As the person got closer, Jessica could tell it was a man. He came toward them. Then, when she started to wonder if they would be discovered, he turned and walked in the direction of the old mausoleum. When she saw the side of his face, she had to stifle a gasp with her hand. Jessica looked at Sophie, and her cousin had an expression on her face that she suspected mirrored her own. The younger man from Mr. P.’s room now stood by the side of the mausoleum.
He was far enough away that Jessica felt like she could whisper to Sophie. “He’s waiting for something or someone. Sheriff Valeska might be in trouble.”
“I agree,” Sophie whispered back. “Check your phone to see if we have service here. I’d like to be able to call someone if we need help.”
Jessica pulled it out of her purse. “No reception.”
“I guess that means we’re in a dead zone.”
“Ooh. Don’t say it that way.”
“I had to say it. It was too perfect for this place.”
Sheriff Valeska walked into the cemetery and did much as Sophie had done: she paused at the entrance and scanned the area before taking further steps. Sophie should be proud that they’d done the same thing her favorite law enforcement officer had done. Jessica glanced over at Mr. P. and saw that he was also watching the sheriff.
“Jessica, we have to warn her. She may be stepping into a trap.”
“What can we do?”
Sophie shouted, “Sheriff, watch out!”
The sheriff darted behind a grave marker and crouched. After a few seconds, she shouted back, “Sophie, what’s wrong?”
“It’s a trap, Sheriff. That man in the photos we gave you is waiting for you.”
The sheriff stood.
“What’s she doing?” Sophie asked.
“I have no idea.”
Movement from the side caught Jessica’s attention. Mr. P. was stepping out into the open. He walked toward the sheriff, but he didn’t look menacing, as Jessica had expected. When he shook the sheriff’s hand, she and Sophie stood.
“Girls, this man is the reason I asked you to come here. Please meet him.”
Sophie said, “Sheriff, we’ve been in class with him for close to a week. Haven’t we?”
She turned to Mr. P. who gave a single nod. “But I’m not who y
ou think I am.”
Sophie put her hands on her hips. “If you’ve been in disguise, why should we believe you? A disguise shows you’re hiding the truth.”
Sheriff Valeska said, “Because he’s an investigator who is in town for a reason.”
“The FBI?” Sophie asked
Mr. P. answered, “No, I’m what’s known as an insurance investigator. When someone has a large claim—that’s the amount of money my company would pay to replace something that was stolen—I’m called in.”
The pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place for Sophie. “Were gemstones stolen?”
“Yes. I wasn’t certain where they might be. I was working on a tip and a hunch when I came to Pine Hill, but your discovery told me I was definitely in the right place.”
“I asked you girls to meet us in a place with few people because we need for this to be in the strictest confidence. I’m going to meet with your parents, Sophie, so I can tell them what’s going on. I’ve kept you safe until now. And I intend to continue doing that. Do not investigate anymore.”
The new twist on the mystery had Jessica’s head in a spin. “So, Mr. Pleckenpoll—I suspect that that isn’t your real name—there are more gemstones, aren’t there?”
He smiled but didn’t answer.
Sophie asked, “You’re the one we thought was eavesdropping on us at Sweet Bites, aren’t you?”
Mr. P. shook his head. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t have any idea that you were anything but two kids in a chocolate-making class.”
Sophie and Jessica turned to each other. That meant that someone else in the chocolate factory might know that they were detectives.
The sheriff spoke. “Girls, stay away from the investigation. We don’t know who we’re dealing with, and both of you know what it’s like to be caught up in the middle of danger. Especially you, Sophie. And we also want to make sure you do not mess up Mr. Pleckenpoll’s investigation. Let him finish his job.”
“Okay, Sheriff.”
The sheriff asked that she and Jessica leave before them so no one would see them all together.
As they started to walk away, Sophie turned back and asked, “Are you the one who arrived in the helicopter?”
The Chocolate Spy Page 12