And I thought, with a grin on my face, I was pretty darn good at this, particularly when it came to discovering clues. Besides the locket and the Pitaya and the Ford medallion, I’d been the one to nab François’ weekly planner. “A spectacular find,” Gus had said, and he’d been right. I practically skipped the whole way home, excited and thrilled and…well…just a little bit terrified about tomorrow morning.
“Lindy, will you pass the potatoes please?” Mom said. She’d just finished telling my dad how helpful I’d been all day. They both were beaming with pride about how I’d handled responsibility at the smoothie booth, so I figured now was a good time to warm up to them again about this band camp thing, just in case the heirlooms had already been sold, or our plans went haywire and we didn’t get the reward.
Like Gus said, always have a backup plan.
Before I even hit the main part of my spiel—about how everyone else was going to camp—Mom shook her head. “Nope. Sorry, honey. We can’t swing it. We got an estimate on the roof, and it was a lot higher than we’d anticipated. And then we’ve got the computer, Henry’s new glasses…” She started counting everything off on her fingers again, like she always does.
“And don’t forget my bike,” Henry said when she finished. “I need a new one, ’cause today when I was washing mine, the chain came off.”
Dad laughed and tousled Henry’s hair. “That’s something the old man can take care of, buddy. No need to get all worked up over a loose chain.”
I headed upstairs later after loading the dishwasher, more determined than ever to pull everything off tomorrow, to earn that reward.
“Mom,” Henry yelled from the living room, “can I have the scissors?”
“Scissors? For what?” She sounded skeptical.
“It’s a surprise,” he said, following her into the kitchen. “You can’t see until your birthday on Monday.”
Mom’s birthday?
On Monday?
Oh, no! I’d totally forgotten. So now I had another critical thing to take care of. I’d have to look for a present tomorrow, maybe from one of the craft vendors at the festival. It made me feel bad, though, because usually I spent way more than two days searching for my mom’s present. If I hadn’t been so worried about my own problems, such as solving this heirloom theft, I’d already have found her something really cool, like I did every year.
I was listening with half my brain as she lectured Henry about the safety rules regarding scissors—the same rules I’d heard a million times—when I thought about the locket. It might be a good idea to check on it.
I did an about-face on the stairs and headed outside. The garage door was wide open, just how I’d left it that morning when I’d been looking for a new bag of cat food. I flipped the light switch on and searched for the Grubb’s grime remover. It should have been on the second shelf above the washing machine, but I didn’t see it.
My heart started tap, tap, tapping into a nervous little dance. I climbed Mom’s footstool that was in front of the washer and shuffled through a bunch of bottles on the shelf: motor oil, windshield cleanser, lawn fertilizer. No grime remover.
Okay. Now I had a problem, a severe one. In fact, on a problem scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the very most severe problem in the world, I’d hit a 9.999.
I tried to stay calm. I even tried the deep-breathing trick my mom had taught me from her yoga class. Except it didn’t work, because I could barely suck a trickle of air down my windpipe.
I tried talking myself through the search, using logic:
It can’t possibly be gone. No one ever uses the Grubb’s grime remover. I must be looking in the wrong spot.
I put the locket there myself. Margaret and Gus saw me.
Stay cool. Don’t start screaming or crying or anything, because Mom and Dad will hear you.
Fifteen minutes later, after I’d scoured every inch of every shelf in the garage, after I’d memorized every single cleanser and what it cleaned and what to do in case you swallowed it, I got that same sinking bad-test feeling I’d had earlier over Gus.
I sat on the footstool, resting my chin in my hands. Maybe I was missing something. I needed to think more like the NSC crime busters. How would they—
Wait a minute…
The footstool.
Why had the footstool been in front of the washing machine? When I used it yesterday to hide the locket, I’d folded it and put it back by the door, where Mom always stores it.
Someone else, the same person who’d taken the locket, obviously, had used it. But who? If it were Mom or Dad, they would’ve put it back, and then they would’ve said something like “What the heck is this locket doing in our garage?”
I thought it over some more, and all of a sudden my knees started knocking together. I knew who’d been in our garage.
Suspect Number One: Leonard Snout.
Of course. It had to be him. Leonard had been walking by our house at the exact same time we’d hidden the locket. He’d probably stood outside and watched us. Aaagh! I wanted to scream. Why, why, why had I left the garage door open that day? How many times in my life had my dad yelled, “Keep that garage door closed, Lindy.” A thousand maybe?
So now the locket was gone. And it was all my fault.
I turned the light off and closed the garage door. Not that it mattered anymore; the damage had been done. Leonard had outsmarted us. I wondered if he’d already sold the locket. He might’ve done so without telling François, like a double-cross deal. If that was the case, we might not get the reward at all, even if we did find the other heirlooms. Which once again meant no band camp for me, no chance to play for the governor.
I walked through the living room and around a fort Henry had built. He’d draped a bunch of sheets over some chairs and hung a sign that said, PRIVAT KEEP OUT OR NOK FRIST. I didn’t even bother to yell at him about the box of photos and craft supplies I nearly tripped over.
I dragged myself upstairs, one pathetic step at a time. My flip-flops felt like they weighed ten pounds each.
I called Margaret, then Gus. Neither of them was home. I felt a quick pang in my chest. Were they back at the festival without me, maybe talking about tomorrow’s plans, or even checking out the midway, riding the Sizzler?
I went downstairs for a glass of juice but stopped outside the kitchen door when I heard the words “Evelyn Unger.”
“She called me earlier,” Mom said. “I’ve never heard her so upset. She says the police are insinuating she had something to do with the Grimstones’ robbery.”
“You’re kidding. I’ve known Evelyn since I was a kid. She wouldn’t swipe a loose grape from the Winn-Dixie. What’s up, anyway?” Dad said.
“From what I understand, Mrs. Grimstone is linking the robbery to this last Tuesday. That’s the day the Tarts were at her house for François’ soufflé demonstration. I tell you, I’m baffled. I guess I’ll be getting a visit from the police, too. It sounds like they’re going to question everyone who was there.”
Dad belted out a laugh. “Does that mean you’re a suspect? Should I search the garage for the loot?”
Chapter 25
Low-down and Blue
I gasped, nearly swallowing the gum I’d just stuck in my mouth. I inched closer to the door.
“Me, a suspect?” Mom sounded shocked. “Well, good Lord, I hadn’t even considered that. I understood the police were going to question everyone’s comings and goings at Mrs. Grimstone’s that day.” She dropped her voice. “You know, I didn’t want to admit this to Evelyn, but the only two people I remember leaving the kitchen were her and François. He had to run out to his car for something. Evelyn never did say where she went.”
The dishwasher changed cycles, nearly drowning Mom out. I flattened my ear against the door frame. “Evelyn’s worried to death. She doesn’t have the money for an attorney.”
“They can’t arrest her on circumstantial evidence,” Dad said. “Have they even searched her house yet?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is—”
The telephone rang. “I’ll get it,” I yelled. I ran upstairs, almost tripping over Pixie, and grabbed the hall phone.
When Margaret said, “It’s me,” I slid to the floor with relief. Finally, someone I could talk to.
“Oh no!” she screamed after I’d laid the news on her. I didn’t know which got to her most: the business about Granny Goose being questioned or the lost heirloom. Finally, after calming down a little, she took a deep breath and said, “Are you sure your parents didn’t find the locket?”
“If my parents found it, I wouldn’t be on the phone with you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Your mom would probably ground you for at least ten years.” “I haven’t told Gus yet,” I said. “And my mom won’t let me make calls after nine. I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to tell him.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Margaret said, sounding disappointed. “That’s why I called. I have to baby-sit Carrie and Sarah in the morning. My parents are going to Orlando for a couple of hours. They’re leaving at eight.”
“So you can’t go with us to Simply Paris?”
“No. I’m so mad. I’m going to be stuck watching two hours straight of Scooby-Doo.”
When I finally returned the phone to its cradle, an exasperated sigh hissed its way out of my mouth. Another big setback: no Margaret in the morning. That meant it would be only me and the NSC crime buster of the month.
I grabbed Pixie and a Harry Potter book and curled up on my bed. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on the problems at Hogwarts. All I could think about were my own problems, which felt way bigger than Harry Potter’s. It hardly seemed possible that yesterday morning I’d been looking forward to something as simple as riding the Sizzler. How, in such a short time, had everything gotten so mixed up? And if my hunch about Leonard was true, how would I be able to straighten it out?
I tossed the book aside and opened my flute case. Usually I could lose myself in the scales and exercises and forget everything but the music. But not this time. Nothing could take the worry off losing that locket, not even my second chocolate chip cookie.
Still feeling restless, I wandered downstairs. Mom and Dad had a Scrabble game laid out on the kitchen table. Dad had his nose in the dictionary, and Mom was all hunched over her row of letters. She kept rearranging them. I stood in the doorway, feeling a huge pang of guilt. I wanted to tell them the truth—dump the whole problem on them right then and there—but how could I do that without being grounded forever?
Until now I’d always been totally honest with my parents. Well, except for some of the small stuff, like my run-ins with Angel. Mom and Dad trusted me, too, which had made me kind of proud. Boy. Had I ever messed that up.
Okay, Lindy, I thought. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. The only way to fix things is to catch the thieves.
Chapter 26
A New Day Dawns
I was up by seven-thirty the next morning. I shared a piece of cinnamon toast with Henry, took a quick swig of an orange soda I’d hidden in the refrigerator, and then rushed out the door. I even got away before Mom had a chance to start in with her typical comments about my fashion choices, like “Don’t you have any shoes in your closet besides flip-flops, Lindy?” or “Isn’t that T-shirt a little worn out, dear?”
It was going to be another scorcher outside. I could tell by the early-morning sun; it glowed over the horizon like a giant pink grapefruit.
When I got downtown, the festival was in full swing: Tarts flipping pancakes, balloon clowns cranking out hats, and the Cornhuskers Bluegrass Band warming up for a group of cloggers.
I found Gus right away. He already had a tower of pancakes drenched in blueberry syrup. I got some, too, then sat across from him. First, I explained about Margaret’s baby-sitting job. Next, I told him the newest on Granny Goose’s problems. Last, I took a deep breath and said, “Leonard’s got the locket.”
Gus’s eyes bugged way open. “Wha-wha?” He tried to keep talking, but his mouth was too crammed with pancakes and syrup for me to understand him. He gulped and sputtered and held a pointed finger in the air, like he was trying to say, “Just a minute,” but I rushed through my story and suspicions about Leonard without taking a breath. The whole time I talked, Gus stared at me and chewed, and when I finished, he leaned back in his chair and wiped a glob of syrup off his chin.
I felt so stupid, like I should have a flaming red S branded on each cheek, because hadn’t Gus been the one to insist we hide the locket on the top shelf? If I’d only just listened to his NSCCB statistics, we wouldn’t be in this situation now.
Gus took a swig of his milk. “Don’t feel bad,” he said, “’cause, seriously, here’s the thing: There’s only a forty-five percent chance, tops, of a double cross in cases like this. Odds are way higher that Leonard still has the locket, or it’s hidden with the other heirlooms at Simply Paris. So don’t worry. We’re gonna find all of them.”
I didn’t have a clue where the NSCCBs dug up all their percentage facts, and none of what Gus just said made any sense to me, but for the first time since I’d discovered the locket was gone, I felt a tad bit—maybe 10 percent—better.
After finishing our pancakes, we headed straight to Simply Paris. The wooden cutout of François stood poised outside the café again this morning, only this time it held a different sign:
BLOOMSBERRIANS: MAKE HASTE.
DELIGHT YOUR BUDS OF TASTE!
JOIN US ON THE MORNING OF SATURDAY, THE 18TH DAY OF JUNE, FOR AN UNSURPASSED FRENCH OMELET BREAKFAST EXTRAVAGANZA, PRESENTED BY FRANÇOIS POUPPIÈRE OF PARIS. DOORS OPEN AT 9:00 A.M. PRECISELY. NO EARLY BIRDS, PLEASE.
(AN ADDED BONUS: PATRONS WILL BE GREETED AND SEATED BY OUR VERY OWN CUCUMBER PRINCESS.)
PATIO DINING IF WEATHER PERMITS. CUCUMBER FESTIVAL SPECIAL, ONLY $25 PER PERSON.
“Oh, crud,” I said, “I can’t believe Angel’s going to be here.”
Gus didn’t say anything, but his face paled a little. I silently vowed to ruin the second princess gown if Angel muttered even one word to us this morning.
I pressed my nose against the restaurant window. Servers zipped back and forth like honeybees, carrying long-stemmed glasses and silverware and vases filled with flowers. François stood in the middle of the dining room, his mustache tips curled into perfect Os. His apron was gone today, replaced by a sleek black coat with long tails, a black bow tie, and black pants. His chef’s hat seemed even puffier than yesterday’s, and it had a swirly black F stitched on the front of it.
I couldn’t read François’ lips, but it looked like he was firing off instructions. Every few seconds he would clap his hands and point to something, and all the servers would scramble in that direction. A stern-looking woman stood beside him, checking things off in a notebook as he spoke. She towered over him, and except for the chef’s hat, they were dressed exactly alike. Her raven black hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her neck.
When the woman pointed at a clock on the wall, which read eight twenty-eight, François clapped his hands again. He headed toward the far end of the restaurant, which opened into a large patio. Like robots, the workers all followed him outdoors.
“Man, this is working out perfect,” Gus said. “The meeting’s supposed to last until eight forty-five. We should be able to scope out the pantry and his office without any problems.”
I felt shaky and light-headed as we swept around the alley corner. We strode together toward the kitchen, and just like yesterday, accordion music blared from inside. I pressed my face against the screen door. Gus was right. Not a soul in sight; they all were at the meeting.
Gus looked over his shoulder and down the alley, both ways. “Let’s hit it,” he said. He pushed on the door.
It didn’t open.
Chapter 27
Countdown to Trouble
“It’s stuck,” Gus muttered. He rammed the frame with the palm of his hand. The door flew open, slam
ming into a tall coatrack. The rack crashed to the floor, and a bunch of white aprons and chef hats sailed across the kitchen.
We scurried around the floor like mice after crumbs, trying to get everything picked up and hung back on the rack. The wall clock read eight thirty-two. We’d already blown two minutes.
I checked out the tidy kitchen. Sauces simmered on a twelve-burner stove; chopped veggies sat in bowls, waiting for their omelets; and long loaves of French bread—at least twenty of them—were lined up on the counter. Next to me, a collection of knives glistened against the wall: long, skinny fish knives; short paring knives; bread knives; curved knives; hooked knives; serrated knives. It was the knife in the middle that raised the hairs on my neck: bigger than a hatchet, with a razor-sharp edge. I shivered. What did François use that for anyway?
We crossed the kitchen and ventured into a narrow hallway. Three closed doors led off it. The door to my right had a sign that said EMPLOYEES’ RESTROOM, so we could scratch that. The door to my left was unmarked. Gus turned the knob. “It’s the pantry,” he said. “I’ll take it. You take the office.”
He pointed down the hall to a door with frosted glass. I approached it cautiously. A wooden plaque on the wall said, CHEF’S OFFICE. KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING!
“Wait,” I whispered. “What if someone comes back here? Let’s go over our escape plan.”
“Okay, if one of us hears or sees something, we’ll cough three times to let the other know. Then, when the coast is clear, we’ll take off back through the kitchen. Got it?”
I nodded, but my heart hammered hard. I still hadn’t forgotten François’ meltdown from yesterday.
Gus stepped into the pantry, then peeked back out at me. “This might take awhile. There’s a bunch of stuff stored in here,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the alley at eight forty-five.”
A Recipe for Robbery Page 9