Karen's Spy Mystery

by Ann M. Martin

  We ran all the way to my house and up the stairs to my room. It took us awhile to find my tape player. I finally saw it in the back of my messy closet.

  Hannie put in the tape and pressed “play.” I turned up the volume. At first we could not hear anything.

  “Karen, are you sure you turned on Nancy’s recorder?” Hannie asked.

  “Of course I did. Bill did not come home right away.”

  At last we heard the sound of a computer starting up, then lots of typing. The next sound on the tape was a doorbell.

  “Soon we will hear people talking,” I told Hannie.

  I was right. The next thing on the tape was a woman’s voice. “How much did you get?”

  “Over five thousand this time,” Bill’s voice said on the tape. I looked at Hannie, who stared back at me.

  “Great,” we heard the woman say. “We have more than twenty thousand dollars now. When will anyone at the bank notice?”

  “I think we still have a week or so,” Bill replied. “The bank sends out its statements at the end of the month. Then people will see that they have less money. But I tried to take from a lot of accounts, just a little from each one. That makes it less noticeable.”

  “You thought of everything,” said the woman. “By the time anyone does find out, we’ll be gone.”

  “I wasted a lot of time looking for that password. I spent days hunting around here for a clue. I did not think I would ever find it.”

  “Thank goodness for that nosy little kid.”

  I could hear Bill chuckling on the tape. I could not wait to hear who the nosy kid was. How could anyone around here help Bill find the password? It was a secret.

  “She will never know how much she helped us,” we heard Bill say.

  “What was the password anyway?” the woman wanted to know.

  “Percy. The name of the Daweses’ old dog.” Bill’s voice on the tape was loud and clear.

  The tape stopped soon after Bill mentioned me. I could not believe it. I gave Bill the password.

  “Karen, we have to give this tape to the police,” Hannie cried.

  “I will play it for Mommy when she comes home for lunch,” I said. “The police will listen to her.”

  A Matter for the Police

  Hannie and I rushed downstairs when we heard Mommy come home. “Mommy, you have to listen to this tape,” I said. I waved it in front of her.

  Mommy looked at me blankly.

  Hannie and I were so excited, we both started talking at once. Mommy made us sit down and take turns speaking.

  I talked first. I told Mommy about taping Bill and his girlfriend. “Bill really is robbing the bank,” Hannie added. “The tape proves it.”

  Mommy was not happy I had taped Bill and his friend. “That is against the law, Karen,” Mommy said. But she agreed to listen to the tape.

  I explained that not much happened on the tape until the woman in black arrived. So I fast-forwarded the tape to her part.

  “How much did you get?” came the woman’s voice. As Bill and the woman kept talking, Mommy just shook her head. She looked kind of pale.

  When the tape was over, Mommy closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Karen, it was wrong of you to spy. But I see you were right about Bill. I recognize his voice. And I am sorry I doubted you. I will call the police now.”

  While Mommy was calling, I rewound the tape. (Mommy also called the craft center to tell them she was taking the afternoon off.)

  “A detective is coming to the house,” Mommy announced. Then she hugged us. “I am glad you found out about this, girls. But you could have been in danger. What if Bill had caught you in the house?”

  I did not want to think about that.

  Merry and Andrew came home while we were waiting for the detective. Hannie and I wasted no time telling them about Bill. “Bill is a robber,” Andrew said. He looked as if he were going to cry.

  Just then the doorbell rang.

  Detective Stanton had a deep voice. I was disappointed that he was wearing an ordinary suit instead of a uniform. But at least he was wearing a badge. He talked to Mommy for a long time.

  After awhile, Detective Stanton looked at Mommy. “Are you certain this isn’t some kind of joke, Mrs. Engle?”

  “I am sure,” Mommy said.

  “My partner and I will interview Mr. Barnett,” said Detective Stanton. “But first I will need to go downtown to look at some bank records. In the meantime, please keep a low profile over here.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means we must not interfere any more right now,” Mommy answered.

  Soon the detective left. And we had to wait a long time for him to come back.

  Two days later, Hannie and I were in my room. We saw Bill arrive and go into Nancy’s house. Then we saw Detective Stanton and another detective get out of a parked car down the street. (It did not look like a police car, but I guess it was.) They rang Nancy’s doorbell. When Bill answered, they talked to him. Then they all went inside.

  I looked at Hannie. She looked at me. We were thinking the same thing. Then we did something we probably should not have done. We tiptoed downstairs and slipped out the back door. We sneaked over to Nancy’s house and crouched below her living room window. (It was open, except for a screen.)

  “And how do you explain this?” I heard Detective Stanton ask. Bill did not answer right away.

  Then we heard him say, “Well—we were just kidding around. We … Why have you come after me? Has somebody told you I did something wrong?”

  I knew that the police would not be able to use my tape to arrest Bill. But they must have found out a lot more about Bill’s robbery at the bank!

  “We’ll ask the questions here,” the other man said. “We asked the bank to check their records today. They found a number of unauthorized withdrawals. Now we have a warrant to search this house.”

  “We plan to search your girlfriend’s house too,” Detective Stanton said.

  “No, no, wait,” said Bill. There was a pause. “Okay, look, it’s all my fault. Can we keep her out of it if I pay the money back, and explain what happened?”

  “Tell us about it. If your story matches the evidence we have, we’ll do whatever we can for your friend,” said Detective Stanton.

  Bill started talking. He and Juliette (his girlfriend) wanted to get married, but her parents would not let them. They needed money to go away by themselves. Bill said it was his idea to break into the bank’s computer system and steal from people’s accounts. He was talking about how sorry he was when Hannie and I tiptoed away from the window and went back to my house. Luckily nobody had missed us. Bill did sound sorry. But I felt sorrier for all those people Bill stole from. The only good thing about Bill was that at least he wanted to protect his girlfriend, instead of blame her.

  I watched from my window as the detectives led Bill out the front door in handcuffs. I never had the chance to ask him if he had stolen money from my account.

  Calling Seattle

  Hannie and I watched Bill and Detective Stanton drive away. Then we saw the other detective coming toward our house. The doorbell rang. Soon Mommy called us downstairs.

  “This is Detective Martinez,” Mommy told us. “He says Bill confessed and is under arrest. They are going to pick up his girlfriend too.”

  “You did very well,” Detective Martinez said to me. “Maybe you should consider a career in criminal justice when you are older.”

  I could not think of what to say. I want to be an actress when I grow up. Could I also be a policewoman? Maybe I could play one on TV.

  Before he left, Detective Martinez shook my hand, then Hannie’s. We felt like Very Important People.

  Seth came home just as Detective Martinez was leaving. He looked surprised to see a police detective in our house. “Did we get robbed?” he asked.

  Detective Martinez laughed. “No,” he answered. “But Stoneybrook Savings Bank did. Thanks to Kare
n here, we caught the thief.”

  Seth raised his eyebrows. Then Detective Martinez and Mommy told him the whole story. “I told you Bill was suspicious,” I added, after Mommy finished talking.

  “You did,” Seth agreed. “I am sorry we did not believe you.”

  “There is one more thing we have to do,” said Mommy, after Detective Martinez left.

  “Call Nancy’s parents,” I said.

  “Right.”

  Seth talked to Nancy’s parents first. Then Mommy spoke to them.

  “Can I talk to Nancy?” I whispered to Mommy while she was on the phone. Mommy nodded and kept talking to Nancy’s parents. Finally Mommy handed me the phone.

  “Is it Nancy?” I asked.

  Mommy shook her head. “Nancy’s parents want to talk to you first.”

  “Hello?” I said when I picked up the phone.

  “Hello, Karen. It sounds like you saved the bank from ruin,” Mr. Dawes said. “We cannot thank you enough.”

  “It was nothing,” I said modestly. Then I told Nancy’s parents I was sorry I gave Bill the password by accident.

  “There is no need to apologize,” said Mr. Dawes. “You did not know what he was up to.”

  I also pointed out that I had done a good job as a house-sitter, even though I was not the one they hired.

  “You did an excellent job, Karen,” said Mrs. Dawes.

  “You certainly did,” Mr. Dawes agreed.

  “I know it is not nice to spy on people,” I said. “But in this case, wasn’t it for the best?”

  The Daweses laughed. Then Nancy came to the phone. We talked for a long time. I did not tell her the whole story about Bill. Her parents could do that. But she already knew I had saved the bank. “I also took very good care of Pokey and your house,” I said.

  Then Nancy told me the best news of all. Her family was coming home early. In fact, they were leaving tomorrow. Hannie and I could not wait to see Nancy again.

  Congratulations to the Ace Detective

  “This is a colobus,” said Nancy. She held up a picture of a black-and-white monkey with a bushy white tail.

  “It is so cute,” squealed Hannie.

  “I like the baby gorillas,” I said, pointing to another picture.

  “They were the most fun animals in the zoo,” Nancy said.

  Hannie, Nancy, and I were in Nancy’s room looking at her pictures of Seattle. (Most of the pictures were of the animals in the Seattle Zoo.) “It was the best zoo I have ever been to,” Nancy told us.

  We were waiting for Mr. Dawes to come home. He was going to take us to his bank. He said he had a surprise planned for me. I could not wait to see what it was.

  “Girls, are you ready?” Mr. Dawes called from downstairs. We had not heard him come in the house.

  “Yes, we are coming!” Nancy shouted back. She stood up and smoothed out her pink skirt. She was all dressed up. So was I. Mommy had told me this trip to the bank would be special.

  On the way, I asked about the surprise. But still no one would tell me anything.

  I walked inside the bank with Mr. Dawes, Hannie, and Nancy. “She’s here!” someone shouted. Then a whole bunch of people crowded around us and started clapping.

  “That applause is for you, Karen,” Mr. Dawes told me.

  For me? I stared at all the people smiling at me, and bowed. (I love applause.)

  “Now for the real surprise,” said Mr. Dawes. He led me to a table that was decorated with pink crepe paper and pink roses. (Pink is my favorite color.) Then he picked up the envelope that lay on the table and handed it to me.

  “This is a check for you, Karen,” said Mr. Dawes. “It is our way of thanking you for saving the bank.”

  I wanted to deposit the check into my bank account right away. But first I had to make sure my account was safe.

  “Did Bill steal from my account?” I asked.

  “No, he did not,” answered Mr. Dawes. (That was a relief.)

  “Bill is returning the stolen money to the accounts he robbed,” Nancy added.

  “Good,” I said.

  Before we left, I deposited my check. This time I did not even have to wait in line for a teller. I felt like a Gigundoly Important Person.

  “Next stop, the craft center,” said Mr. Dawes.

  Hannie, Nancy, and I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Mommy sell her bracelets. We also helped sell necklaces and earrings. Everyone loved Mommy’s bracelets. She sold almost everything she had made.

  When the fair was over, Mommy gave Hannie, Nancy, and me little bracelets she had made just for us. I loved my silver bracelet with the turquoise in it. I put it on right away. Having two jobs was not bad at all.

  About the Author

  ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.

  Copyright © 1999 by Ann M. Martin

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, 1999

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-06278-6