Kristy and the Cat Burglar

  Moments later, Sergeant Winters and Officer Hopkins appeared on the porch steps. Golem invited them to sit down. He made sure that everyone was acquainted. Then he showed them the bullet casing and the Magic Marker. He was a little careless about handling them — I wondered if he might have ruined our chance for clear fingerprints.

  “Well, would you look at that,” said Sergeant Winters.

  “Nice work,” said Officer Hopkins. “Those are important pieces of evidence.” She put both of them into a plastic bag.

  “I found it hard to believe that kids so young could be such good detectives,” admitted Sergeant Winters. “But I guess Sergeant Johnson was right.”

  I was glowing. So were Claudia and Mary Anne. But when Sergeant Winters and Officer Hopkins followed Golem outside to look at the spot where I’d found the casing, Cary caught my eye.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” he said, looking skeptical.

  Was he jealous? I decided to ignore him. When Sergeant Winters and Officer Hopkins returned, they still looked impressed. For the moment, that was all I cared about.

  Sergeant Winters sat down next to me, and Officer Hopkins took a nearby chair. The others on the porch were still talking about the big clues we’d found, but Sergeant Winters seemed to have other things on his mind. He began to question me quietly, asking about Sergeant Johnson’s role the day of the burglary. When he asked me again when I’d first seen Sergeant Johnson, I told him that I’d remembered some new information. I explained that Sergeant Johnson had driven past us on the road just minutes before the alarm had gone off.

  Sergeant Winters listened, shooting occasional glances at Officer Hopkins, as if to say, “See what I meant?” Finally, after he’d grilled me for several minutes, he excused himself and asked Golem if he could use his phone to call the station. “You’ll have to show me where it is,” he said to Golem. “Sergeant Johnson might know his way around this house, but I don’t.” Golem led him into the house. “Chief will want to know about this,” I heard Sergeant Winters mumble to Officer Hopkins as he passed her.

  “Why would Sergeant Johnson know his way around?” I asked Officer Hopkins.

  “He had a search warrant for this place some time ago,” she answered. “A different case.” She waved a hand dismissively.

  When Sergeant Winters came back, he sat down beside me again. “Kristy, I want you to do me a big favor.”

  “Sure,” I said, bewildered. What could he have in mind?

  “Don’t talk about this case with Sergeant Johnson anymore.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why not?” Then I realized that Sergeant Winters must believe that Sergeant Johnson had done something wrong.

  He shook his head. “I can’t answer that. But this is important. Will you promise me?”

  I paused. “Is he a suspect?” I asked finally. I couldn’t understand how he could be, but why else would I be forbidden to talk to him? I thought fast, trying to put the pieces together. True, Sergeant Johnson had been in the area at the time of the crime. And I had to admit he had been acting odd lately. But still — Sergeant Johnson? I didn’t know anyone more trustworthy. Anyway, wasn’t this job the work of the Cat Burglar? Or was it the work of someone pretending to be the Cat Burglar. A copycat burglar? My head was spinning.

  Sergeant Winters wouldn’t answer. I thought privately that he was acting a little suspicious himself.

  “I think we’ve covered enough ground for today,” said Sergeant Winters finally. He must have seen that I wasn’t ready to promise not to talk to Sergeant Johnson. “How would you kids like a ride home?”

  “We have our bikes,” said Claudia.

  “You can leave them in the garage for now,” offered Golem.

  That was tempting. It meant we’d have an excuse to come back. I was about to accept when Cary spoke up.

  “We’d just as soon ride,” he said, shooting me a glance that said don’t argue.

  “Fine,” said Officer Hopkins. She and Sergeant Winters headed out the door.

  As we started to follow them, Golem pulled a white rectangle out of his pocket. “Let me give you my card,” he said. “This has all my addresses on it; here in Stoneybrook, as well as in New York and in France. Keep in touch, won’t you? If you can help me track down those diamonds you’ll be handsomely rewarded.”

  A reward! Claudia and I exchanged an excited glance.

  I took the card. “We’ll call if we figure anything out,” I promised. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a wrinkled, torn BSC flier I’d been carrying around. “Here’s where you can reach us,” I said, giving it to him.

  “Let’s go,” Cary hissed in my ear. He seemed nervous. He raced us through our good-byes to Golem, then led us down the drive to our bikes. Finally, when we were riding along the road, I asked him what was up.

  “You may not know much about guns,” he began, “but I do. And I took a good look at the ones in the holsters those police officers were wearing.”

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “That bullet casing — it came from the same type of automatic pistol.”

  Whoa. My brain clicked along quickly. If I could trust Cary’s words — a big “if” — this was important news. No doubt Sergeant Johnson carried the same type of gun as Officer Hopkins and Sergeant Winters. Was it possible? Could Sergeant Johnson be the thief?

  “How big a reward? Are we talking thousands?” Jessi was excited.

  “Even hundreds would be cool,” said Abby.

  “We’d do our best to solve this mystery even if there wasn’t a reward,” Stacey added. “But the money sure wouldn’t hurt. Now, how are we going to find out more about the Cat Burglar?”

  It was Friday, BSC meeting time. Only we weren’t paying much attention to BSC business. I’d decided that the mystery of the Cat Burglar deserved center stage. We were going to spend the entire meeting discussing it. Sure, we’d answer the phone when it rang, but that was it. Meanwhile, it was time to go over everything we knew and start thinking in terms of suspects, clues, and leads.

  In fact, Mary Anne had even brought out the mystery notebook. It contains every scrap of information about recent mysteries we’ve investigated. (It’s a much neater way to keep track of things than our original system, which consisted mostly of saving things like pizza napkins and math worksheets on which we’d jotted down clues.) Mary Anne had already started a section for this mystery.

  Claudia, Mary Anne, and I had filled the others in on my meeting with Sergeant Johnson, our discovery of two important pieces of evidence, and our introduction to Reinhart Golem. Most important, they knew about the reward.

  Mallory spoke up. “I have some information,” she said. “I was at the library last night and I couldn’t resist spending some time researching the Cat Burglar.”

  “Excellent!” I said. “Tell us everything you learned.”

  “Okay, but it isn’t a lot. He’s a pretty mysterious character.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?” Jessi interrupted.

  Mal smiled. “Good point,” she said. “I suppose it’s possible that this Cat is female. I never really thought about it. Okay, so maybe it’s a woman. But I’m still going to say ‘he,’ since that’s how all the articles referred to the person.”

  “So, how long has he been around?” I asked.

  “At least a couple of years,” answered Mal. “He’s worked all over the East Coast. He doesn’t pull a lot of jobs, but the ones he does pull are big. Then he tends to lie low for a while. I guess if you steal two million dollars worth of gold from someone’s private safe, you have enough to live on for a while. Even if your tastes run to heavy cream and the finest, freshest fish. It sounds as if this Cat enjoys a luxurious life.” She giggled.

  “Two million dollars worth of gold?” repeated Stacey. “That is a huge heist.”

  “I know,” said Mal. “That was from a wealthy New Yorker, somebody who lived on Central Park West. But it wasn’t the Cat Burglar’s biggest job. He’s s
tolen jewels, antiques, all kinds of things. Once he even stole a very rare blue Tiffany lamp from an Italian prince. There’s no way he could sell a thing like that; the police would be all over him in a second. So he must have stolen it for himself. He definitely seems to enjoy nice things.”

  “Well, Golem has nice things,” I said. “I can see why he’d be a target for the Cat Burglar.”

  “Or for a copycat,” Mary Anne reminded me. “Somebody else could have left that stencil of a cat. Somebody who was just pretending to be the Cat Burglar.”

  “True,” I said. “So, if that’s the case, who would our suspects be?”

  “I really hate to say this,” said Claudia, “but isn’t Sergeant Johnson kind of a suspect?”

  We all fell silent. Everyone in the BSC looks up to Sergeant Johnson. It was hard even to think of considering him as a criminal. But the idea had already crossed my mind. We had to admit that there was something suspicious about the way he’d been acting. And Sergeant Winters and Officer Hopkins seemed to agree.

  “It’s possible,” I admitted reluctantly. “He could have broken in and stolen the diamonds. Maybe he set off the alarm on purpose just to make it look like a real robbery. He seems to know all about that alarm system. And maybe he could have made it out of there just in time to act as if he was responding to the alarm.”

  We were all silent again. Nobody really wanted to believe it, least of all me.

  “What about that security guard?” asked Stacey finally. “Has anybody checked out his story? He said he had an emergency phone call, but who knows if that was true? He could have stolen the diamonds and then rigged the alarm to go off when he was away.”

  “And Cary — I thought he was acting a little suspicious,” put in Claudia. “Doesn’t it seem as if he knows more than he’s letting on? And how does he know so much about guns and bullets and all that, anyway?”

  “I just thought of someone else!” I said. “This guy Ben Birch. Golem said he wouldn’t have done it, but who knows? Since he and Golem worked together, he might have had inside information about the diamonds, and if he was mad enough at Golem after they broke up their business relationship, he might have decided to steal them.”

  Mary Anne was taking notes as we talked. “This is quite a list of suspects,” she said. “Obviously, we’re going to have to do a lot more investigating.”

  Just then, the phone rang. I put down the Milky Way bar I’d been about to bite into (Claudia had provided great munchies, as always) and answered the call. “Baby-sitters Club,” I said. I heard a chuckle on the other end.

  “I’m not actually looking for a sitter,” said Golem. I knew it was him the second I heard his voice. “This is Reinhart Golem, and what I’m looking for is a detective.”

  I didn’t skip a beat. “Well, you’ve called the right place,” I said. “How can I help you?” I wished with all my might that Claudia’s phone had a speaker option, so everyone else could hear this call. I mouthed his name so that they would know who I was talking to.

  “You can help by telling me more about this Sergeant Johnson I’ve been hearing about,” he said. “Tell me, do you know the man?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Sure. We’ve worked with him before.”

  “And you find him trustworthy?”

  I paused. What was I supposed to say? It didn’t feel right to admit my suspicions to a stranger. I didn’t even want to admit them to myself. “I always have in the past,” I said carefully. “He’s a good police officer and a friend.”

  “A friend? Hmm. Well, you may be interested to know that it looks as if your ‘friend’s’ fingerprints may have been all over that red Magic Marker you discovered at my house yesterday.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for that if it’s true,” I said.

  “Certainly,” said Golem. “I’m sure everything will be explained soon enough. And I have the sense that you and your friends will be the ones to put it all together. You strike me as very clever young people.”

  I couldn’t help being flattered. Reinhart Golem was a strange guy, but I liked the way he gave us credit for being more than just kids. “Well, thanks,” I said, feeling awkward.

  “No, thank you. Do you still have my card, in case you think of anything you’d like to tell me?”

  I checked my back pocket. Fortunately, I was wearing the same jeans I’d worn the day before. The card was right where I’d stuck it. “I do,” I said.

  “Very well, then,” said Golem. “Don’t forget about the reward. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.” He hung up.

  Slowly, I hung up too. Then I faced my friends. “You won’t believe what he just told me,” I said. “He says Sergeant Johnson’s fingerprints may be on that Magic Marker.”

  Mary Anne gasped.

  I shook my head, looking down at the card in my hand. That’s when I noticed something funny. “Hey, Mal,” I said. “Where did you say that burglary took place? The one in New York?”

  She checked her notes. “In an apartment building on Central Park West.” She read me the address.

  “Interesting,” I said. “It looks as if Golem has an apartment in the same building. I wonder if the Cat Burglar has been planning to rob him for a long time. It would have made sense to scope out that apartment but to pull the heist out here, at his Stoneybrook house, so nobody would be suspicous.”

  “Except us,” said Claudia proudly. “The BSC Detective Agency never misses a clue.”

  We talked for a while longer and ended up deciding that what we really needed to do was hunt for more clues. We agreed to split up and follow some leads, making sure to write up any discoveries in the mystery notebook. Mal, Claudia, and Abby all made entries the very next day.

  I couldn’t blame Claudia for being a tiny bit bent out of shape. I would have been too….

  Claudia arrived at the Johanssens’ on Sunday afternoon. She was looking forward to her sitting job, since she’d read Stacey’s notes in the club notebook. Claudia thought the Harriet the Spy game was great. It’s one of her favorite books, and she’s always admired Harriet. So it was fine with her that Charlotte wanted to spy. Claudia thought it would be fun to join Charlotte on her “rounds.” She’d even dressed for the occasion, in her version of the Harriet outfit. Claudia was wearing purple painter’s pants with lots of loops and pockets for carrying tools, red high-tops with purple laces, and a red sweatshirt customized with purple embroidery. She was even wearing glasses like Harriet’s (with plain lenses, since Claudia’s eyesight is fine), but the frames were purple instead of black. Claudia was all set.

  What she didn’t bargain for was the fact that Charlotte wasn’t the only spy in the neighborhood anymore.

  Far from it.

  In fact, as it turned out, spy fever was spreading like wildfire.

  That wasn’t obvious right away, though. When Claudia and Charlotte started their rounds (it hadn’t taken much convincing for Charlotte to agree to company), their first stop was the Ramseys’. Charlotte was all set with her backpack full of spying tools, but as it turned out, they weren’t needed. The Ramsey house was empty. Aunt Cecelia was out, and Jessi and her mom were out too. And Becca?

  “That’s funny,” said Charlotte. “I thought Vanessa was coming over to play with Becca today.”

  “And why did you think that?” asked Claudia.

  “Oh,” said Charlotte, blushing a little, “just something I overheard.”

  Claudia nodded. So Charlotte was spying on her best friends now. “I see,” she said. She didn’t want to remind Charlotte to be careful. She knew Stacey had already done that, and she knew Charlotte was smart. No doubt she already understood the risks.

  The next stop was the Mancusis’. Not much was happening there either, although Charlotte made some careful observations into her tape recorder about the fact that Pooh Bear was digging in the garden again. After that, Charlotte led the way to the Rodowskys’ house. “This should be more interesting,?
?? she promised Claudia. “There’s always something going on here.”

  Claudia laughed. “That’s for sure,” she said. She knows the three Rodowsky boys. My friends and I have a private nickname for Jackie, the middle boy. We call him the Walking Disaster, because he’s so accident-prone. We love Jackie, but we’re always prepared for the worst when we sit for him.

  Sure enough, there was plenty of activity at the Rodowskys’. Claudia and Charlotte snuck up close to the house and hid behind a huge tree to watch. The boys were out in the driveway, playing basketball. Shea, the oldest, was acting like a radio announcer, calling every play as it happened. Jackie was dribbling wildly, and Archie, the youngest, waved his arms in an effort to guard Jackie.

  But the scene on the driveway wasn’t what caught Charlotte’s eye. “Would you look at that?” she whispered as she stared through her binoculars at another big tree on the other side of the Rodowskys’ yard.

  “What?” whispered Claudia. Charlotte handed her the binoculars and Claudia took a look. Then she almost burst out laughing — but caught herself just in time and giggled quietly instead. What she’d seen was another group of spies keeping tabs on the Rodowsky boys. It was the Pike triplets, Mal’s ten-year-old brothers. They were also dressed in spy clothes, including three sets of fake noses with glasses and mustaches attached. Each of them carried a notebook and pen, and they passed around a pair of binoculars as they watched Archie, Shea, and Jackie play.

  “Have they spotted us?” Charlotte whispered.

  Claudia shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said under her breath.

  “Then we’ll spy on the spies,” said Charlotte. She giggled softly. She asked for the binoculars again and sat watching for a few minutes. Then she pulled out her tape recorder and spoke quietly into it. “Adam is wearing one of Mallory’s old T-shirts,” she said. “He’d die if anyone knew it used to belong to a girl. And Jordan just picked his nose when he thought nobody was looking.” She watched for a little while longer until she found something to say about the last triplet. “Byron needs a haircut,” she reported. “That little place in back is sticking up and he keeps trying to flatten it down, but it doesn’t work.”