Kristy and the Cat Burglar

  “Still,” Abby said, “none of this so-called evidence proves anything for sure. And we still have a bunch of other suspects, right? I mean, what about Cary?”

  “I’m the first to be suspicious of Cary,” I said. “But I just can’t quite picture him as the Cat Burglar. I mean, why would he be robbing fancy apartments in Manhattan?”

  “Maybe so he can afford really good binoculars for bird-watching,” said Stacey with a giggle.

  “Okay, so maybe Cary’s innocent. But what about Ben Birch?” asked Abby. “I’d like to know if he has anything to do with this.”

  “He is a real mystery,” said Jessi. “I couldn’t find any information on him at all, no matter how long I surfed the Net.”

  “We do need to find out more about him,” I mused. “If anyone else spots him, make sure to follow him. Maybe we can figure out where he lives and what he’s up to in Stoneybrook.” I dug out the photocopied picture and passed it around. Personally, I knew I’d be thrilled if Ben Birch turned out to be the Cat Burglar. I’d love to throw my suspicions about Sergeant Johnson right out the window. But I couldn’t do that yet. Not if we were going to solve this case the proper way, by checking out every suspect thoroughly, even if they happened to be our friends.

  The phone rang then, and we took some time out from our detective work to set up a job. Abby would be sitting for Charlotte the next day. She’d read everything in the club notebook about Charlotte’s spying activities and said she was looking forward to seeing Stoneybrook’s version of Harriet the Spy in action.

  After that, we returned to talking about the case. “There’s one more person who’s still on our list,” Claudia said. “That security guard. What was his name again?”

  “Jack Fenton,” Mal replied. “And I think he’s in the clear. I haven’t had a chance to write up my notes in the mystery notebook yet, but I did follow up on his alibi this afternoon.”

  “Really?” I asked. I was very impressed with the way the BSC members were pulling together on this case. “Cool. What did you find out?”

  “Well,” said Mal, “I wanted to know whether he’d really gone to the hospital that day, like he said he had. So I rode my bike to the hospital, thinking I’d snoop around and find out if his wife had been admitted. As it turned out, I didn’t even have to go inside.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I saw a guard outside,” Mal answered. “And the logo on his cap said ‘Maximum Security.’ I remembered the name from Abby’s notes, so I knew he worked for the same company as Jack Fenton. I walked right up to him and started talking. Before long, I had my answer. This guy had been on duty at the hospital that day, and he’d seen Jack come in. His wife wasn’t there — it had been some kind of mix-up — but anyway, Jack’s story checked out. That was all I needed to know.”

  “Excellent work, Mal,” I said. “Give that girl a chocolate bar!”

  Claudia tossed the bag to her.

  “And cross Jack Fenton off the suspect list,” I added. “It sounds as if he’s been cleared.”

  Mary Anne, the mystery notebook in her lap, made a note. She looked glum. To her the news about Jack Fenton meant that we had one less suspect, one less chance for Sergeant Johnson to be innocent. In fact, it looked even worse for our friend. Had he been the one to make a bogus phone call to Jack Fenton, to keep him away from Golem’s house?

  Just then, there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Claudia called. Hurriedly, she stuffed the bag of candy under her pillow.

  Janine opened the door and leaned in. “Claudia, there’s someone here to see you. It’s a police officer, and he wants to talk to you, Kristy, and Mary Anne.” She raised her eyebrows. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d wonder if you were in some kind of trouble.” She looked very curious.

  We didn’t take the time to explain. The three of us jumped up and ran downstairs.

  It was Sergeant Johnson. He stood in the Kishis’ front hall, mashing his hat between his hands. He looked awful, even worse than when I’d seen him at the station just an hour earlier. Then he’d looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. Now he looked as if he hadn’t slept at all — for weeks. He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was mussed, and his uniform was wrinkled.

  “Sergeant Johnson!” Mary Anne cried. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer her directly. “Hello, girls,” he said. His voice sounded hollow. “I just came by to ask you a few more questions.”

  “Come into the living room,” said Claudia.

  When we were seated, Sergeant Johnson began to talk. He asked the same questions he’d asked me earlier, about the evidence we’d found and about what the other officers had said about him. We answered his questions as well as we could, but he didn’t seem satisfied. Instead of standing up, thanking us, and leaving, he just sat there, twisting his hat in his hands.

  Then his radio went off. Through the crackle of static, we heard a voice ask for his “twenty.”

  “That means his location,” hissed Claudia as Sergeant Johnson answered the call. “I remember from one of those police shows.”

  Sergeant Johnson spoke into his radio, giving Claudia’s address. Then he sat back on the couch. He looked utterly miserable. “I just don’t understand,” he said in a distant voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “I do,” said Mary Anne, jumping up to sit beside him on the couch.

  Claudia and I remained silent, but Sergeant Johnson didn’t seem to notice. He began to talk. I had the feeling he had reached the end of his rope, and that he wasn’t so much talking to us as thinking out loud. It was pretty upsetting to see him act so strange. But the three of us sat there and listened as he rambled on.

  “What I don’t understand is how that evidence turned up when it did,” he said. “I mean, we searched the house and grounds from top to bottom after that incident and found nothing. Then — presto! — some kids come along and turn up major stuff. Bullet casings. Markers. Where did that evidence come from? That’s what I don’t understand. And why are they trying to make me look bad? They’re asking people about me, making me look like some kind of a criminal. I bet it’s Winters. He knows I’m up for the chief’s job when the chief retires. He wants that job himself. And Hopkins? She’s hoping Winters will promote her if he becomes the big cheese. They’re all against me. All of them. They took that marker right off my desk when I was out. That’s why my fingerprints are all over it. Can’t you just see Winters doing that? I’m telling you, it’s a frame-up.”

  The three of us exchanged looks. I felt terrible for Sergeant Johnson, but I didn’t know what to say to him. Were the things he was saying true? Or was he just covering up?

  I’ll tell you one thing: I didn’t like the way he talked about our finding the evidence, as if we were just some kids off the street. Didn’t he trust our detective skills? He could have shown a little more respect for us after all the cases we’d helped him solve.

  I felt confused. His behavior was really weird. It was almost as if he wanted to plant ideas in our heads about his being framed. Did he expect us to parrot it all back to someone? He seemed to want something from us, but I didn’t know what it was. I could see that Claudia and Mary Anne felt just as confused and scared as I did.

  I opened my mouth to speak — not that I knew what I was going to say — but then I heard a knock at the front door. Claudia jumped up to answer it, and returned moments later, followed by the chief of police. His name is John Pierce, and he’s a big, barrel-chested man with thick black hair and a very serious manner.

  He was even more serious than usual that day as he walked across the room to Sergeant Johnson. “Sergeant James Johnson,” he began, “you have the right to remain silent —”

  Mary Anne gasped. Claudia and I did too.

  Sergeant Johnson was being arrested.

  Sergeant Johnson’s arrest was the lead story in the morning’s papers. Abby’s mom pointed it
out to her. “Isn’t this that police officer you know?” she asked, showing her the picture of Sergeant Johnson on the front page.

  “Wow!” Anna said. “Is he in trouble? I thought he was a good guy.”

  “He is,” Abby replied. “At least, I always thought he was,” she added softly. She stuck a bagel into the toaster, then read quickly through the first part of the article. Apparently, there was quite a bit of evidence indicating that Sergeant Johnson had been involved, somehow, in the burglary at Reinhart Golem’s.

  Such as the velvet bag containing two diamonds that was found in Sergeant Johnson’s desk.

  Abby groaned when she read that. The story also mentioned the red marker Mary Anne had found and said that some of the fingerprints on it had been identified as Sergeant Johnson’s. There was a quote from Golem about the “brilliant young detective” who had discovered that piece of evidence.

  The story did not go so far as to say that Sergeant Johnson was guilty, but it sure did make him look bad. It even mentioned a suspicious cell phone call, though it said that the records proving its origin were yet to be found. Abby couldn’t get over it. “It just doesn’t add up,” she told Anna. “There’s something wrong about all this.”

  She thought about it on the way over to the Johanssens’. When she arrived, she tried to put it out of her mind and concentrate on sitting, but it wasn’t easy. Even Charlotte had heard about the arrest, and she was confused, wondering how a police officer could do anything wrong. “I thought the police were supposed to take care of us,” she said. “If they do wrong things too, maybe we’re not so safe.”

  “We don’t know for sure that Sergeant Johnson did anything wrong,” said Abby. “But anyway, the police are here to protect us, and that’s what they’ll do. You don’t have to worry about that.” Abby hoped she sounded reassuring.

  “Okay,” said Charlotte. “Can Vanessa and Becca come over?”

  Relieved that it had been so simple to ease Charlotte’s worries, Abby agreed. Charlotte ran off to call her friends.

  The girls hurried over and headed up to Charlotte’s room. Abby heard a lot of giggling through the closed door and wondered what they were up to. But Charlotte had made it clear that Abby wasn’t invited to join her and her friends, so Abby stayed downstairs, listening to the radio in the living room in hopes of hearing more news about Sergeant Johnson’s arrest.

  Soon, Abby heard the girls pounding down the stairs. “Can we go out?” asked Charlotte. “We won’t go far.”

  Abby looked up to see Charlotte and her friends wearing identical red hooded sweatshirts. Each one was carrying a backpack and had hung a flashlight from her belt. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were planning to do. But Abby knew that the girls were allowed to play on their own as long as they didn’t leave the neighborhood, so she said, “Sure. Just be careful.”

  “We will!” called Charlotte as she led her friends out the door.

  Abby watched them leave, then made a quick decision. She was supposed to be baby-sitting, wasn’t she? And even though her charge wasn’t exactly a baby, Abby was being paid to keep an eye on her. So, would there really be anything wrong with — following her around?

  She didn’t have a red sweatshirt, and there was no flashlight attached to her belt. But Abby was going to spy on the spies.

  She followed them down the street, matching their speed and stopping when they stopped, ducking from tree to tree in order to avoid being seen if they happened to look back.

  First stop was the Mancusis’. Abby watched as the three girls huddled behind a tree to observe Pooh Bear, who was in the yard playing with a giant blue ball. At first her attention was on the girls, but then she began to notice that, using his nose and paws, Pooh Bear was moving the ball around like a soccer player. She hadn’t known that a dog could play soccer. She became so engrossed in watching that she almost missed seeing Charlotte, Becca, and Vanessa take off for the next spot on Charlotte’s rounds: the Rodowskys’ house.

  Jackie and his brothers were in their yard, playing catch with a Frisbee. Charlotte and her friends arranged themselves behind a row of bushes, while Abby crouched behind a car in the neighbor’s driveway. The boys were having too much fun to notice that four people were watching their every move. Abby was amazed at the catches they could make: between the legs, over the shoulder, diving to the ground. Again, she became so interested in what she was watching that she almost forgot to keep an eye on Charlotte as well. Just in time, she noticed her band of spies moving off toward Becca’s house.

  There wasn’t much going on at the Ramseys’, though Abby caught sight of Jessi doing ballet exercises as she made herself a snack in the kitchen. She had to admit that spying was interesting and fun — and addictive. She was a little disappointed when Charlotte seemed ready to quit for the day. Still, she followed as Charlotte and her friends headed back to the Johanssens’. Abby managed to dash around to the back door as they entered in the front. She greeted them, calling out that she was in the kitchen. They trooped in, eyes sparkling and faces flushed.

  “Having fun?” Abby asked innocently.

  “Definitely,” said Charlotte. She set her backpack on the table. “Can we have a snack?”

  “Sure,” said Abby. She began to rummage around in the cupboards to see what there was. “How about cereal?” she asked.

  But Charlotte was checking the cookie shelf. “How about Chips Ahoy?” she asked her friends.

  Becca and Vanessa were happy with that choice. Abby poured them some milk, and the girls sat down at the table to eat. Abby headed into the living room to turn on the radio and check the news.

  She listened for a while without hearing anything about Sergeant Johnson. Then, suddenly, she heard raised voices from the kitchen and decided to see what the girls were arguing about.

  Charlotte’s tape recorder lay in the center of the table. All three girls were talking at once. Becca and Vanessa sounded angry, and Charlotte sounded defensive.

  “How could you spy on us, your best friends?” Becca was saying.

  “And how could you say such mean stuff about us?” Vanessa asked.

  Charlotte protested. “I didn’t mean to be mean,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?” asked Abby.

  “Ask her,” said Becca. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at Charlotte.

  Charlotte looked guilty. “We were — um — spying a little before,” she admitted. “So we were going to listen to the tape we just made. But I must have flipped the tape over. I played the wrong side, and they heard some stuff that should have been private.”

  “Play it for her,” said Vanessa.

  Charlotte winced.

  “Go on,” said Becca.

  Charlotte shrugged and started the tape player. Her voice echoed in the kitchen. “I don’t know why Becca has to act like such a baby sometimes. She always gets her way when she wants something. Especially from her aunt Cecelia. I think Becca is spoiled.”

  Charlotte turned the tape player off. The kitchen was silent for a second. Then Vanessa spoke up. “Play the part about me,” she said.

  Charlotte didn’t move. “Do I have to?” she asked Abby.

  Vanessa grabbed the tape player and punched buttons until Charlotte’s voice filled the room again. “Vanessa’s bike is so old and creaky. She must be embarrassed because her dad’s too poor to buy her a new one.”

  Vanessa clicked the tape player off and set it gently on the table. Then she stood up. “It’s bad enough that you spied on us,” she told Charlotte. “But the things you said aren’t even true. Becca’s not spoiled at all. In fact, Aunt Cecelia is really strict with her. And I happen to love my bike the way it is. My dad offered to buy me a new one but I didn’t want it. You should be a more careful spy if you’re going to keep doing it.” Then she stalked out of the room. Becca followed her. Abby and Charlotte heard the front door slam.

  “Just like Harriet,” said Charlotte softly, stari
ng down at the tape player. “My life is ruined.”

  “Not true,” said Abby. “But there are three things you have to do right away.” She helped Charlotte figure out what they were. One was to apologize to her friends. The other two were to destroy the tape and forget about spying for a while.

  By the end of the afternoon, thanks to Abby’s help, Charlotte and her friends were playing together again — and they weren’t playing spy.

  And Abby? She was thinking hard about what had happened to Charlotte. Charlotte had spied a lot, but that didn’t mean she was a great spy. Likewise, the BSC members had done a lot of detective work, but that didn’t make us real detectives. We’d helped to gather the evidence against Sergeant Johnson, but did the evidence really mean he was guilty? Maybe we’d been wrong to think we knew what we were doing. Maybe the idea of earning Golem’s reward had made us blind to the real facts.

  Abby wasn’t the only one doing some hard thinking. If you’d gone looking for me on Friday afternoon, you’d have found me in my room with the door shut, lying on my bed and just staring at the ceiling. I might have looked as if I were ready to take a nap, but that would have been far from the truth. What I was doing was thinking, thinking, and thinking some more. My brain was practically steaming from the effort.

  I’d spent a lot of the day thinking about Sergeant Johnson and all the times the BSC members had worked with him. Before now, I’d never had reason to suspect him of anything. He had always been kind and honest and appreciative of everything my friends and I did. I could just picture him behind his desk or at the scene of a crime, taking in every clue in his calm, thoughtful way. He was a good listener. I thought of the way his eyes would focus on me as we went over a list of suspects or discussed a new clue.

  Then I pictured the Sergeant Johnson I’d seen two days before. I remembered how bloodshot his eyes had been, how haggard his face had looked. I thought of how he’d rambled on, talking like a crazy person.