“I’m sorry,” Ethan said to her. “I won’t do it again.”
Kayla looked confused. “Huh?” she said.
“I’ve been jumping over the fence and landing on the bags of leaves and grass clippings,” said Ethan. “I’m sorry.”
Kayla just stared at him.
“I came in and cleaned up each time I did it,” Ethan explained.
“Yes,” said Kayla at last. “But all those opened trash bags upset me. I thought somebody didn’t like me. I thought they didn’t like the recycling center.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ethan. “I won’t do it again.”
“But what upsets me even more is that you tipped over the Other Stuff Dumpster,” Kayla said. She frowned at Ethan. “You didn’t help clean that up.”
Ethan looked shocked. “But I didn’t do that!” he shouted. “I didn’t turn over the Dumpster!”
“Ethan is telling the truth,” said Jessie. “He didn’t turn over the Dumpster.”
Kayla frowned. “You mean to say that two people have been breaking into the recycling center?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “And the break-ins aren’t the only crime to solve.”
“They aren’t?” asked Kayla. “What else is there?”
Jessie spoke. “Somebody robbed Jonah’s Jewelry Store three weeks ago. They stole a bag of diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” Kayla seemed nervous. “I don’t know anything about diamonds.”
Jessie thought Kayla’s comment was strange. Nobody is accusing her of taking the diamonds, thought Jessie. Why does she act guilty?
“We think that the diamond theft and the second break-in here might be connected,” Jessie explained.
“No,” said Kayla, standing up. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no connection between the robbery and the recycling center.”
The Aldens and Ethan watched as Kayla shoved all her pieces of metal and sparkling glass into a drawer. Then she shut the drawer and locked it.
“You kids might be able to figure out who turned over the Other Stuff Dumpster,” she said. “I hope you do. But you won’t be able to solve who stole the diamonds.”
“We will solve it,” said Henry.
“No,” said Kayla. “If the police haven’t solved it, you won’t, either.”
The children turned to leave, but Kayla stopped them. “Wait,” she said. “This morning I found something in the Other Stuff bin: something just for Violet.”
Kayla rummaged around under one of her benches, then pulled out something wrapped in plastic. Kayla removed the plastic and thechildren saw a large piece of beautiful purple cloth.
Kayla handed the cloth to Violet. “Somebody left this brand new cloth in the Other Stuff bin.”
Violet held the cloth, which shimmered with flecks of gold. She saw that there were thin gold-colored threads woven through the cloth. “It’s so pretty,” said Violet. The cloth felt very soft and smooth in her hands.
Violet smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t see how anybody could give away something purple.”
CHAPTER 8
The Bottom of the Boots
The children stood just outside the gate to the recycling center. Ethan had gone back to work on the bags, and Kayla was in her studio.
“We know that Ethan didn’t climb the fence and tip over the Other Stuff Dumpster,” said Violet.
“Because his footprints don’t match the smaller set of footprints,” said Jessie.
“And because Ethan could jump over the fence,” said Benny. “But the person who tipped the Dumpster had to climb over.”
“We need to find out whose footprints match the second set,” said Henry. “Then we need to find out why that person tipped over the Dumpster.”
The children stood there and thought.
“We need to see the tread marks on Mrs. Wickett’s shoes, on Chad’s shoes, and even on Kayla’s shoes,” said Jessie at last.
Her brothers and sister agreed.
“Look!” said Benny, pointing across the street. “I just saw something bright red. I think it’s Mrs. Wickett’s boots!”
The Aldens crossed the street and walked into Mrs. Wickett’s yard. They walked around the back, where Benny had seen something red. There was Mrs. Wickett, kneeling in her garden. She wore an old jacket and pants and her bright red boots.
“Oh, hello,” she said when she saw them. “What a nice surprise.”
The children said hello.
Benny noticed that the bottom of Mrs. Wickett’s boots were facing out, so he bent down to look at them.
As soon as she saw what Benny was doing, Mrs. Wickett scooted around so that Benny couldn’t see her boots. Then she stood up.
“Why don’t we all go and sit on my front porch?” she said. “I’m done gardening for the day.”
Once everybody was settled on the front porch, Mrs. Wickett offered them lemonade. All four children accepted.
“This is delicious,” said Violet as she sipped her glass of lemonade.
Mrs. Wickett smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I made it myself.”
Then Mrs. Wickett sat in a wicker chair. “Well,” she said, “what has Kayla decided to do about all the recycling that people leave alongside the sidewalk?”
“We don’t know,” said Jessie. “She hasn’t said.”
“We think Kayla should leave the center open until midnight,” said Henry. “But she won’t. She says she’s worried about people breaking into her studio.”
“Kayla makes lovely jewelry out of junk,”said Mrs. Wickett, sipping her lemonade. “She brought some of it to Jonah’s Jewelry Store and asked Mr. Jonah if he would sell it.”
“Kayla told us about that,” said Violet. “But Mr. Jonah said no.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Wicket said. “Mr. Jonah doesn’t like jewelry made out of recycled metals and glass. I’m afraid he said some very insulting things to Kayla.”
“When was this?” asked Henry.
“Oh, a few weeks ago. A day or two before the robbery,” Mrs. Wickett answered.
The children looked at one another.
“Mrs. Wickett,” said Jessie, “do you want the recycling center to fail?”
Instead of answering, Mrs. Wickett sipped her lemonade and stared across the street at the recycling center. Finally she spoke. “Recycling is a good thing,” she said. “But bags of recycling outside the recycling center are not a good thing. I just don’t know.”
“Somebody climbed over the fence and tipped over the Other Stuff Dumpster,” saidHenry. “Did you do that?”
“My word!” exclaimed Mrs. Wickett. “You children do ask direct questions, don’t you?”
Henry waited for an answer.
“No, I did not,” Mrs. Wickett replied.
“We found footprints outside the fence, where somebody climbed over,” said Jessie. She took out her notebook. “I made a drawing of the footprints.”
Mrs. Wickett didn’t say anything.
“May we see the bottom of your red boots?” Henry asked.
Mrs. Wickett stood up. “No, you may not!” she said.
“Why won’t you let us see them?” asked Benny.
“I am innocent!” Mrs. Wickett shouted. “I don’t have to prove I’m innocent—you have to prove I’m guilty!” She marched into her house and slammed the door.
Once again, the children returned to the front gate of the recycling center.
“We are down to two suspects for the second break-in,” said Violet. “The break-in where somebody tipped over the Other Stuff Dumpster. It was either Chad or Mrs. Wickett.”
“But we have three suspects for the diamond robbery,” said Jessie. “It’s either Chad, Mrs. Wickett, or Kayla.”
“We might have two separate crimes to solve,” said Henry. “Or the two crimes might be connected.”
“I think the crimes are connected,” said Violet.
Everybody else agreed with Violet.
“That means the diamonds are hid
den somewhere in the recycling center,” said Henry. “Or they were hidden there, and now they’re somewhere else.”
Benny had been thinking hard, and now he spoke up. “I think the diamonds were hidden in the Other Stuff bin,” he said.
Henry smiled at his younger brother. “Notin the bin itself,” said Henry, “but inside something that was in the bin.”
“Not inside of Mrs. McGregor’s green frog,” said Violet. “That’s made of metal and has no place to hide anything.”
“Not inside my notebooks,” said Jessie.
“Ohhhhhh,”said Benny as he figured it out. “The diamonds are hidden inside my piñata!” Benny thought about this for a moment. “But how did they get there?” he asked.
“I think that whoever robbed Jonah’s Jewelry Store went to Tío’s Tacos late at night,” said Henry. “And when there weren’t any other customers, the thief put the diamonds into the piñata.”
“But why?” asked Jessie. “Why didn’t the thief just take the jewels home?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Henry. “Whoever stole the diamonds must have been afraid of being searched. Or of having their house searched.”
This made sense to Jessie. Tío’s piñatas were all hanging from the ceiling. Nobody ever touched them. “Tío’s piñatas are a pretty safe place to store diamonds,” she said. “They just hang from the ceiling and get old and dusty.”
“The thief didn’t know that Tío was going to replace the old piñatas with new ones,” said Henry.
The children decided it was time to go home and make a plan. They rode their bikes home, put them away, and sat in the sunporch.
“Let’s open the piñata and take out the diamonds,” said Benny.
“Not yet,” said Henry. “We can look inside the piñata later. Let’s think first.”
Everybody looked at Henry.
“Maybe we can leave the piñata where it is and use it to trap the thief,” Henry said.
“How?” asked Jessie.
“I don’t know,” said Henry.
Benny looked at his red piñata, which was still hanging from the ceiling of the sunporch. “My bull piñata looks lonesome,” he said.
Violet sat right up. “Benny!” she said. “That’s it! What a brilliant idea!”
“Huh?” said Benny. “What idea?”
“Your piñata is lonesome, so we’ll have a party for it!” said Violet. She reached up and took the piñata down from the ceiling. Henry liked the way Violet was thinking. “We’ll invite Kayla and Mrs. Wickett and Chad,” he said. “One of them will really, really want the piñata.”
“Let’s invite Ethan, too,” said Jessie, “even though we know he didn’t steal the diamonds.”
“And let’s invite Tío,” said Violet. “That way, we can make sure that Benny’s piñata really is from Tío’s Tacos.”
The children went to talk to Mrs. McGregor and Grandfather, both of whom agreed a party was a good idea.
“Let’s have it tomorrow afternoon,” said Henry.
“I’ll set up the badminton,” said Jessie.
Benny liked to push croquet wickets into the ground, so he volunteered to set up the croquet game. And Violet loved putting out paper plates, cups, and napkins. And I have a perfect use for all that purple cloth, she thought.
After the children planned everything with Mrs. McGregor and Grandfather, they called Kayla to invite her to the party. Then they called Mrs. Wickett and invited her. They asked her if she would invite Chad, and she said Chad was visiting with her, so she would ask him. Finally, they called Ethan and Tío and invited them, too.
“Everything is set,” said Jessie, “Now it’s notebook time.”
CHAPTER 9
Notebook Time
That evening, the children were in Jessie’s bedroom for notebook time. Notebook time was when they talked about their clues. Jessie, who loved making lists, wrote everything into her notebook. Talking things out always helped the children think more clearly. Benny lay on the bed. Henry and Violet sat on the floor. Jessie sat at her desk.
“I’ll use one of my brand-new notebooks to list what we know,” said Jessie. “Using a notebook we rescued from the trash pileseems right, doesn’t it?”
Everybody agreed.
Jessie began her list. “Let’s start with Chad,” she said.
“He worked at Jonah’s Jewelry Store,” said Violet. “So he knew where the diamonds were.”
“Yes,” said Henry. “And he quit working at Jonah’s Jewelry Store the day after the robbery. I wonder why?”
Benny’s eyes had started to close, but suddenly he was wide awake. “Chad might eat at Tío’s Tacos,” he said. “If he does, he would know there are piñatas there!”
“And Chad was looking for something in the recycling center,” said Violet. “He said he was looking for a pocket watch. But I didn’t believe him.”
Benny started to fall asleep again.
“I think Mrs. Wickett didn’t believe him, either,” said Henry. “She said she had never seen him with a pocket watch. Maybe he was looking for the piñata.”
“What about footprints?” Jessie asked.
“Hmmm,” said Henry. “We never had a chance to check the bottom of Chad’s boots to see if he’s the person who broke into the recycling center.”
Once again Benny woke up. “Chad drinks mint-flavored tea,” he mumbled.
“Is that suspicious?” asked Henry.
Jessie smiled because she knew what Benny meant. When she and Benny were putting things into the correct bins the first day, Benny found a mint Doo-Dah Tea bottle inside the glass recycling bin. Jessie explained this to Henry and Violet, who had been working near the gate at the time.
“So,” asked Henry, “you’re thinking that Chad climbed the fence and drank some tea and then just tossed the bottle in the closest bin?”
Benny didn’t answer because this time, Benny was sound asleep.
“I’m not sure somebody would keep a bottle of tea in his pocket while he climbed a fence,” said Violet.
Henry agreed that this was not likely. “But not likely doesn’t mean impossible,” he reminded his sisters.
“There’s one other thing about Chad,” said Jessie. “He was in the car when Kayla dropped us off on the day it rained. So he knows where we live. And that night, somebody tried to break into the sunporch.”
After they finished discussing Chad, Jessie wrote on one of the pages of her new notebook:
Chad:
—worked at Jonah’s Jewelry
—might eat at Tío’s Tacos
—was looking for something in the recycling center
—knew that the piñata was in the sunporch
“There’s somebody else who knows that the piñata is in our sunporch,” said Henry.
“Yes,” said Jessie. “Kayla knows because she drove us home.”
“According to Mrs. Wickett, Kayla was angry with Mr. Jonah because he wouldn’t carry her jewelry,” said Henry. “Maybe she stole his diamonds because she was angry.”
Jessie tapped her pencil against her notebook. “We saw Kayla reading the newspaper article about the diamond theft,” she said. “And then she turned the newspaper over.”
“Not only that,” said Henry, “but Kayla locks all her glass stones in a drawer eachnight. Why would you lock up glass stones?”
Jessie was thinking the same thing. “Do we know for sure that they’re glass, not diamonds?” she asked.
“Chad said the stone in my key ring is glass,” said Henry. “He worked in a jewelry store, so he should know.”
Violet spoke up. “Mrs. Wickett works in a jewelry store, too. She looked at the stone in your key ring, but she never said it was glass. She never said it was a diamond, either.”
“That’s right,” said Henry. He looked at his key ring. “If this is a real diamond, then I got a real bargain.”
Henry, Jessie, and Violet laughed.
That woke Benny up.
“Who are we making a list about?” he asked.
“Kayla,” said Jessie.
Benny sat up and rubbed his eyes. “But Kayla wouldn’t climb the fence and tip over her own Dumpster. She has a key!”
“That’s true,” said Henry, “but maybe Kayla wants it to look like somebody is breaking in.”
“Why would she do that?” Violet asked. Henry didn’t know, so he just shrugged. “Does Kayla eat at Tío’s?” Benny asked. Nobody knew the answer to that question. Jessie wrote:
Kayla:
—is angry at Jonah’s Jewelry
—hides her recycled jewelry and sparkling stones
—knows that the piñata is in the sunporch
—might eat at Tío’s Tacos, but we don’t know
“That leaves Mrs. Wickett,” said Benny. “I like her red boots. They’re as red as my bull piñata. But,” he added, “she wouldn’t let us see the bottoms.”
“Mrs. Wickett works at Jonah’s Jewelry Store, and she works there at night,” said Jessie.
“Yes,” said Violet. “The robbery took place at night, around midnight. Mrs. Wickett could have taken the jewels straight to Tío’s Tacos.”
“We know she eats at Tío’s Tacos,” said Jessie.
Henry was still looking at the stone in his key ring. Finally he put it away. “It seems like Mrs. Wickett wants the recycling center to fail,” he said. “Could she have stolen the diamonds and planted them in the center to blame Kayla?”
Jessie tapped her pencil. “Maybe,” she said. “But that’s not likely.”
Henry agreed that it wasn’t likely. “She’s friends with Chad,” he said. “Maybe the two of them worked together to steal the diamonds. And,” he added, “Chad was visiting her when we called to invite her to the party.”
Jessie wrote in her new notebook:
Mrs. Wickett:
—works at Jonah’s Jewelry Store
—works at night, when the jewelswere stolen
—eats at Tío’s Tacos
—is friends with Chad, who alsoworked at Jonah’s Jewelry Store
After Jessie read the list, Benny added something. “Mrs. Wickett didn’t know where we live,” he said.