* * *
The next morning I had a plan. I decided not to tell Hannie about it because she would just laugh. My plan was to get Bill’s fingerprints, in case he was a wanted criminal. It took me a long time to find my old Junior Detective Kit. I finally found it in the back of my closet. Inside was a fingerprint kit (thank goodness), a pair of spy glasses, a magnifier, a flashlight, a secret marker pen, and an agent ID card. I put on the spy glasses and carried the kit to Nancy’s without Merry or Andrew seeing me. I did not want them to ask what I was doing.
When I was safely inside the house, I opened up the fingerprint kit. Inside was a jar of black powder, an ink pad, and tape. I was not sure what to do next. Luckily, there were directions on the jar.
STEP 1: Locate a fingerprint.
That would be easy. I decided to start with the kitchen. There were fingerprints on the door, the refrigerator, and the counter-tops. I examined them with my magnifier. The only problem was that I could not tell which ones were Bill’s.
STEP 2: Sprinkle black powder over the fingerprint.
I sprinkled the black powder on the doorknob. The powder smeared everything: the doorknob, the kitchen floor, my fingers, my clothes, even my hair.
STEP 3: Lift fingerprint with tape.
I took out the tape and dusted off some of the extra powder with my hands. Now my fingerprints were on the doorknob too. This was hopeless.
It took me a long time to clean up the mess I had made. Or maybe it seemed long because I was very worried that Bill would return. Luckily he did not. When I left Nancy’s house, I had black powder in my hair and all over my clothes. But I still had no fingerprints.
And I still had no proof that Bill had done anything wrong. I did not even know if he was a wanted criminal. And now it looked as if I would never find out. Even I had to admit that.
An Important Clue
The next day I was very busy helping Mommy at the craft center. We were working there instead of at home because Mommy needed to use some equipment she doesn’t have at home. Mommy worked in a big room with lots of shelves and tables. A few people sat at the tables making jewelry. I loved looking at their tools—tiny pliers and tiny clamps. Some people were even melting gold and silver over small gas burners. Everyone looked very busy.
I spent the morning polishing jewelry for Mommy and some of her friends. Almost everyone told me how helpful I was. I felt very proud.
When it was time for lunch, I told Mommy we had to go home. Pokey needed his eyedrops.
* * *
“Pokey, where are you?” I called when I let myself into Nancy’s house. Usually Pokey came to see me right away. But today he did not. I got his medicine and found him curled up on the living room rug. When I tried to pick him up, he scampered away. I chased Pokey all over the house. Finally I caught him in the study. “Got you,” I said as I picked him up. Pokey purred. He even sat still when I gave him his drops.
I looked around the study. There was Mr. Dawes’s computer. And then I remembered something that made me suspicious all over again. The blue glow I had seen a few nights ago had come from the study. Now that I thought about it, I was positive. The glow was from the computer, not the TV. The TV was in the next room. Why did Bill need Mr. Dawes’s computer when he had his own laptop? I started to get worried. I knew Mr. Dawes could get into the bank’s files with a secret password. What if Bill was breaking into the files? I had seen someone do that on a TV program. Of course, Bill would need to know the password. But no one knew it except Mr. Dawes. (I hoped.)
Even though I knew it was wrong, I decided to poke around the study. I looked at the papers on Mr. Dawes’s desk. It was hard to tell what belonged to Mr. Dawes and what belonged to Bill until I found something. Under a pile of catalogs was a red notebook that looked a lot like the one I had seen Bill writing in.
I leafed through it. There were pages and pages of words and lists. I did not know what they meant. Then I saw that Bill had written down the names of Nancy’s stuffed animals. How strange. Maybe he was writing a story about Nancy. I turned a page and saw the words “Open sesame.” Hmm. I knew that “Open sesame” was the secret password Ali Baba used to enter the cave of the thieves. (“Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” is one of my favorite stories. Bill probably liked it too.)
I flipped to a new page. A slip of white paper fell out of the notebook. I picked it up. The word WITHDRAWAL was printed on the slip, followed by $1,000. Yikes. I knew withdrawal meant taking money out of the bank. How could Bill do that without the password? I flipped back a page. Was the secret password “Open sesame”? Was my account safe? I panicked and raced home to talk to Mommy. I just hoped she would listen to me.
Bill Comes to Dinner
I found Mommy eating a sandwich at the kitchen table. (Andrew and Merry were outside.) I wasted no time telling Mommy all about Bill. I even admitted that I had spied on him. Mommy frowned when I said that. But she let me keep talking. I told her I had seen him looking through the Daweses’ things. And I described what I had just seen in the study.
Mommy was interested in what I had to say. She even looked a little worried when I got to the part about the withdrawal. But she told me we needed more evidence before we could accuse Bill of anything.
“I can get the red notebook,” I said.
“That would not prove much,” Mommy said. “The withdrawal might have come from his own account.”
I had not thought of that.
“Besides,” Mommy said, “it is not right to go snooping around the Daweses’ house.” The thing to do, Mommy said, was to get to know Bill better. “Why don’t we invite him over to dinner tonight,” she suggested. “I have been meaning to have him over for a meal anyway.”
“I do not think that is a good idea,” I said. “What if he is really a thief? We have valuable things in our house. What about the bracelets? They are made of gold and silver, you know.”
But before I could stop her, Mommy called Bill and left a message for him on the Daweses’ answering machine. I hoped he would not accept.
But he called when he came home to say he would be happy to join us.
I tried to convince Mommy that we should eat outside. That way, Bill would not be in the house much.
“It would be more polite to invite him inside,” Mommy answered. “Besides, it looks like it might rain.”
“But we are going to have a barbecue.”
“I know, Karen. Seth will barbecue the chicken outside. But we will eat in the dining room.” Mommy sounded firm.
I sighed. That meant I would have to watch Bill the entire evening.
I was in my room when Bill rang the doorbell. Seth let him in before I could get downstairs. But I decided Bill had not been in the house long enough to take anything yet.
“What a nice painting,” Bill said to Seth. He walked to the portrait of Mommy’s great-grandmother that hangs in our dining room.
“Don’t touch that!” I yelped.
Bill and Seth turned to look at me. “Is anything wrong, Karen?” Seth wanted to know.
“No,” I answered sheepishly.
“I was not going to touch the painting,” Bill said. “I just wanted to look at it more closely.”
During dinner, Bill talked mostly to Mommy and Seth. Mommy asked him a lot of questions about his work at the bank.
When Bill got up to refill his water glass in the kitchen, I followed him. I pretended I needed something in the kitchen too. Bill did not look in any of our drawers or cabinets. He could not. Not when I was standing right there.
When Bill was ready to leave, I walked with him to the closet where Seth had hung his jacket. Then I walked him to the door. Bill spent a long time thanking Seth and Mommy for dinner. I hopped on one foot, then the other. I could not wait for him to leave. I was glad when he finally did.
“Well, what did you think?” I asked Mommy.
“I thought he seemed perfectly honest,” Mommy answered.
“I did too,” S
eth added. “He works hard, and he likes his job at the bank.”
“He likes all the money in the bank,” I said.
“Karen, that withdrawal slip you found could be from his account,” Mommy reminded me.
I could not argue.
Dark Glasses
I decided I would just have to find out more information about Bill on my own. The only problem was, how? Then I had an idea. Mommy did not want me to snoop around the Daweses’ house. But no one had said anything about spying on Bill at the bank.
The next morning, I told Merry and Andrew I needed to go downtown. “I want to deposit some money in my bank account,” I said. (This was true.)
Before we left, I put on my dark spy glasses and a straw hat. I did not want Bill to recognize me.
“I am worried about getting too much sun,” I told Andrew when he asked me why I was wearing dark glasses. Merry gave me a funny look, but she did not say anything.
When we reached the bank, I stood at the end of the longest line. That way, I would have plenty of time to look around. It did not take me long to spot Bill. He was walking behind the bank tellers. And I could see everything he was doing.
I saw Bill walk to a safe and open it. I could not tell what he was doing at the safe. Maybe he was counting money.
Bill was still at the safe when it was my turn. I was so busy watching him that the bank teller had to ask me twice how she could help me.
“I want to deposit some money in my bank account,” I whispered. (Even though Bill was far away, I did not want him to recognize my voice.) I handed my money to the teller. She counted it and wrote the amount on a slip of paper. Then she asked me to sign it. “This is a deposit slip,” she explained.
Usually I would be interested in what the teller had to say. But I was so busy watching Bill, I did not pay much attention. The teller had to remind me that it was someone else’s turn when I was finished. I hardly heard her. Bill had closed the safe. He announced he was going on his lunch break.
I ran to find Merry and Andrew. They were waiting for me near some big padded armchairs in the lobby. “We have to leave now,” I said.
“I am ready,” said Andrew. “What took so long?”
I did not answer because Bill was walking out the door. We walked behind him for awhile. Then Andrew stopped to look in the window of a candy store near the bank. Merry and I had to stop too. When Andrew finally turned away, Bill was gone. I was very disappointed.
“What would you like to do downtown?” Merry asked us.
I shrugged. I did not care what we did now.
“I am hungry,” Andrew said. “Can we have candy?”
“Why don’t we have lunch instead?” Merry suggested.
Andrew wanted to eat at Pizza Express again. (It is near the bank.) Merry and I started to follow him. We walked past a coffee shop. And it is a good thing I looked in the window, because I saw Bill having lunch with the woman in black.
I thought fast. “Please, please can we eat at the coffee shop instead? We have just been to Pizza Express,” I said. “It would be good to try something different.”
Andrew agreed after Merry told him the coffee shop serves excellent ice cream. For once I did not care about food. I needed to spy on Bill, and catch him in the act — whatever that was.
Lunchtime Spy
Everyone in downtown Stoneybrook seemed to be eating at the coffee shop. Merry, Andrew, and I had to wait for a table. A waitress finally seated us far away from where Bill and his friend were sitting. I had a good view of their table, but I could not hear anything they were saying.
Well … I had a good view of the table until the waitress stood in front of it to take someone else’s order. (Sigh.) She blocked my view just when Bill was handing something to the woman in black. I stood up to see around the waitress. But I was too late to see what Bill had given his friend.
“Why are you standing up?” Andrew wanted to know.
“Uh,” I said, “I just wanted to see the menu better.”
“You have a menu right in front of you,” Andrew reminded me.
“Right,” I said, sitting down. I kept my dark glasses on, just in case. I thought about taking my spy notebook out of my backpack, in case I had to write anything down. But I did not want to explain anything to Merry and Andrew. And Andrew would probably want to read my notebook. I could not let him. It was confidential, until I solved the case. Instead, I just watched Bill and the woman closely. When the waitress was not blocking the table, this is what I saw:
When we came home, I rushed upstairs to record everything I had seen in my spy notebook. Luckily, I remembered a lot. Then I went to Nancy’s house to take care of Pokey. I looked on the kitchen counter for Pokey’s medicine. It is always there. But today it was not. Uh-oh. Then I remembered something. I might have left Pokey’s medicine in the study. I had left Nancy’s house in a big rush the day before.
I carried Pokey upstairs to the study. Sure enough, the medicine was on top of a bunch of papers on the desk. I wondered if Bill had found the medicine. If he had, he would know I had been snooping around. Oh, dear. Did he know what I was doing? Was he waiting to catch me? I was probably the only person who knew what he was up to.
I was feeling more and more nervous. What if Bill were a dangerous criminal? He knew where I lived. He probably even knew my bank account number.
Suddenly I felt very scared. Holding Pokey helped a little. I decided it would be better not to poke around the study anymore. Bill might notice if I moved something.
But as I looked around the study, I got an idea. (A brilliant idea.) I could catch Bill in the act of stealing. And I knew just how to do it.
To Catch a Thief
The next day, I felt fidgety. I tried to play with Andrew, but I could not concentrate. To begin my plan, I had to wait until six P.M., when Bill usually came home from work. My plan was risky. Everything depended on timing.
At five-forty-five I went over to Nancy’s house with a blank cassette tape in my backpack.
I let myself inside. I was so scared, I could hear my heart beating. I tried not to think about what Bill would do if he got caught. I rushed upstairs to the study. Then I popped the tape into the stereo, and pressed “play” and “record.” Before I left, I opened the blinds at the window.
My tape was 120 minutes long. I hoped Bill would give himself away in the next two hours.
When I left Nancy’s house, Bill still wasn’t home. (Thank goodness.) He arrived ten minutes later. I know because I was watching from my bedroom window with my binoculars.
Bill turned on the lights in the study. I focused my binoculars. Now I could see a lot. My spy notebook was with me and I recorded everything.
“Hello, Hannie,” I said when she picked up the phone.
“Is this about Bill again?” Hannie wanted to know. (She did not even say hello.)
“Yes,” I said. “But this time I have proof something is going on.”
Before Hannie could answer, I told her the blue light I had seen had been coming from Mr. Dawes’s computer when Bill tried to get into the bank’s files.
Hannie was quiet so I kept talking. I told her about finding Bill’s red notebook and seeing the word withdrawal in it.
Hannie whistled.
“Do you believe me now?” I said.
“I am starting to,” answered Hannie.
When I finished telling Hannie the story, especially about what I had just seen this afternoon, Hannie apologized. “I should have believed you sooner,” she said.
The Secret Password
The next morning I woke up when it was still dark. I looked next door. Bill’s car was there, so I knew I could not check the tape yet. I was worried. What if the recorder had not worked? What if Bill had noticed it running?
I went downstairs and made myself breakfast. I had just finished eating when Mommy came downstairs. She looked surprised to see me up so early. “Are you all right, Karen?” she asked.
“I
am fine. I just could not sleep.”
Mommy frowned and felt my forehead. “I am fine,” I repeated.
I checked the time. It was still very early. But I had promised Hannie I would call her when Bill left the house. She wanted to be with me when I snuck in to get the tape, which was good. I felt safer with her there.
Hannie answered on the first ring. She told me she had woken up early too. She had not slept well after I called the night before. She was too excited.
“Has Bill left the house yet?” Hannie wanted to know.
“Yes. He just left. Come over as soon as you can. We will get the tape and bring it back here. We can listen to it on my old tape player.” (I did not want to stay long at Nancy’s house. What if Bill came back?)
Hannie arrived about twenty minutes later. Mommy and Seth were just leaving for work. Merry was making breakfast for Andrew.
I took Hannie outside. “Oh, Karen, I am scared. I am scared to go over there,” she whispered.
“We will not stay long. You can be the lookout near the front door. I will go inside and get the tape.”
Hannie sat on the front steps. She was supposed to yell if Bill or his girlfriend showed up. I went to the back of the house, unlocked the door, and rushed upstairs to the study. The stereo was still on and set to “record.” I turned everything off and took out the tape.
Suddenly I heard a soft thump behind me! I spun around, but it was just Pokey. He had jumped onto Mr. Dawes’s big padded leather chair.
“Oh, Pokey, you scared me!” I cried. My heart was pounding. “Did you follow me in here?”
“Mew-eek,” said Pokey. I stroked his back for a minute, then ran downstairs with the tape.
“I have it!” I shouted to Hannie when I saw her. “Let’s go.”