Clocks and Robbers (9 page)

“Someone broke into my dad’s office this week,” said Viola. She was perched on her bed. Her friends surrounded her, lounging on the floor.

“Whoa,” said Sylvester. “Is he okay?”

“He wasn’t there at the time, thank goodness. But of course, he was freaked out when he discovered he’d been robbed.”

“Robbed?” Rosie asked. “What kinds of things does your dad have in his office that someone would want to take?”

“Antiques,” said Viola. “I love hanging out in there because there’s always something to look at. His shelves are full of weird old books with gross pictures of medical oddities. There are relics from archaeology digs that he keeps underneath bell jars. He’s also got a whole bunch of plants sitting on the windowsill, where they soak up the sun. But unfortunately the one really valuable item was the object the thief had set his or her sights on.”

“What was it?” Woodrow asked.

“An old stone figurine of a goddess from ancient Mesopotamia.”

“No way!” said Sylvester. “That’s so cool … and
terrible
that someone stole it.”

“It stands about a foot tall and weighs about twenty-five pounds. My dad kept it on a shelf behind his big oak desk, next to a few other cool artifacts. He figured it was safe there, because of all the security.”

“Like the officers in the gatehouse at the campus’s entrance,” said Sylvester. “The one across the street from the Clintock Clock.”

“Right,” said Viola. “There’s also a guard who sits at a desk just inside the entrance of my dad’s building. There are cameras in all the hallways. And you have to have a key to get into any of the offices, like the one my dad uses.”

“If the security is so high,” Rosie said, “then how did someone manage to break in?”

“That’s the big question,” said Viola. “My dad was astounded when he went to work yesterday morning. He used his key to unlock the door. Inside, he didn’t immediately notice anything wrong. He said he grabbed his watering can from the windowsill because his plants were looking thirsty. He noticed that all their leaves had turned away from the glass. But before he had a chance to fill the can, he realized that the figurine was gone. After a quick search of
the room, he realized that someone must have taken it.”

“So, what’d he do?” Sylvester asked.

“His teacher’s assistant, a girl named Mallory, is the one other person who has a key to the office, so the first thing he did was call her to see if she knew anything about it. Mallory was as shocked as my father. She said that she’d finished up her work the night before and had locked the door on her way out. My dad knew that was true because he’d unlocked the door on his way in. Next, my dad went to the college security office and reported the incident. The officer in charge, this guy named Stu, seemed pretty confident that they would be able to catch the thief immediately.”

“Why was Officer Stu so confident?” asked Sylvester.

“Every hallway has a security camera in it,” said Woodrow. “The officer probably thought that if someone had come in after Mallory had left for the night, it would be caught on video.”

“Right,” said Viola. “So the officer pulled the footage from the night before. The video showed Mallory leaving around eight o’clock, just like she’d said. My dad said she was only carrying a few file folders, and he was sure that she wasn’t hiding the figurine under her coat—it was too big. Not that he believed she would have been capable of stealing.”

“I’m guessing the video didn’t show anyone else coming in or out of your dad’s office,” said Rosie.

Viola shook her head. “Nope. My dad cleans the office himself. Other than Mallory, no one else has access. And that’s the real mystery. How the heck did someone get in and steal the figurine without being caught on tape?”

Sylvester, Rosie, and Woodrow squirmed on Viola’s bedroom floor as they tried to work out an answer. After a few seconds, Woodrow spoke up. “Maybe the thief somehow messed with the camera? Could they have broken into your dad’s office, then found the security footage and somehow destroyed the evidence of the crime?”

“That sounds really complicated,” said Rosie. “I have an idea that seems much more plausible. A way that someone could steal the figurine, but
still manage to stay out of view of the hallway camera.”

“Yeah, but how?” asked Sylvester.

“Through the office window,” said Rosie.

“That’s what my dad came up with,” replied Viola. “In fact, after Officer Stu ruled out the door entry, my dad remembered something he’d seen in the room earlier that clued him in that a window had been opened.
Can you think of my dad’s clue?”

Rosie nodded. “You mentioned that when your dad came into the room, the leaves on his plants were turned away from the glass. But you also said that the plants usually like to soak up the sunlight. Most plant leaves will turn
toward
their light source, so if they were facing away from the glass, that would indicate that someone had moved them. The thief needed access to the window, and the plants were in the way.”

“You’re right,” said Viola. “And that was the story my father told me last night when he came home from work. The police are still unsure of who did it.”

“So, your dad asked you to help him figure out who the thief was?” said Sylvester.

Viola smiled and nodded. “He knew we might be able to help him out.”

“Ha!” said Woodrow. “Your dad’s so cool. Did you give him an answer?”

“Not yet. I wanted to get everyone else’s input. So what do you think? Do we have enough information here to figure out how to catch the thief and maybe find my dad’s artifact?”

“I think so,” said Rosie. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I know who the thief is.”

Viola sat up.
“Really? Who?”

“Mallory,” said Rosie, keeping her voice low.

“No way,” said Sylvester. “The video showed that she was innocent.”

“The video showed that Mallory didn’t leave the office with the figurine,” said Rosie. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t take it.”

“If I tell my dad that Mallory is the main suspect, he’s going to want proof.” Viola frowned.
“So, what’s the proof that Mallory is our villain?”

“Can I give it a try?” said Woodrow. Rosie waved at him to continue. “Mallory was the only other person with a key to your dad’s office. She was the last one to leave the office last night. The video proves that. We also know that she didn’t leave with the figurine — the figurine had to have left via the window. But I don’t think our thief actually came in through the window.”

“What?” asked Sylvester. “How do you figure that?”

“Viola’s dad or the police would have noticed if the window had been broken … or if it had been unlocked,” Woodrow continued. “And although the plants had been moved, they
were
still on the windowsill when Mr. Hart arrived in the morning. So, they’d been moved—but they’d also been moved back. And the window had been unlocked—and then locked again.”

“Which could only have been done from the inside,” Rosie added.

“Right,” said Woodrow. “Mallory must have unlocked the window, moved the plants out of the way, and then dropped the figurine out onto the lawn. Then before leaving, she replaced the plants on the windowsill, locked both the window and the door, and strolled out of the building … and around the corner, to where her prize was waiting.”

“Wow,” said Viola. “I wonder why she did it. Money? I bet if we tell our theory to my father,
he’d confront her. Maybe he can even get the figurine back!”

“Either that,” said Sylvester, “or he could just tell the police.”

“I guess so,” answered Viola. “But knowing my dad, he’ll probably want to take care of the situation himself. Threat of a ruined reputation may inspire Mallory to do what’s right. Right?”

By mid-December, the Timekeepers hullabaloo had nearly died out, and the Question Marks finally felt like their lives had gotten back to normal—as normal as their lives could be. The mystery of Phineas Galby still hung above them like an icicle waiting to fall, but they’d heard nothing more from him since the night at the diner.

Little things came up—like locating a classmate’s missing pencil and guessing who passed gas during math class—but the group agreed that instances like these weren’t worth a serious club meeting.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Sylvester’s grandmother took a bus trip across the state to visit her sister in Buffalo. After a couple days, Sylvester realized that he missed having her around. And missing her had nothing to do with the money she kept slipping him. Sylvester put it all in his sock drawer, but he couldn’t bring himself to spend it. It didn’t really feel like his money at all.

Several days after she’d left on her trip, Sylvester woke in his basement bedroom while it was still dark out. He felt especially itchy. After turning on the lamp next to his bed, he flipped the covers away to see strange bumps all over his stomach. They looked like bites, similar to the ones that he’d discovered on his ankles a few weeks earlier. Little red dots were lined up in rows, as if some insect had made its way along his skin, chomping every few steps. The sight disturbed him so much that he ran upstairs and woke his parents.

When his mother saw the marks, her eyes widened. They all paraded back downstairs. His parents pulled the bottom sheet from the mattress. Looking closely at the stitching along the edges, they recoiled, gasping and stepping quickly away from the bed. “Oh my gosh,” said his mom.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sylvester.

“Oh, honey,” she answered, “you can’t stay down here.”

Sylvester knew it had something to do with what they’d found on his mattress, or
in
his mattress. His stomach went sour. Still, he managed to ask, “Why not?”

“Bedbugs!” Woodrow cried, immediately scooting away from Sylvester at the lunch table. It was the same reaction Sylvester had had the
night before, when his parents finally told him what had invaded his bedroom. “That’s so creepy!”

“Yeah,” said Sylvester, red-faced.
“I know that.”

“Where did they come from?” said Viola.

“Funny you should ask,” said Sylvester. “Because my parents wondered the same thing. We’ve never had bedbugs in our house before. So they probably weren’t just hanging out in my basement, waiting for me.
Where do you
think they came from?”

“They must have hitched a ride on your grandmother’s stuff,” said Rosie, tugging at her braids with worry. “The Oriental rug doesn’t seem to have enough crevices for the bugs to hide in … so it might have been the yellow couch that your grandmother seems to love so much. Once down there, they migrated to your bed … and to their food source. You!”

“Yup,” said Sylvester. “That’s what my mom figured out last night. She did a quick search of the couch and found the creepy little monsters all along the cushion seams. So nasty. I couldn’t shower enough last night, or this morning. But my parents don’t think the bugs have spread outside of the basement yet.”

“I didn’t know they really existed,” said Woodrow. “I thought they were imaginary creatures from that old nursery rhyme:
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“Oh, they’re real all right,” said Sylvester. “And let me tell you straight up: That nursery rhyme does
not
work. If the bedbugs want to bite, there’s nothing you or I can do to stop them.”

“But what are you going to do about it?” asked Viola. “I heard that bedbugs are really hard to get rid of.”

“My parents already called an exterminator. And we’re going to wash all our clothes. But most important, my parents called the dump to take away my grandmother’s yellow couch.”

“But your grandmother was so attached to that couch,” said Rosie. “What did she say when they told her they had to trash it?”

“I don’t know. They were going to call her this morning. I wasn’t around to hear the fallout.” Sylvester shuddered. “I don’t want her to be upset or anything, but there is no way I was spending one more night in that basement knowing little bugs were sucking my blood.”

“Really?” said Woodrow. “Sounds like the kind of thing you’d enjoy.”

Sylvester squinted, then punched Woodrow in the shoulder.

Woodrow glanced at the girls for support. Viola replied, “Sorry, but you pretty much deserved that.”

When Sylvester got home from school that afternoon, he quickly checked the basement. The couch was gone. “Sylvester!” his mother called. “I’m in the laundry room.”

He came back upstairs, peeked in at her, and said, “Need help?” His mother was frantically folding clothes in the small room off the kitchen where the washer and dryer hummed.

She shook her head. “Yes, but not with this stuff. When your father called Hal-muh-ni this morning to tell her what happened, she went ballistic.”

“Ballistic? That sounds bad.”

“She insisted that your father retrieve the couch immediately. He told her that was impossible. Honestly, I can’t understand her attachment to this piece of furniture.” Mrs. Cho shrugged. “But it’s undeniable. I’d like you to be here this evening when she gets home so you can help us try to calm her down.”

“She’s coming home today? What about her visit?”

“She left her sister’s house early. That’s how important this is to her.” Mrs. Cho sighed, frustrated, and launched herself into folding shirt after shirt after shirt.

“Where’d you get all this money?” Viola gasped. It was later in the afternoon. The group had decided to meet in Rosie’s dining room. Sylvester wore a freshly washed, bug-free sweatshirt and pair of corduroys. With a dramatic flourish, he’d tossed several twenty-dollar bills onto the table.

“I haven’t told anyone about this,” said Sylvester, “because Hal-muh-ni asked me not to. But recently, a few times, I’ve found her in my bedroom. And whenever I do, she hands me a wad of cash. She’s told me that it’s a gift, that she wanted to leave it under my pillow. But with all the drama going on now, I have a different idea about what she’s been doing with that money.”

“She’s not a con artist, is she?” said Woodrow. Sylvester rolled his eyes and shook his head. Woodrow continued, “Then what is Hal-muh-ni’s deal?
What has she really been doing down in the basement with that money?”

“Making withdrawals,” said Sylvester.

“You mean, like, bank withdrawals?” Viola asked. Sylvester nodded. “She was keeping money in the old yellow couch?”

“That’s what I assume,” said Sylvester. “It must be her savings.”

“Oh no!” said Rosie. “That’s awful. What was she thinking, keeping all that cash in your house?”

“I’m not sure,” said Sylvester. “She doesn’t trust banks or something. I just figured it out this afternoon, and I finally told my mom all about it. Of course, now I’m going to have to give the money back. Whatever. I shouldn’t have accepted it anyway. But losing this money is nothing compared to what Hal-muh-ni might lose if my dad doesn’t track down that couch. I asked if I could go with him to the town dump to help look for it, but my parents didn’t want me digging around in the dirt … so here I am.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Viola asked.

“Keep your fingers crossed for her. For all of us, I guess.” Woodrow, Rosie, and Viola did just that, all night. In fact, they woke up with sore knuckles.

The next morning at school, Sylvester pulled the other three aside before classes started, so he
could explain what had happened the night before.

“So, just as the sun was setting, my dad ended up at the dump in the hills past Deerhof Park,” Sylvester started. “He talked to the manager, an old man named Ned, about where the latest large furniture drop-offs might be located. Ned looked at my dad like he had two heads, but pointed him in the right direction. Near the rear lot. When my dad drove all the way back there, he realized that someone already had his eye on the couch. In fact, my dad said this person had already loaded the couch onto the bed of a small busted-up pickup truck. He immediately recognized this person. And he told me that I would recognize him too, given the chance.”

“Was it Bill?” asked Woodrow, with a determined look. “I knew he was up to something!”

“No,” said Sylvester, rolling his eyes.
“So, if it wasn’t your mom’s boyfriend, who was trying to take my grandmother’s couch away from the dump?”

Rosie and Viola thought for a while. Then, Viola’s eyes lit up. “Yesterday afternoon, Sylvester said his parents didn’t want him digging around in the dirt at the dump,” she said. “And who have we seen recently who looked like he’s spent some time digging around?”

“Phineas Galby?” said Rosie, shocked.

Sylvester raised his eyebrows. “Yup.”

“The guy from the diner?” said Woodrow. “That can’t be a coincidence. He must have known what was inside the couch.”

Sylvester shrugged. “Thankfully, my father had the guts to confront Phineas. They argued about the couch, then my dad managed to wiggle past him and hop up on the bed of the truck. He patted down the cushions and realized that one felt different than the others. When he unzipped it, he found a small canvas sack, filled with rolls of cash. My grandmother’s savings. Mr. Galby was paralyzed with shock, so my dad managed to get back to his car and drive off, leaving Galby behind with the yellow couch … and the bedbugs.”

Woodrow suddenly looked like someone had struck him on the back of the head.

“What’s wrong?” Viola asked.

“The hole at the Four Corners,” Woodrow answered slowly. “Phineas
was
the one who dug it. We figured he might be looking for something.
Was it Hal-muh-ni’s money that he wanted all along?”

“Could be,” said Viola. “But then, what was with the stuff he told us at the diner — about the Timekeepers and how we supposedly don’t know much about them?”

“And how did he know about your grandmother’s money in the first place?” asked Woodrow. “Unless he was watching through the basement windows….”

Sylvester grimaced. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“Either way,” said Viola, “I’m still willing to bet that whatever Phineas was seeking originally was not an old woman’s savings account.”

“So, then what was he
really
looking for?” Sylvester asked. “And now that my dad stole back Phineas’s consolation prize, what if Phineas returns to try and find whatever he wanted in the first place?”