Mystery of the Traveling Tomatoes (3 page)

Benny brought the detector back. “Thank you for letting me try this,” he told Mr. Hamu. Then the Aldens said good-bye and left.

“Let’s go talk to the other shop owners about the robbery,” said Violet. “Maybe we’ll find a clue.”

The children went next door to Cora’s Costumes. The owner, Cora, was helping a customer try on a king’s costume. Cora was dressed like Little Bo Peep. She also wore a curly clown wig that was all the colors of the rainbow.

“May I help you?” asked Cora.

“We’re wondering what you remember about the day of the bank robbery,” said Henry.

“Oh, my dears, we were much too busy that day to notice anything.” She handed the king his crown. “The circus was in town, so people were throwing circus parties. We were mobbed by people renting costumes—clowns, animals, fire-eaters, lion tamers—simply mobbed.”

The children’s luck was no better as they walked in and out of all the shops up one side of Main Street and down the other. None of the storekeepers or customers remembered anything about the robbery. All anyone remembered was the circus parade.

The children’s last stop was Witlin’s Watch Works. They parked their bikes in front of a tangle of tomato plants. Instead of nice neat rows, the plants grew wild in the soil outside the shop. Overripe tomatoes had fallen from the vines and splattered on the ground. “Be careful,” warned Benny. He was still sore from slipping on the tomatoes in the garden. “Those things are
dangerous.
”

Inside the watch shop, the sour-faced woman and her nephew Fenster stood at the counter. Fenster held up a wide watchband that had two small watches on it. “I like this,” he said. “See, I can set each watch to a different time.” He turned the watch stems. “There, I set the top watch on Greenfield time and the bottom watch for Paris.”

“Why Paris?” asked his aunt.

“It’s just an example,” snapped Fenster. “I was mentioning a place that has a different time than here. Right now, it’s six hours later in Paris.”

“You already have twelve watches in your top dresser drawer,” said his aunt.

Fenster scowled. “Why are you always going through my things?”

“
Someone
has to straighten properly,” the aunt said. She noticed the Aldens. “I see you children have cleaned up nicely,” she said, plucking a speck of dust from Jessie’s sleeve.

Fenster tried on the watch and frowned.

“This band is too tight,” he said.

“I can fix it for you in a week,” said Mr. Witlin.

“That’s too late,” said Fenster. “I need it Tuesday.”

“All right.” Mr. Witlin measured Fenster’s wrist. “The watch will be ready at three o’clock Tuesday.”

Fenster took out a fat roll of bills and counted out the money for the watch. “Tuesday three o’clock,” he said, turning abruptly, nearly bumping into the children. He gripped his aunt’s arm. “Come on,” he said, rushing her out the door, “I have to get to work.”

The children asked Mr. Witlin what he remembered about the day of the robbery. But, like everyone else, he was watching the parade while the bank was being robbed.

Back outside, Jessie said, “It really does seem like the thief planned the robbery to take place during the parade.”

“We haven’t asked in that shop,” said Benny, leading the way to the ice cream shop next door.

But the owner was no help. “Those elephants were huge,” he said. “And those clowns were so funny …” He only remembered the circus as well.

The Aldens wondered what to do next. Benny pressed his nose against the glass display window. “As long as we’re here, we could have some ice cream!” he said.

The children gave their orders. Benny had vanilla in a cone. Jessie ordered strawberry and vanilla. Violet decided to try the rainbow sherbet, and Henry had a taste for rocky road. Then they sat at one of the tables outside the shop to enjoy their treats. A woman at the next table fed ice cream to her toddler.

Benny finished his cone before it could melt. “We’ll never solve the robbery case,” he said, popping the pointy bottom of the cone into his mouth. “No one saw anything.”

“We can’t give up,” said Violet. “We’ve just begun.”

Henry borrowed Jessie’s notebook and took out a pen. “All right,” he said, “what are some things we know about the day of the robbery?”

As Jessie, Violet, and Benny recalled what they’d learned, Henry wrote it all down. Soon he had a list of facts:

• The March of the Elephants led the circus down Main Street at noon.
  
• The bank was robbed at 12:20.
  
• The thief dressed like an armored car driver
  
• The thief disguised himself to look like the driver, Noah:
  
  • He wore a bushy moustache.
    
  • He wore big dark sunglasses.
    
  • He drove a silver van that looked like Noah’s armored car.
    

Then the children thought of other things that
might
be true:

• Noah was a big man, so the thief was probably a big man.
  

“He could have walked on stilts to look taller,” said Benny. He thought of Spooky the Scarecrow. “And maybe he stuffed straw in his clothes to look bigger.”

“That’s an interesting idea,” said Jessie. “But I think people in the bank would notice a stilt-walking straw-padded man.”

Henry nodded. “Let’s try to think of some other things that might be true about the thief.” He wrote them down:

• The thief might live in Greenfield because:
  
  • He knew what the driver looked like because he disguised himself to look like Noah.
    
  • He knew that Noah always greeted the bank guard the same way.
    
  • He knew what time the driver always made his pick-up.
    

Finally Henry wrote down a list of questions:

• How did the robber know that Noah would be late that day?
  
• Where did the thief get an armored car? Did he steal it?
  
• Where did the robber hide his armored car until he was ready to rob the bank?
  
• Where did he drive it after he robbed the bank?
  
• Why didn’t anyone remember seeing the fake armored car?
  

It was quiet for a moment as Henry finished writing the list.

“Pay-pay! Pay-pay!” squealed the toddler at the table next to them. “Pay-pay!” he yelled, laughing, pointing at the sky. The Aldens looked up. A jet plane flew high overhead. They could barely hear it.

“He always hears the airplanes,” his mother said.

“That’s amazing,” said Violet.

The mother smiled. “Actually, we all hear the airplanes. But as we grow up, we get used to the sound and we stop paying attention. Airplanes are new for babies, so they notice. But, for us, it’s as if the airplanes are invisible.”

“Birdy, birdy,” squealed the toddler, pointing to a nearby tree. Sure enough, two birds sat chirping on a branch. Again, the children hadn’t even noticed the birds before.

As the Aldens rode their bikes home, Henry braked to a sudden stop. “I think I know why no one saw the robber’s armored car the day of the robbery. It was as invisible to them as that airplane and the birds were to us.”

“How can a big silver truck be invisible?” asked Benny.

“It wasn’t
really
invisible,” Henry explained. “But people are so used to seeing that same truck on that same street at that same time, they don’t pay attention.”

The children rode their bikes through the park. Workers in yellow shirts set up tents for Sunday’s 5K Healthy Heart run. The whole Alden family had signed up. Henry, a very good runner, would run the 5K, which was a little over three miles. Jessie, who had been practicing running each day, was going to try it, too. Violet and Benny signed up to walk with the One Milers. Their housekeeper, Mrs. McGregor, Grandfather, and their dog, Watch would join the Simply Strollers. They would walk around the park until the runners returned.

“Look,” said Benny pointing across the park. The man with the metal detector crouched under the baseball bleachers. He dug around in the dirt with a small shovel. Then he picked up a small object, brushed it off, and tucked it into a vest pocket. “I wonder what he found,” Benny said.

Next, the Aldens stopped at the fountain for a drink. Nearby, all the Greenfield Special Events Committee members were working hard, except Fenster. He leaned against a tree, eating a candy bar. “Pull that tent rope tighter,” he shouted. “No, no, the other rope. And, you over there …”

“Fenster and his aunt sure are bossy,” said Benny.

“There is a nice way and a rude way to ask someone to do something,” said Jessie, who did not like Fenster’s way at all. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” Mrs. McGregor liked to say. Although Jessie never understood why anyone would want to catch flies at all.

Violet always tried to find something nice to say about a person, “One good thing about Fenster,” she said, “is that his committee does put on wonderful events. They brought the circus to town, and now they’re putting on the race.”

But even as she said this, Fenster crumpled his candy wrapper and tossed it on the ground. Then he walked toward a tent, yelling instructions.

Without a word, Violet rode over, picked up the red wrapper, and tossed it into a garbage can. Few things made Violet angry. But littering was one of them.

At dinner that night, the children told Grandfather about their search for clues to the robbery.

“No one saw the armored car,” Henry said. “At least they don’t remember seeing it. But maybe they were so used to it that they just didn’t notice.”

“Like airplanes,” said Benny, “and birds.”

Jessie told Grandfather about the toddler who noticed everything. “But is it possible to find something that’s invisible?” she asked.

Grandfather thought this over. “Yes, I think you sometimes can. For example, you can’t see the wind. But you find it every time you fly a kite or hear leaves rustling on the trees.”

Henry twirled his fork in his plate of spaghetti. “Maybe instead of looking for the robber’s armored truck, the police should have looked for a place big enough to hide it,” he said.

“We can do that,” said Jessie. She took a piece of hot garlic bread and passed the plate around. “We can go to the bank, then follow the same route the armored car usually followed.” She scrunched her mouth. “Except we don’t know the route.”

“I happen to know the woman who owns the AAA Armored Car Company,” said Grandfather. “Maybe she can help you.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Jessie. “We can talk to her on Monday.”

The next morning was Sunday the day of the Healthy Heart Race. There were hundreds of people in the park getting ready to run 5K, walk a mile, or just walk around the park. Henry and Jessie proudly pinned their running numbers onto their shirts.

The Sheas jogged up. Mr. Shea pushed the twins in a double stroller. “We closed the café so we could run, too,” he said.

Jessie retied her running shoes. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to run three whole miles.”

“Then run with us,” said Mrs. Shea. “We won’t be going too fast with the twins. Besides, we’re running just for the fun of it. We won’t mind stopping to walk a while.”

The race began. The 5K runners ran one lap around the park then sped off to circle through town. Meanwhile, Benny and Violet walked a mile, which was twice around the park.

When they finished, they ate bananas that had been set out for the runners.

A roar went up as the first 5K runners returned to the park. People waiting at the finish line waved big posters, cheering as friends and family crossed the finish line. The Aldens quickly joined the waiting crowd, yelling proudly as Henry came in. He was, they all agreed, very fast for a fourteen-year-old.

Jessie and the Sheas jogged in a few minutes later.

“I did it!” said Jessie, her cheeks bright red. “I ran all the way and didn’t stop even one time.”

Early Monday before breakfast, the children rode their bikes through the quiet morning streets. As usual, Benny pedaled extra hard, leading all the way to The Applewood Café. He coasted around to the garden.

“Oh, no!” He screeched to a stop. “Our black gold!”

Three huge garbage cans lay on their sides. Their lids were torn off and their insides spilled out. Scattered on the ground around them were wilted lettuce leaves and broccoli stems, watermelon rinds and dead flowers, grass clippings, and mounds of black dirt. The dirt looked like it was moving. It
was
moving. Hundreds of worms squiggled around.

“Quick,” shouted Henry, grabbing a shovel, “before they get away!”

Jessie picked up the cans. Henry shoveled wormy dirt into each one. Violet pulled on her gardening gloves and scooped up the food scraps, tossing them into the cans. Benny raced around, picking up all the wiggly worms he could find. He set them gently into the cans.

Now the four children finished cleaning up the spilled cans. “Raccoons must have done this,” Jessie said.

Violet studied the latches on the cans. “I don’t think raccoons could open these.”

“And I don’t think raccoons wear boots.” Benny pointed to footprints. The deep boot treads made a
V
shaped pattern. One
V
had no point on the bottom. The children followed the prints from the garbage cans, through the garden, and out into the alley.