Mystery of the Traveling Tomatoes (4 page)

At first, the boot treads left a lot of dirt to track. But, as the dirt wore off, the trail became harder and harder to follow. After a block, the children could not see the prints.

“Why would someone dump our black gold?” asked Violet as they headed back. But no one could think of a single reason.

Benny spotted something shiny glinting in the tall weeds along Applewood’s alley fence. He reached in and picked up a toy car. “Aw, all the wheels are missing,” he said, tossing it into a garbage can. There were a few green cloth bags in the garbage, like the one he used to make Spooky’s head. Maybe they should make another scarecrow. Spooky wasn’t scaring anything.

“Come on, Benny,” Henry said, running toward the old building next door. “Let’s build up our buried treasure.”

Tall stacks of tires leaned against the old building, which used to be Duffy’s Garage. The boys lifted a few tires off the piles and rolled them to their garden. They’d set the tires on top of a circle of other old tires. Inside the circle, leafy potato vines grew out of black soil. Benny called the potatoes their “buried treasure” because the potatoes grew under the dirt. Every couple of weeks, as the plants grew taller, the boys added more tires and more soil.

Jessie knelt in the cucumber patch, hunting for ripe cucumbers that hid among the leaves. She noticed that the droopy sunflowers now stood nice and straight. Someone had tied them to tall bamboo sticks. “Did you prop up the sunflowers?” she asked her sister.

Violet looked surprised. “No,” she said. “Mrs. Shea must have done that after yesterday’s race.”

“Hey!” said Benny. “Somebody moved my green peppers!” He measured a row of plants, then checked his measuring workbook. “I planted these peppers twelve inches apart. Now the plants are all messed up. Just like my tomato plants.”

“Maybe the same person who tipped over our compost cans moved your peppers,” said Jessie. Benny checked the dirt for boot prints, but there were none. There also weren’t any animal footprints—no raccoons or rabbits.

All he saw were regular old shoe prints, from regular old shoes.

“Here’s something,” said Henry, pointing to a dent in the soil. “I’ve seen these strange marks in the dirt all around the garden today.”

Some of Spooky the Scarecrow’s straw poked out of his shirt. Benny tucked it back inside. “Spooky,” he said, “have you been messing with our garden?” But the green-faced scarecrow just looked down at Benny and smiled his crooked smile.

Mrs. Shea called them in for breakfast. Violet spooned mango and strawberry jam into the center of thin pancakes Mr. Shea called crepes. “Crepes rhymes with apes,” he’d said. “But crepes taste better.”

Violet rolled each crepe into a log and took bite after delicious bite. Benny filled his plate with scrambled eggs and fresh-baked whole wheat bread. Jessie cut a jumbo raisin muffin into slices, carefully spreading each slice with sweet butter. And Henry helped himself to second servings of everything.

As Mrs. Shea brought a pitcher of milk to the table, the children told her about the overturned compost cans. “I can’t imagine who would do such mischief,” she said. “There is nothing inside those cans of value.”

“Except worm … er … black gold,” said Benny. He figured it wasn’t polite to say “worm poop” at the breakfast table.

As they finished eating, Mr. Shea came out of the kitchen with a platter of melon slices and strawberries. He set down a new picture puzzle and winked. “This one is super-duper hard.”

The children studied two nearly identical photos of a soccer game. They worked for a long time but found only fourteen differences. Once again, Benny spotted the last and hardest clue. Two players’ helmets had different colored chinstraps.

“Is it time to go to the armored car company yet?” Benny asked when they finished.

Henry glanced at his watch. “Yes,” he said.

This time, Henry led the way as they rode their bikes across town.

The children pressed the doorbell of the large gray building.
Whirrrrrr. Whirrrrrr.
The security camera over the door searched left, then right, then down until it found the children. The door buzzer sounded, and the children walked in.

A tall smiling lady with twinkling blue eyes and blond curly hair greeted them in the lobby. “Your grandfather told me you might stop by,” she said. “I’m Edie Hope, the owner of the company. I’m on the phone just now. I’ll be back in a minute.”

While they waited, the children looked at a large display called
A Half-Century of Service.
It showed photos of the different armored cars and uniforms used by the AAA Armored Car Company over the past fifty years. The children recognized the newest cars, which they often saw driving around town. These were silver with green lettering the color of money. The newest uniforms were dark blue with brass buttons.

The office door opened. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Edie Hope. “Now, how can I help you?”

“We are interested in the robbery,” Henry said.

Ms. Hope’s smile faded. “This was our only robbery in fifty years. I can’t believe the police still have no clues. “

“Where did the thief find an armored car?” asked Jessie. “Did he steal one from you?”

“No, we keep all our cars under lock and key.”

Henry explained the children’s idea. “If you show us the route your armored car usually takes, maybe we can find where the thief hid the fake armored car.”

Ms. Hope led them into her office. A giant street map of Greenfield covered one wall. She pointed to the top of the map. “The Greenfield Bank is all the way up here at the north end of Greenfield, and we are all the way down here at the south.” Ms. Hope ran a finger straight down to the bottom. “Noah always drives straight up to the bank and back.”

The children studied the map. A wide line ran across the middle. “It looks like Greenfield is wearing a belt,” said Benny.

“That’s Main Street.” Henry pointed to the left side of the map. “Here, on the west, is the railroad station. The circus parade began here. “Then,” he ran his finger to the right along Main Street, “the March of the Elephants led the parade east, all the way across town, to the park over here. Main Street was closed for an hour. No traffic was allowed to cross.”

“Which means the robber was up here when the parade began—on the same side as the bank. He hid his armored car above Main Street until he was ready to rob the bank,” said Jessie.

The children thanked Ms. Hope and headed out. “We’ll start at the bank,” said Henry, “and bike along Noah’s route looking for a place big enough to hide an armored car.”

“An invisible armored car,” said Benny, who secretly wondered if they could find such a thing.

Next, the children went to the Greenfield Bank. Arlo Jeffries, the manager, knew the Aldens, who visited the bank every month to put part of their allowances into their savings accounts.

“We’ve come to ask about the robbery,” said Henry. “What do you remember about that day?”

Mr. Jeffries sighed. “It was exactly like every other pick-up day. The armored car driver walked into the bank. We thought it was Noah. He was dressed in Noah’s blue uniform. He had sunglasses. He had Noah’s big moustache and long sideburns. Then Noah—I mean, the thief—walked to the teller’s window, opened his duffle bag, loaded up the bags of cash, and left. Just like always. Except it wasn’t Noah.” He shook his head.

“Can you remember anything different that day?” asked Violet. “Even the smallest thing might be a clue.”

Mr. Jeffries closed his eyes, thinking hard. “The circus, of course,” he said. “The bank was nearly empty because our customers were watching the parade. Even my employees went there on their lunch break. The only ones here were the bank guard, the teller, and, of course, me.”

Clink, clank, clank, clink!
The children whirled around at the sound of clanking coins. The man with the metal detector had plunked down a green bag full of coins. “I want to trade these coins for paper money,” the man told the teller. “Paper money is lighter to cart around.” He spilled the coins onto the counter. A few fell to the floor and rolled away. The children helped pick them up. The man barely looked at the children as they returned the coins to the pile.

When Benny saw the coins, he remembered that the bank had a vending machine near the door. “Can we get candy?” he asked.

“We just ate breakfast,” said Jessie.

“That was hours ago,” Benny said.

“It was
one
hour,” said Violet.

Mr. Jeffries snapped his fingers. “That reminds me! I must call the vending company right now. We’ve run out of Chili-Billy Bars.” He bent down, whispering, “One of our customers gets angry if we run out. Though why someone wants to eat candy made with hot peppers is beyond me. I tried one once.” He made a face and fanned his tongue with his hand. “Hot!” he said. “Hot and awful.
Awful.
”

The children biked south, from the bank toward Main Street, looking for a place where someone could hide a big silver truck. They passed shops and parks, small houses without garages, a school, and a department store. A block from The Applewood Café, they passed a row of offices. A big red, white, and blue sign said: “Sales by Sally Realty.”

“Look,” said Henry, “that’s the sign in the photo at the café. This is the lady who sold the café to the Sheas.”

“There sure are a lot of places for sale,” Jessie noticed. There were photos of houses, apartments, and shops taped up all over the big picture window of the office.

Benny pointed to a faded photo of Duffy’s Garage. “Look, that’s where we got those old tires,” he said.

Below the photo were the words “
GARAGE FOR SALE, MAKE AN OFFER
.” The children looked closely at the photo. Big sheets of metal covered the windows. Weeds grew in the gravel lot in back. A pile of old tires leaned against the back wall.

“I’ll bet Sally knows every building in Greenfield,” said Jessie. “She might know where someone could hide a van. We should talk to her. But look—she’s not here right now.” A sign on Sally’s door said “Back at 1:00.”

Henry checked his watch. “That’s three hours from now. Let’s finish riding toward Main Street. We’ll come back here after lunch.”

The children followed the armored car route but, as hard as they tried, they couldn’t find one single place where someone could hide a big armored car.

The Applewood Café bustled with lunchtime customers. As the Aldens waited for their orders, they discussed their visit to the armored car company and to the bank.

“The thief knew exactly how the real driver looked and talked,” Henry said. “That means he’d been watching the real driver. The thief might live right here in Greenfield.”

The smell of cooking food made Benny’s stomach rumble. To pass the time until the food came, he looked at the old photo of the café hanging over their table. For the first time, he noticed Duffy’s Garage in the background. The pile of old tires was higher back then. That was before Henry and Benny used them to build the planter for their potatoes. When Mr. Shea brought their food, Benny asked, “Does Duffy mind us using his old tires for our buried treasure?”

“We’ve never met Duffy,” said Mrs. Shea. “But Sally, the lady who sold us the Café, said he wouldn’t mind. He moved away and just wants to sell the place.” Benny poked his spoon through the crust of his chicken-potpie. He was so hungry he barely stopped to blow on each spoonful before putting it into his mouth.

“Slowly,” said Violet, resting a gentle hand on Benny’s shoulder, “Remember your manners.”

Benny paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth. It was hard to eat slowly when he was so hungry! Slowly he ate the pie, tasting each pea and carrot and zucchini and onion he had helped plant and grow.

When they finished, Mr, Shea brought them each a warm peach cobbler topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then he pulled a new picture puzzle from his chefs apron. “This one is extra-super-hard,” he said. “Good luck.”

The children bent over the puzzle, looking for differences between the two photos of a toy store. “Benny,” said Jessie, “what’s wrong?”

Benny looked down. He didn’t even realize he’d been scratching his wrist. But now he felt it itching. And his arm itched. “Your skin is all red,” said Violet. “It’s covered with blisters.”

Now Benny couldn’t stop scratching. His arm grew redder and redder. The children called Mrs. Shea, who took one look and said, “Poison ivy.” She lopped off a piece of the aloe plant decorating their table. Thick gel oozed out and she dabbed it on Benny’s arm. It felt cool and soothing.

“Remember this rhyme,” said Mrs. Shea. “‘Leaves of three, let them be.’ Poison ivy has three leaves. Benny, did you go into any woods, or deep weeds?”