Trouble at the Treasury (3 page)

Mr. Royce had stopped at one corner of the room. A computer was open on the desk. A group of TV screens hung on the wall. Two of the screens showed people working around the money-printing machines.

Travis Royce waved at the screens. “What you’re seeing is happening right now, downstairs,” he said.

KC studied the two screens. It was like watching a movie of what she and Marshall had seen yesterday. At the bottom of each screen was the time and date.

Mr. Royce picked up three discs from his desk. Each one had “December 19”
written on the plastic sleeve. “These are from yesterday’s three shifts, sir,” he said to Casey Marshall. “Would you like to see them all?”

“Do you know when the money was taken?” KC asked.

“It went missing during the first shift,” he said. He chose one of the three CDs. “That runs from seven in the morning till three in the afternoon.”

Marshall groaned. “Watching the whole shift would take eight hours!” he said.

“We’ve been able to narrow it down,” Mr. Royce said. “We count the bricks several times during each shift. The staff thinks the missing brick of bills was lifted between eleven and twelve, just before lunch.”

He tapped a few keys on the computer.
Suddenly they were looking at the sheets of money being cut, then speeding along the conveyor belt in small piles. “This is yesterday morning at eleven,” Mr. Royce said.

KC noticed that the woman with red hair was there. She was wiping parts of the machinery with a large cleaning cloth. The time at the bottom showed that it was eleven o’clock, Wednesday, December 19.

“Excuse me, who is that woman?” KC asked.

“That’s Polly Fine,” Mr. Royce said. “She’s a good worker. She keeps the rooms clean on her shift.”

“What about him?” KC asked. She pointed to the man who was grabbing money, checking it for problems, then placing the bills back on the conveyor belt.

“That’s Eddie Yump,” Mr. Royce said. “We call him ‘Fast Eddie’ because his fingers move so quickly. He’s been here for about five years.”

They all watched as Eddie snatched, flipped, and replaced money over and over again. His hands were a blur.

“Can you stop the picture?” KC asked Mr. Royce.

“Sure.” Mr. Royce pressed a key, and the image on the computer screen froze. Eddie Yump held a fistful of bills close to his eyes. Polly Fine was in the background. One hand was raised to wipe something with her cleaning cloth. Two other workers in the room were also frozen, as if they’d been playing a game of statues.

“Can you make it bigger?” KC asked. She leaned forward.

Mr. Royce clicked the mouse. The picture grew larger.

“Can you make it move again, but real slow?” KC asked.

Now Polly was wiping in slow motion. Her little reindeer earrings waved back and forth as she moved. Eddie Yump riffled the bills in his hand. This time it was slow enough for KC to see each bill.

“Does anyone else touch the money?” KC asked.

“Once the sheets are cut into bills, only Eddie handles them,” Mr. Royce said. He speeded up the disc and they all watched Eddie Yump doing his job.

“Excuse me, but if you think Eddie is the thief, you’re wrong,” Mr. Royce said. “Trust me, he’s the most honest person I know. Before I hired him, I got an excellent report from his last boss.”

“Where did he work before he came here?” Marshall asked.

“He was a card dealer in a casino,” Mr. Royce said.

KC stared at the man on the screen as he replaced the money on the belt, and took more. “No wonder his hands are so fast!” she said.

“Can we see the vault?” Marshall asked.

Mr. Royce shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. It’s off-limits to the public.”

“Why, I’d love to see that myself!” Casey said.

“Oh, of course, Mr. President,” Mr. Royce said. “I’ll get the shift manager to take you down there.”

He picked up a telephone, spoke into it softly, then hung up. “Ms. Slye will be here in a second.”

While Casey and Mr. Royce shook hands, KC turned to Marshall.

“Why did you ask to see the vault?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? This is my only chance to see a kajillion dollars up close!” Marshall said. “It’ll be even better than the tour!”

The elevator door opened and a tall woman came over to them. She held her hand out to Casey.

“Mr. President, welcome to the BEP. I’m Gladys Slye. I understand you want to see the cookie jar,” she said.

Casey gave her a blank look. “Cookie jar?”

“Oh, that’s what I call the vault,” Ms. Slye explained. “Won’t you join me?”

She stepped back into the elevator and the others followed.

“The vault is beneath the street and under this building,” Ms. Slye said as the elevator went down.

At the bottom, they stepped into a wide hallway. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all built of steel. As they followed Ms. Slye, their footsteps echoed around them.

Ms. Slye stopped at a closed metal door. She tapped a code into a keypad on the wall, and the door opened. They all stepped through. Right away they saw two guards standing in front of a second door. This door was thick and broad, like on a castle.

Ms. Slye nodded at the guards. Then she pressed her eye up against a sort of window in the wall next to the door. A small light near the window turned green.
“That scans my eyes for a match,” she explained. “We used to use fingerprints, but they can be faked.”

They all heard a click, and the vault door slowly opened.

“After you, sir,” Ms. Slye said.

Casey entered the vault. KC and Marshall followed him into the gigantic space. The room was as large as KC and Marshall’s whole school! Each wall was lined with metal shelves, from the floor to the ceiling. Every shelf held piles and piles of money bricks.

KC found that she couldn’t speak. Even Marshall was silent. His eyes looked as big as golf balls.

Ms. Slye picked up a stack and stroked the money the way KC petted her cats. “I know it’s astonishing,” she said. “I come in
here several times a day, and I never get used to it.”

“How much money is there?” Casey asked.

Ms. Slye returned the money to the shelf. Then she tapped a few keys on a laptop computer. “Right now, the total is nine billion, seven hundred and thirty million, six hundred thousand, five hundred dollars,” she said.

KC, Marshall, and Casey just stared at Ms. Slye.

“How do you know?” KC managed to ask.

“Our computers count it for us,” Ms. Slye said. “Each day, the newly printed bills get counted several times. Then they are added to what’s already here in the vault.”

“Does your computer ever make mistakes?” Casey asked. “I was told about the missing money….”

Ms. Slye looked at Casey. “Mr. Presi-dent, we don’t know how to explain what happened to that money,” she said. “But
the Treasury Department has its own detectives, and they were on the case minutes after the theft was discovered.”

“When was the other money taken?” Marshall asked. “You know, the other brick.”

“That was last week,” Ms. Slye said.

“Which day and shift?” KC asked. She was glad that Marshall had thought to ask his question.

“I believe the money was taken at the same time on the same day last week,” Ms. Slye said. “That would have been between eleven in the morning and noon on Wednesday, December 12th.”

KC thought about that for a moment. “Can anybody besides you get into this vault?” she asked the woman.

“During the shift when the money disappeared, I am the only one who has
access to this vault,” she answered. “Of course, there are different managers for the other shifts, but no money was re-ported missing on those shifts.” Her voice sounded tight.

“So you were the manager when the money was stolen, on both Wednesdays?” KC asked.

Ms. Slye nodded. “Yes” was all she said.

Just then they all heard a quiet chirping noise. Ms. Slye pulled a cell phone from her pocket. She flipped it open, glanced at the screen, and snapped it shut again. “I’m needed upstairs,” she said. “May I take you to the exit?”

“That will be fine,” Casey said. “And thank you for your time.”

“The pleasure was mine, Mr. Presi-dent,” Ms. Slye said.

KC didn’t think Ms. Slye looked
pleased at all. Her face had turned red, and she looked embarrassed or angry. Or both.

They stepped out of the vault. The ten-inch-thick steel door made only a soft swooshing noise as Ms. Slye swung it shut.

    Back at the White House, KC had a lot to think about. She flopped down in a chair. Her cats, Lost and Found, came running. The president’s cat, George, was cleaning his paws by the fireplace. Natasha, the White House dog, was sleeping on the floor.

“Well, now we know two people who had a chance to steal that money,” KC said. “‘Fast’ Eddie Yump and Ms. Slye.”

Marshall shook his head. “The man-ager?” he blurted out. “No way.”

“Marsh, she told us she’s the only one who can enter the vault on her shift,” KC said. “And she was working both times the money was stolen. She could’ve grabbed a brick from the vault and hidden it in her purse or something.”

“But they count the money,” Marshall said. “She’d get caught.”

KC stood up and paced around the room. “Remember that laptop in the vault?” she asked. “What if Ms. Slye changed the total? Then no one would know any money was missing. Everyone would think the money got stolen before it ever reached the vault.”

“Or it could have been Eddie Yump,” Marshall said. “He gets my vote. Don’t forget, he used to work in a casino. He’s probably a card cheat!”

KC sat down again. “We have two suspects. But we can’t prove either one of them took the money,” she said.

Yvonne came in carrying a grocery bag. “Hi, gang,” she said.

KC and Marshall helped her put the groceries away. Yvonne was in a good mood. She was singing Christmas carols, “Let It Snow” and then “Silver Bells.”

Suddenly KC almost dropped the carton of milk she was holding.

“What?” Marshall asked, looking at his friend.

“That song about the bells. It reminds me of something, but I don’t know what,” KC said. “Something important. Keep singing, Yvonne.”

Yvonne sang the entire song.

KC paced around the kitchen again, dodging the kittens and Yvonne.

“I’ll have lunch ready in about twenty minutes,” Yvonne said at the song’s end. “How about some sandwiches? And I just bought marshmallows for hot chocolate.”

KC stopped pacing. She stared at Yvonne.

“You don’t want any hot chocolate?” Yvonne asked.

“That’s it!” KC shouted. “Yvonne, you’re a genius!”

“I am? Well, thank you!” Yvonne said.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Marshall said.

“Marsh, yesterday when we had hot chocolate in that restaurant after the tour, we saw that redheaded woman, right?” KC asked. “Mr. Royce said her name was Polly.”

“Yep. She was reading a book about learning Italian,” Marshall said.

“And she was wearing tiny bells for earrings,” KC went on. “I heard them tinkle when she moved her head.”

Marshall just stared at KC. “And this is exciting because?” he said.

“Because she wasn’t wearing them on that disc we saw this morning!” KC announced. “Remember I asked Mr. Royce to make the picture bigger? Well, I really wanted to see Fast Eddie up close. But at the same time I noticed that Polly was wearing reindeer earrings.”

Marshall shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said.

“The part of the disc we looked at was taken at eleven o’clock yesterday morning,” KC explained. “And Polly was wearing reindeer earrings. But when we saw her in the restaurant at three o’clock, she had on little bell earrings.”

“Maybe she changed her earrings sometime between eleven o’clock and three o’clock,” Marshall suggested.

“I have another idea,” KC said. “Maybe the disc we looked at wasn’t from yesterday.”

“But, KC, the date was right on the disc,” Marshall said. “It said eleven a.m., Wednesday, December 19th, which was yesterday. I saw it!”

KC nodded. “I saw it, too,” she said. “I just don’t believe it.”