Giant Yo-Yo Mystery (6 page)

“Yes, but you don’t have to take us out for lunch,” Jessie said.

“I know I don’t have to,” Jeff said. “But I want to. Are you available?”

Grandfather already had lunch plans, but the children were free. So Grandfather dropped them off at the Leaning Tower of Pizza at 11:30.

When the children arrived, Jeff was already there. He waved to them from a back booth.

“Hi, Jeff.” Jessie slid into the bench next to Jeff while Henry, Violet, and Benny sat down on the other side of the table that was covered with a red and white checked table cloth.

“Hi, kids. I’m glad you could make it.”

Jeff passed the menus around and for the next couple of minutes everyone read them over. They finally settled on two pizzas: a large pepperoni with extra cheese and a medium sausage and mushroom.

A waitress whose name tag said
Adele
came over with a tray full of glasses and a pitcher of soda. Then she took their order. “I’ll get those pizzas out to you as soon as I can,” she said.

The pizza place was busy, so the Aldens knew there would be a bit of a wait.

“Do the police have any idea who broke into your shop the other night?” Henry asked as he took a sip of his soda.

“I’m afraid not,” Jeff replied. “They talked to Gary, but he didn’t know anything about it.”

“Have you worked on the yo-yo at all since we were last in your shop?” Violet asked.

“I’ve cleaned it up some. But at this point, I’m not sure how much of it is really salvageable.”

“Still, you’re not really going to quit building it, are you?” Benny asked.

“No, I guess not,” Jeff admitted. “I started this project, so I’d really like to see it through. I don’t know whether I’ll get credit for the record. Not unless I find that missing flash card with all the footage from when we first started building.”

“You still haven’t found that?” Henry asked, surprised.

“No,” Jeff said as he stirred his soda. “I’ve looked everywhere. But I’m not going to worry about it. At this point, I just want to finish the yo-yo. I don’t care about the record.”

“We’ll help you any way we can,” Violet promised.

“I appreciate that,” Jeff said. “With Emily quitting, I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

“You can count on us,” Jessie said.

“I’m glad,” Jeff said. “I had no idea Emily and her boyfriend were planning on starting a woodworking business. I certainly thought she’d stick around until after the yo-yo was finished. She seemed really interested in that project. I even gave her a copy of the plans.”

“You did?” Henry asked.

“Sure. She asked if she could have a copy as a souvenir,” Jeff said.

“Do you have anybody else in mind for Emily’s job?” Violet asked.

“No. I called the newspaper this morning and told them I wanted to place an ad. The ad will run this weekend. We’ll see if I get any calls,” Jeff said.

“More soda, please,” Benny said, sliding his glass toward the pitcher.

Jessie reached for the pitcher, but something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. “Not again,” she said, staring out the window. Her hand still gripped the pitcher.

“What?” asked Henry. He, Benny, and Violet all turned to see what she was looking at.

“That gray station wagon,” Jessie said. “I just saw it drive by.”

“I sure wish I knew whose car that was,” Henry said.

A few minutes later, a tall, skinny man walked into the pizza shop. He was alone. He was wearing a red baseball cap that was turned backwards and chewing on a toothpick.

“Be with you in a minute, sir,” Adele said as she rushed past him with two pizzas. She set the piping hot pizzas down in the middle of the Aldens’ table.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked.

“I don’t think so,” Henry said. He turned to Jeff, but Jeff’s eyes were glued to the man standing in the doorway.

The man in the doorway stared back at Jeff. The toothpick in his mouth fell to the floor, but he didn’t even notice. He slowly backed up—right into the door. Then he spun around, whipped the door open, and left.

“Sir?” The waitress peered nervously at Jeff. “Are you all right?”

“What?” Jeff turned to the waitress in confusion. “Oh yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”

The waitress left and Jeff slid the pizza closer to Henry. “You kids help yourselves,” he said as craned his neck to see out the door.

Henry dished up slices of steaming pizza and put them on all the plates.

“Who was that man, Jeff?” Violet asked.

Jeff was still staring at the door. He turned to Violet. “That was my former partner, Gary Richmond.”

A couple minutes later, Jessie noticed the gray station wagon go by again.

“Jeff, does Gary drive a gray station wagon?” Jessie asked.

“Did you see that car again, Jessie?” Henry asked.

“Yes. It just went by again,” Jessie replied. “But this time it was going in the opposite direction it was going in before.”

Jeff thought for a minute. “Gary used to drive a red pick-up. But it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other that I honestly don’t know what he drives now. I have to say, I haven’t seen his pick-up around town in quite a while, though. I used to see it all the time. So it’s certainly possible he’s gotten something else by now.”

“Do you think he’s the one who’s been following us?” Benny asked as he took a bite of his pizza.

“I don’t know,” Jessie replied. “He didn’t act like someone who’d been following us when he came in here. He seemed surprised to see us.”

“Or surprised to see me,” Jeff said.

He and the Aldens finished their food, then Jeff strolled over to the cash register to pay. When he came back, he told the Aldens, “I’m expecting another load of lumber tomorrow, so maybe you can come back late tomorrow afternoon and we’ll see what we can salvage of that yo-yo.”

“Sure,” Henry said. “We’ll be there.”

“I’d sure like to know whether Gary’s the one who’s been following us,” Jessie said.

“And I’d like to find out whether he’s the one who took the plans out of my backpack,” Henry said. “Remember, he and Jeff were originally going to build the yo-yo together. Maybe Gary heard that Jeff was starting on it by himself and he didn’t like that. So maybe he wanted to see whether Jeff was using the plans they’d made together.”

“That would explain why he’d want the plans, all right,” Violet said.

“He’s probably still got a key to Jeff’s shop,” Jessie said. “He could’ve broken into the shop when no one was there and stolen the flash card out of Jeff’s camera. That way Jeff wouldn’t be able to prove he built the yo-yo and get credit for the record.”

“That’s a good point,” Henry said. “He probably doesn’t want Jeff to get credit for building the world’s largest yo-yo without him.”

“This all sounds very logical,” Violet said. “But there’s still one problem.”

“What’s that?” Benny asked.

“We don’t know for sure that Gary drives a gray station wagon,” Violet said.

“Yes, but we can find out pretty easily,” Henry said. “All we have to do is find out where he lives. Then we can go over to his house and see if there’s a gray station wagon parked out front or in his garage.”

“We could go over to the library and look up his address in the phone book,” Benny suggested.

“Yes, let’s do that,” Jessie said. “I think it’s time we paid Gary a visit.”

“If he drives a gray station wagon, he’ll have some explaining to do,” Henry said.

So the Aldens hurried over to the library.

“I know where the phone books are,” Benny said as soon as they stepped inside. “Follow me.” He rushed ahead of the others.

Henry, Jessie and Violet followed Benny past the reference desk and over to a low shelf by the windows.

“Ta da!” Benny said, gesturing toward the shelf. It was filled with phone books from all over the United States.

Jessie found the Greenfield, Connecticut phone book on the second shelf. She pulled it out and started rifling through it, looking for Richmond, Gary. The others gathered around her and scanned the pages, too.

“Here it is,” Jessie said, running her finger down the list of Richmonds. “Gary Richmond. 2440 Highland Drive.”

“That’s, only a few blocks from here,” Henry said.

“Let’s go!” Benny said.

Jessie put the phone book back and the Aldens set out for 2440 Highland Drive.

The houses in this part of town were old, two-story homes that had been restored slowly over time. Many did not have garages.

The Aldens walked along Highland Drive until they came to 2440. A white picket fence surrounded the house. Flowers lined the front walk. And a gray station wagon was parked next to the back door.

“Looks like we solved the mystery of who owns the gray station wagon,” Henry said.

“Gary Richmond,” Violet said.

“But we still don’t know whether Gary’s really been following us or if it’s just been a coincidence that we’ve seen his car everywhere we’ve been,” Jessie said.

“Well, it looks like he’s home,” Benny said, opening the white gate that blocked the front walk. “Let’s go talk to him.”

The Aldens went up the walk, clattered up the wood steps and rang the bell.

The door opened and the Aldens stood face-to-face with the man they’d just seen at the Leaning Tower of Pizza. His mouth opened in surprise when he saw the Aldens standing on his front porch.

“Hello, Mr. Richmond,” Jessie said politely. “Do you know who we are?”

“I don’t know your names, but I know who you are,” Gary said coolly. “You’re friends of my former business partner, Jeff Naylor.” His right eye twitched when he said Jeff’s name.

“That’s right,” Henry said. “Could we speak with you, Mr. Richmond?”

He hesitated for a few seconds, then opened the door. “Please, call me Gary,” he said as he stepped outside.

“Now, what’s this all about?” Gary asked.

“We want to know if you’ve been following us,” Benny blurted.

“Benny.” Jessie nudged him. That was indeed what they wanted to know, but Jessie wouldn’t have asked quite so bluntly.

“That’s okay,” Gary said. “I can see why you’d think that. We’ve been ending up in a lot of the same places lately.”

“Yes. Why is that?” Henry asked. “Do you know?”

“Well, I didn’t know you all were going to be at the Leaning Tower of Pizza today. And I certainly didn’t know Jeff Naylor was going to be there,” Gary said. “Believe me, if I had known, I never would’ve gone in there.”

“What about all the other times?” Jessie asked. “Did you mean to follow us home from Jeff’s shop the other night? Did you follow us to the library?”

“Did you take some papers out of my backpack?” Henry asked.

Gary let out a breath of air, then slumped back against the doorframe. “Yes, I did,” he admitted. “But it’s not what you think. I helped design those plans. They were half mine!”

“We know you helped design them,” Violet said.

“You do?” Gary asked. “How do you know that?”

“Jeff told us,” Benny said. “He said you and he were going to build the yo-yo together.”

“That’s what we’d always planned,” Gary said, rubbing his forehead. “But then we had that falling out a few months ago. I thought the yo-yo was as finished as our friendship. We certainly can’t build a yo-yo together if we’re not speaking, can we?”

Violet bit her tongue. She wanted to ask Gary why he didn’t just make up with Jeff, but she didn’t want to interrupt Gary.

“About a week ago, I heard people talking in town,” Gary went on. “They said Jeff was working on something really amazing. They said he was building the world’s largest yo-yo.”

“Well, Jeff never told me he was continuing with the project,” Gary said. “So I had to see it for myself. I snuck into the shop one night after he and that woman he’s got working for him left. I still had a key from when I worked there. I saw the yo-yo. Or, I saw the start of it, anyway. It was just like we’d planned.

“What I really wanted was to get my hands on the plans for the yo-yo. I tried booting up Jeff’s computer. I figured he had to have the plans on there somewhere. But he’d changed his password since I worked with him. I couldn’t get into the computer. I came back the next night, thinking I’d search the shop once everybody went home. But then I saw Jeff come out and give the plans to you. That’s why I started following you. I thought it would be easier to get the plans from you than it would be to find another copy in Jeff’s shop.”

“So you did follow us to the library and you did take them out of my backpack,” Henry said.

Gary looked down at the ground. “Yes,” he admitted. “But I just wanted to see whether he was using the plans we’d made together or whether he’d come up with a whole new set of plans.”

That was exactly what the Aldens had suspected.

“Did you take Jeff’s flash card out of his camera, too?” Jessie asked.

Gary’s eyebrows scrunched together.

“Flash card? What’s a flash card?”

“You don’t know what a flash card is?” Benny asked, surprised.

“No.”

“It’s a little card that’s used to store data,” Henry explained. “Jeff had a flash card in his digital video camera. He said he needed to record all the steps in building the yo-yo if he wanted to get credit for breaking the record.”