Hard Hat (12 page)

Detective Martin continued the story. “What we found when we got into the house is enough evidence to send these guys up the river for a very long time. One interesting thing was that there was evidence of a fire, indicating the likelihood of some sort of insurance fraud scheme as well. These men are bad, big-time, and last night’s investigation is the culmination of a major effort on our part. It seems ironic that the whole thing came together just because one mounted policeman thought he heard someone calling for help. Can you imagine that?”

Stevie could imagine that.

“Of course, since we’ve had them under investigation,
we knew where to find them. They’ve both been apprehended and are in custody now.”

Apprehended
. That meant arrested. That meant that the two people they’d caught weren’t Peter and Ann. It was Frank and Maurice.
So what about Peter and Ann?
Stevie thought.

“These guys were into a lot of things,” said Detective Martin. “And last night’s investigation suggests there’s another side to this, too.”

That was when he looked at the backpack and then at Regina.

“Do you recognize this backpack?” he asked.

Stevie could tell that Regina was wrestling with the truth. However, since the backpack had a large ID tag, and Regina’s name and address were clearly written on it, there didn’t seem to be much point in trying to deny it.

“Why, that’s mine!” she said as if she’d just recognized it.

“We thought so,” said Detective Martin. “This was found in the room where all the evidence was stored,” he continued.

Stevie thought it best to say nothing and wait. Regina must’ve thought the same thing.

“It’s a good thing that all he got was your backpack,”
said Detective Eaken. “That’s one bad man, and if he wanted to get more, he’d find a way.”

“Anyhow,” said Detective Martin, “I’m sure you’ll be glad to have that back. It had some food in it and some candles and flashlights, which our lab is going over, but it also contained some math homework, and the lab boys thought you’d be glad to have that back.”

“Thank you,” Regina squeaked.

“We thought you wouldn’t want your math homework to get into the wrong hands,” said Detective Martin.

And then he winked.

Stevie was sure of it. It was definitely a wink and it was definitely aimed at Regina and herself and not at either of the mothers. The detective
winked!

The men stood up. “Thank you, ladies,” he said to the mothers and girls. “We’re awfully sorry to disturb your morning, but we wanted to return this stolen property to its rightful owner.”

Stevie and Regina stood up, too—it was the polite thing to do—even though it was very hard because their knees were shaking.

“Um, we don’t think we’ll need any further involvement from the girls,” said Detective Martin. “I’m
sure we’ll have enough evidence to convict those guys for fraud without going into the issue of backpack theft. We wouldn’t want to subject these nice girls to any unnecessary court appearances.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Evans. She escorted the men downstairs to the front door and then returned to the living room.

Everyone sat down again. Nobody spoke for a few minutes.

Finally Mrs. Lake broke the silence. She pointed to the backpack.

“Stevie? Do you know anything about this?” she asked.

Regina nudged her. “The Fifth. Plead the Fifth!” she mumbled clearly enough for everybody to hear.

Stevie weighed her options very quickly and then shook her head.

“I never could fool my mom,” she said to Regina. “She’s a real truth machine and she always knows everything because she knows me so well. This time, what she knows, and I don’t even have to tell her, is that somehow it was her daughter, her only daughter whom she loves very,
very
much, who provided the critical piece of the puzzle that enabled the police to
round up an entire gang of crooked contractors. In the end she’ll be proud of me. But right now she knows I need more sleep. A lot more sleep. Right, Mom?” she asked, and then looked hopefully at her mother.

Mrs. Lake shook her head. “I plead the Fifth,” Stevie’s mother said.

“Y
OU
WHAT
?” C
AROLE
asked.

“Helped the police catch a ring of crooked contractors,” Stevie repeated.

“I don’t get it,” said Lisa.

The three of them were sitting on bales of hay at Pine Hollow. They didn’t have long to talk because Stevie was technically grounded for a week, but her mother had allowed her to go to the stable to talk to Deborah, and she’d managed to arrange a meeting with her best friends as well. She’d shared every detail of her adventure—and her misadventure.

“It was part of one of the biggest contractor fraud
rings in the country,” Stevie informed her friends. “See, Deborah thinks that this guy is connected to the people she’s been investigating down here.”

“Only Stevie,” said Lisa.

“What?” Stevie asked.

“Only you would go to New York, break into someone else’s property, set a fire, fall through a floor, and come out a hero.”

Stevie nodded. “My thoughts exactly, but I can’t take all the credit. Regina was there, too. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, though, and that is that I’m
never
doing anything like that again. That was scary!”

“I bet Deborah was grateful for the inside scoop,” said Carole.

“She was, but there were a few little details I left out when I was talking with her.”

“Like the truth?” Carole asked.

“No, everything I told her was true,” Stevie said. “I just didn’t want to confuse her with unnecessary facts. I mean, there were some things that just don’t need to appear in print anyplace my parents might possibly read them. I did tell her about the mounted policeman, though. She said Max was going to love that part, but she wasn’t sure her readers would care much.”

“Not care about the horse?” Carole asked, shocked.

Stevie laughed. It was just like Carole to focus on the horse and not the policeman or the cry for help. Lisa laughed, too.

“How did you feel about what you did—I mean the part you didn’t tell Deborah about?” asked Lisa.

Stevie didn’t have to think very hard to answer that. “Awful,” she said. “It didn’t seem so bad when we were just having some fun in what we thought was an abandoned building—or at least a forgotten one. But when we did things that damaged it—like accidentally starting the fire—I felt terrible. I can usually come up with some pretty good excuses when I get into trouble, but not this time. I mean, I’m not confessing or anything. But everybody knows what we did was wrong; otherwise why would my parents ground me for a week? All the other kids got punished one way or another, too, except Gordon. Nobody’s telling on him. Even though the end has a silver lining, it was pretty stupid, wasn’t it?”

That was a question Lisa and Carole didn’t really think needed an answer.

“So how did it go with Maxi?” Stevie asked, happy to change the subject.

“It was tough at first,” said Lisa. “Then Mrs. Reg
helped us discover the secret.” She told Stevie the story about the stallion.

“Oh, of course,” Stevie said. “She wanted to ride, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “And as soon as we let her have her own way, she was happy, cheerful, and cooperative. In the last few days every time we’ve wanted her to do something or to stop doing something, we’ve bribed her with an offer of riding or threatened her with not riding.”

“I wonder …,”said Stevie.

“What?” Carole asked.

“I wonder if we could get Mrs. Reg to tell that story to my parents so that they could understand the best way to get me to behave is to let me do exactly what I want to do.”

“Go for it!” Lisa said, laughing.

“It’s pointless,” said Carole. “You always do exactly what you want to do anyway.”

Stevie threw a handful of hay at Carole. But she didn’t deny the truth of her friend’s statement.

“Oh, one thing,” said Carole.

“What?”

“Well, you told us you were looking for a bucket in the broom closet, and then you told Regina to come over and look at something. What was it?”

“Oh, that,” said Stevie. “Yeah. You would have loved it.”

“What?” Lisa asked.

Stevie smiled. “It was a whole stack of back issues of
Horsemanship
!”

Lisa smiled.

Carole didn’t. She was too interested and excited to smile. “Did the police take them or do you think they’re still there?” she asked.

Her friends laughed and hugged her. Stevie was very glad to be back home with people who loved and understood her.

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, The Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.

Don’t miss the next exciting
Saddle Club adventure …   

Stevie Lake entered a contest to win a down comforter. Instead she got a new “family”—a nestful of goose eggs. When the eggs hatch, it’s love at first sight for Stevie and the goslings. Now Stevie is learning that being a mom is hard work—the goslings want to go everywhere she goes, even to Pine Hollow. Stevie has to keep her “kids” safe while she tries to learn a new skill—vaulting.

The Saddle Club is determined to master vaulting and show Veronica diAngelo that success takes more than fancy coaches. Can they pull this off? Or is The Saddle Club plus eight goslings and one vaulting horse a recipe for disaster?

Horse lover CAROLE …
Practical joker STEVIE …
Straight-A LISA …

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THE SADDLE CLUB
SUPER EDITIONS
#1 A SUMMER WITHOUT
HORSES
#2 THE SECRET OF
THE STALLION
#3 WESTERN STAR
#4 DREAM HORSE
#5 BEFORE THEY RODE HORSES
#6 NIGHTMARE
#7 CHRISTMAS TREASURE
THE SADDLE CLUB
SPECIAL EDITIONS
STEVIE: THE INSIDE STORY
LISA: THE INSIDE STORY
CAROLE: THE INSIDE STORY