A Side of Sabotage Read online

  Mr. Philpotts raises the espresso to his nose and savors it with his eyes closed. “Gus, you have become a master barista.”

  Dad beams and wipes the counter with that towel he cannot seem to put down.

  “You know”—Mr. Philpotts leans over his espresso—“with fine coffee like this, it’s no doubt you’re holding down a small lead in the Secret Diner competition.”

  Dad, Dominic, Owen Loney, and I all look at him.

  Dad says, “You know this? For sure?”

  Ella’s dad sips his double espresso and says, “I have my sources.”

  I look over at our table, where Ella and Ben are talking with their heads close together. Then I check out a few other tables. The Lewises are not at the café. The toddler parents are catching flying strawberries from their kid’s small, sticky hands. The sisters are finishing plates of pancakes. And Mrs. Billingsley is still listening to her phone, making a nasty face. At the same time, she’s feeding bits of cinnamon bun to Groucho.

  I’m tempted to tell Dad our latest hunch about the conspiracy, but I know he will be on the phone to Mom soon to tell her about the inspector’s not-so-subtle request for a payoff. But before I can say anything to Dad or Dad can call Mom, Mrs. Billingsley starts telling Dad that her waffle is cold and that they should be served within one minute of being taken out of the iron. So I begin revisiting all the scenes at Restaurant Hubert: seeing the inspector outside, being in the kitchen and watching Hubert scratch his belly, witnessing the sick man being taken away, Ben and Dominic’s shots of Slick and the inspector, the time Ella snapped a photo of Slick and Hubert being chewed out by Mrs. Billingsley in front of the restaurant.

  By the time I reach that last one, Mrs. Billingsley is telling Clooney, at the top of her lungs, that her table isn’t clean. Other diners look at her, then check their own tables. I wonder if anyone in the café at this moment is the Secret Diner. Could something like this affect the competition?

  Suddenly, the craziest idea strikes me. Is Mrs. Billingsley part of the conspiracy? Is she in here all the time, complaining, for the purpose of driving people away? I check myself. That’s pretty flimsy, since she’s driving people away from Hubert’s too. But still—groan—I have too many suspects. Maybe it’s a good time to tell Mom everything I know.

  29

  Before I talk to Mom, I have to wait until she’s out of real-estate wonderland, where she’s concentrating on making a sale. If Martin Candor decides to buy a house, this could take all day—and we don’t have all day. The contest ends tomorrow, lucky day seventeen, and the winner will be announced at a ceremony at Gusty’s at one o’clock. (Dad won a coin toss for the location.) If the man in black is going to strike again, he’s going to do it before the big announcement—probably tonight!

  Dominic and I decide to position ourselves at my house. That way, we can talk to my mom as soon as she’s home. Ella and Ben are going on a roaming patrol, back and forth on Mile Stretch Road between Gusty’s and Hubert’s, looking for suspicious behavior.

  I’ve printed out our photos and spreadsheets and laid them on the dining room table. While we wait for my mom, Dominic compares the height of the man in black to the height of the trash bin in Zoe’s yard. Based on the trash bin, he estimates the guy to be five feet, eight or nine inches tall. I suggest the extra inch because he’s leaning over as he runs. We organize the facts and figures and try to reach some conclusions based upon motive, means, and opportunity.

  Finally, at two p.m., we hear Mom come in the front door. It’s immediately clear that Dad shared the news about the inspector, because she’s on the phone, asking to speak to the state director of health inspection. We listen as she walks down the hall into the kitchen.

  “Yes, this is Sheriff Margaret Boyd in Maiden Rock . . . yes. I’d like to get some background information on the inspector you’ve been sending to this town . . . Yes, I have a signed form with the name . . . Hold on.”

  Mom sticks her head into the dining room, still holding the phone to her ear. She looks at us and the mess on the table and raises her eyebrows as if to say, what’s all this? Then she puts her finger to her lips and walks back to her office.

  We wait another twenty minutes while she makes more phone calls. I can’t tell what she’s saying, but the strident tone of her voice tells me the inspector is under her microscope. I’ve paced around the table twenty times and sat in a few different chairs. Dominic has drifted to the back porch and back. We finally decide to hang on the front steps. This way, we’ll be closer when she gets off the phone. I check the clock in the hallway. It’s three thirty p.m. Time is wasting.

  From our seat on the front steps, we get a good show. Summer people walk up and down the road, thrilled with themselves for discovering Maiden Rock. Ben’s uncle John drives up to the intersection in his pickup and gives us the two-finger wave from his steering wheel before he turns toward Gusty’s. Mrs. Billingsley cruises up to a stop sign, taking a right turn out of town. She doesn’t look at us, but Groucho’s bouncing in her lap, yipping hello.

  Dominic asks me, “Do you think we could get a play date with that dog?”

  Before I can answer, the door opens and Mom says, “What’s going on out here? And what’s that stuff on the dining room table?”

  I jump up and say, “We have to show you something.”

  * * *

  “Sit here.” I pull out a chair for Mom.

  Her eyes are searching the tabletop as she sits, taking it all in.

  “We want to tell you everything we know.”

  She closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and says, “Okay, shoot.”

  “We already know Hubert and Slick could have motive,” I tell her. “And Ben and Dominic even saw Slick give the inspector an envelope after the bad inspection at Gusty’s. And the inspector said some things to Dad that sounded like he was asking for a payoff in exchange for good inspections.”

  “That could mean he’s extorting money from both of them or double-crossing Willy and Hubert,” Dominic says.

  I broach the larger theory. “Hubert, Willy, and the inspector may be part of a conspiracy to put Gusty’s out of business.”

  “Okay,” Mom says. “I understand your suspicions about Hubert and Willy and even the inspector.”

  Dominic adds, “And the Toddler Dad. He’s about the same size as the man in black.”

  “He has no motive,” Mom says. “Hold on. What man in black?”

  Dominic and I fall mute. I didn’t expect it to come out this way.

  I reach for Zoe’s photograph and the spreadsheet with our suspect-height comparisons.

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Where and when was this photo taken?” Mom wants to know.

  I say this very carefully, not mentioning more than I need to about my stakeout. “Zoe snapped it from her bedroom window, about 1:15 a.m.”

  “Did he go around the back of Gusty’s?”

  “Yes. And then ran out the other side and ran away.”

  Mom is thinking to herself, so I don’t say anything else. I’m hoping Dominic doesn’t either.

  “I can’t believe we had that fellow out there all those nights, and nothing. Then, the first night he’s gone, bam! Well, we’re going to need Detective Dobson again. I have to make a call.”

  But before she leaves the room, she turns toward me.

  “And if Dobson’s officers catch you out there tonight, there will be nothing I can do for you. So you’ve been warned. Get it?”

  30

  Obviously we’re not running a stakeout tonight. Mom has it covered. I feel good about this, but I’m also at a loss. I need to be doing something to protect Gusty’s too.

  Everyone’s antsy. Ben and Dominic insist they’re going to keep a midnight eye on Restaurant Hubert. I make them promise not to go near Gusty’s and get arrested by Mom’s security patrol. Zoe wants no part of any of it, and she proposes a Scottish-music sleepover with me and Ella at my house. I try to steer the sleepo
ver to Zoe’s current house, so I can watch out the window, but Ella wants to have it at her house so we can do makeovers. Just around the time I’m ready to throw up my hands and say forget it, we settle on my place. Zoe is delighted. But first, Ella, Ben, Dominic, and I head to Gusty’s to check out the preparations for the big day tomorrow.

  Dad and Clooney are jumping around like water beads on a hot griddle. He’s polishing the espresso machine and steam cleaning all the glassware at the same time she’s cooking and serving. Clooney says she wishes they didn’t have to serve breakfast tomorrow morning. She’s thinking how nice it would be to start with the big-deal lunch—the last meal the Secret Diner will be judging. Dad agrees and keeps checking ingredients over and over.

  Dad lets us kids wash the windows and straighten the lending library shelves, even though they don’t need it. Mom is outside in plainclothes, talking to her team. Anyone can see that they’re Dobson’s men. They’re not wearing uniforms but they have the look. And their car is a dull black muscle car with tinted windows. Dead giveaway. Dominic is drawn to it like a magnet, but a glare from Mom tells him to keep his distance.

  * * *

  The café is pretty full for dinner. There are some new faces, as well as some regulars. Dad says the Secret Diner must be here. Maybe. He could be at Hubert’s instead. Either way, this Secret Diner has done a heck of a job remaining secret.

  The sisters arrive and grab their favorite table. Martin Candor has shown up too, and the Lewises, and the toddler family. Soon, there are no free tables left over. Mrs. Billingsley arrives and looks around. When she doesn’t see any open seating, she walks over to the sisters and stands by the nearest empty chair until they ask her if she wants to join them. She does.

  My crew, minus Zoe—who’s repacking some of her stuff before her family moves back to their normal house—grabs our table and watches everything and everyone.

  I look out the windows. They sparkle. My eyes drift down to the floor, to be sure it’s been thoroughly swept, and I see a corner that we missed.

  “Hey, you guys. I’m going to get a dustpan and broom and clean that corner.”

  “Relax,” Ella says. “It all looks great.”

  I get up and head for the back of the café anyway. “It’ll just take a second.”

  The cleaning supplies are in a closet between the pantry and the back door. As I turn on the light near the closet, something shiny flashes at me from the floor. It’s in front of the closed closet door, off to the side a little ways. A key.

  I pick it up and flip it over in my palm. It looks like every other key in this town. Until we got the new heavy-duty café locks, Mom had all of the locks in her care—for the café, our house, and all the rental houses that she manages—made in the same style, with the same kind of brass key for each. This is one of the old models, which means the lock it goes with could be almost anywhere in Maiden Rock.

  Clooney is busy in the kitchen, her arms flying like an octopus as she makes up plates and fills takeaway boxes.

  “Hey Clooney,” I call to her. “Do you still have your old key to the café? Can I look at it?”

  She doesn’t look up from flipping burgers on the griddle. “Yep. Still got it. In my jacket pocket over there.”

  Clooney’s key ring has four keys on it. I eliminate the one that matches my new café key. Then I compare the other three keys, one of which has to be Clooney’s old café key, to the key I just found by the closet. It’s weird, though—they’re all the same kind of brass, but none of the ridges on Clooney’s keys match the key from the floor.

  Hmm. If my new finding isn’t even an old café key, what’s it for? Is this a clue? That’s definitely what my gut says.

  Dad hurries through the kitchen, and I call out to him. “Hey Dad, have you lost any of your keys?”

  Despite having an armful of towels for the laundry pile, he gives it a second of thought. “Nope.”

  I walk back into the dining room, to our table, and hold the key from the floor up to the group. “I just found this by the back door.”

  As everyone reaches out to touch it, I realize I’ve broken a cardinal rule of investigating and put my stupid paws all over it. “Uh-oh. Fingerprints destroyed.”

  Then Dominic says something that boosts my spirits just a little: “By the back door, huh? The man in black was fiddling around at the back door.”

  “Yeah,” Ben says, “but he didn’t get in.”

  I sit up straight. “Yes, he did—the night of the spices, maybe earlier too. He could have dropped it without knowing it while he messed the spices up.”

  I don’t even remember ordering, but somehow food is in front of us. I’m lost in an idea. It’s not an old Gusty’s key, but it’s definitely a Maiden Rock key. No mistaking the locksmith’s usual design. So the person who dropped it lives in Maiden Rock.

  That rules out the inspector.

  But even if the person didn’t notice right away that they had lost their key, they would’ve asked Mom for a replacement after a while, right? Slick, Hubert—Mom didn’t mention either of them requesting one. And she always complains about replacement keys.

  Wait a minute. Wait. One. Minute. Mrs. Billingsley lost a key the other day.

  I look up and across the room at Mrs. Billingsley, who’s still sitting with the sisters. Take away the hat, and maybe she isn’t as old as she looks. Take off the gloves, and maybe the hands aren’t so old and wrinkly.

  Could Mrs. Billingsley be the man in black?

  Nah. Yeh. Nah. Yeh. Nah. Maybe?

  I take out my phone and look at that picture of her, Hubert, and Slick. We decided Slick was about the same size as the man in black. And I’ve got to admit, she’s about the same size as Slick.

  After a quick look for Mom outside, I head to the kitchen. She’s near the sink, cutting a piece of blueberry pie.

  “Mom?”

  “Quinnie?”

  “I think I know.”

  She takes a bite and swallows. “Know what?”

  “The man in black, the spices, the dishwasher—you know, all of it.”

  “Explain.”

  “I think it’s Mrs. Billingsley.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Listen. I’ve seen her talking to Hubert. Maybe they even know each other.”

  I’m prepared to show her the key next. I’m convinced it will open the door of Mrs. Billingsley’s rental.

  “You are right about that, Quinnette,” Mom says. “She’s knows Hubert.”

  “What? What do you know?”

  Mom continues: “I know that she’s his mother.”

  “His mother?! How long have you had info like that?” I try not to sound accusatory.

  “I sold him both the lobster pound and the farm, and her name was on the loan papers. She co-signed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “Because I had an email correspondence with her, and she asked me not to,” Mom says. “She wanted Hubert to succeed on his own.” Then she mutters, “But best I can tell, she pushes him really hard.”

  “But she could be helping him in criminal ways, right? I mean she could really, really want him to succeed.”

  “I don’t get that from her at all, Q. Sneaking around the café at night—she doesn’t fit the profile.”

  Mom walks to the door to the dining room and beckons me to come. “Look at her, Quinnie.”

  The scene is almost hilarious. Mrs. Billingsley has Groucho on her lap, and he’s catching the french fries that Sister Rosie is tossing at him. Each time he catches one, Mrs. Billingsley claps with her gloved hands.

  The grooves on the key are digging into my palm, even through the plastic bag. I’m about to open my fingers and show the key to Mom, but my embarrassment about the smudged fingerprints stops me. Besides, she’d just take the key and tell me she’ll deal with it herself.

  31

  I slip the key into my pocket and go back to our table. Clooney Wickham is there, taking the d
essert orders from everyone.

  “We got three pieces of blueberry pie left, plenty of whoopie pies, gingerbread with hot lemon sauce, and maple walnut ice cream.”

  We all order without delay.

  I keep my eye on the sisters’ table, where Mrs. Billingsley is still fussing over Groucho, but I notice that Mom has grabbed an open seat at the counter. She appears to be watching them too. Yes. She listens to me. She may not realize it, but she does.

  “Guys,” I tell my table, “I know who the man in black is.” All of their heads turn to me. “It’s Mrs. Billingsley.”

  Ben laughs. “Okay, that’s a little crazy.”

  Dominic jumps on the idea. “Dang. Yeah. Think about it. She’s never been to Maiden Rock until now. She’s a loner. She’s not interested in meeting anyone unless it gets her a seat at the table. She stirs up trouble. She might actually know Hubert.”

  I pull out my phone, type Billingsley in the search bar, and add and Pivot. My screen fills up with links instantly. I can’t believe this. During the search when I found those clips of Hubert, none of this appeared.

  There’s a stream of articles about a Massachusetts company Mrs. Billingsley owned. It was exposed as having never paid its employees the retirement pensions it had promised them.

  “Are you ready for this?” I hand my phone over to Ella, who reads the story I’ve pulled up and gasps. She hands it to Ben, who says, “Whoa.” He hands it to Dominic, who nods his head.

  “See?” I tell them. “She’s been involved in some shady stuff. And she has the right height, the right build.”

  “But what’s her motivation?” Ella asks.

  “She’s his mother.”

  “Whaa? No! Seriously!?” Ben slaps his hand on the table.

  I scroll through more pages of Pivot and Billingsley, and it doesn’t take long. There’s a picture of her with Hubert in happier times, in front of Shovela. I show it to the group.

  Everyone’s head turns back to Mrs. Billingsley. We sit and eat our whoopie pies so as not to raise suspicion, but as soon as we’re done, we are out of there.