Novel - Half Moon Investigations Read Free Page B

pretty strong. No smoking gun.”
    “I know that, Half Moon. That’s why you’re here. You don’t think I’d even be talking to you if I didn’t need something.”
    All eyes were on me again, and not in a nice Oh, look at that handsome young man in the shiny shoes, I won der if he’s single kind of way. It was more of a nasty If he doesn’t come up with the goods in ten seconds, let’s lynch him kind of way.
    I considered the facts aloud. “So, the organizer is missing, and Herod Sharkey is the prime suspect. But if Herod did steal it, then he obviously stashed it somewhere.”
    “Herod has little hidey-holes all over town,” said April. “He’s like some kind of rabbit, only one that steals stuff.”
    “This hidey-hole would have to be on the school grounds. He only had a minute before Bella confronted him. Where could he go in a minute?”
    This was a question with as many answers as there were degrees on the compass. And with so many thousands of footprints tracking across the basketball court, it was impossible to isolate just one set. Unless Herod had brought something back from wherever it was he’d gone.
    I still had Herod’s hiking boot in my hand. I flicked it over and studied the deep sole, hoping for a clue. I found one. The rubber was stained yellow and there were several buttercups trapped in the ridges. They were freshly ripped from the soil, with barely a trace of brown on the petals.
    “The Millennium Garden,” I said, looking Herod straight in the face. He was suddenly pale and open-mouthed. A reaction that told me I was right, so I took off striding toward the school garden, leaving the rest to follow.
    Those few moments, during the short walk from the basketball court to the garden, were the happiest moments I was to have for some time. This was what detective work was all about. Those precious seconds when you have made a breakthrough and you are so sure of it, that the confidence seems to burst through your very pores.
    The buttercups trapped in Herod’s boot told me exactly where he had been in the past few minutes. Several years ago, at the beginning of the new millennium, the school got a grant for a commemorative wild garden. Every spring we were treated to the story at assembly by Principal Quinn. The garden was designed in a ring pattern. One ring for each millennium, each ring a different color. Green, white, and gold like the Irish flag. Green grass, white daisies, and golden buttercups. Buttercups that were flowering again because of the Indian summer.
    Of course it could mean nothing. Maybe Herod had just walked through the garden on his way to school, but his reaction made me think differently.
    I arrived at the garden, dragging the rest behind me like the Pied Piper. I looked hard at the ground for several moments, then glanced sharply at Herod. He was staring at his own feet, but every few seconds his eyeballs would flick across to the buttercup ring. It was just as Bernstein said in chapter eight of the detective’s manual. The criminal’s own body will betray him. Guilt is a powerful force and will find a way out. In this case, through the eyes.
    I stepped into the buttercup ring, careful to avoid crushing too many of Mrs. Quinn’s precious flowers, and thrust my fingers into the loose clay in the center. Barely a centimeter down, I hit metal. There was a box down there.
    “I have never seen that cookie tin before in my life,” said Herod, jumping the gun a bit.
    Red groaned. “Moron. How do you know it’s a cookie tin?”
    “I know,” replied Herod haughtily, “because I put it . . .” He stopped then, because the penny had dropped.
    “Exactly,” sighed Red. “As I said. Moron.”
    I was about to pull out the box when Bella barged me aside. She ripped the tin from the earth. Surprise, surprise, it was a cookie tin.
    Bella flipped the lid and selected her organizer from the contents.
    “Half Moon was right,” she crowed. “You did take it, you little