Rock 'n' Roll Mystery

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “Oh, there are many vans like this around here,” the carpenter said. “It’s a rental.”

  “A rental?” Benny asked. “What’s that?”

  “It means I’m borrowing it,” the carpenter replied. “My own van is being fixed right now, so I’m renting this one from a place called Drive-It-Yourself. They have lots of vans just like this.”

  Jessie’s eyes widened. “The thief must have rented a van from the same place!”

  The others were nodding. They all thought the same thing.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mr. Fred Parker of Greenfield

  The next morning was bright and beautiful, perfect for the Greenfield Music Festival. As Grandfather drove past the fairgrounds, the Aldens could see the crowds beginning to gather. They spotted a truck from the television station in the parking lot. Even from the back seat of the car, the children could sense the excitement in the air at the Greenfield Music Festival.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Jessie reminded the others.

  “But first we have to go to the van rental place to help the police, right?” asked Benny.

  “Right,” said Grandfather. “I called my good friend Officer Weiss last night, and he’s meeting us there. He thinks you’ve discovered an important clue about the thief’s van. Now the next step is to find out more about the person who rented the van.”

  “Who just might be the same man we talked to at the festival yesterday morning,” Henry added. “And maybe someone who works at the Drive-It-Yourself counter will remember him, too.”

  The Drive-It-Yourself Car Rental Agency was a tiny place on a quiet road. The parking lot was filled with cars, trucks, and vans—and they were all white with blue stripes.

  The children went inside. The office was brightly lit and very neat. And, just like the cars and trucks outside, the walls had been painted white, with a large blue stripe. It ran around the entire room.

  Grandfather waved to Officer Weiss, who was standing at the front counter. He was speaking to a woman there. The gold name tag on her shirt said that her name was Barbara. She looked up and smiled at the children.

  “Don’t tell me one of you wants to rent a truck!” she said, chuckling.

  The children laughed. “No, ma’am,” Henry replied. “We’re trying to catch the person who stole the Greenfield Four’s instruments.”

  “Oh, yes. Officer Weiss just told me what happened. How awful,” she said. “And I certainly do remember renting a van to a man with a beard and a black beret.”

  “Do you remember anything else about him?” Jessie asked.

  “Let’s see … I remember that he seemed very nice,” Barbara said. “I also remember that he was having trouble with his eyes.”

  “What do you mean?” Henry asked.

  “He kept blinking and rubbing them,” Barbara told him. “When I asked if he was okay, he said it was just allergies. But he took his glasses off before filling out the rental form, which I thought was strange. Most people put their glasses on when they fill out forms.”

  “I remember him blinking a lot, too.” Violet said. The others nodded. “But what kind of a clue is that?” she added.

  “It doesn’t sound like a very good one,” Henry whispered.

  Barbara had turned back to Officer Weiss. “Here’s the form he filled out to rent the truck” she said. “It says his name is Mr. Fred Parker.”

  “Does it say where he lives?” the police officer asked.

  “Right here in Greenfield,” Barbara told him. “On Carteret Street.”

  Jessie spoke up just then. “Excuse me, but that can’t be right,” she told Officer Weiss. “There’s nothing on Carteret Street but the shopping mall.”

  “Hmm,” said Officer Weiss. “That’s right. I’ll have to check, but I think Mr. Parker may have given us a fake address.” He shook his head. “It figures.”

  “Can’t you catch him when he brings the van back?” Benny asked.

  Barbara shook her head. “We have many different offices all over the country. If someone rents a car or a truck here in the Greenfield office, they can return anywhere else. Even somewhere as far away as California.”

  “He could be anywhere by now,” the police officer said with a frown. “We’ll alert other police departments. One way or another, we’ll track him down.”

  “Do you think you’ll catch him before the Greenfield Four play tonight?” Benny asked, hopefully. “So that they can get their instruments back?”

  “We’ll try. Sometimes we’re able to catch a thief right away,” Officer Weiss said. But the children could tell that even he didn’t think the thief would be caught in time.

  Later, the Aldens sat in their sunny kitchen, but their moods were not sunny. They had tried their best to find the person who had stolen the Greenfield Four’s instruments, and now they were at a dead end. The phone book was open on the table. Henry flipped through the pages.

  “Nope,” he said, “no Fred Parker. I’m sure the man who rented the van made up everything that he put on that form.”

  Grandfather came in and sat down. “That’s what Officer Weiss told me. I just got off the phone with him.” He took off his reading glasses and sighed. “I think you’ve done your best. Now we’ll all have to wait until the police find this thief.”

  Jessie looked at Grandfather’s glasses on the table. They made her think of something. “Benny, remember when you tried on Grandfather’s glasses last month?”

  “Yes,” Benny said. “I thought they would make me see better. But they made me see worse! And they felt strange. They made my eyes go like this!” He blinked several times. Everyone laughed.

  “That’s very funny,” said Henry, “but what does that have to do with the mystery?”

  “I think it’s another clue,” Jessie replied. “Remember what the woman at Drive-It-Yourself told us? She said the man with the beret kept rubbing his eyes. And he was blinking a lot when he was talking to us at the festival yesterday, but we thought it was because of the bright sun.”

  “But maybe it’s because he doesn’t really wear glasses!” Violet said. “So his eyes were bothered by the pair he had on.”

  “Those glasses must have been part of a disguise,” Henry said. “It makes sense—if he didn’t want anyone to know his real name or address, he probably wouldn’t want anyone to know what he really looked like, either.”

  “I think you’re right,” Grandfather said.

  “Now if only we knew what he really looked like,” said Jessie. “But of course, we don’t.”

  The Aldens couldn’t remember the last time they had a mystery they couldn’t solve.

  The mood in the Greenfield Four’s rehearsal studio wasn’t much better. The Aldens had stopped by to listen to the band’s last rehearsal before their big performance at the festival. The band had borrowed enough instruments to play their songs, but the sound still wasn’t quite the same.

  “Let’s just try to do the best we can tonight,” Amy told the others after they finished the last song. “That’s what’s really important.”

  Jessie nodded and turned to smile at her sister and brothers. Even though they hadn’t found the thief, they were doing the best that they could, too. Henry, Violet, and Benny smiled back.

  The band took a break—Dave got up to stretch his legs, and Amy and Alan sat at the folding table to go over their sheet music. Karen went to the piano and played around with a new song the band had written. And the Aldens began to look through Jessie’s notebook to make sure there weren’t any clues they had missed.

  Jessie went over the list of everyone they had talked to. “Raymond the roadie, Danny Duellman, Tim from the music store, Zoey from the studio, the carpenter, and Barbara at Drive-It-Yours elf. I think they’ve told us everything they know,” she said.

  “Yes,” Henry said. “Wait, what’s this?” He pointed to two numbers Jessie had written down: 463534 and 463535. “I remember that first number—that’s the security code for the s
tudio. But what about the second number?”

  “That’s the old code,” Jessie said. “The one that Raymond said he’d changed to 463534—GRNFLD4. Wow, I forgot I’d asked him for the old number, too. It didn’t seem very important at the time.”

  Henry looked thoughtful. “Hmm. If the code they’re using now spells out ‘GRNFLD4,’ then the old code spells out—”

  “‘GRNFLD5!’” Benny finished.

  “For the Greenfield Five,” said Jessie. “Their old band name.”

  “Maybe Raymond changed the code to go with the new name,” Henry said. But he wondered—was that the only reason?

  Violet had noticed a colorful binder on top of the piano. It said “Greenfield Four Photo Album” on the cover.

  “Hey, that’s neat. Can I take a look?” Violet asked Karen.

  Inside were dozens of photographs, newspaper clippings, and old flyers, all carefully organized and set behind plastic sheets. Violet could follow the history of the band page by page.

  When she was near the middle of the book, she stopped with a gasp. “Oh my goodness!” she said. The children gathered around.

  Violet pointed to one of the flyers. The Greenfield Five in Concert, it read. There was a photograph of the band below the headline. The children knew all of the faces in the photo—except one.

  “Look at this person right here!” Violet said, pointing to the stranger.

  “What about him?” Henry asked.

  “Doesn’t he look familiar?”

  “No,” Jessie replied, shaking her head. “Not really.”

  Violet picked up a pencil and started scribbling on the man’s face. The others couldn’t really see what she was doing. Then she pulled her hand out of the way. She had added a beard, a mustache, a pair of glasses, and a beret.

  “I can’t believe it,” Jessie whispered. “That’s the man we saw yesterday. Now we know what he really looks like!”

  “And now we know who he is,” said Henry. “He used to be in the band!”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Angry Man

  The children showed the Greenfield Four the flyer with Violet’s drawing. One by one, Alan, Amy, Karen, and Dave passed it around. They didn’t speak for a moment.

  Finally, Alan Keller said, “His name is Jon Emmott. And yes, I think he’s the thief.” The other band members nodded. “Jon was part of the group for about a year,” Alan went on. “He played a few different instruments and could sing pretty well. He wasn’t bad.”

  “But …” Amy said, and her frown told the Aldens that she didn’t care much for Emmott. “He was a tough person to deal with every day.”

  “How so?” Jessie asked.

  “He had a lot of talent,” Karen replied, “but not as much as he thought he did. He acted as if he was the greatest musician and singer in the world.”

  “Is that why he left?” Violet asked.

  “No,” Alan said. “He left because we had a big argument one day about what kind of music we should play.”

  “We had one idea,” Amy continued, “and he had another. So he decided to leave.”

  “He was pretty nasty about it, too,” Karen said. “I remember that last day very well. He was telling us how he was going to put his own band together, and it would be so much better than ours.”

  The Aldens shook their heads. “Sounds like a pretty angry person,” Henry said.

  “Yes,” Alan said. “Jon could also be very jealous. When he left, he moved out to California. He started his own band, just like he said he would. But they didn’t do too well. The last I heard, they broke up, and he had to go back to his old job as an electrician. At the same time, our band was doing really well.”

  “He must have heard about the man from the record company coming to the festival, and he decided to come back and try to ruin the show,” Amy said. “But we’re not about to let it get ruined.”

  “That’s right,” Karen and Alan added. The children could see that the band was determined to succeed.

  Just then the door to the rehearsal studio opened and Raymond came in.

  “It’s time to get ready for the show,” he told the band. Then he turned and noticed the Aldens. “Did you manage to find the thief?” he asked.

  The children showed Raymond the scrapbook and the picture of Jon Emmott. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “I’ve seen him before!” he said.

  “So have we,” Henry said. “We saw him helping out at the festival. Violet recognized him through his disguise. She drew the beard, glasses, and the beret.”

  “But now we don’t know where he is,” Jessie said.

  “He could be anywhere!” Benny added.

  “That’s true,” Raymond said. Just then, the children noticed he had a wry smile on his face. “Anywhere—like the Greenfield Inn!”

  Everyone seemed stunned by this announcement.

  “The Greenfield Inn? The little hotel right here in town?” Karen said.

  “How in the world do you know that?” Alan asked.

  “It was the oddest thing,” Raymond said. “Some of the other roadies I know—the ones who are here from out of town—are staying at that same hotel. Just before I came here, I gave an old buddy a ride back to the hotel, and that’s when I saw him in the parking lot.” He pointed at the picture. “I’d seen him helping out yesterday and he’d seemed friendly enough, so I waved hello. But this time, he wasn’t friendly at all.”

  “What did he do?” Violet wanted to know.

  “He didn’t wave back. He looked at me as if I were a ghost. And then he hurried back to his room,” Raymond replied.

  “He must know you’re the Greenfield Four’s roadie,” said Alan.

  “He does,” said Jessie. “When we were looking for you yesterday, Raymond, he knew who you were.”

  “It sounds like he didn’t want you to know he was at the Greenfield Inn,” said Henry.

  “When did this happen?” Alan asked.

  “About an hour ago,” Raymond answered.

  “Oh, no,” said Jessie. “He might not be there much longer. We need to hurry!”

  At the Greenfield Inn, darkness was beginning to fall, and crickets were chirping in the bushes. The Aldens and Raymond glanced around the parking lot, looking for the white van. There were several other cars and trucks parked in front of the rooms where people were staying, but no sign of the van.

  “What do we do now?” Benny asked.

  “We’ll wait for Officer Weiss,” Jessie reminded him. They had called him to tell him what they’d discovered about the man with the glasses and beret. Now, as they stood and waited behind Raymond’s car, they wondered what would happen next.

  “I think the thief is staying in Room 12,” Raymond said, pointing to a door at the very end of the long motel building. “That’s where he was going when I saw him earlier today.”

  A light was still on in the window of Room 12, but the shades had been pulled down.

  Suddenly, the door opened, and Jon Emmott stepped out. He was still wearing his black beret, but he no longer had his glasses on. He looked around, but he didn’t notice the children watching him from across the parking lot. He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked to the corner of the building, then turned and headed towards the back.

  “Where’s he going?” Violet whispered. Her heart was racing. Was he going to get away?

  “Let’s go see,” Henry said.

  “Yes, but let’s try to keep our distance,” Raymond said.

  They followed Jon Emmott as he turned another corner and disappeared. They turned the corner, too, and at last they saw the white van with the blue stripe.

  “He parked it where no one would see it,” Jessie whispered.

  They could see Jon Emmott grinning to himself as he started the van and waited for the engine to warm up. “Excuse me,” Henry called out. “Aren’t you Jon Emmott?”

  The man’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “How do you know that?” he dem
anded.

  Raymond spoke up. “That’s not important right now,” he said. “What’s important is that you give back all those instruments you stole from the Greenfield Four.”

  “Forget it,” Emmott said in a nasty voice. “Now get out of my way.”

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” said a voice behind the Aldens. The children turned around. It was Officer Weiss.

  Jon Emmott turned off the engine of the van. His shoulders sagged, and he put his head down.

  It was over.

  CHAPTER 10

  It’s Not Over Till It’s Over

  At the police station, Jon Emmott confessed everything.

  “I had to do it,” he said. “I had to get even with them. I didn’t want them to be so successful without me. Then, when I heard about the festival and the man from the record company, I wanted to ruin it for them.”

  “So you broke into their rehearsal studio,” Henry said. “You guessed the security code.”

  Jon Emmott smiled bitterly. “You figured out I did that, didn’t you? Yes, I was lucky that the new code wasn’t very different from the old code.

  “At first I wasn’t going to sell the stolen instruments,” Jon went on. “My only plan was to ruin the show.”

  “Well, you didn’t ruin it,” Jessie said. “They’re still going to do their best and play tonight.”

  Jon’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop them.” He chuckled.

  The children looked at each other. They couldn’t help but think there was something Jon Emmott wasn’t telling them.

  “Wait a minute,” Henry spoke up. “What were you working on at the festival yesterday?”

  Jon paused for a moment, then said stiffly, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “You were working on something while the stage was being built.” Jessie insisted. “Something with wires and cables.”

  “Aren’t you an electrician?” Violet asked.

  “Come on, Jon,” Raymond said sharply. “It’s over. You’ll just get yourself into more trouble if you don’t tell us.”