The Tiara on the Terrace (22 page)

“Uh, guys?” Kendra interrupted then. “I think this might be a really bad time, but . . .” She held out a crumpled
pair of riding breeches and fanned her hand in front of her wrinkled nose. “Pookums just found these?”

Everyone turned to me, eyebrows raised.

At least that was one mess I'd be able to clean up.

M
s. Sparrow found me scrubbing the poo-stained riding pants in the bathroom off the sitting room. She'd changed already into her own outfit for the parade that—no surprise—matched the rose theme perfectly. She'd paired a lovely cream-colored silk blouse and coral cardigan with bright-coral pumps and the same rose-patterned skirt she'd worn the day she'd shared the horrible news about Mr. Steptoe. My mind reeled as I realized all that had happened since then. Five days was all it took to find a killer and lose a best friend.

“You doing all right, Soph?” Ms. Sparrow said gently. Tears sprang back into my eyes at her question. She quickly stepped in to help me rinse out the breeches. “There's a tissue on the vanity,” she said, turning her attention to the pants in order to give me a moment of privacy. “The girls
told me what happened,” she said after I'd blown my nose. “I thought I'd check in.”

I looked back at her red-rimmed eyes and for a minute I thought she was actually so sad for me that she was also tearing up. I almost passed the tissues to her before she complained that the Court's royal bouquets had made her allergies act up like Trista's. She looked tired too. Her Pretty Perfect make-up could maybe take ten years off, but it couldn't erase the dark circles under her eyes. It had been a late night for all of us.

“Yeah, I'm all right, I think,” I said. My words came out sounding strangled.

“You've had quite a weekend.” Ms. Sparrow nodded. “And we're all really, really proud of you girls.” She hung up the breeches to dry and turned back to me. “Don't worry,” she said gently. “Friends have their ups and downs, you know.”

I laugh-sniffled and had to wipe my nose again. “Especially when they're trying to catch a killer, huh?”

Ms. Sparrow didn't laugh back. She just patted my shoulder. “Sometimes friends make mistakes they can't ever take back. But that's not what happened here. Grace will realize this mistake isn't worth losing a friend over.”

“You think so?” I said, crumpling my tissue into a ball.

“I know so,” Ms. Sparrow said. “I've had enough of my own friend trouble to know the difference. We made mistakes. And we fixed them. You'll be able to make this up to Grace. She'll forgive you. I know she will.”

I looked down and took a deep breath. The roses on Ms. Sparrow's skirt blurred together, and I felt a sudden wave of sadness that Grace hadn't had a chance to make the tiny roses out of ribbon to decorate the buttons of Ms. Sparrow's shoes. They would have matched perfectly.

I realized it with a jolt. The roses. The morning she'd broken the news about Steptoe was also the day the Royal Court announcements
should
have taken place. The same Royal Court announcements where Mr. Steptoe would have proudly unveiled the Festival's secret flower theme. My hands trembled as I pictured Harrison Lee on the mansion terrace the next day, revealing Mr. Steptoe's “final gift to us all,” as the tiara—with its beautifully shaped Coral Beauty rose—spiraled into view on the pedestal.

Only the people at Miyamoto's Jewelers knew that Mr. Steptoe had decided a Coral Beauty rose would grace the Sun Queen's tiara that year. And yet Ms. Sparrow just happens to slip on a rose-filled skirt that matches the theme almost perfectly? Sure, lots of people own flowery skirts—even
I
had the one my mom made me wear sometimes. But
that was one lucky coincidence for a woman who loved to match. At that very moment even her shoes were the same pretty pink color as the roses.

I froze. The buttons. I blinked. Twice. Then I rubbed my eyes. A bright-pink round button blinked back at me. It was a shiny plastic one that looked just like a button from the sleeve of a sports jacket. And—if it had been navy blue—I would've have known exactly where to find its match. It was the same size as the one we'd discovered in the campfire. The same shape. It had the same wide ridge along the outside—even the same uneven crisscross stitches across the four tiny holes at the center.

I pretended to drop my balled-up tissue and leaned down to take a closer look. As I did, I remembered. The blue button couldn't have been Mr. Steptoe's—not if Grandpa Young was right. He'd been so touched that Mr. Steptoe had “died in the line of duty.” I didn't recall his words exactly, but he'd said something about Mr. Steptoe being found in his Festival brown suit. As I lifted my head slowly back up, my body went numb.

I looked up at her puffy, watery eyes and felt sick as I realized they'd looked almost exactly the same when she told us about Steptoe. I'd assumed they were tears. As she sniffled and cursed her allergies, the clues suddenly came
together like iron filings zooming toward a magnet in one of my science labs. If my hunch was right, we'd all just made a horrible, horrible mistake.

Barb Lund was no killer. The real one was standing right in front of me.

I took a deep breath and tried to slow my heartbeat. Then I looked up at Ms. Sparrow and gave a weak smile, praying she wouldn't realize it was fake. “Thanks,” I said. “You don't realize how much you just helped me.”

“Oh, it was nothing, Sophie,” Ms. Sparrow smiled back. A chill ran through me. “Now what do you say you go talk to her, huh?”

“That's a really good idea,” I said, breathlessly. I flung my tissue into the wastebasket, spun on my heels, and jetted out of the bathroom, past the flurry of the Court swishing around in their dresses and out to the hall, where I broke into a run.

I slid into my room, grabbed the pile of emails from under my bedcovers, then flew to Grace and Trista's. I pounded on the door hard, twice.

Grace cracked it open, saw me, and then moved to shut it again. I threw out my hand to stop it.

“Grace, please,” I panted.

“Not now, Sophie,” she said as I wriggled myself halfway
inside. She was in her blue dress again already and had started to put on a tiny bit of make-up.

“You've got to listen to me. Just one minute. We have a lot to talk about. A lot. And I don't even know where to begin except to say I'm so, so sorry.” I looked up at her, pleading.

Grace shook her head and pointed to the door. “Go get dressed and help the Court with hair and make-up, Sophie. I'll be there in a second,” she said flatly.

“The thing is, Grace, I think we're making a big mistake. A really, really big mistake.” My voice sounded high and strangled.

Grace stiffened. Her eyes glinted with rage. “We're making a big mistake?
We?
No. Not we, Sophie.
You
.” She flicked her hair behind her like a whip, then pointed her finger at my chest. “
You've
made a big mistake! “Newsflash: You're not the only one on the planet with feelings. I have them too. And guess what? They can get hurt.” The lacy curtains at the window twitched as she whirled away from me. Her shoulders slumped. Then, in a quiet voice, she added, “You can't just expect to brush them away that easily.”

“Grace, I'm not trying to brush them away. Not at all! It's just, I think we need to focus on something else right now and we can maybe—”

Grace's mouth dropped open as she pivoted back to me. “Focus on something else? Listen to you! You're brushing them away, right now, Sophie! I may be ‘Wonder Woman' and all”—she said with air quotes—“but I'm not superhuman.” She jabbed her finger to the door. “Now leave me alone.”

I didn't move. Sadness swelled through my body like a stinging wave.

“I know that, Grace,” I said quietly. My eyes were filling with tears, and hers were too. I looked around the room. Just two nights ago we'd been sitting on those same beds, laughing about Danica and Denise's silly “name that tune” wall-knocking and sorting through our suspects. Now I wasn't sure we'd ever laugh together again. “I don't know why I told it, Grace. I told this dumb babyish story, and the way they looked at me . . . I just . . . I guess I wanted them to think I was cooler.”

She folded her arms and stared at me for several long beats.

“You are cool, Sophie,” she burst out, her chin jutting forward. “It's so weird you can't see that! The only time you aren't cool? When you're trying too hard to be something you're not.”

I shrank back. Her words felt too true. “Listen, Grace,
I don't expect you to accept my apology. You shouldn't. I know I never, ever, ever in a million years should have told that story.”

“Well, maybe just never in a hundred thousand years, but yeah.” She pointed to Grandpa Young's dog tags. “Whatever happened to ‘Always Loyal,'
huh? What else have you told everybody? Some things are supposed to stay between us, Sophie.” Grace's mouth tightened into a hard line.

I raised my eyebrow. “You're right. They are. And they will,
always
,” I said firmly. “I wish I could take the whole night back somehow,” I said.

“Well, not the whole night.” She arched her eyebrow. “We did catch a killer. Again.”

My face fell. “Grace. When I said we made a mistake? I meant it. We made a mistake. I think it's a big one.” I shut the door behind me and sat on her bed.

W
hen I'd finished running down all my theories, the blood drained from Grace's face. She reached for her radio headset and spoke into it more cheerfully and calmly than even Ms. Sparrow herself. “Page Bottoms! Page Young and I need some help with the emergency make-up kits. Can you please report to our room ASAP?” She then made fake static noises with her mouth in a very clear rhythm. Four short bursts, three short bursts.
S
. Three short bursts, four short bursts.
O
. Then again,
S
.

Her dress rustled as she slowly sank onto her bed. “This all sounds crazy, Soph. The question is: Why would she do it?”

I jumped as the door banged open and Trista charged in, frowning. Her hands were smudged with make-up. “Got your SOS, people. But I think I might have just taken out
Kendra Pritchard's right eye. What were they thinking putting me on mascara duty?” She looked sideways at Grace and me. “So, you two, uh . . .”

Grace smiled and sniffled. “We're good. I mean, we're a work in progress. But that's not important now.”

“Phew,” Trista said. “I thought the SOS might have something to do with that whole business and, uh, that's not my specialty, you know.” She scratched the back of her neck and looked at the carpet.

“No, we'll deal with that SOS ourselves. This one, though . . .” Grace turned to me. “Tell her what you told me, Sophie.”

I handed Lauren Sparrow's email over to Trista. “Remember how we didn't focus on Ms. Sparrow because she didn't have a motive? I think we missed something. And if I'm right? Barb Lund did not kill Mr. Steptoe.”

Trista squinted one eye and cocked her head. “We're talking about Barb Lund, the one who almost turned Rod's dad into a pancake? That Barb Lund?”

“Yep. Get this,” I began, lowering my voice as I launched into everything I suspected. I told her about Ms. Sparrow's shoe buttons and how they looked exactly like the blue button we'd found in the campfire. I pointed out the rose-patterned skirt she'd worn the day she shared the news
about Mr. Steptoe, and what a ridiculous coincidence it would have been if she just so happened to match the top-secret rose theme Mr. Steptoe had chosen. “The tiara delivery receipt was time-stamped at quarter to eleven that night.” My words rushed out so fast they tripped over my tongue. “Steptoe should have been alone in the mansion. But I think Sparrow was there that night, and I think she saw the rose tiara.” I took a breath. “You know her and her matching. I mean, even the tint of her sunglass lenses matched her shirt yesterday.” Then I reminded Grace how red Ms. Sparrow's eyes had been the morning Kendra had found Mr. Steptoe. “And right after she rescued us, she told Trista she can't set foot in the float barn without her allergies going nuts. Remember?”

Through it all Trista shook her head, her messy curls making her look even more baffled than she was. She stared down at the email. Then she sat down on her bed, wriggling around to get comfortable in her dress. “That all might be true, Sophie,” she said, finally. “But wearing a matching skirt? It's a flower festival. She'd match as long as she wore flowers, basically. And having red eyes when someone you know just died?” She shrugged. “That seems pretty normal to me.”

I sank back on Trista's bed. Maybe I had let my
imagination run wild. The thing was—one or two coincidences I could have brushed off. But that many?

“What about the navy button?” Grace asked. “How does a button exactly like the ones on Ms. Sparrow's shoes end up next to the body, huh?”

Trista admitted that was strange.

“And a
rose
-patterned skirt?” I added. “I mean, owning a skirt with pink roses on it is pretty normal. Lots of skirts have flower patterns. But for a woman who basically has raised color coordination to an art form to wear it on the
exact day
that the rose theme is supposed to be announced?”

Trista scrunched up her face. “That's what gets me. Isn't that pretty stupid? To place yourself at the crime scene? I mean, even she doesn't love matching
that
much.”

I looked down at the floor and bit my lip. She had a point. “Maybe she slipped up.”

“Every criminal does,” Grace added softly. “And she caught her mistake. She didn't wear it on the actual day of the announcements.”

“Okay, for argument's sake, let's say she's the killer,” Trista said. “Why'd she vote us in as royal pages?” Trista folded her arms. “She should have kept us out.”

“I think she tried to. At the auditions I overheard her suggest that we ride in the lead car with Harrison Lee
instead of being pages,” I said. “Then she backed off.”

I felt the same hollow pang as I described her pity and worries about our “fitting in,” even though I now suspected she hadn't really meant it at all. As I repeated what she'd said about me, Grace rolled her eyes at Ms. Sparrow's ridiculousness. “It makes me so mad she ever made you feel that way, Soph,” Grace said. “‘Diamonds in the rough.' Pssh. She's the rough! We're the diamonds!”

Trista nodded slowly and smoothed down the folds of her dress as if she'd just noticed she was still wearing it. Sitting on her bed near her army duffel bag and folded cargo jacket, she looked like she might have wandered into the room by accident. “Guess she realized she couldn't be too obvious about shutting us out. Town heroes and all that.” She sighed. “So the next best thing was for her to keep close watch over us.”

I nodded, not sure if I was relieved we were slowly convincing Trista, or if I was more scared than ever. “She was probably thinking ‘They're twelve. I got this,'” I added.

“Adults always do, don't they?” Trista snorted.

“She didn't know who she was dealing with,” Grace said. Then she paused and looked toward the window. We could hear the bleating of trucks backing up and the rattle of snare drummers practicing. The smell of fresh-cut grass
and salty ocean air rippled into the room with the breeze.

“Also pretty weird that the day she figures out we suspect Barb Lund murdered Steptoe, a burned-up Winnie the Pooh key chain is lying in the campfire of the float she practically brought us right to!” Grace added.

“The day after a fire in her office,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“That would explain why the smoke detector didn't have batteries. She took them out for her little project,” Trista said. “Something caught fire when she charred the key chain.”

“And by the way, Grandpa Young told me Mr. Steptoe was found in his brown suit. So that navy button couldn't have been his. But it sure could have been Sparrow's.”

“There's only one big problem with all of these theories,” Grace chimed in. “We saw Barb Lund go after Rod's dad with our own eyes.”

Trista shook her head. “Did we though? All I could think that night was this is a lady who needs driving lessons. Or at least to log some serious screen time with Formula One Fever.” As Trista continued, an image of Barb Lund waving her arms over the towering boxes on her forklift flashed in my head. Could she have been asking for help?

“She was monkeying with the controls. Waving her
hands off the wheel,” Trista continued. “She should have been able to flatten him like that.” She made a crashing sound effect as she brought her hand down on the bed. “Sorry,” she added, realizing she'd gotten a little carried away.

“I always thought it was weird for Barb to pick driving as the best way to kill Mr. Zimball,” Grace said with a sly half smile.

“Uh, true. Very true.” I couldn't help but laugh. It all was just so crazy! And yet—like a piece of a puzzle that you'd never imagined could belong where it does—it all clicked into place. “Mr. Zimball did say she'd screamed something about an accident at him,” I said with a shrug. “She could have just been warning him.”

“All right, people,” Trista said. “Let's think through a scenario. Lauren Sparrow was at the mansion late that night—late enough to see the tiara being delivered. But how does Steptoe end up in that float?

A cluster of voices rang out from behind the door as people passed by in the hall. Panicked, Grace locked the door and shoved Trista's desk chair in front of it.

“We don't have much time,” I whispered, realizing Ms. Sparrow knew exactly where to find us. “If she overhears us . . .”

“You're right, Sophie,” Grace said, her jaw clenching. “We have to hurry.”

“Take a look at the email,” I pointed to the paper I'd handed Trista. “I think there's something there, but I can't figure out what.”

Grace and I huddled over Trista's shoulder and we all read together:

To: Jim Steptoe

From: Lauren Sparrow

Subject: SUPPLIES

Just a note to say thanks again. I can't believe you all managed to get a double order delivered on time! No wonder they've put you in charge. I know how tough it is for you to keep everything on track this season, as it is. I really do hope that alternative sourcing routes come through soon. Last breeding season already produced a far smaller crop—and, obviously, the harvesting is hardly environmentally friendly. Of course, beauty has its price. And no one can argue with gorgeous results! Still.

Please do alert me if you anticipate any slowdowns.

You're a dear. Feeling lucky to have you in my corner—

All my best,

LLS

“Look at the wording,” I said. “
Breeding season. Harvesting. Hardly environmentally friendly.
I mean, I guess you could use those words for flowers. But
breeding
reminds me more of . . .”

“Animals.” Grace and Trista's voices echoed with mine. Their faces clouded over.

I nodded. “And we know how much Mr. Steptoe cares about animals. So much he's willing to make sure Lily wasn't Sun Queen.” I stood up and began pacing, feeling like Grace. “Remember how he had all those jars of Pretty Perfect? Maybe he was looking into something.”

“Something so bad it was worth killing him?” Grace asked.

“People have murdered for far less. If it has something to do with her business . . . ,” Trista said.

“The Pretty Perfect video Jardine was going nuts over,”
I said, stopping midpace. “Remember?”

“Oh, yeah. I remember,” Trista said, rolling her eyes. “Jardi-J.”

“The seals!” Grace whispered.

“Exactly. Jardine asked me to paint them all over her T-shirt.” A thought came to me. “Hey, Mr. Steptoe had those YouTube videos in his search history, too. Maybe he was researching something?”

Trista nodded. “The secret ingredient?”

“Maybe she was messing with the environment. Hurting the seals somehow.” Grace looked pained. “Or worse.”

The printout crackled as Trista held it up. “But why does she send him this?”

Grace and Trista slumped back on the bed. My head was throbbing. I knew we were on the verge of something. But my thoughts were too slow to catch up. Workmen's gruff shouts rose up along with the crowd murmurs from outside, and the Court's voices rang out from the sitting room and floated down the hall to us. We really didn't have much time.

I took the email from Trista and looked it at again. “Jardi-J,” I said, feeling a hazy thought push its way past the muddle in my head. I pictured Jardine as she told her story about texting Lucas by accident. “J-squared. J-JIM! Thank you, Jardine!” I gasped.

Trista and Grace looked at me strangely as I turned back to them. “She never meant to send that email to Mr. Steptoe,” I said. “She sent it to a different Jim. Sort of.
Jiménez
. Think about it! They start with the same letters.”

Trista's face lit up. “Autofill. Email autofill.”

“Bingo,” I said. “We've all done it before. You want to email something quickly, start to type, the name pops up—you don't look twice, and whoosh, you've sent it off to someone else.”

“Like when you sent me that question about math homework and it went to Tristan Bowers instead,” Trista said to me. “Nice of him to try to factor that polynomial, but, whoa, so off base.” She rolled her eyes.

Grace jumped up suddenly, her dress rustling as it straightened. “I get it. So Mr. Steptoe—Jim—saw this, started checking into things. And then . . .”

“And then.” I nodded, swallowing hard.

We flinched as our radio headsets crackled.

“Royal pages?” Ms. Sparrow's crisp voice floated to us tinnily. “Where are you? Please report to the Queen and Court sitting room for final preparations!”

We stared at each other, wide-eyed. Grace bit her lip. “On our way!” she barked into her headset. “Just changing!”

Grace leaned in, eyes darting to the door. “Okay, quickly:
she's got celebrities talking up Pretty Perfect moisturizer like it's the Second Coming. She can't have anything threatening that business. Something big was riding on her keeping this secret.”