Chapter Twenty-three

Just like what happened every other time, Gnorman stayed in Victoria and Barry’s garden for four days. In the middle of the day, when Stan and Amber were at work, and Victoria and Barry weren’t home, Gnorman disappeared. Again. Also like every other time, just before Stan was ready to close, Amber phoned to say that someone had called on her cell, telling her they’d found Gnorman in their backyard when they got home from wherever they had been.

This time Gnorman was at Pamela’s house.

When they got there, he couldn’t help but feel amazed. Pamela’s house wasn’t huge, but the design with the covered front porch protected by an overhanging roof supported by four pillars made it look bigger than it really was. The green clapboards were the same color but a little darker than Amber’s eyes, which instantly made him like it. With the gray roof and white trim around the old wooden windows, it made him consider painting his own house, and Amber would have no idea why he’d chosen the same paint as Pamela, just a little lighter.

As expected for the president of the garden club, Pamela’s front yard was loaded with flowers of every color under the rainbow, and then some.

He guided Amber up the stairs in the dark and knocked, surprised that the lightbulb above the front door was out. If burned out, since he was tall enough to reach it without a ladder, he would offer to change it for Pamela before they left.

Pamela came to the door, almost dancing. “This is so exciting. He’s finally come to my house. His little costume is so cute, you’re going to love it.”

They followed Pamela through the house and into the backyard, which was small, but still loaded with a million colors of flowers.

There was Gnorman, posed as if peeking through a bush, spying on Pamela’s yard. Probably because he was dressed like a spy.

“Just look at him!” Pamela joined her hands and pressed them to one cheek. “He’s so dashing, just like James Bond.”

Stan didn’t think Gnorman looked like any James Bond he’d ever seen. Gnorman looked ridiculous with the glasses and trench coat, but this costume was certainly better made and put together with more thought than the ghost costume they found him wearing at Victoria and Barry’s place.

He waited for Amber to take the newest envelope from Gnorman’s hand, and while Amber and Pamela exchanged small talk, he changed Pamela’s lightbulb. Announcing that he had completed the task provided a good excuse to interrupt the conversation, and they drove back to Amber’s townhouse.

This time she didn’t bother to make tea. They sat at the table side by side and read the new note.

gnorman is more than a gnome on a mission

He is a spy, and he ain’t gone f ishin’.

His clandistine capers and plans have a reason

Because he’s keeping the trophy at least for the season.

As she read the note, Amber squeezed her eyes shut and stiffened. “At least this time they mentioned the trophy, although I don’t know if that’s good or bad. My membership is up for renewal in a couple of weeks, and maybe this is a warning that they won’t pass my renewal application.”

“They’ll let you renew. Everyone likes you.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t a popularity club, it’s a garden club, and my garden is horrible. It barely meets the minimum requirement for membership. If only one person opposes my membership, then I’m out. Do you remember last year, they did turn someone down. I don’t remember the reason, but they did. The same thing is going to happen to me. Someone wants me out of the garden club.”

“Let me see that.”

Amber pushed the note across the table, allowing him to study it. “Somewhere, in all the notes and costumes, there has to be a common thread, no pun intended. We know it isn’t Zoe, the seamstress. Some of the costumes have been really good, but others have looked like throw-togethers, especially the ghost. We’ve got to find something with the notes that will point us to one person. There’s certainly been enough of them by now.”

Stan tried to recall the other notes. A couple of them he nearly had memorized. A few were pretty funny, but most were pretty bad. Despite what had to be true, the notes they didn’t show an obvious personality. In fact, they were very disjointed. They weren’t even glued together in a uniform manner. Some were glued with the precision of a typesetter, and others splattered with glue as if pieced together by a child. One of the early notes had donut sprinkles mixed in with the glue. “I can’t think of any common wording or style. I only know that whoever this is, not only is he or she a bad poet, but they can’t spell.”

Amber craned her neck to look at the note in front of Stan. “Can’t spell?”

Stan pressed one finger to the note. “Right here. Clandestine is spelled with an E, not an I.”

Amber’s eyes widened. “Let me see that.”

He slid the paper across the table. “Clandestine isn’t a common word. See, it wasn’t even cut out as a word from the newspaper. It’s pasted together from a few other words. It’s even different sized letters. Since it’s not the newspaper making a typo, someone has spelled it wrong.”

“I’ve seen this spelling before.” Amber pressed her fingers to her temple. “I know someone who spells it that way.”

She tapped one finger to her forehead, reminding Stan of a childhood image from Winnie the Pooh. He bit his tongue, stopping from blurting out, “Think, think, think.” He wished he could think of who spelled it like that, but people didn’t write him notes. They told him the troubles they were having with their cars, and he wrote the notes, trying to figure out where to start tinkering. “I know how to spell it, but clandestine isn’t a word I’d use in conversation. Who would?”

Amber turned to him, her finger still moving. “No one I know. Besides, it wouldn’t be in a spoken sentence. I’ve seen it written down. Spelled this way. Wrong.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “What kind of person would put a word like clandestine into a sentence?”

He knew the answer to that one. “That’s easy. Mystery writers.”

Amber shot him a scathing dirty look. “Like we know a mystery writer. Here in Bloomfield.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “You never know. Mystery writers have to live somewhere. Why not here?”

“Do you know anyone who writes mystery novels for a living?”

He wondered what kind of person wrote mystery novels at all, never mind for a living. All he’d learned about writers was what he’d seen in movies or on television. Most of the time writers of any genre were portrayed as reclusive, a little strange, and a lot quirky. While he knew a lot of quirky people, he didn’t think any of them were writers. His neighbor was a quirky guy. Matt worked from home testing video games all day, every day, even weekends, and had never been fishing in his life.

The quirkiest person he’d ever met, even though he’d only met the man once, was the guy who looked after the cemetery. That guy was more than quirky, he was creepy. Someone had to take care of the cemetery, but this guy enjoyed it just a little too much.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t know anyone who writes mystery novels. I don’t know anyone who writes any kind of novels.”

Amber’s eyes brightened. “Then maybe it’s someone who reads mystery novels. Who reads that kind of thing?”

“I do. That’s how I recognized the wrong spelling. I read mystery novels when I have time.” Which he hadn’t lately. Maybe if he picked up a few, that would get his brain in sync with following clues and solving the crime. In a way, this was a crime, since the trophy had sort of been stolen. Although he honestly believed it would be returned, when the Gnapper’s purpose was finished. Whatever the purpose was.

“You’re not helping. It’s obviously not you. Who do you know that reads them? Do you swap books, or discuss the latest one you read with anyone?”

“No. I don’t belong to the book club. Maybe that’s what you should do. Join the book club. See who is in both clubs, and then you’ll have the Gnome Gnapper red-handed.”

“I think most of the people in the book club also belong to the garden club. I hear them talking about books at a lot of the meetings.”

Another dead end. “Then we have no other choice than to follow the spy lead. Is anyone around here mysterious?” Besides the guy who lived at the cemetery. If Gnorman went to the cemetery at night, Stan would just wait until he came out in his own good time. Thinking back, now he felt relieved that they hadn’t read the note about the ghost of a chance until after Victoria had phoned Amber. He would have gone to the cemetery, at night, and had nightmares for weeks when the creepy guy appeared out of nowhere to find out what he was doing there.

“Not that I can think of.” Amber checked her watch. “I don’t want to be rude, and we’re not getting anywhere. You should go home, we both have to get up for work in the morning.”