Chapter Five

Amber flinched as the bell above the door jingled, signaling someone’s arrival.

She knew who it was. She hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind. It wasn’t something she could put her finger on, but he’d sounded strange when she phoned last night to cancel their spy mission. Almost like he’d sounded disappointed, which she couldn’t understand. So far, he’d been everything he’d always been—a good friend who always came when he thought she needed him. For some unknown reason, something had changed since the day before. His response had made it sound like finding Gnorman had become personal to him.

“Hi, Stan,” she muttered, knowing he’d again left his employees to run his repair shop while he came with offers of help. Despite knowing he planned to drop by, she still wasn’t ready for him, and she didn’t have a single idea worth discussing. “I’m sorry but . . .” her voice trailed off as she turned toward the door.

Instead of Stan, it was Pamela who had entered her store.

Pamela, who had an envelope with Amber’s name on it in her hand.

Pamela held out the envelope. “This was on the ground in front of your door. I thought it might be a ransom note, so I brought it in.”

The second Amber had it in her hand, she ripped open the top. Just as she grasped the letter inside, the door opened again. This time it really was Stan.

“It’s another note,” she said as she pulled the letter out of the envelope.

Instead of dropping it, this time she tucked the now-empty envelope under her arm and unfolded the letter. Pamela shuffled beside her while Stan stood behind them, reading over their shoulders.

Just like the last one, this note was constructed of words and letters cut out of the Bloomfield Gazette, but it wasn’t as sloppy.

gnorman was feeling very bereft.

He didn’t like the fountain, so he left.

He wanted something adventurous, more than a prank.

Anyone who opposes him will walk the plank!

Amber gritted her teeth at the bad poetry. “Gnorman didn’t like the fountain? I don’t understand what’s going on. They didn’t mention the trophy. I hope whoever has done this hasn’t lost it.” Her heart stopped for a second. “Or broken it.”

Behind her Stan grunted and mumbled the words of the note, half reading them out loud. “Except for being cut out of the newspaper again, this note is quite different from the last. This one isn’t the perpetrator giving us instructions. It seems to have gone into some kind of storytelling mode, like they’ve personified Gnorman. Strange.”

Amber noticed that the word strange came up a lot recently, but it fit.

She read the note again. Unlike Stan, she read silently, then turned around to face him as she spoke. “You’re right. I wonder what this means, trying something more adventurous. Walk the plank? That sounds like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Stan’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. But Jack Sparrow never walked the plank. He dove off of it. Then do you remember when he—”

Amber waved the note in the air. “Never mind Captain Jack. You’re getting distracted.” She lowered it and pointed to the part about walking the plank. “What does this mean? Why is someone doing this?” Although, the more she thought about it, there was only one reason that made sense.

Her membership to the garden club always stood on shaky ground. Initially Aunt Edna had convinced the board to approve her membership even though, at the time, the only live plants in her yard were a patch of Forget-Me-Nots that had spread from her neighbor’s yard. For the first three years the voting committee approved memberships, approving hers only after her aunt reminded them what a delight it was for the winner of the spring contest to have Gnorman in their garden holding the trophy for the whole season. Her garden now supported many flowering plants, thanks to Stan, but it remained very basic, and not all that colorful. Only by the grace of God, and Gnorman, was her membership renewed every year. Without Gnorman, Amber had serious doubts that her garden would be approved. Even if they found the gnome with the trophy, enough damage had been done because of the disruption to the garden club’s biggest celebration of the year that she couldn’t be sure of her renewal. If the trophy was returned broken, or not returned at all, not only would her membership not be renewed, she’d be kicked out in disgrace.

She had no idea who, or why, but it appeared someone wanted her out of the garden club.

The best laid plans . . .

Had fallen short.

Amber turned to Pamela standing silently beside her. If anyone could help in a convoluted situation such as this, Pamela could. Pamela always had her fingers in many pies, and even though some people found her annoying, and even a busybody, everyone knew that Pamela’s efforts often resolved most issues, especially issues that weren’t her own.

“You’re always a great . . . problem solver. What do you think?”

Pamela’s brows knotted as she reread the note. “This says that Gnorman wants adventure, and it mentions walking the plank. My first thought is to look for a pirate ship.”

“Here? In Bloomfield?” Stan rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “We’re slightly landlocked.”

“I know that. But I read in the Gazette yesterday that the Bloomfield Cinema started running a pirate movie, I can’t remember the name. On Sunday a few people came in dressed as pirates, which apparently raised some eyebrows. If we have pirate fanatics among us, maybe they know about a pirate ship where Gnorman would make someone walk the plank.”

For lack of anything better, even though it wasn’t really much of a clue, at least it was the start of one. Besides, a bad idea was better than no idea.

“Ronnie works at the theater every night,” Amber said. “She’s a garden club member, and she was at the party.” Most important, Ronnie wasn’t on the garden club’s operating committee. Amber felt safer talking to Ronnie than Ronnie’s mother, Minnie, who was on the board. She also knew Ronnie better than she knew Minnie. “I’m sure she’ll want to help find Gnorman. If she remembers who the pirates were, I’m sure she’d tell us. I think talking to them would be a good idea.”

Pamela beamed. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Amber bit her lip to hold back a grin. Of course she did. It was her idea.

Stan checked his watch. “It’ll only take us ten minutes to get to Ronnie’s place. We’re good.”

“How do you know where Ronnie lives?”

“I don’t specifically, but I know her car, and I know which driveway it’s in. I passed it on the way here.”

Pamela also looked at her watch. “I can stay here and watch the store while you two go.”

“Two?”

At her question, Stan grinned. “I have to be back in twenty minutes so Hank can go for lunch. I think that gives us enough time. Let’s—”

Amber held up one hand. “I know,” she grumbled. “Again. Let’s go.”

Just as Stan predicted, they made it to Ronnie’s house in plenty of time—eight minutes, to be precise. Knowing that Ronnie worked late to clean up the theater after it closed, Amber felt hesitant about knocking until she heard Ronnie singing one of the songs they’d sung at church last Sunday—a little off key, but probably better than Amber could have done.

When Ronnie answered the door her cheeks were a bit pink, but she welcomed them in anyway.

Amber got straight to the point. “I heard that you’re running a pirate movie at the theater, and you had a few pirates in your midst on the weekend.”

Ronnie nodded. “Yes, we did. It was a little unnerving. I actually thought they were going to rob me, you know, with their masks and swords and all. But then two of them had a sword fight and one of the swords broke. So I knew they were only plastic.”

One of Stan’s eyebrows quirked. “Sword fight?”

“I know. But once I saw how much fun they were having—I mean they weren’t even paying attention to me at the counter—it was a lot of fun to watch. They drew quite a crowd.”

Amber’s heart quickened. “Then a lot of people saw them. Do you know who they were?”

“No, they were high school kids. But I heard one of them use the name Tyler.”

Great. Tyler. One of the most common names of the generation. “Did you hear any other names? Did you see if any of them were with anyone you know?”

“Sorry, no. It was kind of hard to hear with all the yelling ‘Ahoy, mateys’ and people cheering them. Why are you asking?”

“We’re looking for a pirate ship somewhere in town because we think that’s where someone put Gnorman, my little gnome, and the garden club’s trophy.”

Beside her, Stan checked his watch.

Ronnie nodded. “Yes, I remember them going missing at The Spring Fling party. Wasn’t it nice that Becky won?”

Amber made a perfunctory smile. “Yes, she deserved to win. And we want to get the trophy back to her. Thanks for your help. I’ve got to get back to the store.”

As she reached Stan’s car parked behind Ronnie’s in the driveway, she turned to ask if any of his customers had teenage boys named Tyler, but Stan was nowhere to be seen. She almost started walking back to Ronnie’s door, just in case he went back inside and she didn’t notice, when he appeared at the side of Ronnie’s house.

“Where were you? I thought you had to get back to let Hank go for lunch?”

He jerked his head toward Ronnie’s backyard. “I wanted to check and make sure that Gnorman wasn’t back there. It was a long shot, but that’s probably why we came here instead of just phoning. We have to go after the long shots, because we don’t have any short ones.”

Although she knew he was trying to be funny, Amber didn’t laugh at his joke. “And?”

“Nothing. I’ll drive you back.”

The drive was short and silent. When she returned to the store, she quickly thanked Pamela, who disappeared on her quest of whatever it was Pamela had been doing that day.

Of course, because Amber hoped to spend most of the afternoon in silence thinking about where Gnorman and the trophy could be, and where in town there could possibly be a pirate ship, she had more shoppers and browsers than she’d ever had in one day for this time of year. Most of them expressed their shock at the way Gnorman disappeared, but none of them had any suggestions or ideas. Because everyone in the building wanted to talk to her, and because she had to put back everything Pamela had picked up and replaced crooked, she closed up much later than usual.

She almost made it out the door when the phone rang. Since she was already late, a few minutes more wouldn’t matter, so she picked up the phone.

“Gardens and Gifts Galore,” she muttered, giving up on trying to sound cheerful. “How can I help your garden glow?”

“Amber, it’s me, Ronnie. I’m at the theater. I don’t know how this happened, but Gnorman is here, in the lobby. He’s dressed up like a pirate. And he’s got a note in his hand.”

“I’ll be right there.” Amber hit the autodial on her cell phone to call Stan—and ran.