“I’ve got you, Sloane,” Sergeant Pepper gasped. “I’ve got you!” The gardener had managed to snag Sloane by the shirt. Sloane, in turn, still had Chiave by the doggy harness as the bloodhound dangled over the edge of the roof, unhappy and howling louder than ever.
Behind Sergeant Pepper, Amelia gripped the gardener by the ankles. Straining with all her might, teeth clenched with effort, Amelia slowly tugged Sergeant Pepper backward. Inch by painful inch, they climbed back up the roof’s slope. Once Sergeant Pepper was able to wiggle her way into the attic, both she and Amelia hauled Sloane inward too. Chiave came in last of all, whimpering and terrified.
“You!” Sloane staggered backward, away from the gardener. “You kidnapped Chiave! And Mr. Lindsay! And shut me and Amelia into that old bootleggers’ room! And threatened us! Why did you save me now?”
“I did no such thing!” Sergeant Pepper exclaimed. Before guiltily adding, “I mean, not exactly, anyway. Not all of it.”
Before she could explain any further, Amelia’s family arrived to the rescue. Aiden and Ashley burst in through the window, having successfully scaled the outside of the house. A terrifying chopping sound ripped through the attic, causing leaves and sawdust to fly everywhere. A moment later, Amanda Miller appeared through the remains of the fallen tree. She was wielding a chain saw with the Judge, Shakespeare Wikander, and Chef Zahra following at a safe distance.
After that, there was a lot of exclaiming, even more barking, and lots of sawdust drifting through the air, causing everyone to cough and sputter. Eventually, they all agreed that there were much better places to be than this attic, and they all trooped quickly downstairs to the portrait gallery. The Judge ushered all the remaining gardeners out of the room, while Shakespeare Wikander hurried into the entry hall to oversee the cleanup of the broken vase and the reviving of Mr. Boening-Bradley after he fainted in the middle of the riot upstairs.
Having cleared out the room, the Judge returned to question Sergeant Pepper.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you arrested right now,” he boomed in his courtroom voice. It echoed through the portrait gallery, causing everyone else to wince.
“Because I haven’t done anything illegal!” Sergeant Pepper cried, gripping the armrests of her chair indignantly. “Mr. Lindsay is fine! I sent him out to a lovely spa in Wauseon for a countryside retreat. He’s getting hot stone massages for his injured back and a chance to rest without all the worry of the peony competition.”
Amelia spoke up. “Is this spa in an old mansion where they use fish to remove the dead skin from your feet?”
Startled, Sergeant Pepper said, “Why, yes. Have you heard of it?”
Both Sloane and Amelia had. In fact, they had recently broken into the manager’s office and discovered a secret compartment hidden inside.
(Which had actually resulted in them both recently receiving restraining orders. That meant neither one of them were allowed inside the Hoäl house again.)
“And Chiave?” Sloane demanded suspiciously. “Why did you have her?”
“I actually promised Mr. Lindsay that I’d take good care of her while he was away.” Sergeant Pepper scrunched up her shoulders sheepishly. “Then, Chiave went and got away from me last night because of the storm.”
“Why not just tell us?” Chef Zahra asked. “If you were helping Mr. Lindsay out, why not just say so?”
Sergeant Pepper didn’t answer right away, giving Amelia a chance to take charge of the interrogation.
“Because you weren’t really helping Mr. Lindsay, were you?” she guessed. “You were getting him out of the way so you could look for Ma Yaklin’s money!”
The expression on Sergeant Pepper’s face confirmed Amelia’s accusation. Realizing she’d already given herself away, Sergeant Pepper shrugged and gave away even more. “Only it isn’t Ma Yaklin’s money anymore. It’s my money. Jacqueline Yaklin was my great-aunt. My mom was her sister.”
Everyone gasped in shock at that. Amelia mentally cursed herself for not turning on her camera. What a great moment that would have been in their next YouTube video.
“And technically, Chiave is mine, too. Or, at least, half mine. Since Eli was her something-great-grandparent, along with Anderson Lindsay’s dog, Elizabeth.”
“But why now?” Amanda Miller asked, turning from the dramatic to the practical. “Why not before the competition? Or after?”
Sloane cut in, pretty sure she had the answer. “Because she only recently figured out how to find the money! Using Chiave’s super-sniffer!”
Everyone swung their attention from Sloane to Sergeant Pepper to confirm if this was true. Ma Yaklin and Eli watched it all, silent as ever.
Sighing, Sergeant Pepper admitted, “She’s right. I realized that Great-Aunt Jacqueline must have buried her money out in the woods. That was why she was running through them the night she was arrested. The trouble was, without Eli’s ability to sniff out money, my great-aunt had no idea where she’d buried the box holding all that cash.”
“Sergeant Pepper was training Chiave to sniff out money too,” Sloane explained. Turning to the gardener, she continued, “But it wasn’t working, was it?”
“No. She just kept bringing back my wallet.” Sergeant Pepper scratched the scruff of Chiave’s neck. “But I thought that if I got her out in the woods without my wallet around, she’d finally sniff out Great-Aunt Jacqueline’s money instead. It might have worked, too… except the storm did more damage last night than I thought it would. Suddenly, instead of having an entire day to go through the woods on my own, Tangle Glen was overrun with even more people! I needed Sloane and Amelia to stay out of my way until the competition was over.
“Great-Aunt Jaqueline had that painting of herself and Eli put together for my grandma, just in case anything happened to her. See, my grandma was a lot younger than Jacqeline and just a kid when Jacqueline was arrested. With the painting, at least someone in the family would get the money she’d worked so hard for. However, by the time my grandma could talk to her sister, Great-Aunt Jaqueline was already sick. She kept saying the painting was the key, but not how to use that key. Then Anderson Lindsay bought Tangle Glen, and it didn’t matter if the painting was the key. My family didn’t have it anyhow. And since my grandma thought the painting was useless without Eli, she never bothered trying to get it from Anderson Lindsay.”
“Only, Eli wasn’t really lost,” Amelia said. “Mr. Lindsay’s grandfather had kidnapped him and then renamed him Chiave so no one would realize who his new bloodhound really was.”
Chef Zahra spoke up. “Then Mr. Lindsay’s family must have at least suspected that Eli was the key to finding Ma Yaklin’s money, since ‘chiave’ is Italian for ‘key.’ ”
It was Sloane’s turn to take over. “But at that time, everyone thought the money must be hidden somewhere in the mansion. Mr. Lindsay himself said it was, when we first met him. The Lindsay family had the right ‘key’ but the wrong ‘lock.’ ”
“It took me forever to realize that the money couldn’t be in the house,” Sergeant Pepper said miserably. “And once I realized it had to be in the woods, I didn’t know how I would ever find it. For the longest time, I tried taking a metal detector over the entire woods, but I never found anything more interesting than old pop cans and coins. I thought if Eli was the key to finding the money, then that key was long lost. Until it finally clicked with me how Ma is showing off Eli’s sniffing abilities in the painting. Sniffing for money is something bloodhounds can be trained to do.”
She’d already decided to take advantage of Mr. Lindsay’s injured back and send him off to the spa for the weekend so she could “borrow” Chiave without anyone realizing what she was up to. Then the storm hit, the tree fell onto the house, and suddenly there were even more people wandering around Tangle Glen, and Sergeant Pepper couldn’t easily take Chiave out into the woods to sniff for the money. So, she kidnapped Chiave to keep Sloane and Amelia from using her sniffer and tried to scare them off. Her plan had been to take Chiave out into the woods while the awards ceremony was going on. Then, she’d return the bloodhound to Tangle Glen and run off with the money.
“What I don’t understand,” Amelia said, “is why you were wet last night and Chiave was dry. Sloane and I thought it couldn’t have been you for that reason. We thought that whoever had dognapped her wouldn’t be out in the storm without her.”
“She got away from me,” Sergeant Pepper explained, taking the rose out of her hair and plucking at the petals one by one. “I thought she must have run back to Mr. Lindsay’s home at the carriage house. I never dreamed that she’d run to the two of you.”
“And the meat thermometer you used to pin the note to the cushion?” Sloane asked. “Were you trying to frame Chef Zahra?”
“No!” Sergeant Pepper looked shocked as Chef Zahra crossed her arms and said, “So that’s what happened to it! I wondered.”
“I’m telling you, that tree falling on the house ruined everything. Well, that and Sloane and Amelia poking their noses around. I needed to get Chiave out of the portrait gallery and try to scare off the two girl detectives here. I didn’t have much time, since I knew the tree removers and the building inspectors would be here early. I grabbed the meat thermometer on my way through the kitchen because it happened to be lying on the counter, that’s all.” Sergeant Pepper sighed, shoulders slumping. “I didn’t even want it for myself. I wanted to open up the Jacqueline Yaklin Animal Shelter in my great-aunt’s honor. My dad said it always really bugged his mom that her sister was only remembered for the bad things she did and how she died. It was always his dream to set up an animal shelter so people would remember how good she was to Eli. He died last year, and I thought making his dream happen would be one way I could still feel like he was around.”
Sergeant Pepper looked so miserable that both Sloane and Amelia felt sorry for her. This was easier for Sloane to feel because she was very grateful to the gardener for saving her life. Amelia, on the other hand, was quite miffed that Sergeant Pepper hadn’t been trying to kidnap or murder them and has simply wanted to get to the missing money first. Having a competitor was a lot less dramatic than having a kidnapper or murderer after you. (Obviously, Amelia didn’t want to be either kidnapped or murdered. That would be terrible, and also terribly boring, as she’d never get to do anything ever again. However, she’d recently found out that being almost kidnapped or murdered was actually quite lovely, in her opinion. It made you the center of attention, and there was nothing Amelia enjoyed more than that.)
“Money back in the 1920s and 1930s must smell different than it does today,” Sergeant Pepper sighed regretfully as Chiave slurped her face. “Because I’m sure that Chiave really is the key to finding it. Or at least Eli was. Maybe he didn’t pass his super-sniffer on to Chiave after all.”
As Sergeant Pepper rubbed Chiave’s neck and back, Sloane gazed up at the painting of Ma Yaklin and Eli. A slight smile played about the gangster’s face. An I-have-a-secret smile. One eye almost seemed ready to wink as she held that pink peony for Eli to sniff.
“Oh!” Sloane gasped. “Oh—oh—oh! I think I just figured it out!”
Throwing open the gallery doors, she dashed out into the foyer. Shakespeare Wikander had swept up most of the damaged peonies and tossed them into a large metal garbage can. All around him, gardeners were weeping. Mr. Boening-Bradley lay on a velvet couch with one hand pressed against his forehead. Baker held his other hand and was patting it soothingly, while Kuneman offered him a glass of punch in a crystal cup.
“The horror… the horror…” Mr. Boening-Bradley whispered, unblinking eyes staring straight up at the chandelier. His long, bent legs looked more than ever like a praying mantis’s.
A shocked, sad, despairing praying mantis.
Ignoring them all, Sloane grabbed the garbage can from Shakespeare Wikander and dumped it out all over the floor.
“What are you doing?” he wailed, clutching his broom and dustpan to his chest. “Now that has to be cleaned up all over again! And this time, you’re doing it! Not me! I’ve just about had enough of Tangle Glen and peonies and competitions and everything!”
“Sure—sure,” Sloane agreed, not really paying attention. She rifled through the damaged flowers, finally finding Chef Zahra’s recreation of Ma Yaklin’s prizewinning peony and snatching it up.
“My poor peony!” Chef Zahra wailed as she returned. At the sight of so much hard work gone to ruin, the chef squeezed her hands together in despair.
Forgetting his competitiveness, Shakespeare Wikander patted her on the shoulder and reminded her, “That was just for display. You still have a stem in the competition.”
Ignoring them both, Sloane shoved the blossom under Chiave’s nose. The dog snorted it enthusiastically, tail thumping so hard that Amelia had to jump out of the way. “Now, come on! Let’s take her out into the woods!”
Forgetting all about the peony competition, everyone did as Sloane said. They all trooped out the gallery’s back exit so none of the gardeners would see them leave. Then, out through the kitchen they went and to the edge of the woods. Sloane let Chiave get another good snorf of the peony, and then she unsnapped her leash.
“Go, girl! Go find it!”
Chiave bounded off through the woods, quickly followed by Sloane, Amelia, Sergeant Pepper, Shakespeare Wikander, Chef Zahra, and various Miller-Poes. (Though, admittedly, Sloane and Sergeant Pepper had to keep grabbing Amelia to keep her upright and moving forward every time she tripped over a vine or fallen log or lost her balance when ducking under tree branches. Or somehow ended up with a chipmunk in her hair.)
The bloodhound ran with the certainty of a creature born to do this. Deep, deep into the woods she went, the humans crashing after her. Finally, she stopped by an oak tree that looked very much like any other oak tree—except that something had recently been digging there.
“Oh!” Amelia jerked to a stop and clapped a hand against her forehead. “Chiave brought us here yesterday when we got lost!”
As Amelia spoke, Chiave woofed and dug with enthusiasm. Mud spattered behind her, causing the rest of the group to jump off to the side as they joined Sloane, Amelia, and Sergeant Pepper.
“We thought she’d just spotted another chipmunk.” Amelia bent down to look into the muddy hole.
“Here, we brought shovels.” Aiden and Ashley pushed their way to the front. Sloane pulled Chiave out of the hole, allowing Amelia’s half-siblings to take over. Chiave went reluctantly, lured out only by the promise of more snorfs of Chef Zahra’s now-very-wilted peony.
Aiden and Ashley dug quickly, because of course they turned it into a competition to see who could get there first. Amanda Miller and the Judge cheered them on approvingly, while Chef Zahra gave everyone the side-eye, clearly wondering what on earth she’d gotten herself involved in.
After several minutes, their shovels went ker-CHUNK at the exact same moment.
“I found it!” Ashley cried.
“No, I found it!” Aiden countered.
Amanda Miller shook her head in disappointment. “It’s a tie, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, yes.” The Judge nodded gravely. “A tie. Also known as a ‘losers’ draw.’ ”
Aiden and Ashley regarded each other in horror.
Then Aiden said, “My dirt pile is bigger than your dirt pile.”
“No it isn’t!”
They both leaped out of the hole, and then the entire Miller-Poe family (except Amelia) forgot all about any missing money as they focused on measuring the two piles.
Sloane peered down at what they’d struck. “I think it’s a granite slab.”
She and Sergeant Pepper picked up Aiden and Ashley’s shovels and used them to remove a bit more dirt from around the top. (Amelia offered to help, but everyone was too afraid of what might happen to take her up on it.) Eventually, they uncovered enough to find a thin line going all the way around the top.
“It’s a lid, I think,” Amelia said, leaning in to get a better look. “WHOA!”
Losing her footing, she slid down the side of the hole. Sloane and Sergeant Pepper tried to grab her while Chiave barked encouragement, but Amelia still smacked into the granite slab with a loud “OW!” That caused the Miller-Poes to stop bickering long enough to make sure that she was fine. Then they went right back to arguing again.
The impact of Amelia against the slab caused it to scoot just the slightest bit. Proving that Amelia was right: it was a lid.
With the tip of her shovel, Sloane hefted the granite slab up enough that Sergeant Pepper was able to wiggle her fingers underneath. Together, they lifted it up and to the side.
Revealing a box.
A box filled with stacks and stacks of old-fashioned-looking cash.
Amelia scooped one up and climbed to the top of Aiden’s dirt pile (squashing it down and cutting off any more conflict over whose dirt pile was larger). “Sloane! Turn your camera on!”
Sloane did as her friend asked. With everyone’s attention on Amelia, she made a dramatic declaration.
“It’s Bootleggin’ Ma Yaklin’s lost millions! Returned to their rightful owner by Eli’s descendant!”