The Cafe Mystery Read online

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Original title: LasseMajas Detektivbyrå: Cafémysteriet

  Text by Martin Widmark

  Original cover and illustrations by Helena Willis

  English language edition copyright © 2015 Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Original edition published by Bonnier Carlsen Bokförlag, Sweden, 2003. Text copyright © 2003 by Martin Widmark. Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Helena Willis. Published in 2015 by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-698-19753-4

  Version_1

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Map of Pleasant Valley

  The Café Mystery

  The People

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  Special Excerpt from THE MUMMY MYSTERY

  The Café Mystery

  The books in The Whodunit Detective Agency series are set in the charming little town of Pleasant Valley. It’s the kind of close-knit community where nearly everyone knows one another. The town and characters are all fictional, of course . . . or are they?

  The main characters, Jerry and Maya, are classmates and close friends who run a small detective agency together.

  CHAPTER 1

  Photos and Apple Pie

  “Mmm, pastries!” said Maya.

  “Cakes and muffins! Yum,” added Jerry.

  “Can you believe everything that’s been happening in there?” asked Maya, gesturing toward Café Marzipan, Pleasant Valley’s best bakery. “It’s hard to imagine anything bad happening when you see all the good things in the window. Let’s get something to eat and see what we can find out.”

  “Wait a second,” said Jerry. “Let’s take a photo first.”

  Jerry and Maya now had a new digital camera for their detective agency, and Jerry was taking photos of everything, everyone, and every pastry they saw. You never knew where an important clue might come from!

  He took a step back and pointed the camera. Maya leaped in front of the shop window so that she could be in the picture, too.

  “You always want to be in the photos!” Jerry laughed. “You’d make an excellent model, but I want to get a picture of the pastries.” Jerry took a couple of pictures, even though Maya kept jumping in with a fancy pose.

  Then they went into the bakery, which was on Church Street, next to Mohammed Carat’s jewelry shop.

  Jerry ordered a muffin, and Maya chose a cupcake. The young woman at the cash register was surprisingly quiet and seemed upset about something. It looked like she had been crying.

  The two young detectives paid for their treats and looked around the bakery for a place to sit.

  “Hello there, my little helpers,” they heard someone call. “Come over here and sit with me.”

  They saw Pleasant Valley’s police chief waving at them. The two classmates walked over to the police chief’s table and sat down.

  “You’ve just walked into a crime scene, you know,” said the police chief, his mouth full of cake. Not one to miss an opportunity, Jerry reached for the camera. Maya realized what Jerry had in mind, and after glaring at him, wiped the frosting off the police chief’s nose.

  “Thank you,” said the police chief and continued with his story: “The robber was here just an hour ago.”

  “What? Again?” gasped Jerry. He and Maya had read in the local paper that Café Marzipan had already been robbed twice this year.

  “So that’s why the woman at the cash register was upset,” said Maya.

  “Yes, Sara Bernard is still in shock. Poor thing, she’s the one who faced down the robber and had to empty the cash register for the crook,” replied the police chief.

  “Did the robber take a lot of money?” asked Jerry.

  “Yes, that’s what’s so strange. On all three occasions, there’s been an unusual amount of cash here in the café. The first time, the café had extra cash on hand to buy a new coffee machine. The second time, the rent was due. Just before the latest incident yesterday, a busload of soccer players stopped in after a game. The bakery sold out of all the cakes, muffins, and pastries, and that’s why there was so much cash in the register.

  “That means the robber has gotten away with loads of money all three times.”

  “Very strange,” agreed Jerry.

  “That’s a lucky coincidence. Do you think the robber knows when there’s a lot of money in the register?” asked Maya.

  “Excellent question, my clever detective. I’m beginning to think that someone gives him information—someone must tell the robber when he should raid Café Marzipan!”

  “He?” asked Maya. “Are we sure that the robber is a man?”

  “Another excellent question!” replied the police chief. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, of course.The tall height Sara reported leads me to believe the robber is a man, but we won’t be absolutely certain until we have caught the crook!”

  “So, we either have a robber on a lucky streak, or a robber with a connection to the café,” Jerry said.

  The police chief said nothing for a long moment. He was too busy licking frosting from his face! When he was finished, he said, “The chances of the robber being that lucky three times in a row are low. Just think: He knows exactly when he should strike. Someone must be giving him the information he needs. Does the Whodunit Detective Agency have any ideas on who it might be?”

  Jerry lowered his voice to a whisper: “My guess is that it is someone who works here.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Maya quietly.

  “Someone outside the café might know that they were planning to buy a coffee machine, of course,” answered Jerry. “And the same person might also know when it’s time to pay the rent. But no one outside of this shop could have predicted, first of all, that a whole soccer team was going to stop by yesterday, and second, how hungry they would be.”

  The police chief nodded in agreement, and Maya smiled. She realized that their little detective agency had just found a new case.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Police Chief Blushes

  “At first,” said the police chief, “I thought that somebody from the staff had called the robber. That is the most obvious explanation. But none of the employees saw any of the others use the phone earlier.” The police chief paused. “Before you came, I questioned all three of them individually. I thought they wouldn’t have much to say, but it was actually the other way around. Each one talked and talked, on and on, probably so that I wouldn’t think that she or he was the suspect. I learned a lot about the people who
work here.”

  “Did anybody from the staff leave the bakery this morning?” asked Maya.

  The police chief smiled, guessing Maya’s theory.

  “You mean the old Superman trick?” he said and laughed. “Somebody who pretends to step out to buy the paper, but then returns in disguise. No, nobody left the premises.”

  Maya and Jerry looked around Café Marzipan. Somebody in here was in cahoots with a robber!

  The woman by the display window said hello to the young detectives.

  “That’s Ella Bernard. She’s a fantastic pastry chef!” said the police chief. “She bakes all the delicious things you see here. I just learned that Ella wants to move to a bigger town and open her own bakery. For that you need money, and a lot of it.”

  “Bernard? That’s the same last name as the woman at the cash register,” said Maya.

  “That’s right. Ella is Sara’s mother,” explained the police chief.

  Jerry and Maya looked at Ella, who was rearranging things in the display window. She was putting out fresh cakes and pastries. She worked with quick, decisive movements. She clearly knew exactly how she wanted things to look.

  When she finished, she turned toward Sara.

  “Shh, stop crying,” she whispered to her daughter, who was sniffling behind the counter.

  “You won’t make things any better by crying into the coffee,” she continued. “Try to calm down before Steve gets here.”

  Maya and Jerry could tell that both the mother and daughter were on edge. Maybe it was the stress of the recent robberies. However, Ella cheered up when she mentioned Steve.

  “Who’s Steve?” asked Maya.

  “Steve Marzipan owns the bakery,” explained the police chief. “You may have seen him around town. He usually wears thick glasses.”

  “It sounds like Ella likes him,” said Maya.

  “That may be so. He’s a lucky guy, in that case,” sighed the police chief as he looked at Ella, who had taken a little mirror and a lipstick from the pocket in her apron.

  When Ella saw that the police chief was looking at her, she smiled, which made the police chief blush and look away.

  “Maybe it’s the owner, Steve Marzipan, who provides the robber with information,” suggested Jerry.

  “I doubt it’s him,” replied the police chief. “Steve’s hardly ever here. Ella’s the one who takes care of nearly everything in the bakery.”

  “I’m sorry this took so long,” they heard someone behind them say. “But this has been a strange morning, as you may have heard. Your caffe latte, sir.”

  A tall, thin man leaned forward and placed a pale brown, steaming-hot drink in front of the police chief.

  “Caffe latte?” said Maya wonderingly.

  “

  An espresso—that’s strong coffee—mixed with hot milk,” explained the tall man, before heading back to the coffee machine again.

  “That’s Dino Panini,” the police chief told her. “Dino makes the best coffee in Pleasant Valley. He’s from Italy, and he really knows his beans. But if you remind him of his home country, he gets upset. Apparently, his mother is ill and needs expensive hospital care. ‘Mamma mia! Always money,’ he moaned when I questioned him earlier today.”

  “It sounds like the only person in here who doesn’t need money is Sara Bernard, the woman at the cash register,” observed Jerry.

  “Actually, she’s not above suspicion, either,” replied the police chief. “Sara told me that she’s fed up with her mother’s bossy attitude and wants to move out. Getting an apartment and buying new furniture doesn’t come cheap.”

  “That means that all the people working here have a reason for wanting to join forces with the robber,” Maya summed up.

  “Absolutely right,” replied the police chief. “All three are in great need of money.”

  “So, we’re actually looking for two criminals,” said Jerry. “One who provides the information from the café, and then the robber himself.”

  “What do we knew about the robber, other than his height?” asked Maya.

  “Sara is probably the best one to answer that,” replied the police chief. And with that, he waved to the young woman who was still standing by the cash register, sniffling.

  CHAPTER 3

  Winking and Waving

  Sara left her place by the cash register and came over to the table where Jerry, Maya, and the police chief were sitting.

  “Please sit down,” said the police chief, offering her a handkerchief. Sara took it and dried her tears. “Could you tell us once more what you know about the robber?” asked the police chief.

  Sara sighed deeply. The two friends could tell that she was not eager to talk about the man who had robbed her.

  “Well, like I said before,” Sara began. “He had a balaclava over his head.”

  “That means a tight-fitting mask with two holes in it,” explained the police chief. “It covers your entire face; to see you have to peep through the holes.”

  Maya nodded. Both she and Jerry knew perfectly well what a balaclava was.

  “He was dressed completely in black,” continued Sara. “He came up to the counter and handed me a bag for the money. He was waving around a club in the other hand. I didn’t know what to do; Dino nodded at me, so I crammed all the cash we had into the robber’s bag. Then he ran out of the café and disappeared as quickly as he had come.”

  “Dino thought you should give the robber the money?” asked Jerry.

  “You should never try to play the hero in this sort of situation,” said the police chief seriously.

  “Did the man say anything during the robbery?” wondered Maya aloud.

  “Not a word the whole time,” Sara replied. “He just waved the club around and gave me the bag for the money.”

  “Think carefully now,” said Jerry. “This is very important: Did he do anything strange? Did he do anything that surprised you?”

  “Nooo . . . ,” replied Sara, shaking her head.

  “Did he walk oddly?” asked Maya, nudging Sara to remember any details. “Did he have any unusual labels on his clothes, or did you notice anything else in particular about him?”

  “No, not as far as I can remember,” said Sara. “I just remember the club, the bag, and the mask. But, wait a minute . . .”

  Jerry, Maya, and the police chief leaned closer to Sara, and in turn, Dino and Ella looked curiously at their table. Sara lowered her voice to a whisper:

  “I thought it looked like he was winking at Dino. When I was going to empty the cash drawer, I thought for a moment that the whole thing was just an awful nightmare. Then I looked up, and the robber was still there in front of me—but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Dino over by the coffee machine!”

  “Aha!” said the police chief. “That’s something to go on! Thank you for your help. You can go back to what you were doing.”

  Maya, Jerry, and the police chief got up to leave the café, and Sara and Ella Bernard and Dino Panini watched them anxiously as they walked toward the door.

  “Thank you for the fantastic cake,” the police chief said happily to Ella Bernard before they stepped out onto the street.

  As they were leaving, a man brushed by them in a hurry.

  “Excuse me,” he said as he squeezed past the police chief. The police chief stepped aside and said to Jerry and Maya:

  “That’s Steve Marzipan.”

  “Hmmm, not wearing any glasses today,” Maya observed.

  “Could I have . . . ?” said Jerry to the police chief, as he pointed to his camera.

  The police chief beamed and immediately posed outside the door to Café Marzipan. As quick as a flash, Maya sneaked up and stood next to him.

  Jerry laughed at Maya and took a photo. Afterward, they stood for a moment looking into
the display window of the café. Ella had just put out fresh pastries. The display looked even more tempting than before!

  With that, they said good-bye to the police chief and started walking home to their detective agency, located in Maya’s basement.

  Jerry wanted to download the photographs to his computer, and Maya wanted to sit and think about what they had learned during their visit to Café Marzipan.

  CHAPTER 4

  Pastries and Coffee

  Maya and Jerry paused on the sidewalk and looked around. Café Marzipan was next to Mohammed Carat’s jewelry shop. That was where Vivian Leander worked, selling rings and necklaces. But now she stood on the pavement outside the jeweler’s, looking worried.

  “Hello there!” said Maya and Jerry. Vivian nodded in reply, but she was distracted. She looked anxiously up and down Church Street.

  “Has something happened?” asked Maya.

  “It’s absolutely awful!” began Vivian. “Through all the years I’ve worked here, I’ve been in charge of the coffee break at work. We drink tea and coffee with Mohammed in his office, and it’s my job to prepare the drinks and find something tasty to eat. Café Marzipan never lets me down. The display is always so appetizing, and they change it all the time. Who could resist? Mohammed and Danny usually treat themselves to a cinnamon bun each, and I like a cookie.”

  “Just a cookie?” asked Jerry, astonished.

  “Well, as tempting as the cinnamon buns are, I like to watch what I eat. I’ll have a small cookie, an apple, and maybe some yogurt.”

  Jerry and Maya remembered the jewelry shop’s former employee who was never without an apple and shared a wink.

  “But now I don’t dare anymore!” continued Vivian in despair.

  “You don’t dare what?” asked Maya.

  “Go into Café Marzipan,” replied Vivian. “I’m not setting foot in there as long as there’s a thief on the loose.”