SHAKESPEARE’ SECRET (9 page)

Hero's mother glanced at the sketch. “Really? Oh, yes, a falcon. I see it.” She turned to Hero, eyebrows raised. “What's gotten into you, Hero? Is this something else you've been discussing at Mrs. Roth's?”

Hero couldn't think what to say. She could barely think at all. In her mind, she kept seeing the initials on the back of the pendant, tiny and faint on the gold. Not
AE, AB,
Anne Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII. The one who was beheaded. One of the ones who was beheaded. Hero couldn't remember anything else about her. She felt a shiver of excitement. Was it possible that the necklace had once belonged to Anne Boleyn? Was it a queen's necklace? A queen's diamond?

She tightened her fist around the pencil rubbing and looked up at her parents, trying to make her face
blank. “Well, I was talking to Mrs. Roth about, you know, Shakespeare, and then we just started talking about English history. I got kind of interested in Anne Boleyn.” That should be enough to get her father going.

“I can certainly see why,” her father said, beaming at her. “She's a fascinating character. Started out as the king's girlfriend, just another pretty courtier, but she was clever and strong-willed, determined to be queen. She got her wish—his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled—but she ruled only a few years before Henry's eye wandered again. Her enemies plotted against her and had her executed.”

“She was beheaded, wasn't she?” Hero asked.

“Yes, on Tower Green. Falsely accused of adultery. Five men, including her brother of all people, were tortured to provoke confessions. Like your namesake, Hero: 'Done to death by slanderous tongues.' At the end, when she was imprisoned and sentenced to die, she showed extraordinary courage. And of course she was the mother of Elizabeth I, the greatest ruler in English history. I have a couple of excellent books on the era. I'll take them out for you.” Her father went eagerly to his study.

Hero's mother continued to look at her curiously. “Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” she
asked. “Your father could tell you more about Anne Boleyn.”

“No, Mom,” Hero said with conviction. “I really just want to stay here.”

Hero was beginning to abandon all hope that she'd ever have the house to herself, when— simultaneously—Kelly's mother drove up, calling for Beatrice, and her parents realized there was a docent tour of the Van Dyck exhibit at eleven o'clock. With barely a goodbye, everyone rushed off at once.

As Hero watched their car swing out of the driveway, she sighed with relief. She couldn't wait to tell Mrs. Roth about Anne Boleyn. She saw that her father had left a fat history book on the counter for her:
Tudor England.
She flipped through it, skimming the pictures until she discovered a stark portrait of Anne Boleyn: dark, serious eyes, black hair sweeping neatly away from her forehead. She looked proud and bold. Her face showed no hint of the terrible things that lay ahead of her.

Below the portrait, Hero found the image of the falcon. It looked exactly like the etching on the pendant, but now she could see the details. Eagerly she
read the caption: “Crest of Anne Boleyn, Marquess of Pembroke. This title and its emblem were awarded to Anne Boleyn by the king in 1532, to placate her during the lengthy debate over the annulment of Henry's first marriage.”

Hero could see that the bird was standing near a bunch of roses, gripping a scepter, just as her father had drawn it. Mrs. Roth would be so excited about this! She stuffed the book in her backpack for her next visit.

At last, a few hours of uninterrupted diamond hunting. Hero drifted through the still house. Where should she begin? The bookcases? Each one of the downstairs rooms had some kind of built-in cupboard or cabinet, with flowery carvings and scrollwork in the trim. Unfortunately, Hero's mother had been sufficiently organized in her unpacking to fill most of them already—with books, knickknacks, delicate pieces of crystal.

Hero was determined to be thorough. She kept reminding herself that the house had already been searched once by the police, and the diamond had been hidden well enough to escape their notice. A diamond so big wouldn't be easy to conceal. Maybe it was tucked under something or inside something, some kind of hole or hollow.

In the living room, Hero pulled stacks of books off the shelves and checked for loose boards. In the dining room, she slid her fingers along the inside edges of the corner china cupboard, trying not to bang the slender handles of her mother's teacups. She checked for knotholes, mouse holes, grooves in the wood, soft spots in the plaster. By the middle of the afternoon, she'd examined every nook in the downstairs rooms, and with rising frustration, scoured the upstairs medicine cabinets as well. She found nothing but a pen cap, a nickel, and a chipped orange button.

Tired and bored, Hero thudded down the back steps into the bright sunlight. She stood in the driveway, picking at the splinters under her fingernails and glancing around. What if the diamond wasn't in the house, after all? She was just considering the leafy borders of the backyard when she heard the low rumble and scrape of a skateboard. She looked up to see Danny Cordova standing at the end of her driveway.

“Hey, Netherfield,” Danny called to her. With a quick pivot, he flipped the skateboard into the air and caught it under his arm.

“Hi,” Hero answered, hoping it didn't sound like an invitation. She flinched as Danny started down the driveway.

“I was at Ben's,” he told her, as if he expected her to be interested. When Hero said nothing, he added, “Ben and Aaron are fighting again. Maybe you should go down there and break it up.”

Hero scowled at him, but his easy grin made it hard not to smile. Triss was right. There was something about him.

“So what are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Hero scuffed her sneaker in the loose gravel. “Just hanging out. My parents are in D.C., and Beatrice is over at a friend's house.”

Danny was watching her steadily. “You're looking for it, aren't you?” he said.

Hero flushed and shook her head. But then, unbelievably, she heard herself say, “Yes.”

She had no idea why she said it. She didn't trust Danny. She didn't even know him. And she was trying so hard to keep the diamond a secret from her own family, the people she did know and trust. But it was something about the way he looked at her, the friendly interest in his eyes. It had been a long time since any kid had looked at her that way: smiling, curious, wanting to hear what she had to say. It hadn't happened all summer; it hadn't happened at school.

Hero realized that if she'd had a really good friend to talk to, she would have told the friend about the Murphy diamond. Instead, she told Danny Cordova. And because she told him, suddenly it seemed that he must be her friend. It was mixed up. Usually, you confided in someone because you trusted the person. But she was trusting someone because she'd confided in him.

She watched him, wondering what he'd say “I figured you were looking for it.” Danny grinned with satisfaction. He sat on his skateboard, rolling it back and forth with his feet. “Miriam's helping you, right? She could've told me. I know she doesn't want to get me in trouble with my dad, but I wouldn't have said anything.”

“Oh, please, don't,” Hero said, sitting cross-legged on the driveway. “You can't say
anything
to anybody. Really.”

“Hey, don't worry. I won't. I'd like to find it too. It's worth a ton of money, you know. A million dollars or something.”

Hero rested her chin in her hands and gazed at the backyard, at the grass growing too long in the shade, the sprawling rhododendrons and azaleas, the thicket of weeds next to the garage.

“I looked all over the house,” Hero said. “Everywhere. All the bookshelves, all the cupboards, any place he could have hidden it. But I didn't find anything. I think it must be out here.”

Danny shook his head. “No way. You weren't around for the police search. My dad had four detectives on it. And they didn't find any place that was dug up. Plus, my dad figured it wouldn't be safe for Murphy to leave a diamond out here. A dog could get to it, or some kid in the neighborhood. After it was stolen, we used to sneak over here all the time to look.”

“You searched the yard?” Hero asked. This was beginning to seem hopeless. Maybe the diamond really had been stolen, and Mr. Murphy, crazy in his old age, had sent them a mysterious clue that had nothing to do with it.

Danny stood up. “This is what we should do,” he said decisively. “We should look at the police report.”

“Oh, sure,” Hero joined in. “We'll just ask for a copy. No one will suspect a thing.”

“No. No. Come on. We'll go down to the station.”

Hero stared at him. “What do you mean? Just walk in there and request the Murphy file? Look, I don't know much about police work, but that stuff is probably you know, confidential or something. Plus, they'll
ask why we're interested. Plus, they'll never give it to a kid.”

Danny grabbed her arm impatiently. “No, listen, we'll go right now. They're short staffed on weekends. My dad's there but he's on patrol, so we can hang out in his office. That's where the Murphy report is.”

Hero frowned. “How do you know?”

“We used to talk about it, and one time he showed me. He still thinks it's an active case or something. He keeps it in his file cabinet.”

“So you want to sneak in his office and look at it without anyone seeing us?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“How far away is it?”

“You got a bike? It's only a couple of miles. I can use my skateboard.”

Hero hesitated. As a partner in detective work, Danny Cordova seemed a lot pushier than Mrs. Roth, and his ideas sounded more dangerous.

“What if we get caught?” she asked.

“Caught doing what?” Danny scoffed. “We're just going to visit my dad. Don't worry, they know me down there. And you'll be with me.”

“Right,” Hero nodded grimly. “And didn't you get suspended once?”

Danny looked at her in surprise. “Yeah, sure.” He shrugged. “But that was a long time ago. And they don't suspend you for looking at police files.”

“No, they probably arrest you,” Hero muttered.

But she wheeled her bike out of the garage, and with the afternoon sun warm on their faces, they started down the street together.

They rode down the street, past Mrs. Roth's yard with its burst of flowers, past Aaron's house, where someone was washing a car in the driveway. Hero pedaled through the river of soapsuds trying to keep up with Danny. At the corner, he turned sharply and stopped, waiting for her.

“You're pretty fast on that,” she said, veering around him.

“Yeah, on the quiet streets. It's harder to keep up your speed when there's traffic.”

“So how do we go? Grove?”

Grove Street was the main avenue from Hero's neighborhood into the center of town. It was a wide, long street with a steady stream of cars. The houses were bigger there, set back on deep lawns, with shrubs and fences shielding the yards from the road.

“Yeah, follow me,” Danny told her.

Following someone on a skateboard, Hero discovered, could be a nerve-racking experience. Danny would sail ahead, then swerve and stop, often bumping into the curb when a car passed too close. As a result, Hero found herself pedaling furiously then slamming on her brakes. Once, a blue Jeep roared by and a girl leaned out the back window to yell, “Danny! Danny Cordova!”

Danny turned to wave, and Hero had to steer onto the sidewalk to avoid crashing into him.

“Let me ride in front,” she said.

“But you don't know where you're going.”

“Maybe not, but I won't get us both killed.”

“Oh, come on. I was just waving. You worry too much.”

Hero sighed. “Then watch where you're going.”