Mystery #23: Abby and the Secret Society
Abby and the BSC are bored with February so they volunteer to help get the new Greenbrook Club get up and running in Stoneybrook. It’s a new country club taking over where a bullshit racist and exclusionary country club (Dark Woods) used to be. In fact, the new owner’s estranged father was a big wig of the Dark Woods and a rumored member of the club’s secret society, which blackmailed and extorted people to get what they wanted.
When the BSC learns that a reporter who’d begun investigating the secret society died in a mysterious car accident and that his police sergeant best friend thinks he was murdered, they’re on the case (because this situation obviously calls for a gaggle of thirteen-year-olds). They bust out their mystery notebook and keep track of clues and leads: the new owner’s father drives around the club in his limo and watches his grandson play tennis; there’s a hedge maze on-site that they’re forbidden to enter; Kristy finds writing under a carpet in the dining room that includes the initials of the dead reporter; former members who are upset about the new club stop by; etc.
The writing in the dining room says 1954 and looks to be written with wine. The girls theorize that maybe it’s telling them to find a 1954 wine from the cellar below the dining room. Sure enough, they poke around and find a nearly empty 1954 wine that has a golf tee inside, and etched into the golf tee it says OPEN WWII. Through some trial and error, the BSC is led to a golf open trophy from the only year during World War II they can find, won by Christopher Armstrong, and they find a note hidden in the bottom of it with two silver keys. The note says “Shelter Favorite Food” with the initials of David Follman, the dead journalist.
Abby realizes that Christopher Armstrong is the former mayor, who walks with a creepy cane with a duck on top, and who has already come by the club and been a dick to the new owner. She hatches a plan with Sergeant Johnson, Nikki the new owner, and the BSC. They lure Armstrong to the club with a clue to the trophy note and follow him as he finds it. Abby and Sergeant Johnson end up trailing Armstrong to the center of the hedge maze, where he’s digging up a trap door. When he realizes he’s caught, he tries to take Stephen, the owner’s son, hostage, but her estranged father comes to the rescue. Sergeant Johnson arrests Armstrong and everyone is safe.
Turns out the trap door Armstrong dug up belonged to a bunker with a bomb shelter, which the two silver keys let them into, and where they find a bunch of incriminating papers hidden in David Follman’s favorite food. Armstrong later confesses to everything (the extortion and blackmail, as well as tampering with the brakes on David Follman’s car) and the opening of the new Greenbrook Country Club goes off without a hitch.
I wanted to love this mystery based on the premise and the fact that Abby was narrating it, but it was honestly pretty lackluster and Abby’s trademark zest was missing. Where did it go? That’s the mystery I’d like to solve.
