Mystery #19: Kristy and the Missing Fortune
It’s February in Stoneybrook and everyone has cabin fever. Luckily for Kristy, she stumbles upon a “mystery” in one of Watson’s old Stoneybrook books: a woman named Christina Thomas disappeared under mysterious circumstances in January of 1863. Kristy and her siblings wonder if Christina Thomas is a relative of theirs, and I wonder if the name Christina is a direct nod to me (I assume it is).
Kristy does some research using the microfilm at the library (because the 90s) and learns that Christina’s parents died in a freak carriage accident when she was only sixteen years old. The only upshot was that she and her brothers got rich from it. Kristy learns that, when Christina went missing, her fortune went with her.
“If Christina was a relative of mine, that missing fortune might make more than just a good story and a fun mystery. It might make me rich.” - Kristy, page 40
Kristy’s making some pretty big leaps there, but I’m no stranger to dreaming of becoming rich in very unrealistic ways.
Jessi has found a cabin fever cure for the BSC and its charges: helping out at Stoneybrook’s arboretum (sure), which is in danger of being closed and torn down by some developers who want to buy the land it’s on. The BSC and kids volunteer after school to help clean the place up in the hopes that an interested investor will buy and preserve it, thwarting the developers. In a shady turn of events, Jessi and Kristy realize that someone has been committing little acts of sabotage against the cleanup efforts, and when Kristy finds a business card for a home and construction business called DT Developers, she has her suspect.
Meanwhile, Kristy and co. are able to track down Christina’s great-great-niece, Mildred Abbott, and Kristy goes over to Mildred’s house for tea. She asks Mildred about Christina and Mildred laments that she’s the only one of her living relatives who shows any interest in the family lineage and trying to figure out what happened to Christina. She mentions that her cousin Devon Thomas IV (great-great-nephew of Christina) only cares about his contracting business.
WAIT A DAMN MINUTE. DEVON THOMAS, CONTRACTOR? DT DEVELOPERS, HOME AND CONSTRUCTION? Nah, it couldn’t be that obvious. Oh, wait, yes it could - it’s a BSC mystery.
Mildred tells Kristy that Christina was in love with a Union soldier named Henry (this was during the Civil War) but that her brother, Devon (DT4’s great-great-grandfather), was trying to force her to marry his business partner so they could steal her inheritance. Rather than do that, Christina decided to run away — she intended to meet Henry in Pennsylvania, where he’d been shipped off to, and sent him a letter with instructions for what to do if she didn’t make it. Sadly, Henry was killed in battle before Christina arrived (what the FUCK) and the letter was returned to Devon.
Kristy is desperate to figure out where Christina’s family home (named Squirelot) was, because she thinks the fortune is hidden there. She does more library research and figures it out. At the same time, Jessi and Dawn figure it out — because the arboretum has a brass plaque on a brick wall proclaiming it to be Squirelot. (This book’s plot is full of maybe the most unforgivable writer’s convenience ever. LOLOL.) They surmise from Christina’s note to Henry that the fortune might be buried in the arboretum’s rose garden, so they go try to find it and make a total mess of everything — right before the rich lady investor shows up to see the property. She’s, uh, not interested. WAY TO GO, BSC! Womp womp.
Based on clues from the note and the old almanac, the BSC decides that Henry was supposed to meet Christina during a full moon and - shocking coincidence - there’ll be a full moon in two days. The mini-detectives plan a full stakeout of the arboretum during the full moon. Evil incarnate Cokie Mason follows them there because - get this - Mildred Abbott (Christina’s great-great-niece) is her grandmother. Oh boy. Anywho, the full moon silhouettes a big tree, under which the BSC starts digging. Quickly, Kristy unearths a small metal box. Does it contain a million dollars, as the BSC hopes?
Nope. It contains a locket holding a photo of a girl who looks a lot like Kristy, a letter to Henry explaining that Christina had taken her fortune with her, and the lease to the land Squirelot sat on, with a note bequeathing it to Stoneybrook in the event Henry never claimed it. HOW CONVENIENT! The arboretum is saved. And now that everything is fine, turns out DT Developers is not Devon Thomas - who lives in California - and the “sabotage” was probably just more coincidences. The rich lady investor makes a large endowment to the arboretum and Mildred Abbott lets Kristy keep Christina’s locket (in what must be a real fuck-you to Cokie). And thus concludes Mystery #19: Kristy and the Incredible Coincidences.
