The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

so I had no trouble finding the correct one. I waited while the kids poured out of the school, talking, laughing, glad to be out of jail for the rest of the day.
    I spotted Kate walking with two other girls, looking pretty in a plaid skirt and a light jacket. I hailed her as they approached the bus and said, “May I talk to you for a moment?”
    She looked surprised. We hadn’t spoken for a week, not since I had been at her house. And then we hadn’t parted on the best of terms. I added, “I can drive you home.”
    She hesitated. The other two girls were giving her knowing looks. That apparently did the trick, because she turned to me with a brilliant smile and said, “Okay.”
    She waved to them as we walked away toward where my car was parked. It occurred to me that she had achieved some sort of status by being cut out of the pack by a senior, but it also worried me because it might get her expectations too high. So as soon as we got into the car and started moving, I started talking.
    “I need your help,” I said. “Is your mother home this afternoon?”
    “No, she’s working.”
    “Good. Because what I want to do is to take a look at the sheet of paper Ed says he got from Ralph that supposedly tells where the necklace is hidden.”
    “Why do you want to do that?”
    “I guess just because he won’t show it to us. Don’t you think there’s something fishy about that?”
    Kate shrugged her shoulders and said, “Eddie can be very secretive. He’s always keeping secrets from me.”
    “Doesn’t that bother you?”
    “I do the same with him.”
    “But wouldn’t you like to know whether there really is a necklace? If there is, it could be worth a lot of money.”
    “Eddie is obsessed with money. He’s always saying that you and the other cousins have a lot of money, but our family doesn’t.”
    “You know that’s not true, don’t you? We’re not rich.”
    “But at least you get new clothes once in a while. I have to keep mending mine. This morning, I had to fix the hem on this skirt before I could wear it.”
    She lifted up the bottom of her skirt and showed it to me. Although the gesture barely exposed her knees, it distracted me enough so that I suddenly found the car drifting toward the side of the road. I had to jerk the wheel to straighten it.
    To cover my discomfiture, I said, “Will you help me find the piece of paper?”
    Her tone changed. She said, “Why should I help you?”
    “Because you have a stake in this. Your family would get a share from selling the necklace.”
    “Eddie says that if it’s found in the hayloft, you might try to cut us out, because your dad and Cousin Dorothy own the farm.”
    “I promise that your family will get a third.” Big words, since I probably had no control over what happened if the necklace were found. Even if we were the ones to find it.
    We had reached the small house where the Drucquers lived. It looked sad and uninviting. I could understand why Ed and Kate wanted something better. I stopped the car in front and said, “Well?”
    “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help you if you’ll take me to the autumn dance.”
    I looked at her to see if she was serious. I could tell by the firm set of her mouth and the determined look in her green eyes that she was. The annual semiformal dance was a week from Saturday. I had already asked Sylvia to go with me. The problem was that I couldn’t be seen with Sylvia. We had discussed that on Sunday, when we had walked and talked together. We had concluded that we wouldn’t go at all, because it wasn’t a dance to which people went stag.
    I was stuck for an answer to Kate. I couldn’t tell her I was going with somebody else, because that was no longer true. I couldn’t tell her that even though I wasn’t going with Sylvia, we were still together. Kate was a member of the family, and I couldn’t trust her to keep quiet about it. The seconds dragged into minutes. Kate sat with her hands folded in her lap. She wasn’t going to budge. I had to say something.
    Just as I was about to give up my quest to see Ed’s necklace paper, an idea popped into my head. I cleared my throat and said, “Would you like to go to the autumn dance with me?”
    Kate looked at me, clearly startled. She searched my face to see if I was putting her on. She must have liked what she saw, because she finally said, “Yes, I would like that.” Then she smiled. Her smile was her best feature.
    My plan, still in the process