Case Closed #2, page 21
Tuggle looks around nervously before ducking inside, and I follow her. She climbs up some stairs, stands on an overhang, and seems to be looking into some sort of deep-water tank. But the tank is metal, not glass, so I can’t see in. I climb after Tuggle.
“Freeze!” I say from behind her. “Step away. Is Layla in the tank?”
“Oh, no! You found me!”
“I followed you,” I say, edging closer to the edge of the overhang. Tuggle steps back to let me pass through. At last I can see inside the tank, and it’s filled completely with goop, a gooey green gunk that one TV channel likes to pour on people. Frank always laughs hysterically when they do.
But I don’t see any ripples . . . or bubbles. Is Layla even in there? Tuggle is grinning at me—in a way that makes me feel like I’m an antelope at the watering hole.
“Kid, it’d be foolish to take you on when it was four on one. But one on one? Those are odds I can handle.”
She runs forward and gives me the biggest shove. I fall forward into the goop tank; it sludges everywhere, sticky and slimy and gross. I wriggle in the tank, trying to get to the edge but the wall is too tall for me to climb. All I can do is float in the green glop.
I shouldn’t have run ahead without my friends. What a mess!
CASE CLOSED.
I HIT AS many buttons as possible, and the noise is a loud disharmony of gibberish. There are bells and sirens and horns and laughter and train whistles and elevator music. All played at the same time. Frank is enjoying being the maestro of sound. He plays the buttons like a piano.
Tuggle bends over, holding her hands over her ears. Yes! All we have to do is keep playing this nonsense.
But then Tuggle stands up, holding her stomach and cackling with laughter. “What do you think you’re doing? You honestly think some annoying noises are going to stop me? I’ve kidnapped Layla Jay, the biggest starlet in Hollywood, and you think some sound effects—ha!” She wheezes.
“So you admit it!” I say. “You took Layla Jay?”
“Yes. I think we both know that by now.”
“Excellent!” Eliza says. “When the authorities come back—”
“I’ll deny everything,” Tuggle says. “If they ever find me. It’s your word against mine.”
Some sort of noise between a snort and a gasp escapes me. “But . . . you’ve already confessed! We heard it with our own ears!”
“Sure,” Tuggle says, striding toward the side door. She slips halfway out before popping her head back in, one last time. “You know I confessed, and I know I confessed. But without any concrete proof, who will believe you?”
CASE CLOSED.
“YOU HATE LAYLA, don’t you?”
Brad’s eyes flash dangerously. “I don’t.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, maybe not hate, but you strongly dislike her.”
Brad says nothing. Just folds his arms and glares. “What, am I on trial now or something?”
“GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!” Frank cries.
Brad blows his bangs out of his face. “All I’m saying is: everyone thinks she’s sooooooo talented. She’s not so great. I can perform circles around her.”
Suddenly, a voice echoes across a loudspeaker system. “Brad Bradley! Report to the fitting room immediately!”
“Wonderful,” Brad says sarcastically. “Guillotine is calling me. Try not to disturb too much of Layla’s stuff, okay? Don’t want you to get sued by the Ice Queen.” And he walks out.
The second he’s gone, Eliza groans. “He probably thinks I’m such an idiot.” She slinks down into Layla’s chair. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It was like the second I saw Brad, I just froze. But I can’t help it . . . it’s Brad Bradley! I can’t believe I met Brad Bradley!”
“Yeah, and Brad Bradley could very well be guilty.”
“GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!” Frank cries again.
“Not Brad,” Eliza says. “No way.”
“You never know,” I say. “We can’t rule out any suspects. So where do we go from here?”
Frank raises his hand. “Crawling! Sneaking!” But I look to Eliza.
“Well, here’s what we know. Layla Jay seemed to know she was about to be kidnapped. She’s hidden something important in a treasure chest or lockbox, with the code two five six. We know Layla has a creepy stalker, Louise. We know Guillotine and Layla don’t get along. And we know Brad . . .” She takes a deep breath like she’s readying herself for the end of the sentence. “Is jealous of Layla.”
That’s a lot of things we found all at once. My head is spinning. For a split second, I wonder if Mom has made as much progress as we have, but then I feel guilty.
Lately Mom’s been going on and on about trust and honesty. And honestly? I’m not so trustworthy right now.
“What next?” Eliza says to me, and I snap to attention. I’ll worry about Mom later.
“We could question Louise or Guillotine. Or,” I say, waving Layla’s cryptic note in the air, “we can follow this clue.”
“But, Carlos, we have no idea where Layla’s chest is.”
“We could start looking. We have to try.”
* * *
TO QUESTION LOUISE, CLICK HERE.
TO QUESTION GUILLOTINE, CLICK HERE.
TO SEARCH FOR LAYLA’S CHEST, CLICK HERE.
* * *
“SO, IN HER letter, Layla mentions a chest. Where do you think it is?”
“I haven’t the foggiest!” Miriam says. “A chest! What . . . what do you think she’s keeping in that chest?” Beads of sweat cling to her forehead and slowly drip down. “Could it help us find her? Oh, I would give anything to find my sweet, darling daughter!”
Tuggle’s eyebrows pinch together. “How do we know this letter is verifiably from Layla? Is this her handwriting?”
“Well?” I say to Layla’s mom. “Is it?”
Miriam shrugs. “How am I supposed to know?”
“For that matter,” Tuggle continues, “even if it is Layla’s handwriting, how do we know this isn’t just some silly prank or practical joke?”
I just blink at her. Really? Layla writes that she’s afraid she’s about to be kidnapped, then she disappears, and her agent thinks it’s a prank?
“You didn’t answer their question,” Mom says, tapping her fingernail on the table. “Do you, or do you not, know where Layla’s chest is?”
“Not,” Miriam says miserably.
“Not,” Tuggle says, sitting up stiffly in her seat.
* * *
TO ASK WHO THEY THINK MIGHT HAVE KIDNAPPED LAYLA, CLICK HERE.
* * *
“WE ARE WONDERING if you have any hunches or instincts about where Layla went.”
“Wish I could help,” Wolfgang says. “But that’s why we called in Las Pistas. There are no clues, no notes, not a single indication of where Layla has gone. If I had any idea at all, I’d be exploring it right now. Detective Serrano is our only hope.”
“What about the police?” Eliza asks. “Why aren’t they involved?”
“They too have nothing to go on,” Wolfgang says. “The more time that passes, the more interested the police are in this case. But when we first called them, they were convinced that she just ran away from the pressures of famous life.”
Suddenly, Frank slips out of his chair, plops down on the floor, and begins to rummage through drawers in Wolfgang’s cabinet.
“Frank,” I say warningly. But Wolfgang waves his hand. “He’s fine. Don’t worry. I don’t keep anything valuable in there.” For someone who is so condescending to kids . . . he’s also kind of a warm and patient guy. Is it just an act?
“Do you think she ran away from the pressures of famous life?” Eliza asks, getting our questioning back on track.
“No. That girl has never missed a day of filming in her life. Not even when she’s sick. She always knows all her lines. Last week, during filming, she was even helping Brad Bradley memorize his lines. She shows up on set early every day and leaves late. I’ve never seen anyone more responsible—sometimes I think she’s an adult in a kid’s body.” He pauses, pulls out his phone again and says, “New show idea: Body Swappers. Copyright Wolfgang Westover, Burbank Productions, LLC.” He looks back at us. “What was I saying? Oh, right! Layla! She’s completely well adjusted—she’s even a straight-A student with her private tutor too.”
Huh? That is the exact opposite of what Tuggle told us about Layla.
“Both of you look very confused,” Wolfgang says. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just . . . Agatha Tuggle told us the opposite. She said Layla was—”
“Unreliable,” Eliza jumps in. “An impulsive airhead.”
Wolfgang’s brow scrunches. “Tuggle said that? Why, that’s off the mark! A complete mischaracterization of her client! Let me tell you something about Agatha Tuggle—she is causing so much trouble on set, pitting Layla and Brad against each other.”
“Tuggle also said not to trust you,” Eliza says.
Wolfgang’s eyes narrow. “I think we’re done here,” he says, suddenly colder than he’s ever been. “I have a lot of work to do.”
Then he holds the door open for us. Eliza, Frank, and I have no choice but to leave.
In the hallway, Eliza, Frank, and I walk a loop around—through the hallway full of offices and then passing the dressing rooms, the prop room, the makeup room, the costume room, the green screen area, the robot dragon, the set built like a high-school hallway. And back around again.
The place seems empty—not a single cast or crew-member in sight. Mom too is nowhere to be seen. Which makes me nervous . . . because she could pop up at any moment. I keep looking over my shoulder. I know I’m probably paranoid, but Mom can’t know we ditched our babysitter.
“I thought we could question Guillotine next—hey, what’s that you’re looking at, Frank?”
“A lockbox.”
Eliza frowns. “Where’d you get a lockbox?”
“I stole it.”
“Where’d you steal it, Frank?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he’s going to say.
“From Wolfgang Mozart,” he replies.
“Wolfgang Westover,” Eliza corrects, while I groan. “What’s inside?” she adds.
“I dunno. Haven’t opened it yet.”
“Then why’d you steal it?” I say.
Frank shrugs.
I sigh and take the box from him. It’s smooth and wooden. On the side of the box, there seems to be a keyboard. And on the top, there are four slots with a tiny light underneath each one. The first slot is blank, and the light isn’t on. The second, third, and fourth ones have the letters E, S, and T with a glowing green light underneath.
“Green for go,” I whisper. So it seems like we only need to figure out the first letter of the password. The problem is, there are a lot of four-letter words I can think of that end in E-S-T.
Eliza hums thoughtfully. “We should make a list of all the blank-E-S-T words we can think of.”
“Like BEST!” Frank says.
“Yes, that’s one!” Eliza says proudly.
“And CHEST!” Frank says.
“No, Frankie. That’s not right. Four-letter words only.”
“SHEST!” Frank cries.
“That one isn’t even a word,” I say. I turn to Eliza. “Should we start plugging in random letters? Trial and error?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Eliza says. “We don’t know if this box has a fail-safe device. If we plug in the wrong answer, maybe it would self-destruct or release some sort of alarm. We better play it safe.”
“How?”
“If we can list all the possible solutions, we can make a more educated guess to determine which word would most likely be Wolfgang’s password.”
* * *
COUNT UP ALL POSSIBLE FOUR-LETTER WORDS THAT END IN E-S-T. ADD ONE HUNDRED.
IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 111, CLICK HERE.
IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 115, CLICK HERE.
OR TO ASK ELIZA FOR HELP, CLICK HERE.
* * *
IF WE JUMP up and down on the elevator, maybe we can get it to jam. I start hopping up and down, and the elevator jiggles. Frank joins in, while Eliza grips the side, and the elevator wobbles wildly.
“What are you doing?” Tuggle says sharply.
I don’t answer—I just keep jumping.
“Stop that!”
Tuggle lunges at me to make it stop. Got to keep jumping—
Snap!
The sound of elevator cables breaking—we go plunging straight down the shaft.
CASE CLOSED.
WE HAVE TO run after her. We can’t let her out of our sight.
Miriam runs as fast as she can in her high-heeled shoes, but she’s no match for Frank’s boundless energy. He catches up to her quick, with Eliza and me trailing right behind.
She heads toward the set, but it’s empty. Everyone must have evacuated from the car wreckage. Miriam races toward the door. But suddenly, she flies to the side—the papers in her hands flutter in the air and scatter everywhere. Miriam soars across the set—and crashes against the wall. She does not move.
“What was that?” I shout, while Eliza grabs Frank by the shirt and yanks him back.
With Miriam out of our line of sight, I can see the giant robot dragon powered up, flashing different lights, red eyes glowing, its tail whipping around. But we are just out of range.
“But . . . who’s controlling the dragon?” Eliza asks.
“COME OUT, COME OUT, WHOEVER YOU ARE!” Frank yells.
The chest of the dragon opens, and the person at the controls is a tiny woman, with big round glasses, a tight bun, and three pens sticking out of her hair.
“You?”
“Me,” Tuggle says, taking a smack at us with the dragon. She just narrowly misses crushing Eliza to a pulp.
“Where is Layla?”
Tuggle opens the other side of the dragon’s chest, and there, next to her, is a too-still Layla. “If you care what happens to Layla, don’t run.”
“What are you doing?”
“I need those papers,” she says. “And I need you.”
“Us?” Eliza says, surprised. “Why us?”
“Because you know too much. Because you put the puzzle pieces together faster than I ever could have imagined.”
Did we? Because I have no idea what she’s talking about. “I don’t understand . . . you crashed the car into the studio?”
“I had to get this place to clear out somehow.”
“You kidnapped Layla?”
“I thought we’d been over this already,” she says impatiently.
“But why?”
“I think I know,” Eliza says, and she grabs my arm. “Carlos, she’s right—we do have the puzzle pieces. The note we found in the cauldron—from Miriam to a mystery person? Meet our mystery person.”
“You took money out of Layla’s bank account and gave it to Miriam?”
“Miriam is her legal guardian. She has a right. Besides, she said she was going to use it on lessons and outfits to make Layla Jay the biggest kid star since Natalie Wood.”
“Who’s that?” Frank asks.
“I don’t care if Miriam took that money to buy Layla a pony—it’s still Layla’s money!” I say.
“Everything suddenly makes sense,” Eliza says grimly, “about how nothing made sense.”
“You’re not even making sense now!” Frank cries.
“I mean . . .” Eliza looks up at Tuggle. “Wolfgang Westover told Carlos’s mom that you were causing all sorts of unnecessary drama on set, on behalf of your client. And then you told us that Layla was irresponsible and flighty, when Wolfgang said exactly the opposite. So . . . it’s more than just money. You’re purposely doing a bad job for your client.”
Tuggle frowns. “I’ve known that Layla’s been unhappy with my representation for a few months now . . . ever since she found out that I was feeding her mother money and didn’t intervene when she was having issues with her director and her costar. I found out Layla was shopping around for another agent. She is my agency’s main source of income. I need her to stay afloat. I . . . I tried to delay her from switching by tanking her reputation. So other agents wouldn’t want to work with her.”
“That’s terrible—you’re terrible.”
“I thought I could convince her to stay.” Her expression darkens. “I thought wrong.” The dragon’s tail swipes toward us again. And I can feel Tuggle itching to be done with us. Any moment now, that dragon is going to attack. And from what I can remember about when Layla’s character, Aurelia, battles it on the show . . . it breathes fire.
“When Layla came to me a few days ago wanting to terminate her agent agreement, she told me she was planning to besmirch my business and my reputation. . . . She was going to drag my name through the mud! And I couldn’t have that. I needed to convince her to stay with me or keep her mouth closed . . . or both. This little . . . action was born out of necessity. You don’t understand. My reputation is everything to me. If that’s gone, I won’t make a dime in this industry.”
“Good,” I say. “You don’t deserve it.”
Tuggle scowls. “Enough talk! Bring me the papers. I have to get rid of any kind of evidence that Layla and I weren’t on the best terms.”
Eliza grabs my arm and whispers. “We’re evidence now. She’s going to want to get rid of us.”
I have to stop Tuggle—and fast!
* * *
TO GRAB LAYLA WHILE DELIVERING THE PAPERS, CLICK HERE.
TO SNEAK UNDERNEATH THE ROBOT DRAGON, CLICK HERE.
* * *
ELIZA’S RIGHT; IF Miriam is here, we should talk to her directly. We slip back inside Stage Eight and walk around the classroom scene they’re currently trying to film—with Brad Bradley and a bunch of the Teen Witch side characters.
