Case Closed #4, page 5
“Congratulations on the private collection,” I say sarcastically. “I hear you have some real steals.”
“You listened to a new voicemail,” he says, halfway between enraged and nervous. “It’s the only explanation, because I wipe that phone clean every time I hide it back in that bust.”
“So you’re the artifact thief.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!” Frank bellows.
I waggle the phone in front of Leech, taunting him. “We have documented proof that you’ve stolen the artifacts.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leech says. “Just like kids to come in and fling accusations around without any regard to the consequences!”
“So . . . you’ve never stolen a single artifact in your life?”
He squints. “I didn’t say that.”
“So you’ve stolen artifacts before,” I say.
“I didn’t say that either. I never claimed that!” He looks around to make sure no one is near us. When he’s satisfied that we’re the only ones on this hill above the excavation site, he leans in and whispers, “I’ll deny we ever had this conversation. All I can say is that the archaeologists here run a tight ship. Everything is cataloged instantly. Smarty Marty caught me checking the catalogs and artifacts multiple times, hoping for something that wasn’t documented—or at least was documented improperly. Don’t look at me with such disgust, children. I’m doing the world a favor.”
“How do you figure?”
“Art is meant to be shared, enjoyed, viewed widely. Oftentimes artifacts that end up in the possession of the government get shoved in a back room somewhere, never to see the light of day.”
“So that’s how you justify your thievery?” Eliza says with disdain.
“Imagine what a tragedy it would be if the world never saw . . . the Mona Lisa. Or the Nefertiti bust. Or the mask of Agamemnon. In my possession, every artifact—every magnum opus—finds an adoring audience.”
Eliza snorts skeptically. “Don’t pretend like you’re doing this for the masses. In your private collection, you stand to make twice as much money as in the public museum you curate. You’re enriching yourself.”
Leech’s nostrils flare. “I think you’ll find that this is a mutually beneficial relationship. I benefit, the public benefits, everyone wins.”
“What does Mr. Bones think about that?” I ask. “He’s the reason you’re here—he brought you onto his task force. You’d really betray his trust like that? I thought you two were friends.”
Richard Leech smiles, and it’s a very smarmy sort of grin. His teeth are unnaturally big and white. “This is all hypothetical,” he says. “Because I didn’t steal the artifacts.”
“But you just said—”
“I would.”
“Right.”
“But I didn’t.”
Frank shouts, “Woulda, shoulda, coulda!”
Richard Leech clucks his tongue. “Somebody beat me to it. And now that the bust, the armband, the coins, and the vases have gone missing, the security on the other artifacts is even more tight.”
I feel like my thoughts are all jumbling around. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone admit to wanting to do a crime, if only they’d gotten there first.
* * *
TO ASK LEECH WHO BEAT HIM TO THE PUNCH, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK LEECH ABOUT HIS PLANS TO STEAL THE NECKLACE, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I CAN’T LIE to Eliza. Even when I’m upset with her, she’s still my best friend.
“The truth is, Eliza, I’m frustrated.”
“Oh, Carlos!” she cries, throwing her arms around me. “I didn’t mean to forget about your mom! That was so thoughtless of me! I was just in the moment.”
“Well, about that,” I say. “I don’t know how to say this. . . .”
“Just tell me.”
I look into her familiar gray eyes. She looks a little worried. “Eliza, I feel like you’ve been stealing my thunder all case.”
“Stealing . . . your thunder,” she repeats in a flat tone.
“It just feels like we’re out of sync, you know? Always disagreeing. And we used to get along so well during cases.”
“Yes,” Eliza says, “because I always went along with what you wanted.”
“I guess I thought we had a dynamic that worked . . . and now we don’t. You were the brain, I was the lie detector, Frank was the finder.”
She crosses her arms. “Well, was it a dynamic that worked for all of us? Or just you?”
I thought all of us—we were solving cases. And everyone seemed happy with their job. Or so I thought. But the way Eliza has phrased the question, and the way her body language is all closed off, makes me think that she feels differently.
“Carlos, I’m a multidimensional human being! You realize that I’m more than a brain, right?”
“Of course!”
“Because I don’t want to apologize for having investigative convictions of my own, even if they conflict with yours.”
“I—I didn’t mean . . .” I’m feeling flustered. And guilty. Because I really did want each of us to fit into our neat little boxes, our perfect assigned roles.
“I’m happy being a puzzle help line, but that isn’t all I want to be. I’m not a one-trick pony.”
“What do you mean?”
She flushes. “I . . . you’re not the only one who wants to be a professional detective when you grow up. I want that too. Which means I have to hone all my skills, even the positions that used to go to you and Frank.”
“Did someone say Frank?!” Frank says, skipping over to us. He tugs on my sleeve until I lean over. Then he whispers in my ear, “Two words: lolly. Pop.”
I swat him away. Then I turn back to Eliza. “Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I can’t go back to the way things were. I like using my voice.”
“I like that too,” I say.
“Do you? Because you’ve been pretty miserable about it.”
Okay . . . I have to correct myself. “I will like it. From here on out. I just need to learn to compromise more.”
“I don’t think it’s about that,” Eliza says. “I think it’s about trusting each other, believing in each other’s hunches, and talking it out. We haven’t really been talking, you know. You’ve dug your heels in about your hunches, and I’ve dug my heels in about mine, which is why it feels like a huge tug-of-war between us.”
“How about a hug-of-war?”
She squeezes me tight. “Best friends again?”
“We always were!”
“Ahem!” Someone near us clears their throat. Eliza and I separate. Smarty Marty stands before us, barely concealing an eye roll. “It looks like you’re having a moment and all,” Smarty says derisively, “but Mr. Bones is looking for you.”
“Mr. Bones?” I say, perking up.
Smarty points us to the picnic tables. Orlando Bones greets us with a solemn nod, which is a huge departure from his lively, energetic attitude yesterday.
“Please sit,” he says.
* * *
TO ASK MR. BONES WHERE HE’S BEEN, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK MR. BONES IF HE’S SEEN MOM, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I PULL THE necklace over Frank’s head.
“HEY!” he cries.
“If you want it,” I shout at Orlando Bones, shining my flashlight in his eyes, “go and get it!” I pitch the necklace so fast and so far that my Little League coach would be proud. The necklace plops into the river and quickly disappears in the dark water.
“Noooooooooooooooo!” Bones wails. He runs past us and dives into the river. “Where is it? Where is my jackpot? WHY WOULD YOU THROW THE GAME?”
But we are already running away, scurrying through the crawl door, dashing toward the exit. And at last we race through the archway—and find ourselves in the excavation pit again. Dawn is just starting to break over the horizon as we climb up the ladder. And once out of the pit, we run through the dig, screaming until we have no more breath in our lungs.
Two hours later.
It took fifteen Greek police officers to drag Orlando Bones out of the water, where he was diving over and over again (in vain) for the necklace. Rumors spread like wildfire around the dig that he nearly drowned two officers with all his flailing.
They hauled him above the surface and after two minutes of pressure, Orlando Bones cracked like an egg and told the authorities everything, including the location of Mom: on his boat docked in a nearby bay. As a few officers went to retrieve Mom, Nadira Nadeem brought the three of us some hot chocolate.
“Thank you,” Eliza says.
“Where’s the whipped cream?” Frank asks, and I elbow him.
“He means thank you!”
Nadira sits down with us. “All these rumors flying around about Mr. Bones and you three and the Necklace of Harmonia, and I just have to ask . . . did you really find it?”
I nod.
“Only to immediately lose it?” she says sternly.
“We didn’t lose it, we trashed it,” Frank says. Clearly he somehow thinks that’s better, but it is definitely worse. Nadira lets out a wail and walks away.
“I think we’ve broken everyone’s heart today,” Eliza says, the corners of her mouth turning up into a smile.
“Well, we did chuck a priceless treasure.”
“Don’t worry. We still have a priceless treasure,” Frank says. And he reaches into his pocket, grabs his front tooth, and holds it up to the sky. “TA-DA!”
Eliza and I snicker.
“This tooth will be worth something one day,” Frank says.
“Yes, twenty-five cents tonight,” I reply.
He grins at me.
“Perhaps the real treasure,” Eliza says, “was the friends we made along the way.”
We look sideways at Nadira, Smarty, Leech, Zip, Professor Worthington, and Dr. Mandible, who are all glaring at us.
“Or . . . perhaps not.”
We continue sipping our hot cocoas, and I can’t keep my eyes off the parking lot. Even with assurances from Orlando Bones (as he was escorted to a police car) that Mom was okay, I know I won’t feel relief until I see her for myself.
But at last I see flashing lights in the distance, and I know it’s Mom. She gets out of the car and runs across the dig to me—and I run to her. We meet in the middle of all the columns and I hold her tight.
“Mijo,” she says, kissing my forehead.
And in that moment—with Bones apprehended, and Mom safe, and Eliza grinning, and Frank showing off his new gap to a bunch of archaeologists—everything is perfectly as it should be. Not bad for our first case as the lead detectives.
As for whether we’ll take another case? I know in my heart that Eliza, Frank, and I will do this again, come hellhound or high water.
CASE CLOSED.
“OKAY, ELIZA,” I say. “I guess we can talk to Richard Leech.”
She squeals in delight. And she can’t stop grinning, even as we climb out of the excavation pit and wander around the dig.
Finding Richard Leech turns out to be easy—he’s sitting in a chair in front of his tent, smoking a cigar.
It smells awful. Sickly sweet and musky at the same time. Eliza and I both grimace . . . then we make sure to stand upwind.
“Pee-yew!” Frank says. Then he clenches his face. He looks like he’s squeezing real hard.
“What are you doing?” I ask warily.
“Trying to fart,” Frank says. “To improve the smell.”
Richard Leech scowls. “You’re ruining my smoke break.”
“We just have a few questions. Then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“I don’t want to answer any questions.”
Too bad! We have a job to do. “Mr. Leech, do you have any reason to be suspicious of your fellow task force members?”
“I said I didn’t want to talk to you,” he says.
I soldier on. “You stole the artifacts, didn’t you?”
Leech chokes on a huge puff of smoke. Then he starts wheezing and coughing. He blinks at us with watery, bloodshot eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
“We know you were cozy with the artifacts,” I say. “And that you had to be escorted from the tent.”
“I . . . what a ludicrous—I don’t want to answer any questions!” He dabs his face with a bandanna. His goatee twitches slightly, and his eyes dart. Definitely the body language of the guilty.
“We heard you promised your donors you’d have these artifacts in your museum—”
“I—I’ve gotta go!” he growls. He tries to extinguish his cigar in the dirt, but he leaves it still smoldering on the ground as he dashes into the bosses’ tent.
Well, that backfired. I never took him for the squirrelly type.
“Amateurs,” says a woman’s smug voice in the tent’s doorway (or technically, flapway). It’s Smarty Marty. “I could do a better job.”
“We know what we’re doing, thank you,” I say coldly.
“If you say so,” Smarty says. “But I’m the one who actually has a clue right now. Not you.”
Eliza perks up. “Would you share it?”
“Perhaps,” she says cryptically.
I really have to restrain myself from rolling my eyes.
Frank lets out a huge yawn. “I’m sleepy,” he says. “Time for bed. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
I must admit—I’m exhausted. To be honest, I’m not sure how sharp of a thinker I am when I’m this bone-tired. But the thought of walking away from a potential lead is almost unthinkable. Of course, Smarty could be bluffing.
“Smarty Marty, why didn’t you give this clue to us earlier? We spent so much time with you today!”
“I didn’t feel like it. And I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
Frank yawns, which makes Mom yawn, which makes Eliza yawn, which makes me yawn. Jet lag is pulling us under. My head feels suddenly heavy.
“Of course,” Smarty Marty says snidely, “you can always choose beddy-bye.”
* * *
TO ASK SMARTY MARTY ABOUT HER LEAD, CLICK HERE.
TO GO TO BED, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I HAVE TO throw this necklace off the mountain. There’s only one thing he wants, and it isn’t us.
“Hey, Mr. Bones!” I shout. I wind up. I pitch the pieces of the necklace straight over Orlando Bones’s shoulder.
The remains of the Necklace of Harmonia arc through the air. The necklace pieces fly fast—and soar over the edge of the cliff.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Bones cries, and he turns on his heels and dives after it. Right off the side of the mountain. Eliza, Frank, and I run outside to see if we can see him—but we can’t. Not from this angle.
“Is he . . . ,” Eliza asks tentatively.
Right now I only care about one person. I get up and follow the shelf around the corner. “Mom? Mom!”
She is facedown on the ledge. I nudge her, and she begins to stir. After a few moments, she sits up against the mountain. “Ouch, that hurts,” she mumbles, holding her head.
But she’s okay. I laugh in relief and sweep her up into a big hug. Then I start digging into my first-aid kit for anything that could help her inevitable headache.
“What did me in? A head clonk or a rockslide?”
“Bones got you!”
“Bones?” she says, surprised. “Are you okay? Where is he now?”
I point to the edge of the cliff. “He jumped after the necklace.”
“El tonto,” she mutters, rolling her eyes.
After a few minutes, I help Mom to her feet, and we head toward the cave. There’s one last thing we have to do. . . .
When we smashed the necklace, I heard a click. Now I have to find the source. I search the back of the cave and find a tiny door, slightly ajar. Before I can even look inside, Frank elbows me and Eliza out of the way. He crawls in.
“What do you see, Frank?”
His voice comes back, a little muffled. “Aw, this is worthless.”
Bummer. I try not to be disappointed. Someone set up this wild-goose chase over a thousand years ago, so of course it didn’t pan out. I don’t know what I was expecting. “You can come out now, Frank.”
“There’s no pizza in here!” Frank says, clearly miffed. “Only gold, and you can’t eat gold.”
“Gold?” Eliza says. We each grab one of Frank’s ankles and yank him out of the doorway. We shine our lights inside. There’s a single object. Eliza reaches forward and pulls it out. It is some sort of belt made with gold so fine and delicate that it looks like lace.
“Is this . . . ? It can’t be . . . Aphrodite’s Girdle,” Eliza whispers. “Forged by Hephaestus. It’s said that if you wear it, everyone around you will fall in love with you.”
“Romance. YUCK,” Frank says.
“Okay, but if you wear Aphrodite’s Girdle, do you die a horrible death?” I ask Eliza. “Was it forged in anger and revenge? Will you be cursed forever?”
“Nope!”
“Great! Then we traded up!”
One month later.
I’m doing homework at the table when Eliza bursts in through the front door. “Did you see this? Did you see?” Eliza shouts, holding her dad’s laptop. She sets it on the table and looks around. “Where’s your mom?”
I sigh. “Off on another case. She’s been really popular these days. We were the lead detectives, and she reaped the benefits,” I joke. “Why, do you need her?”
Eliza opens her dad’s computer, and there’s an article about Aphrodite’s Girdle, which has spent a few weeks being studied by Professor Phineas Alistair Worthington and other leading minds in classical studies. He was gleeful about getting to examine it, even for a short time. Now that his university’s lease is over, the belt is about to be moved to a museum in Greece, where anyone can come see it.
