Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  Amanda dusted all the items for prints, including the screenplay. She would run them through the national database later. She also swabbed everything in case there was any residue that might help paint a better picture of what the Moriartys had been up to. But on the surface none of the stuff looked suspicious.

  Then came the dressers. She wasn’t looking forward to them. What if Nick had left underwear? That was way too personal, although it crossed her mind to wonder whether criminals’ underwear looked different from other people’s. Dirtier? Torn? With secret compartments? With pictures of spiders or skulls and crossbones on them?

  Reasoning that he would have stored such items in the top drawer, she started at the bottom. The lowest drawer contained a few pairs of jeans, which were folded more neatly than she would have expected. Not exactly come-from-the-dry-cleaners folded, but better than most kids would do. She lifted each pair out and examined it thoroughly, cringing all the while. She found a couple of clean handkerchiefs in the pockets, plus a wrapper from some crackers. She remembered the time Nick had offered her saltines and put the wrapper back in his pocket. Could it be the same one? If so, it had been there an awfully long time. There was no way. She was letting her emotions run away with her.

  The drawer itself contained some lint but was otherwise clean. With Thrillkill’s help, she removed it from the dresser and looked to see if there was anything attached, or any secret compartments. Nothing. The floor underneath was also free of evidence, so she replaced the jeans and the two of them reinserted the drawer.

  Next she pulled out the middle drawer. There she found an array of sweaters, which her English friends called jumpers, a word she thought rather peculiar, but then calling cookies biscuits was also strange. She had seen Nick wear every one of these and didn’t like looking at them. But the results of this search were the same as the previous one: nothing interesting.

  Unfortunately, she had now reached the top drawer. She was tempted to ask Thrillkill to search it for her, but he’d insisted that she look so she figured she’d better do so. Slowly, slowly she pulled the drawer open. Of course she’d been right. It was full of underwear and socks. She thought she’d die. Handle these? She’d never even touched her father’s underwear. How could she possibly feel—feel—Nick’s. She hoped he’d kept it all clean, because she really, really didn’t want to deal with it if it wasn’t.

  She could feel herself start to gag. Luckily she had a couple of gingersnaps with her. She’d begun carrying them everywhere when Simon had discovered that they settled the stomach. Since she was so prone to puking, they’d been a godsend. She popped one in her mouth and waited a minute for it to descend. She was still upset but the nausea was subsiding. Hands shaking, she pulled the drawer out all the way and looked inside.

  The first thing she realized was that Nick was indeed well organized. Whether it was his show business training (where had he gotten that anyway?) or just came naturally, it was a relief. All his Y-fronts, T-shirts, and socks were clean and neatly arranged. She breathed a sigh of relief, although her hands were still shaking. She removed each item and examined it thoroughly.

  She was able to get the drawer out by herself this time, but when she turned it over, she got a shock. There was something taped underneath—a white letter-sized envelope. She felt underneath the tape and pulled, then squeezed the envelope. Whatever was inside was small, hard, and flat. She opened the envelope to find a memory card. What could that be for?

  She gave Thrillkill the card, although she would have preferred to take it to her room and look at it by herself. If it was embarrassing, she might be able to forestall the worst of the teachers’ reactions. Her mind raced with terrifying possibilities. She had to know but she didn’t want to. What if, what if, what if?

  After a quick search of the other two dressers, which were completely empty and free of secret stashes, Amanda stared at the bed. She was no more comfortable riffling through this than Nick’s underwear. It was the most personal item of all and she was dreading it. She considered asking Thrillkill if she could skip it but she knew what the answer would be.

  She started by looking underneath. There she saw more dust, but unlike the dust on the closet shelf, no evidence of its having been disturbed. She took a couple of samples and stashed them in her bag. She examined the underside of the box spring, crawling under the bed (which precipitated a lot of sneezing) to feel carefully. Nothing there either.

  Then, trembling, she gently pulled back the quilt. She examined it top and bottom, side to side. She lay it on the floor and pressed it. Nothing. It was just a quilt. She extracted a scissors from her evidence kit and started to cut. Snip, snip, snip. It was torture invading the blanket Nick had pulled over himself every night. With each snip, she felt as if she were cutting herself. She cut and cut and cut until the poor thing was in ribbons but found nothing unusual. Still, she took a couple of pieces for analysis, just in case.

  When she had finished destroying, er, searching the quilt, she turned back to the bed. It held the usual bedclothes: a pillow in a case, a blanket, plain white sheets. Amanda pulled back each of the layers to find nothing special. Then, with the same result, the pillow and its case.

  When she had removed the pad that underlay the sheets, she stared at the mattress. In the middle was a Nick-shaped depression. She felt as if she would burst into tears. Of course the dent could have been the result of various boys sleeping on the bed over the years, but in Amanda’s eyes Nick had created it. She blinked and tried to regain her composure. Then, after a few seconds, she leaned down and started to palpate the mattress, carefully moving along an imaginary grid. Nothing. She knelt and did the same to each of the sides. Still nothing. Now there was only the side that faced the wall. She kneed the mattress away to make room for herself and squatted to feel there too. Right side, nothing. Left side, nothing. Middle—what was that? Something weird was there, sticking out from underneath. It made a crinkling sound when she pressed it.

  She pushed the mattress away from the wall to reveal a bit of paper sticking out from underneath. Was that the mattress tag? Oh well, even if it was, she’d better check. If she pulled too hard though, the paper would tear, so she gently lifted up the mattress and carefully removed it. It was all wadded up, but she could tell it was no mattress tag. It looked like a piece of printer paper.

  Afraid that the contents might be embarrassing, she slowly unfolded the sheet, pulling a little this way and a little that way to a refrain of crumple, crumple, crumple, pop. When she had smoothed the paper out, she was looking at the wrong side. Then she stopped. Maybe she should let Thrillkill do this. No, if it really was embarrassing, she didn’t want him to see it before she did. She took a deep breath, flipped the paper over and saw . . . herself! It was a picture of her that Nick had taken one day in the common room. She was smiling and looked as happy as she’d ever been. The composition, lighting, and color balance were all excellent. It was a work of art. But what was it doing under Nick’s mattress?!

  The discovery threw her for a loop. Why would Nick hide a picture of her? Come to think of it, considering how he claimed to feel about her, why would he possess a picture of her at all? Was it because the Moriartys were targeting her and he wanted to show the gang what she looked like? Surely that was it. It did seem strange, though, that he’d keep the picture in such an obscure place. Everyone had known the two of them were friends. Why the mystery?

  Unless . . . It wasn’t possible. Could it be that he really had cared about her and it was a memento? He’d always acted as though he did, up until the end, that is, but that didn’t mean anything. During their last encounter he’d been false and treacherous. No, this was about a plot that hadn’t been implemented, probably related to whatever data was on the memory card, which meant that if Blixus and Mavis hadn’t been caught Amanda might be in real danger. Thank goodness they were safely behind bars.

  “Sir, I found something,” she said.

  “Oh?” said Thrillk
ill. “What have you got?”

  She showed him the picture and explained where she’d found it. He didn’t react. Amanda wasn’t sure she knew what he was thinking and didn’t want to, so she said, “I’ll bag it. I’ve found nothing else other than the memory card. No wallet, no phone, no computer, nothing stolen. There’s not much to go on.”

  “We shall see,” said Thrillkill. “Perhaps our analysis will turn up something. Let’s check a few more things and that will be it for today.”

  For today? Did he mean he wanted her to come back? She certainly hoped not.

  “Thank you, Miss Lester,” he said kindly when they had finished. “I know how painful this must have been for you and I appreciate your sacrifice. Now off you go. You and Mr. Holmes have work to do.” Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he’d completely forgotten that she was supposed to act as the new kid’s big sister.

  5

  Just the Treasure

  Amanda was most definitely not going to tell anyone what she’d found in Nick’s room, not even Ivy. She couldn’t face the questions, speculations, and sympathy. Fortunately, Thrillkill would inflict none of these on her. Sometimes his gruffness was actually a plus.

  She knew she had to get in touch with Scapulus Holmes, but she didn’t want to in the worst way. Maybe Thrillkill would change his mind and cancel the film project. Then she could teach her storytelling class after all. As if. She was engaging in wishful thinking and she knew it.

  But before she could text Holmes her phone beeped. He had beat her to it. “Hi! Want to get together?” his message read. Boy, he was friendly. What did he have to be so happy about? Oh right. He was going to be a big shot, making a film at the behest of the big cheese. Ruining her class so he could aggrandize himself. Grump and double grump.

  She guessed she’d have to answer him, but decided that it would be in her own sweet time. She made her way back to her room, which like Nick’s, was on the top floor, but in the girls’ dorm in the northeast part of the school.

  When she got there, Amphora and Ivy were nowhere to be seen, so she could enjoy a little privacy. She didn’t know what was compelling her, but she decided to look at the video she’d made with Nick last term, the one where they’d explored the secret room. They’d discovered the place in a disused part of the school near the back of the chapel/auditorium when they’d followed the cook, who’d been skulking around.

  She opened the video and started to watch. The first thing she saw was the awful yellow slime mold that had feasted on the pink sugar the cook had so carelessly strewn about. Gelatinous and pulsating, it was just as gross on the video as in person. She watched as the camera moved down the stone stairs to the weird little room where the cook had stashed the sugar—and where, together with Mavis Moriarty and the school’s doctor, the awful woman had held Amanda’s father before moving him to the sugar factory. And then, as they mounted the stairs again, she beheld Nick’s face. He had turned around and smiled. Watching him like this was another kick in the stomach. She stopped the film and threw her phone on the bed, then flopped down next to it and sobbed.

  After about fifteen minutes she was all cried out and decided to check her email. There, among about a billion notes from her mother and a few inane promotional messages, was a bright, shiny letter from her idol, film director Darius Plover, with whom she’d been corresponding.

  You couldn’t say that Amanda was in love with Darius Plover, the greatest director in the world, but if you did you wouldn’t be far off. She wasn’t so much in love with him as with his work. Films like “Scaffold,” “Night of the Turkey,” and “Plunge” were already classics, and she cited them among her top influences. So when she discovered that he had written her yet another email, she was ecstatic. The message read:

  Dear Miss Lester,

  I hope this note finds you well and that you are still interested in providing a teen’s perspective on my work. (Happy birthday, BTW!) If you are, I have some clips for you to view. These are from my latest film, “Sand,” which we are shooting in Morocco. At this link you will find dailies as well as the script. Would it be possible to get your input in the next couple of weeks?

  https://www.ploverfilms.com/sand/amanda

  If you are too busy with school, don’t be afraid to say no. I don’t want to distract you from your studies. There will be other films.

  As always, thanks for your time and interest.

  With sincere appreciation and best regards to my American friend in England,

  Darius Plover

  Amanda couldn’t believe that the great man had actually taken her up on her offer. She didn’t know what she could possibly contribute, but he obviously valued her opinion. He was so busy that he wouldn’t have bothered if he weren’t serious. But this was a huge responsibility! She hoped she wouldn’t disappoint him.

  Excited beyond belief, she clicked on the link and was taken to a secure cloud. Sure enough, she found the script and several clips. She clicked on the first video.

  Against a background of what looked like Egyptian pyramids appeared a large tent with its door parted to reveal a bit of the interior. The camera entered and focused on the two occupants, a grizzled archaeologist and a bearded man who was holding him at gunpoint. Presumably the bearded guy was some kind of terrorist. He was threatening the archaeologist with various torments if he didn’t succeed in digging up an ancient scroll. The archaeologist kept telling the armed man that it wasn’t that simple, and each time he protested the terrorist would prod him with his rifle.

  It was awful! Amanda couldn’t believe how poorly the scene had been put together. Sure, it was a rough cut, but it didn’t work at all. The cinematography was uninspired, the dialog was terrible, the acting was pathetic, and the story was trite. What was she supposed to say? She couldn’t tell the great Darius Plover how she really felt. That would be the end of their budding relationship and she’d be back to minus square one with her filmmaking career, which was on hold anyway. Maybe she should read the script and watch all the clips. She might feel different then.

  Unfortunately, after doing just that she felt exactly the same. The script was hackneyed, the scenes were poorly shot, and the acting was dreadful. Surely rough cuts weren’t that rough. Oh great. Now what?

  There was only one thing she could do: evade. She could lie about the clips, in which case she wouldn’t be doing Mr. Plover any favors, but at least she’d avoid conflict. She could tell him she didn’t have the time, in which case he’d probably never give her another chance. Or she could avoid answering altogether, which was about the worst possible course of action. Whatever she did, though, she was not going to tell him the truth. That would be suicide.

  She tabled that problem and thought she’d better get back to Holmes. She suggested they meet at lunch the following day and received an instant reply: “Cool. Can’t wait.” What was wrong with that guy? Why was he so cheerful? If he was going to act like this the whole time, she’d eat her way through a ton of gingersnaps.

  After dinner Amanda met Ivy and Nigel in the common room to discuss a strategy for finding the missing item. The hangout still looked like an airplane hangar, but then it would. The gremlins usually changed the décor at night when everyone was asleep. Tomorrow it would look completely different. Amanda wondered what it would be. Sometimes she tried guessing but she was always wrong.

  “I like Simon’s idea of listening,” said Ivy, “but I don’t think that’s enough. We’re going to have to be proactive.”

  “You mean put together our own theories about what the missing item could be and follow each lead, right?”

  “Yes. Exactly. There’s a good boy.” Ivy rubbed Nigel’s head. It was soothing for both of them.

  “I’ll make a list, shall I?” said Amanda, reaching into her bag.

  “Yes, and I’ll do the same. Do you have any idea what it might be?”

  “Not a clue. I haven’t had much time to think about it, and now I’ve got this film th
ing with Holmes.” She started thumbing a reminder to herself.

  “What film thing with Holmes?” said Ivy.

  Amanda explained what Thrillkill had asked her to do. Then she said, “I really blew it today. How can I ever face him?” As soon as the words had left her mouth she wished she could take them back. She didn’t want to talk about Holmes. Holmes and Nick, Nick and Holmes. If only there were a memory eraser. She was sure she was bringing her friends down with her constant carping about those two.

  “You mean Holmes,” said Ivy. “How can you ever face Holmes?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what came over me. I was just so surprised when I saw him.”

  “Apologize and move on. He seems nice. He’ll be cool.”

  “I don’t know how you can always be so optimistic,” said Amanda. She felt like she was whining, which she was.

  “It’s easy. I call it my hidden treasure philosophy. The world is full of beautiful things, but you have to look for them. Searching keeps you too busy to notice the stupid stuff. The harder they are to find, the more satisfying the reward. See what I mean?”

  “I guess . . .” said Amanda.

  “What’s storytelling about? Wondering what’s around the next corner, right? If you’re curious you won’t have time to get depressed or think about Nick Muffet.” Amanda started. Just the sound of his name made her jump. “I’m sorry, Amanda, but you need to move on. I know you miss him but he’s holding you back.”

  “I don’t miss him,” said Amanda.