Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  Amphora brightened. “Yes, that’s true. Can you teach me?”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Sure. In my copious free time.”

  “You don’t have to make that film with Scapulus anymore, right?”

  “That’s true. Okay. We’ll meet tomorrow and I’ll give you some pointers. Now can we please see where you found the crystal?”

  When they arrived at the spot, Amanda saw a huge abyss where a few days earlier a perfectly manicured lawn had graced the space. She found it almost incomprehensible that the inspectors hadn’t ruled this place off limits, but there it was, gaping but apparently benign. It was pretty deep in parts, but other sections went only a foot or two down, so she waded in.

  “There,” pointed Amphora. The place she was indicating was moist and soft.

  “You found it just lying there?” said Amanda, whose shoes were already caked with mud.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I wonder if there are more. Let’s dig around a bit.”

  They weren’t about to do that with their bare hands, but conveniently there was a gardening outbuilding nearby and it wasn’t locked. The girls sloshed their way to it in their muddy shoes, and after rooting around returned with a large shovel and a small trowel.

  Working outward and downward from the spot where Amphora had found the crystal, they dug as deep as they could. One would use the shovel for the heavy work and the other would follow with the trowel. In this manner they hoped to avoid damaging any crystals they might find. Amanda filmed as they went, attempting to perform a three-hand job with two and ending up with gunky clothes. Fortunately the camera remained if not pristine, clean enough to do the job.

  It didn’t take long for them to get results. Within about three minutes Amphora’s shovel hit something hard—so much for their two-step digging process—and when they looked they could see more crystals. This encouraged them so much that they spent an hour excavating, and by the time they had worn themselves out they were very close to the secret room.

  At that point they had discovered maybe forty crystals, which they had carefully piled up out of the way. Though they were encrusted with mud, each one was as beautiful as the one Amphora had made into a necklace. Amanda bagged and marked them. She was so excited about their findings she could barely contain herself. An unusual discovery and beautiful new jewelry too. She couldn’t wait to tell Ivy.

  When they had processed all the crystals, something caught her eye. She could see another cavern off the abyss. It seemed to extend way underneath the building, right near the secret room.

  “Just a quick peek, okay?” she said.

  “All right,” said Amphora. “But please make it fast. I’m so tired I’m going to collapse right here.”

  Amanda stepped back into the crater and carefully made her way to the hole in its side. “It’s too dark to see anything,” she said, peering in.

  “Have you got your light?”

  “Of course.” The light on her phone had been invaluable in exploring nooks and crannies. In fact, she and Nick had used it to discover the secret room in the first place. She switched it on and shined it into the cavern, which was huge. Suddenly she screamed and dropped her phone in the mud.

  Under the building, right next to the room in which her father had been held, stood an upright skeleton, its skull encrusted with dazzling, glowing apricot-colored crystals, and it was staring right at her.

  12

  Another Dead Body

  Amanda was so surprised to see the skeleton that she screamed. It wasn’t that she was afraid. She wasn’t. And she wasn’t exactly thinking, “Oh no, another dead person,” but her reflexes were. She didn’t know what she’d expected to see, but a skeleton wasn’t it. She didn’t know why but she thought of Richard III, the medieval king whose body had been found under a parking lot. What had the people who’d discovered it thought when they’d first seen it. OMG, was it possible that this was another missing royal figure? Maybe it was even Robin Hood or King Arthur.

  “What?!” cried Amphora.

  “Eek, eek,” Amanda was yelling. She was stomping in the mud so hard it would have been easy for her phone to sink and disappear, which it did.

  “What is it?” said Amphora. “Oh no, oh no. I just know it’s another body. It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” screamed Amanda loud enough to wake the thing in the cavern. “It’s Robin Hood!”

  “What?” said Amphora. “Are you nuts? We have to get Thrillkill.”

  “Right. Except I’ve dropped my phone. Oh no, I don’t see it. It must be in the mud.” She felt around. Nothing.

  “I have mine,” said Amphora, digging in her pockets. “I’ll get him. Who is it really?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a skeleton.”

  “Aaaaaaah!” yelled Amphora, trying to text but shaking too hard.

  “Hang on,” said Amanda. “Here it is. Eeeeeew.” She’d found her phone way down in the muck. It was in a terrible state, probably as dead as the skeleton. “Here, give me that.”

  Amphora waded over and handed her phone to Amanda, who punched a message to Thrillkill without remembering to tell him where she was. Oh well. Her GPS would let him know.

  “OMG,” said Amphora. “A skeleton?” Then, suddenly, she stopped her hysterics. “Wait. That means it’s really old, doesn’t it?”

  Amanda stopped and thought for a second. She was right. The idea of Robin Hood and King Arthur was a bit over the top, but the skeleton did have to be old. Otherwise it would be a body instead of a skeleton. She breathed a sigh of relief. If this were a murder it was an ancient one, and not anything to do with them.

  “I think you’re right.” Then, suddenly remembering what she’d seen, she said, “But it had crystals on it.”

  “What?” said Amphora.

  “The head. It had crystals all over it.”

  “Hang on. I have to see.” Amphora started clomping through the mud.

  “I don’t think you want to,” said Amanda, trying to clean the gunk off her phone.

  “But you said it’s old. That doesn’t bother me so much.”

  “Okay,” said Amanda. “Help yourself. Do you have a light?”

  “Yes. Can you give me back my phone?”

  Amanda gave Amphora her phone. Thus armed, her roommate tiptoed into the mouth of the cavern. She turned on her light and directed it all around.

  “Eeeeek!” she yelled when the light hit the skeleton.

  “I told you,” said Amanda.

  “Wait a minute. Now that I know where it is, I won’t be so shocked. I want to see those crystals.” She turned the light back toward the body. “Oooooh, would you look at that? It’s gorgeous. I wonder who it is. Do you think it’s someone royal?”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” said Amanda. “And they tell me I watch too many movies.” This, of course, was a highly hypocritical thing to say. Suddenly she thought of Darius Plover. She hadn’t answered him! When she got out of this mess she would have to write to him or she’d never hear from him again.

  Just then Professors Stegelmeyer, Scribbish, Hoxby, and Pole arrived. Somehow their presence lent a sense of order to the scene. They told the girls to stand back while they investigated.

  “You haven’t touched anything, have you?” said Professor Scribbish.

  “Not the body,” said Amanda. “We didn’t go in there. But we dug up a bunch of these crystals. See? There in the evidence bags.”

  “Well done,” said Professor Scribbish, examining the bags. “Excellent procedure. But what are these crystals?” He held one of the bags up to the light. “Residue from the slime mold?”

  That possibility hadn’t occurred to Amanda. She wondered if it was true. Could slime turn crystalline? Maybe it could. Simon would probably know. She wished he were there and wondered if she should text him too.

  Just then Thrillkill came hobbling around the corner on his crutches. “Have you girls touched anything?” he said upon seeing the mess. “Oh m
y. That’s quite a hole, isn’t it?” There was no way he was going into the abyss with those crutches.

  “It’s okay, Gaston,” said Professor Scribbish. “They’ve followed procedure. What do you make of those?” He pointed to the pile of crystals.

  Thrillkill looked at the bags. “Nice work, Miss Lester, Miss Kapoor,” he said. The two girls beamed. It was about time someone recognized the merits of their explorations. Amanda wondered what he’d think about their findings on the third floor. For all she knew, the candy and skateboard stashes were his. Not the letters, though. Unless Headmaster Thrillkill had a secret identity, he wasn’t Kenneth, although all detectives had secret identities—lots of them. Nah. Couldn’t be.

  “Where did you find all those crystals?” Thrillkill asked. Then he noticed the one around Amphora’s neck. “Say, that’s not bad. The same?” He nodded toward the pile.

  “We think so, sir,” said Amphora. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I can’t see how it can have anything to do with slime mold.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said, putting her off so much that she removed the necklace and stuck it in her pocket, first encasing it in a baggie. Amanda laughed. Not that she wouldn’t have done the same. Thrillkill wasn’t known for his tact.

  Then he really surprised Amanda. He stepped right into the big hole, crutches and all, and made his way to the mouth of the cavern. He extracted a torch from his pocket and shined it all around the space. When he had located the body, he said, “Hm,” then walked inside, along with the other professors. The space was large and it echoed, and Amanda could hear most of what they said, although she had to inch closer to do so. Amphora kept to the fringes with the crystals, as if guarding them from predators.

  Suddenly Amanda remembered that she had her listening device with her and stuck it in her ear, turning around to wink at Amphora. Now she could hear every word.

  “Not a clue,” Professor Hoxby, the pathology teacher, was saying. “I can tell you that it’s an adult male, but I won’t know anything further until I conduct the autopsy.”

  Oh no, not another autopsy. Post-mortems were not Amanda’s strong suit. Last term she’d got everyone puking in their dead bodies class. But of course the body would have to be examined.

  “No, I can’t see a cause of death,” Professor Hoxby continued. “And I’ve never seen anything like those crystals before. I wonder—”

  “Psssst,” said Amphora. “You don’t think these crystals could have killed him, do you?” She too had inserted her listening device and could hear everything.

  “I don’t see how,” said Amanda. “You mean you think they might be poison?”

  “Yes,” said Amphora. “Or some kind of blood sucker. Maybe it got me too.”

  “I think you’d have known that by now. Do you feel sick?”

  “I’m not sure.” She took the crystal out of her pocket and threw it on top of the other bags. “Yes, I do. Ugh. I just know the crystals killed that man.”

  “Amphora, please don’t do this. I’m sure there’s another explanation. How long have you been wearing that thing?”

  “I don’t know. A day, maybe.”

  “Well, then, I think you’re fine. If they were that dangerous you’d already be dead.” Amanda turned back to the cavern. Professor Hoxby was lamenting the state of the body.

  “It’s been burned, and whatever clothing wasn’t burned has rotted,” he said. “The teeth have been smashed in too. Anyone recognize these clothes?”

  No one did. It would have been a neat trick to do so. They had been almost completely destroyed.

  “The cavern is completely charred,” said Professor Pole. “Let’s get some samples of that carbon, plus some of this plaster and dust.”

  “How do you think he got in here?” said Thrillkill.

  “Look here,” said Professor Pole, pointing to something Amanda couldn’t see. “He was walled up.”

  Amanda felt her stomach lurch. The man had been buried alive? Well, maybe not alive, but in a wall? It was horrible.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “The heat the earthquake released started a fire that burned the body. That fire, together with the pressure, created the crystals. It’s quite unusual. Normally you’d need much higher temperatures and more pressure over a longer period of time. I’ll need to study this more, but that’s my best guess at the moment.”

  So the power of the earthquake had not only damaged the buildings and released all kinds of gunk into the air, but it had started a fire and created these beautiful crystals? From what, though? Surely not the slime mold. That was long gone.

  “I must say that if it weren’t so macabre, the sight of this body would be magical,” said Professor Scribbish. “Oh, quite ghoulish, but doesn’t it look like a fairy tale?”

  “I think you’re getting a bit carried away, Chris,” said Thrillkill. “All I see is a crime scene.”

  Typical. Thrillkill didn’t know the meaning of romance. The closest he ever got to it was his hair dryer and the icicle army he fought with it.

  Suddenly Amanda felt a whoosh of air and realized that a bunch of moths had almost flown into her. By golly, if it wasn’t already dusk. Could it be? Yes, it was. The moths were heading for the light of the crystals, which had grown stronger as the sky had dimmed. They were attracted by the light of the crystals in the skull! Professor Scribbish was right. The crystals were magical. She wondered what Editta would say. Come to think of it, where was Editta?

  The next task was to remove the body. Amphora did not want to see that, but Thrillkill told her it would be good experience and practically threatened her with some unknown punishment if she were to leave.

  Amanda not only didn’t mind watching the procedure, but wanted to video it. Despite the sickening nature of the experience, she wanted to learn and was eager to film as much as possible, not only for detective purposes but for her filmmaking. Every chance she got to practice was an opportunity. She’d have to make sure her lighting compensated for the darkening sky though. Filming would be tricky.

  “What’s this?” Oh great—it was Holmes. He just had to show up everywhere. She was in no mood to talk to him. “Amanda,” he called. “Amphora.”

  “Oh, Scapulus, I’m so glad you’re here,” said Amphora. “We’ve just found a dead body. It’s awful.”

  “Here? At the school?” he said. “Who is it?” He craned his neck toward the pit.

  “We don’t know,” she said, shrugging.

  “Amanda?” He looked at her.

  “Dunno,” Amanda said rudely. Holmes looked hurt.

  “Who’s in there?” he said, pointing to the dark opening.

  “Professor Thrillkill, Professor Scribbish, Professor Pole, Professor Hoxby, and Professor Stegelmeyer,” Amphora said. Amanda was surprised she could say all that. It was quite a mouthful. She probably would have used last names only. Sometimes Brits were so formal.

  “What are those?” he said, pointing to the crystals. “They’re quite attractive.”

  “They’re poison,” said Amphora, backing away. “You should stay away from them.”

  “They’re not poison,” said Amanda. “We don’t know what they are, but they’re fine.”

  “No they’re not,” said Amphora. “I found this one and I made it into a necklace and now I’m sick.” She pointed to the necklace.

  “Really?” said Holmes, picking up the bag with the crystal and examining it. “What are your symptoms?” He looked her up and down.

  “I feel sick to my stomach, my head hurts, and I feel yucky all over. Do I look weird?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “The crystals quite suit you.” She looked startled, then tried to hide a smile. “Did you feel that way before you found the body?”

  “Not exactly.” She was still trying to hide the grin. This wasn’t good. Now she’d start to follow him around the way she did the cook and would never get anything done.

  “I think you’re feeling ill because you found a b
ody you didn’t expect to find,” he said.

  “Maybe they’re radioactive,” she said, losing the grin.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “but unlikely.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Radioactive minerals are unstable—”

  “Oh no!” said Amphora.

  “However,” said Holmes, “they break down so slowly that you don’t have to worry. Also, they tend to be bright neon yellow or green. Or, they may look like metamicts.”

  “Meta who?” said Amphora.

  “Metamicts. They’re opaque and dull, with rounded edges. These crystals don’t look like either of those things, but if you’re really worried let’s test them. I’ll get a Geiger counter.” He turned and ran back toward the north entrance.

  “He’s so smart,” said Amphora, watching him go.

  “La-di-dah,” said Amanda, refusing to look.

  “Why don’t you like him? He’s very sweet.” Was that a blush? Gosh, Amphora was boy-crazy.

  “He’s a know-it-all.”

  “I don’t see why you say that. He’s just smart. Now if you want to know who’s a know-it-all . . .”

  “Fifty p,” said Amanda.

  “You can’t do that,” said Amphora. “Only Ivy can. And besides, I didn’t even say a name.”

  “I know what you were thinking,” said Amanda.

  Suddenly a huge “Whoops” could be heard from the opening of the cavern. It seemed that the salvage operation was not going well. Of course considering the state of the skeleton, it was hardly surprising. As soon as the professors attempted to move it, it fell apart. This caused both girls to become nauseous, and because Amanda had used up her last gingersnap and had nothing with which to settle her stomach, she threw up in the crater, causing Amphora to lose her last vestige of control and do the same. This was not good for her image or the evidence. Contaminating the crime scene like that was a huge no-no, and Professor Scribbish took both girls to task. Still, Amanda wasn’t sure he was all that unsympathetic because after he had delivered his criticism, he winked at each one of them, confusing her completely. Was it or wasn’t it okay to throw up at a crime scene? This was something she’d have to research.