The trip was a noisy one. They took turns singing their favourite songs as Mrs. O’Reilly’s borrowed car provided an odd accompaniment of clanks, rattles and rolls.
Once they arrived, all Sam could do was gawk at the bizarre geology. “This is incredible…and gravity-defying! How do they stay up there?”
“It’s a spatial anomaly,” Paige whispered reverently. “Must be an equalized quantum singularity with reverse polarity.”
Sam saluted. “Anything you say, Dr. Spock.”
This caused her cousin to sniff disdainfully. “That’s MISTER Spock to you, Earthling.”
The three explorers spent several hours taking pictures and exclaiming at each new example of the weathered wonders. Rose wanted photos of Canada to send back to her family in Wales, and the surreal hoodoos provided the perfect opportunity for lots of photography.
The day was charged with a supernatural energy. The colours of the rocks were incredibly vibrant, the grass an emerald green the Wizard of Oz would have envied and the sun was a billion-candle disco ball. Even the air tasted different. The fantastic shapes of the hoodoos were wonderful to explore.
Paige entertained their little group with an involved and less-than-scientific explanation of how the colourful formations had been made and what the types of rock were.
Sam was happy to sit in the cool shade and enjoy her lunch while Paige talked. The summer air was spicy and the constant white noise of a thousand insects humming nearly lulled her to sleep.
Finally, it was time to pack up and start the drive back.
As they were heading to town, the puzzling events at the museum ran through Sam’s head. “Rose,” she began as she watched the spectacular scenery flash by the car window, “why do you think Jackson is innocent of the museum bone theft?”
Rose mulled this over. “I’m not sure, except I don’t feel he’s guilty of anything.” She hurried on before Sam could object. “I know, I know, the large bank deposit. I can’t explain it either. I only know that Jackson Lunde is no thief or smuggler or murderer.” She paused a moment, then added, “Litterbug maybe, that’s about all.”
Sam decided she was right. “I’ve always respected gut feelings, but if it’s not Jackson, then who’s behind what’s been happening?”
Paige’s expression was a blank and Rose frowned. “Without any other clues, I couldn’t say.”
Sam decided to try a different approach. “Let’s do this logically. If we eliminate Jackson as a prime suspect, who’s left?”
“It must be someone at the museum,” Paige added, joining in.
Sam ran over the list of possible suspects in her mind.
“There are about a dozen other people involved with the South American project. I guess we’d have to count you in too, Rose, since you’re the import agent.” The corners of her mouth curved up. “On second thought, I’ll vouch for your character, which means you can be taken off our top ten hit parade. Of course, high on the list is our mystery man, Agent D. He’s obviously involved from the Colombian end. Maybe he’s here because Jackson, I mean, the thief, was cutting him out of the action or maybe he’s made enemies at home and has come to get the precious fossil so he can sell it and start over again, here in good old Canada.”
Someone else also needed to be added. Someone she hadn’t even considered before. “Then there’s Doctor Beech, the curator. He certainly knows about bones and which ones would be valuable. Also, he has access to anything he wants in the museum and knows every millimetre of the joint.” Another thought occurred to her. “And he works strange hours so he could do stuff without folks noticing.”
Sam remembered bumping into the curator outside the uncrating room the day the fossil had gone missing and he’d been working late the night she’d found the fossil. Why hadn’t she remembered those two little nuggets before? But the dear old gentleman didn’t make her weirdometer so much as hum one note. There had to be someone else, someone hiding in plain sight.
Then, it hit her. “Creepy crawlers! I may have messed up big time. There’s one other person who should be on the list. He’s been in on this from the beginning. He sent Jackson to Colombia, and he was there when we unpacked the vertebrae box so he knew where the X piece should have been. But he didn’t have enough time to find it before he was called away.” She was thinking out loud and it all made terrible sense. “It could easily be Professor Caine!”
“You’re right, Sam,” Rose said. “But if it is, you end up back at the same question – why? What would he have to gain by smuggling an extra fossil in the shipment?”
“Let’s work on one problem at a time. First, let’s be sure who arranged for the dumb spare bone to be sent here, and then we’ll figure out why.” Sam was rapidly running over everything in her head.
“Then you admit you were wrong about Jack.” Paige’s tone shouted victory.
“I’m not saying Jackson isn’t mixed up in this, Paige,” Sam answered cautiously. “I simply want to know more about Professor Caine’s involvement.”
“I can’t see a man of Professor Caine’s reputation doing anything illegal,” Rose interrupted. “He practically wrote the book on some of those dinosaurs, didn’t he?”
“He’s the go-to guy when it comes to these bones and he’s well known,” Sam agreed. “Logically, he’d have nothing to gain and everything to lose if he were mixed up in the theft. If this dinosaur is the missing link, it will put him back at the top of his game. He’d be paid more, he could go on lecture tours, make a National Geographic documentary. Who knows where this could lead!” She thought a moment. “You know what would be really helpful?”
Paige held up her fingers and made a sign to ward off evil. “Uh-oh. We’re about to be snookered, Rose.”
Sam ignored this. “Don’t be so negative. You want to try to clear Jackson, don’t you?”
“He wouldn’t have to be cleared in the first place if you hadn’t pointed out all those dumb things that make him seem, well, for want of a better description, a low-down, bone-thieving scumbag.”
“Then here’s your chance to vindicate your hero. We have to get into the museum and use the computer.” Sam could feel her weirdometer tingling. She had the ingredients for a devilishly clever plan.
“Sam, even though it’s Sunday, the museum is open with lots of witnesses around,” Rose said hesitantly. “Crikey! Now you’ve got me doing it! People, people around!”
“Not now. It’s after six, the museum is closed. No one will be there.” Sam sounded extremely confident. “Paige, do you remember when I asked if you could tap into other records from your terminal? We need to access personnel files. How about it?”
“Sam, it’s not only a bad idea, it’s an illegal one.” Paige shook her head, making her ponytail fly around like rust-coloured rain.
“I know it’s pushing things, Paige. But I promise, this time it’s important. I need to know more about Jackson and Professor Caine. Maybe a clue will turn up to help me figure this case out.”
Something exploded in Paige. “I told you, Jack’s innocent!”
Paige was angry, about as angry as Sam had seen her since they were five and there’d been that unfortunate mishap in the sandbox with the cat pee.
“Relax, Paige.” Rose jumped in to calm things down. “All Sam wants to do is try to prove it.”
The ride became very quiet.
Paige reluctantly gave in. “If you think it will put Jack in the clear, then yeah, sure.”
“Great!” Sam said, relieved. “Let’s go, Rosie.”
Taking a series of back roads to ensure no one saw them going to the museum, they finally arrived in the empty parking lot.
“I’ve got my security card.” Sam climbed out of the ancient jalopy.
“This ain’t gonna be good,” Paige muttered as she and Rose followed.
Sam passed her card in front of the scanning device and the door obediently clicked open.
“Can we do this from your terminal, Paige?” Sam
asked as they hurried down the quiet hallways to the computer transcription room.
“Sure, it’s all one system with different access codes and passwords. Speaking of codes, Sam, I did manage to come up with a few, none are for personnel though.”
“We’ll try what you’ve got.” Sam held the door to the transcription room open.
Sliding past her cousin, Paige moved to her terminal. “I put the codes in a safe spot.” She dropped her purse on the floor and energetically rummaged through a cluttered drawer in an extremely messy desk.
“How do you work with all that junk everywhere?” Amazed, Sam watched Paige pull a wide assortment of articles from the drawer: two thick romance paperbacks, a cardboard tube of potato chips, pens, a partially eaten chocolate bar, one cup (cracked), a transparent plastic makeup bag with several containers of potions tucked inside and one neon-pink hairbrush.
“Camouflage.” Paige grabbed the makeup bag. “There it is. You see, Sam, I can get into this spy stuff too.” She retrieved the brightly coloured hairbrush. It was the type that held water in the handle.
Sam reached for the brush. “In the H2O reservoir, I presume.” She unscrewed the end and pulled a small cylinder of paper from inside. “Brilliant, Watson!”
“Elementary, my dear Holmes,” Paige giggled.
Sam scanned the sheet. “You’re right. Nothing remotely connected with what I want.” She reread the list. “Punch up the personnel files anyway, and we’ll see how far we get with these.”
Paige switched on her terminal and waited for it to boot up. Her fingers flashed over the keys. “It says Authorized Personnel Only! Please key in user ID and password.”
Sam sighed, disappointed. “You can relax, cousin. I’m thinking we may not get a chance to do anything illegal.” She sat on the corner of the desk thinking. “Paige, how good is your memory?”
Paige made a pained face. “You know my lousy memory is my one flaw. Why?”
“Because I think you’re not alone.” Sam jerked her thumb toward the door. “Let’s go to the personnel department. I have a hunch to put to the test.”
All three headed down the hall to the administration section. The doors to personnel were locked with the secretary’s desk sitting tidily to one side.
“Here goes,” Sam muttered under her breath and walked over to the secretary’s desk. “I have a great memory.” She lifted various items and inspected them. “Most people, however, have memories like yours, Paige, so…” She raised the edge of the blotter on the desk. “They write things down.”
Sam scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “I figured the personnel secretary would need to access security files once in a while, which would mean having a user ID of her own or using someone else’s. Anything that critical would need to be either committed to memory or, written down and hidden somewhere, say…under a blotter.” She held up the piece of paper, “Gotta love human frailties!”
Once back at Paige’s terminal, Sam gave her the paper. “Shall we get started?”
“Easy for you to say,” Paige keyed in the correct number and password. “Your incriminating fingerprints aren’t all over this illegally used terminal.”
“Paige, it’s your terminal. Who else’s fingerprints would be on it? What have you got?” Sam scanned the screen. The display listed different sections that could be accessed. “Let’s try Employee Resumés. It should give us some background for both Jackson and Professor Caine.”
Paige hit a few more keys. “It’s asking for an employee’s name. Let’s do Jack first.” She typed his name into the machine.
Sam read the lengthy report. “Wow, for someone who hasn’t even finished his degree yet, Jackson has already accumulated some impressive credentials. He spent the last three summers working as an assistant for any professor even remotely connected with South American dinosaurs.” She frowned as she read on. “Those assistant jobs must pay better than I thought. His work history excluding them is really sketchy and I know going to university is very expensive. I wonder how he affords it?”
She finished reading his file. “It appears all his time for the past three years is accounted for.” She shook her head. “Let’s see what Professor Caine’s been up to.”
Again, Paige worked her computer magic and the machine obligingly displayed the professor’s resumé. Sam read the professor’s impressive list of credentials. “He must be an authority on every type of dinosaur ever born.”
She hesitated, rereading the screen. “He published not only prolifically, but consistently, even when he was a student. Then five years ago, no new publications. Not a paragraph. That’s kinda strange. Keep scrolling. I want to see previous employers.”
Sam stared at the screen. “Nothing. There are no previous employers listed at all. He’s been working at the museum for two months, but for the past five years, the professor’s been off the radar. It says he got his mail from General Delivery, Medellin, Colombia, with no residence or business address given.”
Rose shook her head sympathetically. “It seems the professor has been homeless for five years in Colombia.”
“Poor guy,” Sam agreed. “Down and out in some tropical jungle, sweltering and wasting away while he searched for the elusive Pachycephalosaurus.”
Rose and Paige both looked at her like she’d said something unsuitable for polite company.
Sam ignored them. “It explains why he came back to Canada for a job. Doctor Beech was doing a favour for a brilliant scientific colleague and old friend, who was five years out of touch.” She considered this latest twist. “He turned himself around and now he’s obviously back into his work. The South American project shows he still knows his field, inside and out.”
Sam listed the information they’d gained. “Jackson has a background that is financially unstable and points to ten thousand dollars as a strong motive for bone theft, and from his past work experience, I’d say he’s got a real thing for South American dinos. Professor Caine has a background that is blank and probably grim. He was homeless and dino obsessed and is now working at regaining his former glory in a field he practically invented. But would he gamble his reclaimed professional respect by risking being caught as a thief, even if the bone turned out to be the valuable missing link he could sell to some private collector or a museum? Something doesn’t make sense. What we need to find out is which one of them is willing to go to what lengths to have the fossil.”
“So, instantly, Jack is a competitor for Crook of the Year,” Paige said with only a trace of acid. “Nice. I spent all those sleepless nights worrying about the guy because you were so sure he was the perp – your word, not mine – and now we have contestant number two, running neck and neck.”
“How are you going to find which one did it?” Rose asked.
“Easy,” Sam explained. “I’m expecting a special parcel post package tomorrow. With my bait, I should be able to come up with a plan to prove who’s at the bottom of this.”
“What if it’s Jackson?” Rose asked worriedly. “If you tell him you know he’s the thief, he might do something…” She paused, searching for the right word. “…unfortunate and take the fossil from you.”
“If you mean he might bundle me in a sack and bury me out back, let me worry about that, Rose,” Sam said confidently, sure Jackson would never do anything to harm her. Then hesitated remembering the stabbed guard and the stack of crates that nearly crushed her. She also recalled how Jackson was gone and then reappeared two seconds after the accident. It was worth considering. “First I have to figure out the basic game plan, and then I’ll work on the details.”
“I’m still concerned it could get nasty,” Rose cautioned.
“Don’t worry Rosie, I’ll take every precaution.” Sam waited a nanosecond before continuing. “So it’s all settled. My package should be delivered tomorrow and we can put Operation Dino into action after work.”
As they left the museum and headed for the boarding house, Sam watched the sun si
nk below the edge of the world. The sky was an iridescent pink with shades of coral, orange and lavender. If she were right, tomorrow all the mystery surrounding the fossil would finally be solved.
She didn’t want to think what would happen if she were wrong about the whole thing and this was simply a string of odd coincidences with a chunk of useless plaster at the end of it. She’d done such a good job convincing Paige and Rose, even she believed this was all real. Then again, she had to; her dreams depended on it.
Chapter 15
Operation Dino
The morning sun was laser bright, waking Sam way too early. With a groan, she rolled out of bed and dragged herself to the window. She had to admit, with everything so fresh and green and sparkling with dew, it was inviting. Sam yawned and stretched. Morning had always been her favourite time of day. Too bad it came so darn early.
A movement beside the tree across the street made her jump, but when she tried to see into the shadows, there was no one there. Even though the sun was already quite warm, Sam felt a chill. She hoped it was only the early light playing tricks on her overeager imagination.
One thing was for sure, she was very glad the mystery of the disappearing fossil would be solved tonight. She liked the intrigue of spying; she didn’t like being the one spied upon.
At the breakfast table, Jackson plunked down next to Sam. His tangy lime aftershave wafted to her and she sniffed the light scent approvingly.
“What’s new?” He reached for a slice of toast. “Anything you want to tell me?”
Sam choked on her tea. “What? No, why do you ask?” She was sure her nervousness was written in neon-red crayon across her cheeks.
“Don’t be so defensive, Gopher.” Jackson laughed. “I only asked because I’ve been away all weekend and thought you’d have dug up something exciting.”
The tension leaked out of her. “Dug up! Ha ha. Good one from a palaeontologist. As a matter of fact, Rose, Paige and I went to the hoodoos this weekend.” She kept her tone light, wanting Jackson to think everything was normal, or as normal as it could be, considering what was going on. “We climbed around for hours and Paige ate more than her share of lunch. Oh! And Rose took a ton of pictures. She’d probably love to show you.”
Death by Dinosaur: A Sam Stellar Mystery Page 10