Madhattan Mystery (22 page)

“No, I totally get it.” Lexi had never seen Kim Ling's superstitious side before. She was starting to think they had more in common than either of them was willing to admit. “So, what's with the empty bag?”

“It's not empty. There're flashlights and gardening trowels inside. Besides, how else're we supposed to haul off the jewels—in your pink clutch?”

“I don't have a pink clutch. Well, I do, but not with me.”

“Okay, we're entering the park now,” Kevin reported into his cell phone to Space Camp Billy. He had been gabbing away during the entire cab ride, much to the annoyance of Kim Ling. “What? No. I'll call you later—I've really gotta go. Yes, I'm serious—over and out.”

Lexi grabbed his hand. She had already warned him that due to the extreme circumstances, the mothering thing would be in full swing and he had better not even think about complaining. “I can't believe we're actually doing this. I'm a little bit freaking out.” She automatically reached for her opal necklace, which was missing of course, and
grasped the safety whistle hanging in its place. Kim Ling had supplied one for each of them.

“If the authorities stop us in the middle of everything,” Kim Ling said quietly over the clink-clink-clinking of her bag, “we tell them we're digging up night crawlers to go fishing, okay? And, worst case scenario, if we actually run into the thieves face-to-face, we hightail it the heck out of here—no questions asked. Try not to split up, but if we do, we'll meet on the corner where the cab just let us out—Seventy-Ninth and Fifth. Got it?”

“Roger that,” Kevin said.

Lexi took a deep breath. She chipped away at her thumbnail polish as they followed the road alongside the Metropolitan Museum's giant sloping wall of windows that were glowing orange in the hot, sluggish sunset. When they stopped at a 3-D map sprouting up from the ground to check their route, Lexi was already dripping in sweat. “How could you wear a black turtleneck in this heat?” she asked Kim Ling. “It's not like we're robbing a bank.”

“Who cares what I'm wearing? How is that helping?”

Strangely enough, Lexi's conversation with the yogini popped into her head. “You know, Alexandra actually means
mankind's helper
,” she said matter-of-factly, gathering her hair off her neck. “Isn't that cool? You know how names have meanings?”

Kim Ling's finger went from the map to her own face. “Chinese, remember? We practically invented that stuff. Kim Ling, roughly translated, means tinkling jade.”

“Pretty.”

A desperate moan came out of Kevin. “
Tinkling?
Oh, great—now I have to pee!”

Kim Ling muttered something about sucking it up and, seeming assured of their direction, she took off with purpose in her step, leading Kevin and Lexi past some shadowy joggers and speeding bicyclists until they came to the underpass of a fancy stone bridge she called the Greywacke Arch. She dug two flashlights out of her duffel, switched them on, and did a quick safety scan of the dark tunnel before handing one flashlight to Kevin and venturing inside.

“I'm not a big fan of tunnels,” he grumbled, and they all started running at breakneck speed.

It was eye-wateringly smelly but short, thank goodness. And when they emerged from the tunnel, gulping heaps of fresh air, night was finally taking hold, thick and starless.

“Look!” Kevin swung his light beam to the pointy top of Cleopatra's Needle, the huge stone obelisk, which was jutting out from the trees not too far away. “That's it, right, Kim? It's awesome.”

“
Ānjìng!
” she said. “Quiet! We're trying to keep a low profile.”

“Sorry.”

She looked around to make sure no one was watching, and shined her light on the obelisk too. “Did you know that sucker weighs two hundred and forty tons?” she said
quietly. “It has a twin in London and there's another one in Paris—and get this: they're all called Cleopatra's Needle, yet they're not even connected to Queen Cleopatra. Strange but true. They were already over a thousand years old in her lifetime.”

“Well, someone's been doing her homework,” Lexi whispered, craning her neck to get a better view. “It kinda looks like the Washington Monument, huh?”

“The Washington Monument isn't covered in hieroglyphics.”

“I said
kinda
!”

Side by sweaty side, the threesome scurried down the dirt path and around the bend, where a small crowd was gathered at the foot of the steps leading to the courtyard where the obelisk stood. It was magnificent, seeing it even closer—like an enormous dagger awash in light, piercing the ebony sky. Kim Ling mumbled that something strange was definitely going on—but it was hard to tell exactly what that was with trees blocking their full view. They slipped past a bunch of people holding panting pugs and bent down to peek through a curtain of droopy junipers. The entire courtyard was buzzing with activity. It was outlined in bright yellow
CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS
tape, and glowing brighter than Times Square.

“What's happening?” Lexi said, her heart sputtering in her chest. “You don't think—”

Kevin gasped, and Kim Ling's eyes went round as the full moon.

“I
knew
we should've come last night!” she said. “We're too freakin' late!”

No!
After everything they had gone through, had the authorities beaten them to the buried treasure by a matter of hours—or minutes?

Kim Ling was slumped over like a slain gladiator, cursing in angry Chinese. So it was Lexi who dared approach a Frankensteinish policeman who was guarding the steps.

“What's happening, officer?”

“This area is closed off to the general public,” he told her.

“Why?” Kim Ling asked, springing to life. “Did they find the jewels?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. C'mon, people, break it up—you're blocking the pathway.”

“Bullcrackers!” Kim Ling said, and took off in a huff.

Lexi was right behind her with Kevin in tow, her stomach turning sour and sick.

They hurried up a patchy hill to the only other entrance to the glowing courtyard, but there was another small crowd gathered behind a lineup of metal, fence-like police barriers. Glimpses of cops, cameras, and cables could be seen through spiky tree branches, but that was about it.

“It's useless, Kim,” Lexi said, looking around and chewing her thumbnail. “Maybe we should just go home and find out what happened on TV.”

“No way, José. We've come this far. I'm not leaving till I get firsthand info.”

It was probably wise to let Kim Ling be her usual bossy self and call all the shots, Lexi figured, since Central Park at night was no place for one of their ugly spats. And so once again, she and Kevin followed her clomping combat boots, this time over a carpet of thick ivy, until they settled behind a tangle of skinny, curvy trees where they could spy on the crime scene just a few yards away.

A tall brute of a woman in a Foo Fighters T-shirt seemed to be running the show. Either an undercover cop or news crew techie—they couldn't decide which. She was holding a walkie-talkie and having a heated conversation with some man sitting on a bench in the courtyard. Nothing too strange about that.

“Hey, what's this?” Kevin said, and the girls immediately shushed him. He was aiming his flashlight beam on a splotch of purple material dangling from the lowest tree branch. “Someone's T-shirt?” he whispered. “No—looks like a bandanna.”

“Don't touch it,” Lexi warned. “You don't know where it's been.”

His curious eyes examined it up close. “It looks kinda like the one Melrose wore. Same color and everything. Don't you think that's weird?”

Lexi's mind was instantly racing, wondering how it could possibly have wound up there. “Yes,” she said. “Very weird.”

Kim Ling shined her light on it, sending an astonished-looking squirrel scampering straight up the tree. “Definitely
curious, but—there must be hundreds of purple bandannas lying around New York City.” She thought about it for a second. “Well, at least a few. No big deal.”

Just as Kevin plucked it off the branch anyway, the argument between the Foo Fighter lady and the man on the bench reached fever pitch. The kids all turned their heads to listen.

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” the man yelled in a thick British accent. “How long am I to remain captive on this
bloody
bench, in this godforsaken heat and this
bloody, bloody
humidity?”

Lexi grabbed on to Kim Ling's arm in a sudden panic. “Omigod.”

“What is it?”

Her lips were forming words but no sound was coming, since her heart was lodged in her throat.

“What?”
Kevin asked.

“I think that's—him,” she finally muttered.

“Him?” Kim Ling repeated.

“One of the guys I saw in the Whispering Gallery. You know, the thief, the thug, the perp!”

An eruption of rolling thunder could not have been more perfectly timed. It shook the earth. Shook Lexi to the core.

“Okay, red, calm down. Are you sure that's the guy?”

“Yes—maybe. Well, look, he's bald, right? And I know for sure that one of the guys I saw in Grand Central was
bald. And remember I told you he said ‘bloody' a lot? So—oh, gosh—I'm
pretty
sure. Like, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine—”

“I almost forgot,” Kevin blurted, “I brought my new telescope!” He slipped it out of the back pocket of his shorts, extended it to its full length, and handed it to Lexi.

With one eye shut and the other eye spying through the glass piece, she could see the entire crime scene at least three times its original size. She focused on the man in question—at the back of his bald, shiny head. Suddenly he turned with his hand on his chin, revealing strange orange glasses, a funky soul patch, and
inky fingers
!

“One hundred percent!” Lexi exclaimed. “It's
him
!”

Luckily, the thud that followed came from Kevin's flashlight hitting the ground and not Lexi. Without even bothering to retrieve it, all three escaped the tangle of trees, dodged a flurry of pigeons, and raced over to the clump of people at the entrance of the crime scene. Ignoring complaints, they butted their way to the very front of the sweaty crowd. They were still yards away from the action, though, with the fence-like barriers keeping everyone at bay.

“Frig! I wish those loudmouthed crickets would clam up so we could hear better.” Kim Ling was on her tiptoes, struggling to pick up whatever she could. “This place is crawling with cops. So, if that
is
him,” she said, mulling
over her words as she spoke, “he must've just gotten arrested, right? They must've caught him in the act.”

A look of realization splashed across all three faces. Kevin turned to Lexi, and Lexi turned to Kim Ling, who grunted like a wild boar and threw up her hands in defeat.

“So, I guess that's it then—it's over!” she ranted. “Crime solved but not by us. Serves us right for being a day late and a dollar short. No—make that two hundred and twenty-five
thousand
dollars short!”

Lexi bit her lip. “You said you didn't even want the money anyway.” A small part of her was relieved, she had to admit—if it was humanly possible to be relieved and extremely disappointed at the same time. Kevin seemed desperately defeated, so she put a comforting hand on his shoulder as she thought about the facts. “Geez, it sure took him long enough to get around to burying the jewels, didn't it?” she said as it was dawning on her. “And where's Benjamin Deets?”

“Maybe he ran away,” Kevin said, “or got wounded—or bowed out at the last minute. Or all of the above.”

“How could it be all of the above?” Lexi went back to watching the scene through the telescope, trying to hold it steady with jittery, sweaty hands. Some of the actual jewels were in full view now, resting on velvet pillows in an open crate spilling packing straw. A dazzling green necklace with emeralds for days, a rainbow of sparkling rings, the
thickest jewel-encrusted bracelets, and a pair of twisty armbands—golden snakes with ruby red eyes.

She zeroed in on the perp again.
How could he do such a heinous act? That's a real word, right? Heinous?
And then she noticed something was off. “Wait. Why is he still sitting there all la-di-da? Shouldn't he be wearing handcuffs?”

Kevin grabbed the telescope from Lexi and took a look. “Yeah. Or crammed in the back of a squad car by now—instead of eating a prune Danish?”

“How can you tell it's prune?” Kim Ling snatched the telescope to take her turn, which lasted forever. “You guys're absolutely right. What's wrong with this picture?” She collapsed the telescope with a clack and handed it back to Kevin. Her eyes were darting back and forth as if she was trying to answer a
Jeopardy!
question before the buzzer sounded. “I'm gonna go find out!”

“
How?
” Lexi and Kevin asked at the same time.

Kim Ling's answer came in the form of a laminated photo ID that she whipped out of her back pocket. “Meet the new cub reporter for the Associated Press.”

Kevin's jaw dropped. “Is this thing for real?”

“It's real in the sense that it exists, but if you're asking if it's authentic, then no. I made it in Photoshop. Here, hold this.” She handed Lexi the duffel, unzipped it, pulled out a small pad and pencil, then zipped it back up. “Now wish me luck—I'm going in.”

“Are you crazy?” Lexi said, latching on to her arm. “You
can't just barge in and start asking questions. You'll be arrested or something.”

Kim Ling tore her arm away with such force it snapped around her torso like a whip. A bolt of lightning ripped through the night sky, and by the time the crack of thunder followed, Kim Ling had cleared the barrier and was straining up against the yellow
CRIME SCENE
tape, waving her notepad to get someone's attention.