Mystery on Museum Mile Read online

  Jonah is tapping on his stool harder and faster, staring at the mess that Robin Christopher left in his wake. The paints that were neatly organized in rows between us are now smeared in a messy rainbow. Jonah’s mouth puckers up and I know he’s upset, so in a panic, I lie.

  “Hey, I asked the officer if sometime I could bring my buddy down to sit in the front of a cop car and check it out, you know, sort of like an educational tour, and he said yes. So let’s call him next week.”

  Jonah lights up and starts planning out a way to hijack a cop car while making it look like an innocent mistake.

  I know lying is wrong, but how bad can it be when it makes your best friend smile and forget all about the brute who just pushed him around?

  That night I lie awake thinking, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, flipping through the pictures in my mind methodically, one at a time. Snapshots of a time sequence from yesterday.

  I don’t think about Mr. Pee or Jonah or bullies or cute Jenny Miller or even my moment of artistic fame at the police station.

  All I can think about (and I curse Milton Edwards until midnight for planting this in my brain):

  What the heck did happen to my ice cream cone?

  Chapter 5

  Make the Call

  January 21

  The phone call comes at four thirty in the afternoon on Friday, a week later. Mom and I are on the couch in our living room, watching a mindless movie about robots.

  Usually I don’t pay attention to my mother’s phone conversations, especially the business ones: blah blah blah, mortgage rates, blah blah blah, property on Horicon Street. She’s a real estate agent.

  But this call is different. She stands and nervously paces into the kitchen, closing the swinging door behind her.

  I try to follow. Sadie, our cat-who-may-be-an-evil-overlord-in-disguise, heads me off. Leaping in front of the kitchen door, she arches her back in a ripple of fur and hisses.

  Sadie is the ugliest cat I have ever seen. She has white, fluffy hair that looks like it’s been shocked with electricity in all the wrong places, unpleasant green eyes, and a flat face, as if someone dropped an iron on her when she was little. A face only my parents love.

  I nudge her gently with my hand, a signal to move or be moved. She claws my arm. “Ow!” I shout, hopping back and rubbing the scratched skin. The movement is enough to scare her off. She runs into my father’s office, mewing pathetic cries as if I’m the one who just caused her physical pain. I hear my dad make some cooing baby noises at her. Like I said: pure evil.

  Mom shoots me a glare as I barge into the kitchen and prop myself up on the counter. “Yes, Chief Williams,” she says into the phone, “my husband mentioned you. We’re doing well, thank you. What’s that? Today? Well, it’s almost dinnertime. Hmm, I see. All right, tomorrow morning it is. Yes. See you then.”

  She hangs up. “Edmund, when I come into the kitchen, it means it’s a private conversation. You know that.” She smooths her hair off her forehead the way she does when she’s upset, and leaves without further comment.

  “The police called? What did they want? Are we going in again? What’s going on?” I’m a spazzy Chihuahua jumping out the door after her.

  Ignoring me, she sits down on the edge of the couch, her back rigid. “Who was on the phone?” Dad asks, watching her from the office doorway with curious eyes, no doubt smelling the scent of Mom Angst as it drifts through the room.

  “Chief Williams,” she replies. “The police want to see you again. Tomorrow at ten. Both of you. All of us.”

  My father strides across the carpet to join her on the couch. I stay by the wall, hoping that if they forget I’m in the room, they’ll speak more freely.

  “Probably caught the guy and want us to identify him,” Dad says.

  Mom shrugs and chews on her lower lip. She’s still angry that my father went down the alley in the first place. Of course, he left out most of the details about the fight, making it sound as if he didn’t use physical contact to separate the two men, as if his mere presence parted them the way Moses parted the sea. She didn’t buy the story last week and she doesn’t now. She squints at both of us with a weird expression of worry and suspicion, wrinkling her nose and crinkling her eyebrows like she may need to use the bathroom in a hurry.

  Dad puts a gentle arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, my beautiful Nile rose. It’s just standard procedure. If you witness a crime, you have to answer a lot of questions. Say, do they grow roses in Egypt? I’ll have to look it up.” He grabs his laptop from the coffee table and settles in to the cushion beside her for an hour of geeking out on North African flora and fauna. Mom takes the bait and rests her head on his shoulder, forgetting momentarily about the phone call.

  I roll my eyes and start down the hallway to my bedroom.

  Mom and Dad did a special genetic testing thing last year to discover their long-lost African ancestry. It’s all the rage in their group of friends. Dad’s genes were mostly linked to the area in Nigeria where the Hausa tribes live, while Mom’s seemed to match the northern parts of Africa, Egypt especially. I guess that explains the coffee-with-cream skin she’s got.

  Anyway, ever since the test results came back it’s been Egyptian-goddess-this and Hausa-warrior-that and things have reached an extreme barf level around here.

  Chapter 6

  The Test

  January 22

  “Hello, Mr. Lonnrot. Edmund.” Chief Williams greets us by the precinct’s elevator the next morning. He’s not wearing his navy blue uniform today, but is still formal in a starched white shirt and blue tie. “And where is your lovely wife?”

  “She had to show apartments this morning,” my dad replies. “Real estate business.”

  I’m relieved that my mother isn’t here, ’cause I’m pretty sure she’d be a major wet blanket. She gave us both an extra-big hairy eyeball as we were leaving this morning, as if we were the ones pulling knives out in alleyways.

  The chief escorts us up to the third floor and into his office, where we take a seat on a soft, comfortable couch. The room is spacious, with dark wood and important-looking photographs hanging on the walls. Also a plaque from 9/11. Clearly Chief Williams has seen a lot of action.

  He sits across from us in a leather chair, twisting a ring on his finger and asking us dumb questions about our health. He has silvery hair and a perma-tan that offsets his shiny white teeth, except the chief doesn’t smile much. Probably too busy and stressed with such an important job.

  He seems nervous, which is strange. Surely my father and I do not constitute a high-pressure situation. After fiddling with a pen and commenting on the weather, he gets to the point:

  “I’ll just lay it out there for you. We’ve never done this before. It’s inconceivable. But so is your son’s talent. The picture he drew . . . well, let’s just say it was like a photograph. A perfect match to a mug shot that we have from a few years back. Never seen anything like it in my thirty-two years on the force. We have a business proposal for you. For Edmund, actually. If you would be interested.”

  “What?” My dad is too stunned to say anything more intelligent.

  Chief Williams nods in understanding. “It is an unusual situation, isn’t it? The men you saw in the alley—we suspect that they’re part of a larger group of thieves. Real professionals. We’d like Edmund to help us catch them. We could use his talents.”

  Go after professional thieves? Holy cow! But my father is frowning.

  The chief holds up a reassuring hand. “There’s no chance of bodily harm. It’s strictly reconnaissance. A surveillance job at various art museums throughout the city. It’s not a violent crime case. Just a potential robbery.” He pauses so my dad can digest this information. When Dad doesn’t speak (because he’s as shocked as I am), the chief continues:

  “First, Edmund will have to pass a test, make sure he’s as good as we think he is. And then . . . ten hours a week, perhaps? The days can be flex
ible around your schedules. We’ll compensate him for his efforts, of course.”

  Compensate as in pay? As in, I have a job that will help fund Senate Academy? My heart soars and I almost fall out of my chair. It’s a miracle.

  My father sniffs. “Use the taxpayers’ money to pay my son? It doesn’t seem right.”

  Come on, Dad! I scream in my head.

  “He’ll be doing a civic duty,” the chief replies. “Earning every penny. You can be his chaperone on site, with him at all times. Neither of you will know any details about the case. Minimal risk.”

  This is awesome. Jonah is going to flip. I start to twitch in my seat. A squeak of joy escapes my body.

  The chief smiles. “I can see that Edmund is onboard.” Leaning closer, he speaks in a low voice to my dad. A sympathetic voice. “Mr. Lonnrot, we understand that you recently lost your job, and that Edmund’s school is quite costly. We’d like to help further the education of such a talented young man.”

  “You lost your job?” I blurt out. “I thought you just lost some hours!”

  “I did. I got laid off two days ago. It seems the police have up-to-date information.” My dad eyeballs the chief with mild disgust, like the guy has infiltrated his private world. Which he has.

  I agree it’s a little creepy that the police know everything about our lives, but I don’t care. I want in on this deal.

  As if reading my father’s mind, the chief offers him an apologetic shrug. “We have access to a lot of information. I assure you no further investigation will be conducted in regards to your family.”

  The loud tick of the NYPD clock fills the office as I await The Decision. I beg my dad with pleading eyes, mouthing Please over and over.

  He crumbles. “It’s not me you have to worry about, Edmund. I will consider this proposal. I think it’s an interesting idea. But first you need to pass the chief’s test. And then . . . there’s Mom.”

  I don’t need to tell you which of the two is going to be more challenging.

  I turn to the chief. “Let’s have the test. I’m ready.”

  “All right. And while you work, I’ll talk to your father about the details and legality issues. I’m sure he has some safety concerns.”

  My father nods in agreement, his mustache moving back and forth the way it does when he’s gearing up for an intellectual debate. The chief has no idea what he’s in for. My dad can talk.

  Chief Williams leans forward, twirling a pen between his fingers. I can tell he’s excited about this; he wants me to succeed. “And now for the test: There were two other people riding in the elevator with us on our way up here this morning. We planted them there. They are officers whom you have never met before, as far as we know. They work upstairs in the Narcotics Division. If you can . . . conjure them up in that photographic memory of yours and draw accurate sketches of them, then the job is yours.”

  “There were two extra people in the elevator? I thought there were three,” my dad says, trying to be helpful. Rookie.

  I close my eyes and think of the elevator. A man and a woman. I focus on their faces, their clothing, even the names on their badges. When I open my eyes, there is worry on the chief’s face. Probably thinks I’m not up to the task. I flash him a grin.

  “I’ll need a sketchpad and that cool coal pencil that Phil was using last week. I’d be happy to draw a picture of Officers Hopkins and McGrady for you.”

  The pen slips from Chief Williams’s hand and falls to the ground when I use their names.

  Game on.

  Chapter 7

  Bovano

  The chief leads us out to the main area, pointing me to a vacant desk where a secretary is setting up paper and charcoal. He and my dad take a stroll, leaving me to my work.

  The room is enormous, housing the majority of the officers in the unit. Every available space is lined with desks and bodies either hunched over work or standing and yelling to someone across the way. It’s just like in the movies: phones are ringing and people are walking by with papers and coffee, talking about everything from the weather to a hockey game to the junkie they brought in yesterday.

  I push my glasses up on my nose and get to work. Showtime. These are important pictures, Edmund. Senate is on the line.

  Gripping the black stick between my fingers at a slant, I rotate my shoulder and let my arm hang loosely as I draw long, fluid swirls of an oval face. I love charcoal. It’s hard yet soft on the paper, and it erases with the touch of a cloth. I can go from light to dark shading with one quick smudge. The black flakes float across the paper like dust; no line is permanent until I force it to be.

  I start with the woman, Officer Hopkins. She was attractive, with deep-set eyes, her hair swept across her forehead, the shape of her bangs following the contour of her head. Laugh lines around her mouth. She was serious and looked tired, but at one point on the elevator ride she gave me a soft smile. I draw her that way. I hope they show her the picture. I think she’ll like it.

  I finish with her after fifteen minutes and check to see if my dad is around. He’s chatting with some cops by a water cooler, and they have that look of alarm on their faces. He’s probably telling them who invented the water cooler.

  I don’t have the audience around me like last time. In fact, no one seems to notice me there at all. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. And then I spot him.

  A man is staring at me from across the room. He’s sitting in an office with huge windows, but the glass barrier does nothing to shade the gazer beam he has locked on me. It’s like he’s trying to penetrate my brain.

  He’s got dark eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, with huge bushy eyebrows to match. Deep creases line his face, evidence of at least a few stressful decades under his belt. He’s not so much staring as glaring at me. Displeasure radiates from his scowl and rolls over me like a hot wind. I scan the room to see if there’s someone he’s sneering at behind me, maybe somebody who owes him money or ran over his dog.

  Nope, it’s just me.

  I ignore him and get to work on the second drawing. Focus, Edmund!

  The secretary pulls me away while I’m fussing with the final details, telling me I have to meet my contact.

  “Isn’t Chief Williams my contact?” I ask as she whisks me across the room by my elbow.

  She shakes her head and points to the glass office where the grumpy man stands and comes out, a hefty frame revealing itself from behind the office walls.

  Figures.

  “Edmund, this is Detective Bovano. He’ll be handling your potential employment here.” The secretary rushes off, leaving me alone. With him.

  I try to smile and squeak out a “Hi.”

  My dad appears out of nowhere, which is a huge relief because it turns out that the detective is a very large man. Not quite as big as my dad, but almost.

  Bovano throws a fake smile on as he shakes my father’s hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Lonnrot. I’ll be the one handling your special case here. Why don’t you look over some of the paperwork we’ve drawn up for you while I get to know Eddie a little bit?”

  “It’s Edmund,” I correct him. Few things irritate me more than being called Eddie.

  He ignores me and hands my dad a stack of papers, showing him to a seat far, far away, then lumbers back, beckoning for me to enter his office. I’m glad the window shades are open because I’m a little scared at the moment, truth be told. Things may go down, and I need witnesses.

  Detective Bovano has some cool trophies in his office, one of an eagle in particular, that I check out when we enter.

  “Mr. Bovano, what’s this award for?” I ask, trying to break the ice. Maybe I misinterpreted the glares. And if he’s my contact, that means we’ll be good friends in the end, right? Gruff cop comes to view naïve young boy as the son he never had.

  “Do not touch anything in here, and it is Detective Bovano. Now sit,” he barks, pointing to a chair.

  So much for breaking the ice.

>   I sit.

  He remains standing, staring out the window. He has quite a pasta/beer belly packed onto his tall body. This man is what my mother would call a tough cookie. Only he’s more like a tough loaf of old and angry Italian bread, with too much garlic mixed in.

  “Kid, I’ve been working this office for twenty years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not right, asking a child to help the police. No offense, Eddie,” he says, staring at me now. I liked it better when he was looking out the window.

  “Edmund,” I say again.

  “I’ve been working on this case for almost three years,” he continues, pointing to a wall where papers are hanging up. Mug shots, lists with arrows, and a city map decorate the bulletin board in a colorful collage.

  “They want it solved. It involves a lot of money and some big fancy rich folks. People are starting to get desperate, budgets are being cut. Makes the department look bad. Now they think a kid is going to save them. This is not the way to fix it. You probably won’t get the job. Nothing is set, so don’t get your hopes up. I designed the test for you myself. Impossible to do, I’d wager.”

  He sounds proud of himself with that statement. I have no idea what to say, because I’m pretty sure I just aced it.

  A knock on the door startles us both. The secretary comes in and whispers something in Bovano’s ear.

  “What? There must be a mistake. I want to see them,” he orders. He flicks a glare at me, then shuffles through some papers, pretending to seem busy.

  I try not to stare but it’s hard to look away. His paunchy cheeks, humorless eyes, and shaggy eyebrows cause him to bear a striking resemblance to a yeti. He’s got a much more complicated face to draw than most, with the extra lines set in his skin and the unkempt head of hair. No smooth motions of charcoal for this guy.

  The woman returns moments later, holding my drawings.