Doom at Grant's Tomb Read online

  I glance around for my father, who isn’t here. He must have gone inside with the woman. Wasn’t he supposed to be worried about my safety? Leave it to Dad to forget about me during a history lesson.

  Quickly I fold up the map and stand, reaching for the pepper pen in my pocket. I jog up the steps and into the mausoleum. The door creaks open. I squint in the darkness as my eyes adjust to the dim yellow light. My pen is out, safety switch flipped, ready to spray. Dad’s not here. I peer over the balcony to the sarcophaguses below on the lower level. He’s there with the woman, gesturing to a marble bust.

  I hurry toward the staircase. My feet are loud in the quiet chamber. Where’s the thin man?

  Suddenly someone brushes behind me and I nearly drop the pepper pen. I whirl around. It’s him! He’s strolling with his hands behind his back, looking at a stained-glass window. I grip my weapon, ready to spray. The man turns his head. Now’s the moment, I have a perfect angle . . .

  It’s not Lars. Not even close.

  What am I thinking? I was just about to mace a completely innocent person! I shake my head, disgusted with myself. The police say that Lars is in Germany. I need to trust their information. I stuff the pepper pen back in my pocket and head downstairs for my father. He introduces me to the old lady, who pats my head and offers me a mint.

  “Thanks,” I say. I pop one in my mouth only to realize it’s covered in fuzz. Trying not to gag, I turn away and discreetly spit it into my hand. That’s when I see it: a huge map on the wall, tucked behind the stairs. I step closer. It’s a map of the Tennessee River and an explanation of Grant’s military campaign during the Civil War.

  Something tickles at my brain. A clue I might have missed. I’ve been analyzing the streets and landmarks of New York over and over. When the Fox said that the answer was on the map, I assumed he meant one of New York City. But now a crazy thought occurs to me:

  Have I been looking at the wrong map?

  Chapter 12

  Elemental, My Dear Watson

  8:05 A.M., MONDAY

  I wake up in a bad mood. Maybe because it’s Monday, or maybe because I barely slept last night, or maybe because my brain’s about to explode from the stress of bomb scares and missing crowns and subway accidents and school dances and possibly having to move because we can’t afford our apartment. I want to be in bed watching a movie, but instead I’m with Paula walking toward Senate Academy. Detective Bovano looms like a gargoyle at the top of the steps, opening the front door for students.

  “Frank will be escorting you to the Met after school,” Paula says, gesturing to Bovano with her head. “Don’t leave school by yourself. I’ll meet you over there.”

  I nod. Maybe there’s a map at the Met I should be looking at. I’ll check it out today when I’m there.

  I say goodbye to Paula and walk across the short lawn of the school. A group of fifth-graders is laughing and tossing a baseball around. Slowly I trudge up the concrete steps. Mr. Frank opens the door. “We need to talk,” he mutters under his breath. “Be in my classroom in two minutes.”

  Without a word, I turn right and head for the chemistry room.

  If I work for the police, how come it feels like I’m the one in prison?

  By chemistry class, I still haven’t spoken with Bovano. This morning he got tangled up in some problem involving kids, a baseball, and a pile of dog poop, so we never had our meeting.

  “Time,” Jonah says.

  I stick a long thermometer into a beaker of ice water that’s warming up over a Bunsen burner. Today’s experiment: water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. How long will it take to go from 32 to 212? We have to take a temperature reading every sixty seconds. It’s fairly mind-numbing.

  “Thirty-five degrees,” I say. He writes it down.

  Around us, the class is buzzing. Mr. Frank promised us a pizza party if we all got an A minus or higher on last week’s test. Everyone aced it, even Jimmy Watson, who’s a big blockhead. So today for lunch we’re eating pizza from Mario’s Pizzeria. I wonder if Bovano is paying or if this little party is courtesy of the NYPD.

  Jonah looks around to make sure no one’s listening. “What did you find? Any connections with the monuments?”

  I shake my head. “No. You?”

  “Not really. Time.”

  “Thirty-six.”

  He writes it down. “You know that gold statue of William Sherman that Bovano . . . er, Mr. Frank was talking about? The same statue that had the bomb scare?” When I nod he says, “Turns out Sherman was a famous general. He was the one who said, ‘War is Hell.’ How did I not know about this guy? He’s awesome! I visited the site three times this weekend. I even left part of a peanut-butter sandwich by his feet. You know, as a kind of offering. Time.”

  I read the thermometer again. Mr. Frank passes behind us.

  “Elements,” Mr. Frank suddenly announces to no one in particular. “The most basic substances on Earth. Everything you see around you can be broken down into components read on the periodic table.” He stops by Jenny Miller. “Even you, Miss Miller, are nothing more than hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and some others. The first person to tell me the exact percentages of elements in the human body will get an extra slice of pizza today. But no researching until your experiments are done and wyour lab reports are passed in.”

  Everyone gets quiet, their faces focused as they race to finish the experiment and claim the pizza prize. You have to hand it to Bovano: he understands that kids will do anything for double cheese, double sauce.

  Jonah’s staring off into space as if his brain’s calculating a million things at once. Which it probably is.

  “Time, Jonah,” I hiss.

  He looks at his watch. “Oh, whoops. Time in three, two, one . . .”

  I take another reading. “Forty-four.”

  He writes the number down and then leans closer. “The Sherman statue is covered in gold. That’s an element. What are the others made out of?”

  I get where he’s going with this. I flip through my mental notes on the monuments, paragraph after paragraph of Internet research scrolling by in my memory. “According to Wikipedia, Grant’s Tomb is red granite—at least the coffins are. I think there’s some bronze decoration as well. And Cleopatra’s Needle is made from red granite.”

  Jonah’s leg twitches beneath the lab table. Despite the sturdiness of our workstation, his spazzy movements are strong enough to rattle the jar of ice water on the burner. I try to steady the glass without burning myself. Some of the ice breaks apart with a clink.

  “What if the bomb sites represent hidden messages through the periodic table?” he says. “William Sherman is covered in gold. The symbol for gold is ‘Au.’” He starts to scribble down ideas in his notebook. “And bronze is made out of copper and tin. Their symbols are ‘Cu’ and ‘Sn.’” He flips the page around to show me:

  William Sherman—gold = Au

  Grant’s Tomb—bronze: copper = Cu, tin = Sn

  “I wonder if they might spell a word?” he continues. “If we put the letters all together. Aucusn . . . Cusnau . . . Snaucu? I’m going to snack on you? Maybe it’s German.”

  “Maybe,” I say. But I’m pretty sure the answer doesn’t come from a periodic table. I can’t get the idea of a map out of my head. What did the Fox mean about old gold and stolen treasure? Do the monuments form a secret treasure map? We need a key, something to unlock their meaning.

  I stare at my watch, waiting for sixty seconds to tick by. Jonah’s typing on his computer (hidden beneath the table on his lap) and muttering under his breath about red granite. He’s completely derailed from the experiment, and I for one do not want to repeat it after school.

  A horrible burnt smell fills my nose. I look down at our burner, but it seems normal. A few kids make gagging noises and I turn around to see what’s going on. Jimmy Watson is holding his pencil over the fire, trying to get the wood to catch. Then he waves his thermometer near the flame. “How hot do you think
fire is?” he says.

  Robin Christopher laughs an obnoxious laugh. The two of them are lab partners and are perfect for each other. Big, menacing, and as smart as rocks.

  “I dare you,” Robin says. I watch in horror as Jimmy moves the tip of the thermometer closer to the flame.

  Jonah’s eyes go wide under his safety goggles. “They can’t possibly be that stupid,” he whispers to me.

  “Do it!” Robin pushes Jimmy’s hand.

  “No, don’t!” Bovano shouts from three desks over. He lunges for them, but it’s too late. The thermometer goes into the fire and explodes, spraying glass and mercury all over. Tiny droplets of silver speckle the lab coats of Jimmy, Robin, and Bovano. These thermometers are supposed to be shatterproof, but are clearly not idiot-proof.

  The entire class freezes, everyone holding their breath as if a bomb is about to go off.

  “Don’t anybody move.” Mr. Frank’s voice is eerily quiet. Yesterday he told us that mercury is a liquid metal that’s extremely poisonous and has been known to turn people insane.

  I don’t think we’ll be having that pizza party today.

  Chapter 13

  Junior

  3:22 P.M., SAME DAY

  After school, Bovano drives me to the Met. His hair is wild and fluffy from an afternoon spent decontaminating the classroom of mercury. He shifts in his seat and clears his throat, and I can sense that we’re about to have our “little chat.”

  When we stop at a traffic light, he holds up a picture from the front seat. It’s the picture I drew of the Indian guy. “Why’d you give this to Paula?” he asks.

  Because I knew you’d blow me off? “I thought she could work on it today while you and I were at school,” I lie.

  “I’m your contact, not her. This is our case. She’s a Fed and—” He catches himself before he tells me more. “From now on, all casework goes through me.”

  A Fed? Jonah’s suspicions were correct: Paula works for the FBI. I wonder why she was brought in. The FBI works on really important national cases. Surely my safety is not the only reason she’s been assigned to the job.

  And did Bovano just say our case? As in, his case and my case? We’re a team now?

  “I didn’t really think it was important,” I say, trying to smooth over the situation. “Did you find out the guy’s name? He works at the Met, right?”

  “Wrong. He was dressed as a guard, but there’s no record of his employment there.”

  “So that’s a huge lead, right?” I sit up straighter in my seat.

  He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  I stifle a growl of frustration. So much for working as a team. We drive in silence the rest of the way.

  Finally we park in the alley beside the Met. Bovano turns off the engine. “We’re going inside today,” he says, his hands still on the steering wheel. “To the basement storage area. You won’t be out in public, so technically we aren’t violating your mom’s request.”

  I roll my eyes. If there’s one thing that Detective Bovano cares about, it’s my mother’s opinion.

  We exit the car and pass through the service entrance of the museum, then head down a flight of stairs. Bovano flashes a pass card over an electronic pad, which unlocks a door with a loud clank. As I walk behind him, I mull over the new information. The Indian man was dressed as a guard but doesn’t work here. Clearly he’s been casing the museum. But for what? The diamond exhibit? And of course, the number one question that’s always on my mind: Does he have anything to do with Patrick O’Malley or Lars Heinrich?

  We head down another flight of stairs and reach a metal door marked RESTRICTED. Bovano pounds on the door so loudly that the echo sounds like thunder around us. After about twenty seconds, an elderly man tugs the door open. He’s rail-thin with white hair and a plaid bow tie. His nametag reads KURT TERPE, CURATOR.

  “The K-9 unit was just here!” the man says in a high-pitched voice. He motions us through the door with an impatient wave of his gnarled hand. “Dogs! In my museum!” Every sentence comes out in a breathy exclamation. He focuses all his attention on Bovano. If he thinks it’s strange that there’s a kid tagging along, he doesn’t comment.

  “I don’t know what you expect to find!” he squeaks on. “Everything is intact!”

  “This is routine, sir,” Bovano explains politely. “We’ll be in and out in twenty minutes.” Then he turns to me. “Go find Paula.” He points across the vast storage room that’s loaded floor to ceiling with statues and framed art, some of it wrapped in sheets, others sitting behind glass cases.

  I spot Paula sifting through some papers with gloved fingers. I trot over, narrowly avoiding walking into a huge marble statue of a lady in a toga. “What’s going on?” I say.

  She shakes her head. “I’m not sure, actually. The Indian man you saw on the street doesn’t work here. But he walked around the museum for a solid week, dressed as a guard. As far as we can tell, he never spoke to anyone else, never touched anything. He just . . . strolled.”

  “Hmm.” I rub my chin and look around the basement. It almost feels haunted, with the shadows and the tall shapes draped in cloth. “I’ll need to see all of the security tapes.”

  Paula tilts her head and raises her eyebrows at me.

  “What?” Suddenly paranoid, I look down at my shirt to check for any stains. Today was burrito day at school—which I had to eat because the pizza party was canceled—and the salsa got out of control.

  She grins. “Okay, Frank Junior. You sounded like him just now. He’s beginning to rub off on you.”

  I narrow my eyes and her smile falters. “Sorry,” she mutters. “I’m just nervous. I don’t like the feel of it down here. Too cold.” She pulls her sweater around her shoulders a little tighter.

  Something’s going on. Yes, she’s joking around, but she’s twitchy, her foot tapping as she fiddles with the corner of a manila folder.

  “What am I doing here?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Just looking, I guess. Cataloging it in your brain. We need you to see the room how it is now, so when you see the security tapes, you’ll notice any differences. A painting out of place, something like that. In case the perp snuck in here without the cameras catching him.”

  I glance around. There are no maps anywhere that I can see. No jewelry storage, either. The mystery of the stolen crown still bothers me. If Lars was behind the heist, why would he steal it? And what did the thief’s message mean about the camera being next? There are no expensive cameras down here, nothing that’s connected with that robbery.

  The section we’re standing in houses mostly paintings, and that’s what Lars loves best. Paintings by the famous artist Pablo Picasso, specifically. Bovano is still on the other side of the room, so I decide to press Paula for more information. “Are there Picassos in storage?”

  She hands me the thick stack of papers she’s been sifting through. “I spotted four on the list,” she says. “See for yourself. But first—” She hands me a pair of latex gloves.

  I snap on the gloves and study the pages. Even with my photographic memory, this will take hours to go through. I wonder if they’ll let me make a photocopy.

  The heavy metal door slams shut as the curator leaves, and Paula jumps. Very unusual for my calm-and-collected bodyguard.

  “Paula,” I say in an innocent-kid voice. “Why were the dogs here? Were they sniffing for drugs? Or”—I turn a page of the catalog—“was it for bombs?” My eyes flicker over and meet hers.

  She opens her mouth, then closes it. “It’s classified,” she whispers.

  I can’t take not knowing what’s going on anymore. It’s not Paula’s fault that I have no information to work with. There’s only one person to blame for that.

  I march over to Detective Bovano and hand him the storage catalog. “I’ll need a photocopy of these,” I announce. He blinks at me, obviously startled by my demand. I go for it. “You want me to report all of my findings to you,” I say, “but you won’t tel
l me what’s going on. How am I supposed to trust you when you don’t trust me? How can we catch the thieves if you refuse to let me help? You said this was our case. You owe me this, Detective,” I add in a moment of either bravery or stupidity. “Tell me what the dogs were looking for.”

  He frowns, his bushy eyebrows practically covering his eyes. I fold my arms and stick out my chin. I’m not going anywhere until he answers.

  He sighs. “I’ll answer one question,” he finally says. “They were sniffing for bombs.”

  I open my mouth to ask why, but he holds up a hand to cut me off. “The man dressed as a museum guard was wearing a nametag. Impossible to read with the naked eye, so we zoomed in on it.” He pauses and runs a hand through his unruly hair.

  “His last name is O’Malley.”

  Chapter 14

  What Did the Fox Say?

  ALMOST MIDNIGHT, TUESDAY

  I can’t sleep. I should be worrying about bombs and O’Malley, but all day I’ve been obsessed with figuring out what the Fox meant about the map. The four landmarks represent clues, I just know it. Earlier today I dragged Jonah to Penn Station and Grant’s Tomb because I wanted to show him that Civil War battle map on the wall. I’ve become quite the expert at sneaking past the unmarked police car parked by my apartment. I don’t think that guy’s doing a very good job, but I’m not about to complain.

  Staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, I think about what Jonah said in chemistry class, about how the William Sherman statue is gold and that gold must mean something. What do the other landmarks mean? What do they represent? Cleopatra’s Needle is Egyptian. Grant is an icon from the Civil War.

  I flip on the light and boot up my computer. I input the words Civil War gold Egypt into Google. A lot of entries come up about civil unrest in Egypt, including protests and bombings. Down at the bottom of the screen, there’s a “related searches” tab and the words Hidden Civil War gold.