Amanda Lester and the Black Shadow Terror

by Paula Berinstein

  “Here and there?” he joked.

  “No, darling. That’s not what I meant. Although your joke is quite amusing.”

  Hill grinned. “A little levity to lighten the mood.”

  “Lovely, dear. Anyhoo, what I meant was that we might try to locate the point of origin, which might yield pieces of the bomb. Or, we could try to figure out how the ninjas got in and see if they’ve left any evidence relating to their persons. Fingerprints would be ideal, but the chances of finding those are rather small, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, definitely,” said Hill. “Even my eagle eyes probably couldn’t find something like that. Besides, I’m sure they wore gloves.”

  “How do you know that, darling?”

  “Experience,” he said. “Don’t forget I’m a Lestrade. Jeffrey and I discuss these things. We learn a lot from each other.”

  “I’m sure you do, dear. Well then, if not fingerprints then perhaps hair or fibers? If the bombers were indeed dressed like ninjas, their hair would have been covered, so low odds there, but perhaps they snagged their clothes on something.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Hill. “Look at all these sharp edges.”

  But Despina’s thoughts were elsewhere. Even if they could find fibers, so what? How do you trace a common item like a black turtleneck?

  Wait a minute. She was a fashion designer. She knew fibers like the inside of her own mind. She could do this.

  “I’ve got it,” she said.

  “Got what, dear?” said Hill.

  “How we’re going to find and trace fibers of course.”

  “Oh right,” he said. “You did mention that.”

  “The first thing we need to do is figure out the most likely place to find them. That means tracing the intruders’ steps.”

  “So we’re looking for footprints then?” said Hill.

  “I don’t think we’ll find any of those in this mess,” she said. “But I’ve got a better idea. Remember, Professor Ducey saw the ninjas with his own eyes. The quickest way to retrace their path is to speak to him.”

  “Professor Ducey?” Hill stood there dumbly. “The logic teacher?”

  “Don’t you remember?” she said. “He was sitting in his wheelchair with Ivy Halpin and her lovely dog when he saw them creeping around.”

  “Did he say that?” said Hill.

  “Yes, dear. Several times.”

  “Was I there?”

  “Yes, Hill. You were there.”

  “Why don’t I remember that?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” she said.

  She pulled out her phone again and pressed the logic teacher’s icon.

  “Mrs. Lester,” said Professor Ducey on the other end of the line. “What can I do for you?”

  Suddenly Despina realized she and Hill weren’t supposed to be mucking around on the campus. It was a restricted area and the teacher would not be happy to hear that she was defying the rules. If she admitted to doing that they’d be in trouble. She needed to think fast.

  “Professor,” she said. “I am working on an assignment for my fires and explosions class”—which she was not actually taking but hoped he wouldn’t know. “I am using the explosion at Windermere as an example, trying to figure out how it started and what the various forces were.”

  “I teach logic, Mrs. Lester,” said Professor Ducey. “If you have a question about the explosion you should speak to Professor Pole.”

  “He can’t help me with this,” she said.

  “And why not, pray tell?”

  “Because he wasn’t there,” she said. “You were.”

  “I have no wish to discuss my experience at the explosion,” he said testily.

  “But you were the only one who saw the ninjas,” she said. “Ivy Halpin is blind. She was the only other person there. She couldn’t have.”

  “I made a written statement,” said Professor Ducey. “You may consult that.”

  Written statement? Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? This detective business was way more complex than she’d realized.

  “Oh,” she said.” Um, just out of curiosity, where would I find this statement?”

  Ducey sighed. “On the Legatum intranet, Mrs. Lester, where all our documents are.”

  Aha! But Scapulus, that lovely boy, had told her the intranet was out of commission. Something about Hugh Moriarty.

  “It’s down,” she said. “The intranet.”

  “Then wait till it’s back up,” Ducey fumed. “Networks experience glitches. We live with them.”

  “Can’t you please just tell me?” she wheedled. “It won’t take long.”

  “No I cannot please just tell you!” he yelled through the phone. “Detectives need to be patient. If you don’t know how to do that you’d better learn or get back to designing footwear, or whatever it is you do.”

  Despina was so taken aback she burst into tears. “Why are you yelling at me?” she moaned. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I’m yelling at you because I’ve been shot and I can’t walk and I can’t surf and I couldn’t do anything to save my school and I’m totally useless!” he shrieked. “Now go away!”

  The line went dead. Despina wiped her eyes and sniffled.

  “What was all that yelling?” said Hill.

  “I think I pushed him too far,” she said. “I can’t imagine how. You know how deferential I am. The poor boy. He’s suffering from post-traumatic stress, you know. No wonder he was so ill-tempered. Perhaps a batch of cookies then, some chocolate chips. That would cheer him up in no time, don’t you think, darling?”

  “No one can stay depressed after eating your cookies,” said Hill.

  “Then I’ll get right on it when we get home,” she said. “But right now we need to find that statement.”

  “What statement is that, love?” he said.

  “Professor Ducey’s dealie about the explosion.”

  “Why didn’t you consult that in the first place?” said Hill.

  “A dry old document like that when I can go to the horse’s mouth?”

  “I see what you mean,” he said. “Pity he’s being so unreasonable.”

  But Despina had already moved on from that unpleasant topic. Standing in the middle of the rubble, she attempted to log onto the school’s intranet. Unfortunately, as Scapulus—that lovely boy—had told her, it was down.

  “This is not going well at all,” she said. “Now what do we do?”

  If they just rummaged around the way Hill had been doing they might never find anything. The school was large and the field of rubble extensive. But what else was there to do until the statement was available? And Hill did have those eagle eyes. Perhaps they would find something. You never knew.

  Over the next hour they managed to pick their way through more detritus than they could possibly have imagined, unearthing treasures untold: a fragment from what she was certain was the coffin in which Professor Hoxby was rumored to sleep; a love note from Binnie Belasco to Simon Binkle (censored); Professor Also’s ruined snow globe; some very soppy poetry written about Professor Browning by an unknown admirer; Professor Snaffle’s anxiety medication; and one of Professor Stegelmeyer’s awful gothic novels. However, they were no closer to solving the mystery of the explosion and Despina’s feet hurt.

  She was just on the verge of telling Hill that she was ready to give up and go back to their house to bake cookies when she caught sight of the half-ruined headmaster’s residence. The structure had escaped the worst of the damage, and stood half exposed like some facade on a movie lot. She had always been curious about how Professor Thrillkill lived. Such a charming man. Now would be her chance to take a teeny eensy look. It wouldn’t do any harm and no one would know. Why not?

  “Hill, darling, let’s go in there.” She indicated Thrillkill’s residence.

  “Sounds like a capital idea,” he said. “See how the French live and all that. I hear his daughter is a pastry cook. I’ll bet he eats well. Doe
sn’t seem to put on weight though.” He looked down at his burgeoning stomach. “Must have a chinwag with him sometime and find out how he does it.”

  They waded through the rubble and found themselves standing in the headmaster’s parlor. Some of the wainscoting was still in place—lovely mahogany wood—as well as a couple of mullioned windows. Heaven knew how they had survived intact. Miraculously the chimney was still standing, or at least one of them was. The other one had crumbled. Despina wondered if she might find any notes or letters or something personal. Not that it was her business, but if she found something juicy she wouldn’t tell anyone, not even Hill. What could it hurt?

  She shuffled through a few prosaic items and then something intriguing caught her eye. At first she thought it was an optical illusion. But as she drew closer she could see that yes, there was a space behind that wall and no way to get into it. It simply seemed to be extra space that was completely inaccessible. Except that there inside, with no way to get to it, were a cot, a chair, and a chest of drawers. It looked like one of those spaces anchorite nuns enclosed themselves in during the Middle Ages—the ones where they were bricked in permanently. How creepy.

  “Come look at this,” she said.

  Hill, who had been checking out the headmaster’s kitchen, or at least the ruins of it, trudged over to where she was standing.

  “That’s rather odd, isn’t it?” he said. “What happened to the door?”

  “I don’t think there was one,” she said.

  “How do you get in there?”

  “How indeed?” she said, cradling her chin in her hand.

  This was too good to pass up. If Thrillkill was involved in some weird arcane ritual she wanted to know about it. She tiptoed over to the little room and opened the top drawer of the chest. Inside were some men’s jumpers, socks, and underwear. She picked up the topmost jumper and held it up. Whoever wore this was on the tall side but not excessively so. It would be a bit short on Thrillkill, who was about six foot one. The garment looked more like a five-foot elevener. Not a lot of difference, but to a fashion maven like Despina, significant.

  “What’s that?” said Hill.

  “Nice-looking jumper,” she said, holding it up to him. “Too big for you.”

  “You wouldn’t catch me hanging out in that place,” he said. “What do you suppose Thrillkill gets up to in there?”

  “I don’t think it’s his,” she said. “A bit too small for him.”

  “You don’t think he’s got a secret lover stashed away,” said Hill.

  “Anything’s possible,” she said. “But you know how detectives are. All cloak and dagger. Anyway, this building has been the headmaster’s residence for years. It might have belonged to one of the others. That Longknitter was a right nutter, you know.”

  Hill looked thoughtful. “Was he the one who refused to wear shoes with laces?”

  “That’s the one,” said Despina. “Wouldn’t use a pencil either. Always insisted on ink. Of course that was in the old days before computers. Honestly, these headmasters are so eccentric. You do know about Thrillkill and his hair dryer, right?”

  “Sounds familiar, but why don’t you refresh my memory?”

  “In the winter he takes that hair dryer everywhere with him and melts icicles. He’s positively phobic about them.”

  “Some kind of phallic symbol?” Hill offered.

  “Who can say? I don’t know if the board chooses these people because they’re nutters or they become nutters after being headmasters. All I know is that a lot of them are just plain gaga.”

  “Well it’s a nice jumper anyway,” said Hill. “What else is in there?”

  She opened the next drawer and found a mud-caked pair of men’s trainers, size twelve. That would fit with the five foot eleven-inch man. Or Thrillkill, whom it might actually be, although why he would use this crazy little room in such a way she couldn’t imagine.

  “Have you ever heard of storing shoes in drawers?” she said.

  “Nope, can’t say that I have,” said Hill. “Seems a bit iffy.”

  “I’ll say,” she said. “Whoever did this is isn’t too hygienic.”

  “Then it can’t be Thrillkill,” said Hill. “A man who melts icicles is obsessive. This character isn’t.”

  “Good thinking,” she said, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  The bottom drawer was stuck, and it took her a moment to get it open. In there she found some odd things—metal plates, cutlery, a cap, a variety of what seemed to be camping implements.

  “Now this is downright weird,” she said. “Has someone been cooking in this little space? If they have, there’s no way Mr. Thrillkill could fail to know. He’s got a very good sense of smell. I know because he told me my perfume makes him sneeze.”

  “I don’t think sneezing has anything to do with one’s sense of smell,” said Hill.

  “Of course it does,” she said. “You can’t be allergic to something you can’t smell.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” said Hill.

  “At any rate, why would someone live here? And more than that, who would live here?”

  “You don’t think his daughter had a sex change, do you?” said Hill.

  “No, she didn’t. And she isn’t as tall as this.”

  “Well then, does he have a son?” Hill said.

  “I’ve never heard of one.”

  “Brother?”

  Despina thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Are you suggesting that Gaston Thrillkill is embarrassed to show the world his brother and hides him away like Mr. Rochester’s crazy wife?”

  “Which Mr. Rochester is that, love?”

  “In Jane Eyre,” said Despina. “Never mind. You see my point.”

  “I do at that,” said Hill. “But I can’t answer your questions.”

  “Well try this one on for size then,” she said. “Do you think this tallish man has been living there without Mr. Thrillkill’s knowledge? And if so, was he responsible for Legatum’s destruction?”

  Despina was pondering these questions when something white in the bottom drawer caught her eye. It was underneath all the implements. Just for the heck of it she decided to clear aside the plates and see what it was.

  Placing the utensils neatly on the cot she peered into the drawer again and saw a well-worn folded piece of paper. She pulled it out and opened it to find a slightly mud-stained map, or to be precise, two maps on the same page. There was no scale indicated, nor any names, but there were what appeared to be GPS coordinates, or so it seemed.

  She took out her phone again and consulted Google. Unless she was mistaken, the mysterious maps referred to a place nearby, the town of Penrith to be exact—very close to the place where she and her son Jeffrey had been held captive by the strange wretch society led by Professor Kindseth’s old girlfriend, Charlotte Russo. Whatever would the headmaster be doing with this?

  She had no idea what was going on, but she knew a lead when she saw one. Whatever the situation, it was obvious that Thrillkill had been holding out on the rest of the detectives and she intended to get to the bottom of it. She replaced the implements in the drawer, closed it gently, and took Hill’s arm. They tiptoed through the rubble and back to their car.

  “I give up,” she said.

  “You don’t want to investigate any more?” he said.

  “Of course I do. What I mean is that I can’t do this in these shoes any longer.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you, love,” he said. “You’re always so fashionable.”

  “I know. But if we’re going to Penrith I simply must wear something more comfortable. It won’t take but a minute. Why don’t you have an ice lolly while I pick up a pair of trainers?”

  “Oh, I do hope they have cherry,” he said.

  They drove into town, and for once, Despina Lester, fashion consultant to the entire legal profession, purchased a sensible pair of trainers. If anyone snapped a shot of her wearing them her career would be ove
r. But if she solved the mystery of the Legatum explosion she wouldn’t need it. She’d be a full-fledged detective.

  10

  But I Don’t Have a Thing to Wear

  As they were having breakfast Amanda said, “I want to see Inspector Lestrade.” She’d spent half the night thinking about the irony of their situation. Nick had been right that it was a great opportunity, but not the way he meant it.

  “About the monster?” Nick said casually, sipping his coffee.

  “No, just to see him,” she said, buttering one of Mrs. Fitz’s delicious homemade rolls.

  Nick laughed. “I knew it. You couldn’t stay away, could you?”

  “Fine, so I’m curious. You would be too. You were so curious about Basilica you put on a disguise and stalked her.” She reached for some strawberry jam.

  “I did not stalk her,” he said. “I simply wanted to see her. If you’d just found out you had a sister, wouldn’t you want to meet her?”

  “You didn’t meet her,” said Amanda, stirring her tea. “You gawked at her from a distance.”

  He popped a bit of roll into his mouth. “I was wanted by the police. I couldn’t endanger her by showing up at her house.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “You just love the cloak and dagger stuff.”

  He reached across the table and ruffled her hair. “Look who’s talking.” She pulled away playfully. “You love pretending to be someone else. How many times have you donned a disguise since I’ve known you?”

  “About as many as you,” she said, sipping her tea.

  “Which as you know is what an actor does.” He leaned over and kissed her on the nose. His breath smelled like coffee. “I’m the luckiest bloke in the world.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she said, grabbing his shirt and pulling him to her. “So we’ll go see Lestrade?”

  “Maybe we’ll find out what the G really stands for,” he said nuzzling her face.

  “It’s George,” she said, giggling.

  “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”

  “It’s only logical. George is the most likely possibility because of all the kings.”